Once again, professional basketball division. As a sometimes Laker fan and all the time UCLA grad, this really pains me. Russell Westbrook was 4-24 from three in February. 16.7%. And last night he started March out 0-4. Maybe quit shooting them?
A lot of smart basketball people were skeptical of the 21-22 Lakers, but I don’t think anyone expected them to be this bad.
Page 103. Clem’s academic performance is plummeting thanks to his middle of college sexual awakening. Which, of course, was Sharon’s fault.
“He’d return to school with a strict plan for himself. He would see Sharon only two evenings a week, and not stay over at her house at all, and he would study ten hours every day and try to ace every one of his finals and term papers. If he ran the table with A-pluses, he could still keep his GPA above 3.5—the figure which, though basically arbitrary, was his last plausible defense against the action he would otherwise be called upon to take.*
His plan was sensible but not, it turned out, achievable. When he stopped by Sharon’s house, it was as if they’d been apart for five months, not five days. He had a thousand things to tell her, and as soon as he took down her corduroys it seemed mean and silly to have worried about their height difference. Not until he returned to his room, the following afternoon, did he lament his lack of willpower. He recalibrated his plan, assigning himself eleven hours of daily study, and stuck to this schedule until Friday, when he treated himself to another evening with Sharon. By the time he left her, on Sunday afternoon, he would have had to study fifteen hours a day to make the numbers work.”
*enlist and go fight in Vietnam
Jonathan Freaking Franzen in Crossroads. Here, on page 126 of 580 we begin to get know Marion, a character some critics argue is one of Franzen’s all-time greatest.
“Disgusted with herself, the overweight person who was Marion fled the parsonage. For breakfast she’d eaten one hard-boiled egg and one piece of toast very slowly, in tiny bites, per the advice of a writer for Redbook who claimed to have shed forty pounds in ten months, and whom Redbook had photographed in a Barbarella sort of jumpsuit, showing off her futuristically insectile waistline, and who had also advised pouring oneself a can of a nationally advertised weight-loss drink in lieu of lunch, engaging in three hours of vigorous exercise each week, repeating mantras such as A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the on the hips, and buying and wrapping a small present for oneself to open whenever one succeeded in losing x number of pounds.”
You Can Learn to Love Being Alone.
“People who pursue solitude of their own volition ‘tend to report that it feels full — like they’re full of ideas or thoughts or things to do. . . . In this way, it’s distinct from loneliness, a negative state in which you’re disconnected from other people and it feels empty.”
Putin’s Bloody Folly in Ukraine.
“As Putin spills blood across Ukraine and threatens to destabilize Europe, Russians themselves stand to lose immeasurably. The ruble and the Russian stock market have cratered. But Putin does not care. His eyes are fixed on matters far grander than the well-being of his people. He is in full command of the largest army in Europe, and, as he has reminded the world, of an immense arsenal of nuclear weapons. In his mind, this is his moment, his triumphal historical drama, and damn the cost.”
The style and substance of South Carolina basketball’s Dawn Staley.
“‘She loves on them hard,’ associate head coach and longtime confidante Lisa Boyer says. ‘She’s playful with them, she’s hugging them, she’s there for them. I think they sense the fairness. I think they sense the genuineness of her. She speaks to them — it’s not some fairy tale. She’s telling them the deal.'”
“‘I owe basketball,’ Staley says. ‘I’m forever indebted to it. It engulfed my life for the positive. The game has gotten more of my time than my friends and my family. I feel like on a smaller or larger scale, it can impact my players’ lives in some kind of way.'”
A Renowned Community of Quilters is Taking on Copycats—and Winning.
“’We put a lot of work into it, and it’s about our life,’ Charley says of quilting. . . . We used these quilts for warmth. It was about our struggle, and our survival.'”
“Charley might feel differently, she offers, if these makers — who may have, say, studied textiles at art school — sent some of their profits back to the community that inspired them. But that doesn’t happen. “This work is ‘inspired’ in your mind, because you see the quilt pattern,” Charley says. “But you don’t know my story. And you’re going to try and duplicate it — and go to Joann Fabrics to do it?’”
The doctor says it’s terminal and you only get one more walk or run. Where and when? I’d be torn between these beauts.
The Arb, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. Miles of incredible, meandering trails. Some by a river, some surrounded by head high grasses, often accompanied by deer. I always get lost and never sweat it. More miles, more better. Great anytime, but especially primo in the fall.
Bodega Head Trail, Bodega Bay, California. What it lacks in distance, it more than makes up in natural beauty. 1.9 miles of exquisite Bodega Bay and greater Pacific Ocean views. Stop anywhere, lay down, and soak up the Vitamin D. The ice plant makes great cushioning for a mid-day nap. An all-time great spring run.
Oak Bay Loop, Victoria, British Columbia. From the Hotel Grand Pacific to Dallas Road around Ross Cemetery and back. ANY sunny morning, but especially nice in the summer. If those coastal views don’t lift your spirit, you really are terminal.
Sunriver, Oregon, Benham Falls Deschutes River Trail. Another summer gem. Beautiful green grasses, a calm river mixed in other places with beautiful water falls, all framed by high desert pines. Full disclosure, since it’s my last run, I’ll be shirtless on this one.
Lastly, if the diagnosis comes in winter, really anyplace with two inches of fresh snow will suffice, but it’s tough to beat Hamar, Norway and Olympia, Washington.
What am I missing?
One to two hundred years from now, historians will point to the end of the Twentieth Century and the first half of the Twenty First as the time that the United States ceded its global leadership to China and a menagerie of other nations. Basically, the timeline of my life.
Why? Because we’re losing economic momentum and China and other countries are gaining it. It’s only a matter of time before the “X” and “Y” axes cross.
And with our loss of economic momentum, people and institutions are under ever greater pressure. Economic anxiety compels more and more people to prioritize their self interests to the detriment of the common good.
For the first time in a long time, parents worry that their children will not live as comfortably and securely as them. Add to that the recent damage done to our political institutions which were integral to our Twentieth Century rise. Peaceful transitions of power can’t be assumed any longer. Legislators cannot compromise to invest in green energy and physical and social infrastructure.
Consequently, our roads are rutted and many, many international airports lap our own aging ones. At the Winter Olympics, China showed off it’s new bullet trains that go 217 mph, not quite up to Japanese speeds, but give them time.
Don’t interpret this as idealizing China, because there’s a lot more to quality of life than economic growth. There’s a sense of safety, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom to protest, equal opportunities, a healthy natural environment, physical and mental well-being, and support for the most vulnerable. China fails on many of those fronts. Increasingly, the U.S. does too.
Apart from our failing infrastructure, we imprison a larger percentage of our population than anyone. Our response to Covid has been “worst in the world” especially when adjusted for our economic status. Many use alcohol and drugs to escape and more and more of our children suffer from anxiety disorders and depression.
For the historically astute, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Greatness has always been fluid. Tides rise and tides fall. Our aristocracy, the top ten percent who are thriving economically, don’t realize a lower tide lowers all boats. That it is in their enlightened self interest to reduce the income and wealth gap. To reduce the vulnerability of the least fortunate among us.
Our problem is we don’t think in terms of generations or hundreds of years. The aristocracy thinks they’ll be fine and they work tirelessly to make sure the same is true of their children. Talk of environmental degradation and climate change, is mostly just that, talk.
I’m not immune from that self-centered myopia. I think to myself, if I can just keep running in Priest Point Park, keep cycling on Mount Rainier, keep swimming in Ward Lake, keep eating healthy food, keep drinking craft beers with good friends, all is good. Which does nothing to slow the country’s decline.
But then again, history suggests the decline is inevitable.
The take-away for my international friends? If you have the United States on any sort of pedestal, update your thinking. If we ever were a light upon a hill, we are not now.
Me for blogging longevity. You for motivating me to keep on keeping on.
Most blogs are like shooting stars, short-lived flashes of varying brilliance. In contrast, despite its utter lack of “brilliance”, the Humble Blog continues year after year. TBH, I think of pulling the plug on occasion, but that is the extent of it, sporadic periods of flagging enthusiasm.
Most of the time I still dig it for two reasons. Firstly, because many of the people whom I care the most about—family, close friends, and fave former students—STILL read it regularly. And also because many people from abroad read it. Take today as an example, despite the still small readership, there have been readers from India, the U.K., Azerbiajan, Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Kenya.
I’ve been very fortunate to have either visited or worked/lived in Mexico, East/West/and Southern Africa, Europe, Scandinavia, and East Asia. And much closer to home, I love me some Canada. Which is to say, I am a global citizen who embraces cultural diversity.
Sometimes when writing a (dis)United States specific post, I think about my international readers, hoping they aren’t too bored. But maybe that’s what they’re most interested in, one (dis)United States citizen’s perspective on things that their press may not cover well or at all.
I wish I knew more about the “Internationals”. What percentage are expatriates? What does or doesn’t keep them coming back? Do they pick up on my sarcasm? How can I connect even better with more readers like them?
I never write for them specifically, but maybe I should on occasion. I think I’ll experiment with my next post which I’ll write with them front and center in my mind.
Anyways, all that’s to say thank you for reading. I haven’t said that for a long time. Send me your address and then look for your medal in the mail.
Social scientists say we can’t multitask, but they haven’t met me. I’m doing pushups and watching a business news channel. A stock market expert/analyst just said there are several market “headwinds” including the invasion of KUWAIT. Then, a few sentences later, he said it a second time. That’s an amazing two-fer. . . an embarrassing history and geography fail.
So why would anyone listen to him bloviate on what the market is going to do?!
Instead, MSNBC should’ve invited me and my crystal ball. Here’s what I woulda said.
The most credible analysts expect VERY modest annual returns over the next decade. Meaning low single digit. Even less than anticipated annual inflation, meaning negative nominal returns, especially after taxes.
So what’s a person who has gotten used to hardly any inflation combined with double digit market and housing price returns to do? To not lose ground. To continue building wealth.
There’s only one answer. Save more. How to save more? Earn more and/or spend less. Now, you probably know why MSNBC didn’t call me.
“The white house with the red door sits on a quiet block near Gonzaga University. It has two bedrooms, one bathroom and 1,500 square feet of living space.”
“Mr. Silbar, the real estate agent, has sold it twice in the past three years. The first time, in November 2019, he represented a buyer who offered $168,000 and got it with zero drama. This year it went back on the market, and Mr. Silbar listed it for $250,000. Fourteen offers and a bidding war later, it closed at $300,000.”
From “The Next Affordable City Is Already Too Expensive”. The city that is Spokane, Washington.
Pressing Pause 