"If I’d said, at the start of the 90’s, that our President [now, in 2011] would listen to hip hop, you would have looked at me as if I was an insane asylum escapee."

Really? I guess I wasn't aware enough of the world at the start of the '90s.

Though I'm pretty sure I was listening to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, R.E.M., Bell Biv DeVoe, and I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) both at the start of and throughout the decade.

I agree with this.

It makes me think about games.

Are all games changeable? Basketball, foosball, chess, Angry Birds, chicken, roulette, Russian roulette, investing, sudoku, riddles, poetry? I can't think of any that aren't. There often is (and probably should be) a rigidity somewhere at or close to the core of the game. But rules can change. Stakes can change. Players' attitudes can change. A single game can become part of a triathlon, a decathlon, an Olympics.

But some games embrace changes more gracefully than others. And I think those games are the most fun, the most obviously infinite.

Why conservatism will always be powerful, in two sentences:

People who fear they will be hurt by a change speak up immediately, loudly and without regard for the odds or reality.

People who will benefit from a change don't believe it (until it happens), so they sit quietly.

Thank you Seth Godin. You advocate for efficiency. And then you put it into practice linguistically. Well done.

Seth Godin worries about the way people use the word "save" (save like rescue, not save like put in the bank).

Makes me wonder about saving the world: what exactly we want to save and what we ought to leave behind.

Umberto Eco loves lists. He writes about them, and, over the past couple of years, he has assembled a collection of his favorites for the Louvre. Apparently, however, there are certain lists he won't make...

SPIEGEL: You include a nice list by the French philosopher Roland Barthes in your new book, "The Vertigo of Lists." He lists the things he loves and the things he doesn't love. He loves salad, cinnamon, cheese and spices. He doesn't love bikers, women in long pants, geraniums, strawberries and the harpsichord. What about you?

Eco: I would be a fool to answer that; it would mean pinning myself down. I was fascinated with Stendhal at 13 and with Thomas Mann at 15 and, at 16, I loved Chopin. Then I spent my life getting to know the rest. Right now, Chopin is at the very top once again. If you interact with things in your life, everything is constantly changing. And if nothing changes, you're an idiot.

Hugh MacLeod, again:

Possible, I guess, that the cartoon's lamenting our ability to unhappily accept situations we ought to change. More fun, though, I think, to see it as celebrating our ability to make the important changes, no matter how painful the processes might be.

I bet Darwin and Obama would have been best friends.

Buy the poster here.

Thanks, Luke, for the heads up.

An hypothesis* I heard last night...

There are three kinds of fear:

1. Fear of injury or pain.

2. Fear of losing (or lacking) connections with other people.

3. Fear of not being good enough.

That seem right?  What doesn't it cover?  How does fear of change fit in?  Fear of mystery?  Fear of the things unknown to which change gives rise?

*Note: An hypothesis?  A hypothesis?  H is a good letter.  Lots of possibilities.