Julia Hawkins, The World’s Fastest 105 Year-Old
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Monthly Archives: November 2021
Next Level Philautia
Ancient Greeks had six distinct words for different types of “love”, eros, philia, ludus, pragma, agape, and philautia. Philautia is self-love. The more you like and feel secure in yourself the more philautia you enjoy.
In this recent New York Times personal essay, “I Just Turned 60, but Feel 22“, Margaret Renkl provides the single best example of philautia of all time.
“The joking birthday cards that start coming at 40 were funny 20 years ago because they were so far from reality. Now they’re funny because they’re so true. One of the cards I got last week featured a vintage photograph of plump women in swimsuits who looked remarkably like me in my swimsuit. “At your age, swimming can be dangerous,” the card read. “Lifeguards don’t try as hard.”
I laughed so hard, my belly jiggled, a feature of being 60 that troubles me only a little. This is just who I am now, a person who looks exactly like her late mother, despite far more exercise and a far healthier diet. Besides, I loved my mother, and I love seeing her again in every store window I pass.“
Next Level Numeracy
I’m a highly trained social scientist so the take-away from this graphic is obvious. To save 1.6% stop eating and don’t heat the crib this winter.
Paragraph And Policy To Ponder
“There were . . . significant gaps in the rate of students meeting University of California and California State University admissions requirements, which say students must complete certain courses with a C or better. During the 2018-19 school year, about 59% of students met the requirements. For the class of 2022, about 46% of students are on track to meet the requirements — with a gap of 17 percentage points or more between Black and Latino students and white and Asian students.”
One proposal for closing this gap, rethinking deeply entrenched grading practices.
Liberals Are Hypocrites
Like me.
Netflix’s ‘The Harder They Fall’
Real cyclists Zwift. In contrast, I soft-pedal while watching Netflix.
Full disclosure. In keeping with the times, an unnecessarily, over-the-top amount of gun violence. If you can stomach that, a great cast, the best ‘Western’ movie soundtrack of all-time, and a really excellent ending. Not proud of the fact that I stomached the gun violence.
Wednesday Required Reading and Listening
- The public library is open and freely available to all. Imagine a world in which the Billionaire Boys’ Club invested in public libraries instead of space travel.
- Does Ethiopia have a future? Things are looking more and more dire by the day.
- Being kind to yourself.
- A 100 year-old priest was nudged from his parish. He has no plans to retire.
- ‘Dormzilla’ at University California, Santa Barbara. A good problem to have.
Is This Where We Are?
Help Me Understand
Why do people engage in political debate on Facebook and other social media? Has anyone ever changed their party affiliation or political thinking more generally because someone on social media convinced them to?
It seems utterly ill-suited for meaningful political discussion. Bumper stickers probably are a more effectual means of political persuasion.
I Am Slow On The Uptake
Which won’t come as any surprise to readers that know me.
Last week, I had an epiphany halfway through an online presentation about the state of the University I teach at. Despite two recent rounds of faculty cuts coupled with several other belt tightening moves, we continue to experience a significant budget deficit.
Finally, it’s now painfully obvious that substantial budget deficits are not anomalies, they are the newish normal. I use ‘newish’ instead of ‘new’ because we’ve contended with bruising budget deficits for nearly all of the last 7-8 years.
The epiphany most simply stated is this, annual budget deficits are now a feature of our University’s life.
And this distressing fact isn’t easily explained by a single cause like administrative incompetence. My fear is that the economics of tuition-dependent private liberal arts education are no match for our smart, caring, and hardworking President-Provost team.
I can’t blame the University’s administration for thinking positively and talking about a near future with balanced budgets. But fool me once, shame on you. Fool me seven or eight times, shame on me.
Pressing Pause 