TITLE: Notes from Today's Reading AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford DATE: April 07, 2016 3:47 PM DESC: ----- BODY: Getting Older In Fun With Aging, "Dean Dad" Matt Reed pontificates on reaching a Certain Age.

When Mom was the age I am now, I was in grad school. That can't possibly be right, but that's what the math says.

When my mom was the age I am now, I was already in my second year as an assistant professor, a husband, and father to a two-year-old daughter. Wow. Getting old: what a strange thing to happen to a little boy. That said, I am one up on Reed: I know one of Justin Bieber's recent songs and quite like it. An Interesting Juxtaposition Earlier this week, I read The Real Reason Middle America Should Be Angry, about St. Louis's fall from national prominence. This morning, I read The Refragmentation, Paul Graham's essay on the dissolution of the 20th century's corporate and cultural order abetted, perhaps accelerated, by computation. Both tell a story of the rise and fall of corporations across the 20th century. Their conclusions diverge widely, though, especially on the value of government policies that affect scale. I suspect there are elements of truth in both arguments. In any case, they make interesting bookends to the week. A Network of Links Finally, as I tweeted yesterday, a colleague told me that he was going to search my blog. He had managed to forget where his own blog lives, and he remembered that I linked to it once. At first, I chuckled at this situation as a comment on his forgetfulness, and ruefully as a comment on the passing of the age of the blog. But later I realized that this is as much a comment on the wonderfulness of blogging culture, in which links are life and, as long as the network is alive, conversation can be revived. I hope he blogs again. -----