5 for Friday

1 - First up, from Robert Fulghum

Anxitement.
This is a combination of anxiety and excitement.
He is appropriately anxious because all of the comforts of sensory familiarity are not present. Everything looks, sounds, tastes, smells, and feels different. His sense are provoked. His entire system is on urgent alert. Good. This is part of why he came - to be stimulated and revived. To get the juices moving again.
This is why he is excited.

Read the full posting here.

2 - from Nick Hornby writing about the "boo-boys" at the English football stadiums (our soccer)

... when I first started watching football, I was always reading about players who, as the sports-journalism cliché put it, had become “a target for the boo-boys”. These players were hapless individuals who, usually through a whole string of undistinguished performances for an underachieving team, would always attract the wrath of their own fans, no matter what they did – and what they did was usually inept, partly because their confidence had been shot to pieces.

Read the full piece here. There are "boo-boys" in American sports as well.

3 - and from Paul Graham insights to discuss on start-ups vs establishment

Part of the reason—possibly the main reason—that startups have not spread as broadly as the Industrial Revolution did is their social disruptiveness. Though it brought many social changes, the Industrial Revolution was not fighting the principle that bigger is better. Quite the opposite: the two dovetailed beautifully. The new industrial companies adapted the customs of existing large organizations like the military and the civil service, and the resulting hybrid worked well. "Captains of industry" issued orders to "armies of workers," and everyone knew what they were supposed to do.

Read his full essay here

4 - from Ronni Bennett where she writes today about the political scandal in IL and corruption in general

A majority of people go through life working hard for living, do their best to raise their children to become morally responsible adults, pay their bills and their taxes and do it all by the rules. It’s hard to know if politics attracts those who are already corrupt or if politics corrupts those who were once honest, but that short-list above tells us the kind of government we have, have always had. And it is not to anyone’s benefit but politicians and their corporate cronies.

Read her full posting here.

5 - and finally from Seth Godin (actually just finally because it is the fifth for today) appropriately talking also about the newspapers and the power structure that results in Pulitzer Prizes.

What an opportunity (for someone) to start taking advantage of the huge pool of talent and passion that is moving online, and to work to raise the bar. We don't need more gossip sites from celebrity magazine editors. We need to identify and reward voices that push hard against the status quo, that report eagerly and accurately and that speak truth to power.

Read his always thought provoking posting here