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.

“Where’d the remote go?”

Successful elementary, middle, or high school educators could teach a typical professor a shitload* about teaching excellence.

Why?

Because apart from a few more years of schooling, professors are like everyone else, meaning prone to insecurities, insecurities that often contribute to status anxiety about whether one is smart enough.

Consequently, on rare occasions that professors assemble to talk teaching, there’s often an odd, overly formal dynamic, devoid of authentic questions or humor. At faculty workshops where course syllabi are shared, the singleminded focus is on being more rigorous than the last person. “Well, you think your students are reading a lot of pages. . . ” “Well, you think your students are writing a lot. . . ” etc.

“How much,” no one ever dares ask, “can students realistically read closely and carefully?” When it comes to assigned reading in particular, there’s never any consideration of a point of diminishing return.” When I summarized this dilemma with my uber-smart, conscientious International Honors students in class recently, they laughed out loud at the naivety of faculty for thinking they’re reading everything that’s assigned. It was no different in 1984 when finishing up my history major, I had three history courses in a 10-week quarter, each with 7-8 books. I didn’t even buy all of them.

Rigor also means favoring academic texts over everything else, full stop, amen, forever and ever. Never mind the quality of long form journalism today; or the quality of wondrously diverse multimedia content; or heavens for bid, popular books.

*just trying to sound Presidential

“Let’s surround the President with as many Blacks as possible. ”

Probably should’ve switched out the painting.

From James Fallows:

“Based on the excerpts now available, Fire and Fury presents a man in the White House who is profoundly ignorant of politics, policy, and anything resembling the substance of perhaps the world’s most demanding job. He is temperamentally unstable. Most of what he says in public is at odds with provable fact, from “biggest inaugural crowd in history” onward. Whether he is aware of it or not, much of what he asserts is a lie. His functional vocabulary is markedly smaller than it was 20 years ago; the oldest person ever to begin service in the White House, he is increasingly prone to repeat anecdotes and phrases. He is aswirl in foreign and financial complications. He has ignored countless norms of modern governance, from the expectation of financial disclosure to the importance of remaining separate from law-enforcement activities. He relies on immediate family members to an unusual degree; he has an exceptionally thin roster of experienced advisers and assistants; his White House staff operations have more in common with an episode of The Apprentice than with any real-world counterpart. He has a shallower reserve of historical or functional information than previous presidents, and a more restricted supply of ongoing information than many citizens. He views all events through the prism of whether they make him look strong and famous, and thus he is laughably susceptible to flattering treatment from the likes of Putin and Xi Jinping abroad or courtiers at home.”

In all honesty, that’s going soft on him.