Friday Fun

Surreal might best describe the feeling Mickey Newbury describes in his 1967 song “Just Dropped In.”  The song has been recorded by a lot of artists, suggesting what a fabulous song it really is.

At first, hopscotch, a children's game, and monetary policy, an aspect of macroeconomics, couldn't seem more disparate.

In the late 1970s, Johnny Paycheck released his iconic song, "Take This Job and Shove It," resonating with workers back then who felt trapped and dissatisfied in their employment.  Fast forward to today, and the dynamics of the job market have undergone a significant transformation.  With recent shifts in the economy, we find ourselves needing to change the tune of Paycheck&

While there are more humane approaches to detecting carbon monoxide available today, coal mines used canaries beginning in 1911 at the advice of Scottish scientist John Haldane.  Carbon monoxide is a colorless and odorless gas that causes suffocation when it is concentrated in the air, so having a way to detect it in a mine was lifesaving if you weren’t a songbird.  Once the chi

Labor is in short supply.  Just take a look at the current unemployment rate of 3.4 percent (tied for the lowest level going back decades).

With the unofficial start to summer right around the corner, “Summertime” from George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess which premiered in Boston in 1935 is frequently playing on the Atlas jukebox.  This story centers around an African American couple living in South Carolina on Charleston’s impoverished Catfish Row.

Stress is endemic in the American culture.  For generations now, we’ve defined ourselves and frankly our value on the type of work we do and how many hours we spend doing it. Other exogenous stresses influence us from time to time and the medical profession doesn’t seem to think it is all that healthy at the individual level.

Unsure if we could use the name of a Beatles song as a title for a note to our audience, Atlas went with Doo-doo-doo-doo, but make no mistake, here comes the sun.  Our planet’s original energy source is spewing solar winds our direction and a second round of them could be arriving today!  Just last week scientists at NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory spotted a coronal hole

The Odyssey is an epic poem written by Homer, telling the story of Odysseus, a Greek warrior embarking on a long journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Along the way, Odysseus faces many adventures and must battle monsters, gods, and the sea itself. He eventually makes it home, but not before enduring a series of obstacles and tasks set by the gods.

Music has a magic to it.  Just the other day a young man was practicing the trumpet in a park near my home.  Mind you, he was practicing and miles from Mr. Davis, but the blare of his brass mellowed the moment as the sun was setting.  For me, it was as if everything was all right.