Two things happened today. First, this morning I opened the current issue of my alumni magazine and learned that Dwight Conquergood had died. Dwight was a graduate student at NU when I was an undergrad, and he was the resident graduate associate in my college house. He eventually joined the faculty, and distinguished himself in the course of his academic career. I knew him as a gentle, generous person. He was 55 years old.

Second, I received my annual property tax assessment from the county. Property values in the county have been booming while renters have been frozen out (and you say there's no asset price bubble?), and thus my house is assessed at 25% more than it was a year ago. Now, I keep a worksheet that totals up my financial and real property assets, and I carry the townhouse on my books at its assessed value. And so the most significant digit in the grand total on that worksheet has clicked over.

I find that I am devoting more energy to personal and financial security than I ever have before. I have a "go box" in the basement should the need arise to evacuate; I've started making offsite backups of critical personal files; I even have preparations against the event that I lose my Day-Timer. I suppose that sooner or later I'll get around to replacing the polybutylene pipe in my house.

The recent tragic events of 2001 have left me feeling more vulnerable (and our country's worldwide saber-rattling hasn't made me feel less so), but a couple of unfavorable blood workups from my physician have scared me more than that. It could all go smash, in a moment.

But my point, if I have one, is that I can afford to worry about secondary security issues like these because my primary security needs have been met. No one is going to steal my car (and it would be no great loss if someone did); I'm unlikely to be mugged on my way home from work; my immune system is strong, for now.

I really, really don't want to repeat my mother's mistake of being unprepared financially for retirement. And so I stack up possessions, and assets, and experiences as a bulwark against the inevitable.

posted: 10:59:54 PM  

Jesse James Garrett writes a brief provocative white paper on the interaction model underlying Google Suggest and other new web-based applications. He calls the suite of standards-based technologies Ajax. Ajax solves some of the same problems that Microsoft tried to solve with its flavor-of-the-month ActiveX controls.

posted: 12:22:35 PM  

William Beutler sketches the life of Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of what became Bethune-Cookman College, and memorialized by a statue on Capitol Hill.

posted: 10:22:16 AM