On the Riotous Youths of the 1960s and those of Present

August 15, 2011

(Source: Wikipedia) Not too long ago I watched the documentary The Weather Underground, about the Weathermen, the violent radical Leftist student group in the 1960s.  (The organization recently gained renewed media attention during the 2008 Presidential Election for then-Senator Obama’s association with Bill Ayers, one of the organization’s founders.)  The film traces the origins of […]

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Strategic Assumptions

August 10, 2011

Undergirding any sort of strategy – whether in business, politics, or war – are assumptions.  Assumptions are calculated expectations, beliefs, or even hopes of present or future conditions.  Assumptions influence the strategy-making process by setting the various parameters, or limitations, of the means and ends of the strategy.  They are necessary because they limit the […]

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Pumping Iron and the Seeds of the Rise and Fall of Arnold Schwarzenegger

August 5, 2011

(Source: IMDB) Even though he had been Mr. Olympia five times prior, it was the 1977 documentary Pumping Iron that brought Arnold Schwarzenegger to the American public.  The film follows bodybuilding participants – in their training for, lead up to, and competition in – the 1975 Mr. Olympia contest.  In the end, Schwarzenegger earns his […]

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Francis Ford Coppola and Friction

August 2, 2011

(Source: Wikipedia. Painting by Karl Wilhelm Wach c. 1830) In his treatise on strategy and warfare, On War, Carl von Clausewitz explains that “Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.”  He goes on to explain that “the difficulties [in war] accumulate and end by producing a kind of friction that […]

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Alexander Hamilton and Empathy in Leadership

July 31, 2011

(John Trumbull’s 1806 Painting – Source: Wikipedia) Paul Johnson wrote that “[Alexander] Hamilton was a genius – the only one of the Founding Fathers fully entitled to that accolade.”  Reading Ron Chernow’s splendid biography of the man, Alexander Hamilton, you quickly realize why Johnson endowed him with such praise. Through hard work and an early […]

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“Wake up early in the morning and work all day. That’s the only rule.”

July 29, 2011

Glass: a Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts is a documentary about the life of composer Philip Glass.  One of the most prominent composers in the minimalist school of composing, which uses only very few instruments to repetitively play a limited number of notes throughout a piece, Glass is probably most famous for his Academy […]

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The Godfather and the Problem of Afghani Governance

July 26, 2011

Remember that scene at the beginning of The Godfather when Vito was seeing friends and family members on his daughter’s wedding day for a variety of requests and favors, upholding a Sicilian tradition?  An Italian immigrant mortician eventually comes to Vito and tells him how a couple of young men severely battered and raped his […]

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Welcome and Introduction

July 25, 2011

Welcome to the personal website of Nathan Uldricks. Through this website, I will be writing various essays on philosophy, self-improvement, books, films, economics, and politics. I hope to post essays bi-weekly. I will allow comments to all essays: my only guideline is that if I wouldn’t want my grandmother reading it (slanderous, inappropriate epithets, etc.), […]

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