Requirements. Be a tough bastard. Have a sense of humor. Tune out the competition and embrace the process. Swim 1:30/100yds and run 8 minute miles. All day long.
Who Is In?
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Monthly Archives: January 2018
Really Bad Writing
Or more accurately, thinking.
I do not know Shivani Vora, but I seriously question her sanity. In “How to Have a Luxury Vacation in Norway for Less”, she writes perhaps the most outlandish phrase I’ve ever read in the Paper of Record.
“Norway is a great choice for travelers on a limited budget. . . “
Trust me on this, there are about 194 better choices if you’re trying to stretch your travel dollar.
[Postscript: I’m receiving unrelenting pressure from one of the caption contest contestants. She really wants to know whether she won; however, upon meeting with my attorneys, I’ve been advised to limit the competition to non-family members. Consequently, congratulations to Lance for the victory.]
Really Good Writing
I always appreciate really good writing, but sometimes get frustrated when uniquely talented writers write exclusively about relatively unimportant things. Take Alan Shipnuck, a fellow Bruin, who writes really well about . . . all things golf. Dig his description of TWood’s bottoming out in 2015:
“He developed a palpable stage-fright, the nadir coming on his first hole at the British Open, on the Old Course, site of some of his greatest triumphs. On the tee, wielding a mid-iron, he hit it so fat the gouge that was left behind became a macabre monument to a lost genius.”
Maybe not Pulitzer-worthy, but describing the divot as a “macabre monument to a lost genius” is, if I do say so myself, genius.
The Simplest Way to Change the World
Form a family. Of any sort, biological or otherwise. Eat dinner together nightly. Repeat.
In that spirit, here’s a paragraph to ponder from the reading journal of one of my January-term students*:
“Since both my parents had careers in the Air Force, my family was run in a military manner with strict rules, many activities, and time management. We had timers to regulate our homework, play, and exercise. Our family vacations were notoriously un-relaxing, with us often traversing 6 different cities in two weeks or cycling the entire coast of a country. However, one area in which we were a “slow” family is related to dinner. My mom very strictly required that we have a sit-down family meal together at 6:00 P.M. every night, at which we were expected to try every food item on the table, chat about our days. Skipping or arriving late to dinner was unacceptable, as was leaving the table before 7:00 P.M. My brothers and I rotated through chores of setting the table, helping cook the meal, and loading the dishwasher. I thought this was normal until I found that none of my college friends had routine family dinners growing up. Though I resented this forced family interaction time, it became the stabilizing force in my life, a chance to wind down and reconnect with my family. Is this family priority outdated, unrealistic, and a little ridiculous?”
The “stabilizing force in my life”.
Social scientific research on the effects of family dinners is eye-opening. How can something so simple have so many positive correlations? From “The Importance of Eating Together” in the Atlantic:
“. . . children who do eat dinner with their parents five or more days a week have less trouble with drugs and alcohol, eat healthier, show better academic performance, and report being closer with their parents than children who eat dinner with their parents less often, according to a study conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.”
Consider the flip side, the negative consequences of families who do not eat together with any regularity:
“There are two big reasons for. . . negative effects associated with not eating meals together: the first is simply that when we eat out—especially at the inexpensive fast food and take-out places that most children go to when not eating with their family—we tend not to eat very healthy things. As Michael Pollan wrote in his most recent book, Cooked, meals eaten outside of the home are almost uniformly less healthy than homemade foods, generally having higher fat, salt, and caloric content.
The other reason is that eating alone can be alienating. The dinner table can act as a unifier, a place of community. Sharing a meal is an excuse to catch up and talk, one of the few times where people are happy to put aside their work and take time out of their day.”
Why don’t we eat dinner together more? Have we convinced ourselves we lack the time or are we unaware of the positive effects?
The more we follow the lead of my student’s mother, the better the world and we will be.
*shared by permission
Caption Contest
Winner gets to brag to their family and friends. Enter early and often.
3. 
1.Remember, Vlad said button our coats to signal all is good on the campaign collusion front.
2. Among your fav blogs, where does Pressing Pause rate?
3. Someday, you little shit, your hair is going to look exactly like this.
The World’s Most Dangerous Cities
Latin America dominates. Somehow, the “greatest country in the world” sneaks in.
A Quirky, Smart Roadmap to Understanding Any Foreign Country
Tyler Cowen, economist-polymath-blogger extraordinaire, on how to understand modern China. Pick your country of special interest and extrapolate.
I Love It When
A Pressing Pauser, who happens to teach high school, approaches me after church in the narthex and says he doesn’t necessarily agree with me about college professors’ iffy pedagogy. And then thoughtfully explains that the older students are, the more they should adjust to their teachers since employers and the larger world won’t necessarily adapt to their individual learning preferences.
It’s at times like that I wish I had humble blog t-shirts to give away. Solid point. I went on to say, “Iffy Pedagogy—Take 3” was forming in the recesses of my pea brain. The final point in the series being that one other major, overlooked difference between his work and mine is that my students pay tens of thousands of dollars to attend, while some of his are only there because of compulsory attendance laws. More simply, K-12 teachers have to be masters of classroom management, my colleagues and I do not. When I roll into my seminar tomorrow at 11:30a, my students will all be there, having done the reading, ready to follow my lead, listening to and learning from one another.
Upon pointing that out, my friend proceeded to lament some of his ninth grade knuckleheads who it’s super difficult to get through to. Especially when there’s a gaggle in one class.
Of course, which educators deserve the most respect shouldn’t be a zero-sum competition. My primary point is that conventional wisdom, that profs deserve the most respect because they have the most education, is wrong. Elementary, middle, and high school teachers deserve at least the same amount of respect.
Over and out. That is, until hopefully, approached again by another active reader.
The Government Shutdown Requires Sacrifices
Saturday Assorted Links
1. UK Appoints a Minister of Loneliness.
“Throughout 2017 we have heard from new parents, children, disabled people, carers, refugees and older people about their experience of loneliness. Government research has found that about 200,000 older people in Britain had not had a conversation with a friend or relative in more than a month.”
Let’s not kid ourselves, this problem is not limited to the UK. Loneliness can be associated with. . .
“a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression and anxiety.”
2. How to Maintain Friendships.
“Ms. Nelson also suggests being aware of the three areas to measure and evaluate a functional friendship. The first area is positivity: laughter, affirmation, gratitude and any acts of service. The second is consistency, or having interactions on a continual basis, which makes people feel safe and close to each other. The third is vulnerability, which is the revealing and the sharing of our lives.
“Any relationship that doesn’t have those three things isn’t a healthy friendship,” Ms. Nelson said. If you’re noticing a cooling with a friend, usually one of these areas needs special consideration.”
Friendships are organic; consequently, I’d suggest “reflecting upon” instead of measuring and evaluating.
3. No One Wants Your Used Clothes Anymore.
“. . . this could add up to an environmental disaster in the making.”
I’m going to do my part by buying less.
4. Why Don’t Norwegians Immigrate to the U.S.?
I was proud of the Gal Pal Monday morning in Victoria, BC’s Hotel Grand Pacific Garden Cafe for her skilled eavesdropping. Her smile and raised eye brow alerted me to a sixty-something man reading an article like this one to his wife. Between a steady stream of international statistics, he’d repeat, “Yeah, why would a Norwegian think of immigrating to the U.S.?!”
With lakes like this, reverse migration is more likely.
5. A tiny insect stands between a billionaire and his golf course.
Such great pictures.
Pressing Pause 