British Poet Laureate Is a Woman

At long last after 341 years, a member of the fairer sex, the cause for many a poem being penned, is appointed as Britain's Poet Laureate.

Weekend Haiku

Up the barley rows,
stitching, stitching them together,
a butterfly goes.

Sora (1648-1710)

Series tied 3 - 3

It was do or die tonight and the Heat did. They defended their home court, routing the Hawks 98-72 and it wasn't even that close. This man had 41 points and was pulled from the game with 5:35 left. He had a great game, but the real story was Joel Anthony starting in place of the injured Jermaine O'Neal. While his stat line was not that impressive (6 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks) he set the tone for the Heat's offensive and defensive domination all night long. He set violent but legal picks when the Heat were in their half court sets and consistently double teamed on the defensive end. His hustle, fierce attitude and strong play was the energizer that the Heat needed and they fed off his effort to completely annihilate the Hawks. Now comes game seven and the entire season will be decided this Sunday. Next stop Atlanta.

Sayonara

Citi will sell Nikko Cordial Securities Inc. brokerage and the underwriting divisions of Nikko Citigroup Ltd. This is a result of the "urging" by regulators to raise even more capital.

Deliberate Practice

The two books mentioned in this NYT Op-Ed, combined with Gladwell's book (Outliers: The Story of Success), posit interesting theories based on research about why some people are extremely successful in their chosen field, and it's not I.Q., which according to all three authors is generally a bad predictor of eventual success.

I have talked about Gladwell's basic premise in my review of his book here and both the books mentioned in this editorial dovetail with this view nicely. I have seen this in Disc Golf. The best player in the world obviously has some innate talent, but he practices in a very special way, similar to what Geoff Colvin describes in his book Talent is Overrated. This is interesting stuff and all three books are definitely worth the read.

Do you realize?

The Flaming Lips performing Do You Realize? on The David Letterman Show. This is now officially Oklahoma's state rock and roll song.

Former Citi Asia bigwig to form financial services firm

Ex CEO of Citi's APAC Institutional Clients Group, Robert Morse (along with two partners) has raised capital (1 billion from a single investor) and plans to raise more to open the firm. It will be called Primus.