Thanks to this paragraph in Jon Gruber’s review of Apple’s new HomeView. Gruber is normally all business. Love that he snaps here.
Lost in Gruber’s snark is Apple marketing staying undefeated for all-time. Such a good add it might even convince some people that their phones and iPads aren’t enough. Ca-ching bro.
I don’t want to write this and you don’t want to read it because it’s depressing as hell and there’s more than enough disturbing news to process. One can only take so much. The end result, we’re desensitized to school shootings. And the more desensitized we become, the more vexing the problem. A downward spiral that must delight the NRA.
I dig Bend, which I visit annually, the last time three weeks ago. Many, many fond memories, mostly of cycling with good friends. And I have acquaintances and friends in Bend who I immediately thought about.
This article left me even more hopeless about solving this problem.
Depressing point one being the most obvious. The tragic loss of such young lives, three students and a 25 year-old teacher who described her Silver Rail Elementary special education teaching job as her “dream job”. With another student and teacher in critical condition.
Depressing point two. The cluelessness and callousness the mother, who allegedly kept an AK-47 in her apartment, demonstrated by saying her “son was a good boy who she seriously missed”. Then saying she was sorry for the families losses had to be completely lost on them and everyone in the community.
And maybe most depressing of all, this quote from the article, describing the school parents’ mindset.
“Now they’re lining up for other ways to help: Meghan Standish, a stay-at-home mom in the neighborhood, said that when she went online to sign up for a meal train to help the family of Rhoam Summer, a 5-year-old killed in the shooting, every night until Christmas was booked.
Beyond looking to help, she was debating other plans as well.
‘I know a lot of friends are interested in getting their concealed carry permits after this,” Ms. Standish said. “I know I am.’”’
More guns. When does it end?
I recently had elective surgery, that I’m happy to report, went well. I’m 10 days into a six week recovery that currently limits cross-training me to walking. Thus, I’m working through my too-long podcast queue. If you see me looping Capital Lake, say hello, I’ll happily take my AirPods out.
This was a good, recent listen.
It made me think of another one I recently listened to with a real estate expert riffing on the U.S. housing market. His main point, which I’ve heard many real estate experts make before, is that you can’t generalize about the U.S. housing market much at all, because there are significant regional, state, and even city-based differences. Meaning prices are rising in some areas, flat in others, and dropping in still others.
Thompson and Grant seem to be using the U.S. as their frame of analysis, and like real estate, generalizing as much as they do is problematic.
In one way at least, the “friendship recession” is far worse than the rather pessimistic Thompson/Grant conversation would suggest. Specifically, using my former students as a frame of reference, many young adults openly admit that their interpersonal skills have seriously atrophied in recent years given their preference for digital communication. To the point where often IRL interactions create serious social anxiety, to the point where some find it difficult to leave their dorms and venture in the cafeteria, or leave their apartments and mix it up with their peers at all.
Put differently, Thompson/Grant assume the runner is starting on second base, when in fact, if young, he or she may be stuck in the batter’s box. My challenge to them is to identify small steps socially anxious young people might take to begin running towards first base.
On a completely different note, if I use my bubble fair city of Olympia, WA as my frame of reference, I question the premise of a friendship recession. Why? Because, if you look for it, you can’t help but see ample evidence of people connecting while swing dancing at the Eagles or eating lunch on the picnic benches while listening to music at the Farmer’s Market. Not to mention the ever growing number of grassroots small group bicycle rides for people of every ability. Or running groups up the gazoo. Or the Briggs Y Masters swim team (which I’m sure is missing me something terrible right now, right?). Or Rocky Horror bingo. Or a new “literary” community. Or noisy coffee shops and restaurants.
I suspect Thompson/Grant might be extrapolating from their personal experience. And I can’t help but wonder if where one lands on the “friendship recession” depends mostly on what one is looking for? In which case, I will continue to look for and celebrate small quiet examples of friendship and larger, louder ones.
Your friend,
Ron
Katie Zacharia Out as Press Secretary in Half a Scaramucci.
Saying Zacharia got off to a “bumpy start” is like saying Sam Darnold had a bumpy ending last night.
Gotta laugh to keep from crying.
Lara and I graced downtown Olympia’s ArtsWalk and Fiddlefest a few Friday nights ago. Groovy events.
Dear Crow, who wrapped up Fiddlefest, are a really talented local couple.
Penka Jane Culevski, the female half of Dear Crow had a nice, personable way of transitioning from piece to piece. The more specific part of her personality that stuck with me, to the point of writing this lo’ these few weeks later, was her youthful idealism which took the form of talking about her musical inspirations as if they could walk on the Salish Sea right outside of the venue.
Here’s what I wanted to say to PJC. It’s human nature to conflate artistic genius with personal character. But the correlation is weak at best. The very best fiddlers are a cross section of the population with all of the positive and negative personal attributes that come with that. Go ahead and place your favorite artists on pedestals, but prepare to be disappointed by their ordinariness.
And more generally, go ahead and continue placing your favorite writers, academics, intellectuals, spiritual figures, politicians, multimillionaires or billionaires, actors and other artists, and athletes on pedestals. And then wait, not very long at all, for them to fall off and disappoint.
A secret I want to share with PJC. Some people are truly exceptional and do deserve pedestals. But almost always, they are committing random acts of kindness in the shadows. Some likely live on your street. You just haven’t met them yet, and may never meet them, because they assiduously avoid drawing attention to themselves.
That I’ve been keeping things especially light lately with my focus on the decline of the (dis)U.S. Empire and homelessness as just two examples.
So in an effort to dial up the substance and significance of the Humble Blog, a nod to one of the most weighty developments of the present day.
The UCLA Bruins are 5-0 and ranked 12th in the (dis)U.S college football rankings. Which begs several questions, among them, can one be both a basketball and football school simultaneously? And how long can we stay undefeated with an untested backup QB who had a cup of coffee at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo last year?
I am expecting a reversion to the mean, but until then, I will continue to shout happily at the t.v.
German Lopez in the paper of record, “We Know How to Fix Homelessness. Look at Denver.”
Strong start:
“Homelessness, all appearances to the contrary, is a long-solved problem. We know both the causes and the cure. You wouldn’t think that’s the case from visiting many U.S. cities. Stymied by political and financial hurdles, progressive bastions including Los Angeles, Seattle and Burlington, Vt., appear to have given up. They have surrendered public spaces to the homeless and their encampments to the point that it’s difficult to describe these spaces as truly for the public anymore.
Denver shows what happens when a city puts into place proven policies with determination and focus. Not only has it dramatically reduced homelessness, it embarrasses every other urban jurisdiction that has failed to deal with its Covid-era surge of homeless encampments. Other cities no longer have an excuse.”
Sober analysis:
“Politically, none of this is easy. On the policing side, progressives remain skeptical of using law enforcement to deal with what they see as largely an economic issue. On the housing side, the constraint is money. Building housing and shelters requires public and private funds that cities often don’t have and aren’t willing to prioritize over other spending and tax cuts.”
Progress towards ‘the goal’:
“. . . residents told the mayor they finally had been able to get their lives in order. Staff at The Aspen and other shelters spend much of their time preparing people to leave. They help residents get the documents they need to find a job and permanent housing. They connect them to training, education programs and additional government aid, including housing vouchers and rent subsidies. Residents don’t face hard limits on how long they can stay, but providers are, under their contracts, evaluated on how many people they help get on the right path.
The goal is to keep people off the streets for good. To that end, the city still has to address the high cost of housing. Denver has enacted some reforms, but buying and renting a home remain too expensive for much of the poor and middle class.”
Progressives are too soft:
“Progressives tend to view the enforcement side of anti-homelessness strategies with disdain because it can involve criminalizing an economic or a mental health issue. At the same time, residents don’t want encampments clogging up parks and sidewalks. Progressive cities have tried to get around the dilemma by flooding the streets with social services, hoping that offers of help would get people on the streets to pack up. The reality, as cities have painfully learned, is that people often need a stronger push to abandon their tents.”
The Principal principle:
“Mayor Johnston described his strategy through his perspective as a former school principal. ‘Your job is to keep everyone safe,’ he said. ‘That means I love every single kid in the building. And if there’s one kid who’s making other kids in the building feel unsafe, my job is to either help him change his behavior or hold him accountable for it.'”
The key ingredient:
“I came away from Denver convinced that the mayor’s focus and determination are the most crucial factors. I’ve seen this happen nationwide: Policies that work in one place fail in another because officials can replicate the law or the money, but not the leadership — the force of will — behind the original success.”
If you could use a dose of hopefulness, read the whole thing.
Because The End of Average was so excellent, I’m imbibing in a second serving of Todd Rose. The thesis of Collective Illusions, subtitle, “Conformity, Complicity and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions” is that we don’t think through things independently. In contrast, we take short cuts, mindlessly going along with what we think others in our favored circles think. Often though, because everyone is taking similar shortcuts, we don’t realize there’s not much of a consensus at all. In essence, everyone is just going along to get along.
This insight is not flattering to the point that a lot of readers will likely say to themselves that it doesn’t apply to them. That they are outliers who often think things through independently. And how sad that others aren’t as stalwart.
The examples I kept wrestling with were, oddly given Rose is a professor, mostly absent from the book. That is, a post-modern progressivism that gripped higher education during the end of my career as a professor. Meaning, more specifically, an apparent consensus around repeated land acknowledgements, the delineation of pronouns, and related signals of “withitness” that struck me as oddly performative at times. A land acknowledgement at the beginning of an academic year seems entirely appropriate, and even at commencement as a type of bookend, but repeatedly at the start of every meeting? But I never even whispered that question that was swirling around in my peabrain. I went along to get along. As did many, maybe even most, of my colleagues.
This excerpt from Collective Illusions isn’t directly related to the overarching thesis, but stupefying enough to highlight.
“Many people will even sacrifice something they care about in order to feel comparatively superior to others. In February 1995, researchers asked 257 faculty, students, and staff at the Harvard School of Public Health to answer a set of hypothetical questions about which of the two worlds they would rather live in. Here is one of them:
A. Your current yearly income is $50,000; others earn $25,000.
B. Your current yearly income is $100,000; others earn $200,000.
Prices are what they are currently, and prices (therefore the purchasing power of money) are the same in states A and B.
Which one would you choose?
If You answered A, you were in the 56 percent majority. This choice would allow you to earn more than others, even though scenario B would pay you more overall. For most people, then, feeling superior was more important than making more money.”
What say you?
According to Amnesty International, two countries have conducted public executions in the last year. Iran and Afghanistan. Allegedly, North Korea too, although there’s little documentation.
Artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence.
