Last year, I taught Serial Season 1 to my high school seniors-- I couched the podcast within a process analysis unit, and the kids really enjoyed it; Serial Season 2 is a bit harder to get a grip on, but I like it even better than Season 1, perhaps because it reminds me of all the things I learned when I lived in Syria, and-- despite the difficulties, I am teaching to my seniors and (with the threat of constant quizzing) they are doing a fantastic job with a dense and difficult story . . . this time I've embedded the podcast in a compare/contrast unit, because that seems to be the main structural trope that ties the story together . . . here are some of the topics that the podcast invites you to compare and contrast:
1) the liberal interpretation of Bergdahl's story vs. the conservative perspective . . . Katy Waldman (on the Slate's Serial Spoiler) calls the tone of the podcast "radical empathy" while many of Bergdahl's fellow soldiers consider him a deserter and a traitor;
2) Bergdahl and Jason Bourne;
3) Bergdahl and a "golden chicken";
4) Bergdahl and a "ready made loaf";
5) Bergdahl and and a "free-floating astronaut" with no tether;
6) the American Army and a "lumbering machine" and an AT-AT;
7) the Taliban as a mouse running beneath the machine's legs;
8) Pakistan as "home base," the mousehole in the wall in Tom & Jerry;
9) the rumors about Bergdahl vs. the reality of his captivity;
10) The Haqqani Network and the Sopranos;
11) Bergdahl's imprisonment and treatment vs. the imprisonment and treatment of Muslim detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, and Abu Ghraib;
12) the feelings about infidels of moderate Muslims vs. radical Muslims;
13) the code of conduct required for POW videos vs. actual military expectations for POW videos;
14) the sovereign state of Pakistan and the tribal area of North Waziristan;
15) the captivity of Bergdahl and the captivity of David Rohde . . . Rohde was kidnapped and held for three months by the Haqqani network in the same area as Bergdahl at nearly the same time, he is a civilian journalist and not a soldier, and he wasn't blindfolded and isolated as much as Bergdahl, but his story is still very helpful in understanding what happened to Bergdahl;
16) the entire story and the children's book Zoom;
and these are the issues that I think will surface in the future-- I'm speculating, of course, but that's necessary when you're teaching a piece that's not finished yet . . . it's like teaching a book that hasn't been finished, it's exhilarating and exhausting, but also really fun; I can teach Hamlet and Henry IV in my sleep because I know what happens, while doing this is really keeping me on my toes, and this is where I imagine the story is going:
17) there will be comparisons drawn Bergdahl's endurance in captivity and the hero's journey . . . the fact that Mark Boal was interested in interviewing him for a movie and the fact that he is the longest held captive since the Vietnam War and the fact that they are viewing him with such empathy in the podcast leads me to believe it will head in this direction;
18) good leaders vs. toxic leaders . . . if Bergdahl is going to be portrayed as heroic, Serial is going to have to provide a reasonable story of why he deserted his post, and I think they are saving that portion of the narrative and I also think that it is going to open a whole crazy can of worms about the military and it's purpose;
19) the motivation behind Bergdahl's decision and the Pixar film Inside Out . . . which I have promised to show to my students if they survive the podcast;
20) the reaction you should have when you think about how long Bergdahl spent in captivity and the following clip from Grosse Pointe Blank (and while I realize that it doesn't connect exactly in a mathematical sense, the tone is perfect).
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query serial podcast. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query serial podcast. Sort by date Show all posts
Now That Serial Is Over, What Will My Brain Do?
The podcast Serial has finally reached its conclusion-- and while the ending might not satisfy the binge-listeners, anyone who listened to Sarah Koenig slowly explicate the case: the major and minor players, the details, the neighbor-boy and Mr. S., the time-lines, the Nisha call, the Asia alibi, the theories, the issues, the geography, the criminal justice system, the nature of narrative, human nature and truth . . . anyone who consumed this thing week-by-week, with plenty of time to process and discuss each episode with other rabid fans-- these people can't be disappointed by the ending (and I am speculating, of course, which is just what the podcast simultaneously invited us to do and warned us against) but the final episode had it all-- new shit, old theories, new possibilities, Deirdre, the phrase "West Side Hitman," and a final (sort of) conclusion about the case and our justice system; this is not to say that I wasn't rooting for The Last Minute Solution and the greatest forty-five minutes of digital audio ever recorded, and it's not to say that I didn't laugh (really hard) at the Funny or Die parody of the ending-- but I was setting the bar low (because that is the key to happiness) and I set it low enough (and I'm not ashamed to admit) that I got a bit teary-eyed at Adnan's last words-- his stoic attitude towards the universe and the case; he leaves Sarah with this: "I think in a sense you leave it up to the audience to determine" but Sarah says she can't do this -- she can't "take a powder" on a conclusion-- and then she says what we know she has to say, and while it's not last second Hail Mary into the end zone (my friend Kevin said it was more like when the quarterback takes a knee in order to preserve a hard fought tie) but I still think it was more than enough-- she provided plenty of drama and thought provoking commentary, brilliant pacing and superb detail and flawless transitions and dense tape-- tape we have listen to, and so we have to really pay attention, we can't just look at it and draw some quick conclusions; generally the only type of drama that can get me all weepy like the last two episodes of Serial are sports stories-- Friday Night Lights and Hoosiers and Rocky, that sort of stuff-- and I think that's how I felt here; I admired the fight, both from Sarah and her "little garden spade" and from Adnan, who allowed this awful time to be pried back open and scrutinized (would a guilty man agree to go through with this?) and even though it's cliche, sometimes you play as hard as you can, and you don't get a result, and that's frustrating and disappointing, but the important thing is that you put it all on the line and played . . . and that's what this podcast and Sarah Koenig and Adnan did . . . I don't think I've ever spent three months following anything this closely: a news story, a TV show, a book, a sports team . . . Serial takes the cake in that department, and now it's finally come time to conclude this sentence and I think I will end with the moral of the story-- endings are hard . . . there's so few that are memorable and perfect (The Shield, The Winter's Tale, and Let the Right One In immediately come to mind) but that's because endings are contrived and in reality there are no endings, things just keep on going, whether we like them or not . . . so hopefully Episode 13 of Serial (otherwise known as the universe that Serial resides in) will eventually provide us more information about the case, but we have to remember that our universe isn't obligated to explicate anything, and so we just do the best we can with what we have.
Serial Hyperbole
For nine weeks, I've been touting the podcast Serial, and people are finally starting to listen to me-- in fact, there's even a Slate Spoiler podcast about the podcast-- but while I'm proud to say that I was hip to this thing when it started, and let everyone know it, I certainly wasn't smart enough (or brave enough) to teach it to my students, but -- thanks to my friend Alec, who sent me a link to "Why I'm Teaching Serial Instead of Shakespeare" and double-thanks to a generous and altruistic English teacher (Michael Godsey) who provided lesson plans, hand-outs, and connections to the Common Core Standards-- I started teaching Serial on Friday . . . and though I'm not going to skip Hamlet, I will say this: I've never had a kid say to me, when I introduced a new book "now I know what I'm doing this weekend" but a bunch of kids stayed after class to ask me questions about the podcast (which I could barely answer, because this story is so complicated) and that's what one student said before she left the room (another student listened to seven episodes in one day before I even started teaching it . . . Sarah Koenig has invented a new genre of media, and created a masterpiece in one fell swoop).
Serial Season 2: You Should Listen to It (and write an essay about it)
This review is a bit late-- but I loved Serial Season 2, and while I recognize that Serial Season 1 was incredibly compelling because of the solve-it-yourself-mystery and the constant interaction between Sarah Koenig and Adnan, Season 2 is more in my wheelhouse-- Middle Eastern politics, military strategy, assessment of government bureaucracy and hierarchy, the conflict of vision between liberals and conservative, and-- most significantly-- a guy who was indignant because he couldn't wear shorts when it was really hot (same deal where I work, no AC and no relaxation of the dress code when it's 93 degrees in the classroom . . . don't get me started) and, ultimately, a main character who appears one way on the surface: a selfish deserter who-- according to Donald Trump-- deserves to be shot, but when you dig deeper into the story, systemic problems and existential questions reveal themselves . . . anyway, my students wrote synthesis essays about Serial Season 2, Hamlet and Inside Out and they were excellent-- all three works revolve around the question "Who's there?" and they all feature introverted main characters navigating the world without a solid social framework of friends and family . . . and all three characters decide to run away in order to solve their problems; just in case you want to write the essay for your own personal erudition, I've included the prompt AND a sample paragraph I wrote . . . at the very least this will give you an idea of how much high school has changed in the past decade . . . I wish when I went to school that I had the chance to connect a Shakespeare play to a popular podcast and a Pixar film: these damned kids don't know how good they have it.
Who's there?
Use Hamlet, Inside Out, and Serial Season 2 to frame an argument about one or more of the following topics: character, motivation, consciousness, art, aesthetic purpose, ethics, grief, perspective, layers in art, running away, introversion, morals, human nature, action, inaction, family, friendship, political intentions or anything else that applies to these works. These are dense pieces of art that connect to many themes-- so you should be choosing something YOU want to write about.
Use evidence from these works of art to bolster your argument. Do NOT simply summarize and compare/contrast the works, use them to help make your own point. This will require minimal amounts of summary, some logical analysis, transitions and connections, and-- most importantly-- a clear thesis as to what YOU are saying and clear topic sentences that connect to YOUR argument. Your introduction should get across this idea that you are going to explore, explain, and support.
Use at least two quotations from Hamlet, two quotations from Serial, and one quotation from Inside Out. You may mention one of more of the works in the introduction if they connect to your main idea-- but you do not have to mention all the sources in the introduction, you could just blend them into the body paragraphs. Be sure to properly cite all your quotations.
Topic sentence 1: The world does not always conform to idealized rules, and if a person does not learn how to adapt to this concept, he may suffer tragic consequences.
Hamlet believes that his mother and father's marriage was ideal; he cannot endure his mother's betrayal, so much so that he wishes his flesh would "melt" so he that he won't have to deal with the "unweeded garden" (I. ii. 133-139) that his world has become. It takes him too long to accept that his world is messy and ugly, and that he will have to adjust his morals, actions, and attitude to this new normal. Because of this, his life ends tragically. While he finally comes to the conclusion that "the readiness is all" (V. ii. 238) and accepts his fate as an angry and vengeful son, he realizes this too late. Bowe Bergdahl suffers a similar fate. Like Hamlet, he keeps his romanticized ideals intact into his young adulthood. This philosophy does not mesh well with life in the military. In Episode 1 of Serial (DUSTWUN) Bowe likens himself to "Jason Bourne." His interviewer, Mark Boal, describes Bergdahl's aspirations to be a super-soldier. The reality of Bergdahl's military experience is far different than what he imagined. OP MEST was a godforsaken shithole (literally) and the army mission there was ambiguous at best. Bergdahl could not reconcile what he thought the military should be with his actual experience, and this led him to make a rash decision.
Topic Sentence 2: People who learn how to cope with with the instability of the world when they are young are much more likely to be mentally resilient.
Southern Mysteries, Real and Fictitious
I am mired in the South . . . I just got back from Norfolk and North Carolina, just finished Tom Franklin's novel Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter-- a Mississippi mystery that takes you on a journey through time and race, with plenty of snakes and a satisfying (if predictable) conclusion-- and I just started the serial podcast Up and Vanished which reinvestigates the unsolved disappearance of Georgia teacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead (the podcast was highly recommended by my wife and by my son Alex . . . Alex has a number of theories on whodunnit).
Literacy: It's Not a Contest . . . Or Is It?
Over the past year, my friend (and fellow philosophy teacher) Stacey did something rather remarkable. I'm going to let her tell her story . . . but, before she begins, I have some rather remarkable commentary about her story (of course I do). I've conveniently put my words in vivid red, so if you want to skip them, you can proceed directly to Stacey's post. But you'd be missing out on some interesting context (and, not only that, you'd be missing out on all my thoughts and feelings, which-- if you've made your way to this corner of the internet-- you find either incredibly fascinating or so annoying that you can't stop reading them).
When Stacey started this project I was worried. Worried that she threw out the proverbial baby with the proverbial bathwater. I use the word "proverbial" here so readers unfamiliar with the idiom do not call DYFS and report Stacey for infanticide.
The "proverbial baby" Stacey tossed out of her life has more than a passing resemblance to an actual baby. It's immature, needs support in getting established, and possesses great potential. And it has a cute name. Podcast. Stacey threw out listening to podcasts, the nascent audio format that's still toddling around the media-milieu with an adorably anachronistic name. This freaked me out, because Stacey and I have both bonded with a number of different podcasts. It seemed kind of cold-blooded of her to cut ties completely with the art form (especially since we make one of our own). This would be like Steven Spielberg deciding not to watch movies (which might be the case, judging by how old the movies are that inspired him).
I'll let Stacey explain the specific ins and outs of why she quit this fledgling media cold turkey, but her general reason was so she could read more books. Now I'm all for reading books, but I don't like these kinds of arbitrarily strict deontological rules. I prefer case-by-case utilitarian ethics. The "deon" in deontological is Greek for duty, and Stacey decided it was her duty as an English teacher and an intellectual to change her ways. But I don't think you should completely quit something with as much potential value as podcasts. The right number of podcasts to listen to isn't zero. The right number is of podcasts to listen to is difficult to determine, but the golden mean, the amount of podcasts you can enjoy while still finding time to read, is probably somewhere around two per day. That seems reasonable. I wrote a long and winding post about the difficulties with this kind of Aristotelean morality and I do concede that it's easier to make a categorical rule if you want to get things done, but a good podcast is better than a bad book. I explained all this to Stacey, but she stuck to her principled guns.
I had other reasons for worrying about Stacey's project, some of them altruistic and some of them selfish. In all sincerity, I wanted Stacey to enjoy the new season of Serial. I wanted her to listen to two fantastic takes on human memory, one of them dead serious serious (Revisionist History "Free Brian Williams") and the other absurd and funny (Heavyweight "#16 Rob"). I wanted her to enjoy the weirdness of Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything "Victory is Ours." But she would not bite. She was determined and focused.
Slightly more selfish was the fact that I wanted to be able to kill time at work discussing these podcasts with Stacey. I'd recommend them and she'd tell me "Not yet. I want to finish strong . . . December 2nd." I'd tell her she was nuts, that life is too short for hard and fast rules, and she shouldn't deny herself the pleasure, but there was no talking to her.
I was also worried that she might be reading a bunch of crap, just to amass a huge list of books. Loads of Jojo Moyes and Liane Moriarty and Nicholas Sparks. Chick-lit and cheese. This was rather stupid and sexist of me, it turns out.
My greatest anxiety was a selfish one. I was worried that she would read more books than me. I average forty-some books a year, a number I'm quite proud of. I always post the list, and I'm always impressed with myself (which isn't difficult . . . I set the bar low). It turns out I didn't need to worry about this. It wasn't even close. Stacey read so many books that I'll never count how many books I read in a year again. Because I'll never live up to her list, so why bother to count? It's not a contest anyway. Right? And the point of this blog is to slow down . . . so perhaps with my shorter list, I'm winning the contest.
I'd also like to clear up what might be a misconception: if you think Stacey was doing some sort of analogue back-to-basics return to reading on paper from books checked out from the library, you'd be dead wrong. She spent a shitload of money on this project-- that's how she rolls. She checked zero books out of the library. She bought zero hardcovers with which to adorn her shelves. Instead, she purchased the Kindle version of each book and the discounted Audible version as well, so she blew through books in an efficient digital combination; she read for about an hour or so each day on her phone, and then when her eyes got tired or she was driving or getting ready for school or working out, she listened to the audio version. High tech.
Stacey's Story of Her Badass Book list (In Her Own Words)
Every year around this time, I try to reflect on my life. I evaluate my strengths and weaknesses and think about the type of life I want to lead.
My father and I had a conversation once about how New Year’s resolutions are always so strict and limiting. They force you to place unnecessary rules and restrictions on your life. These resolutions tell you what you can’t do and seldom leave room for any fun. We both agreed we were sick of resolutions telling us “don’t drink soda,” “don’t eat sweets,” “don’t watch as much tv” and the worst: “don’t drink beer.”
We decided that, from that point on, we would make our resolutions positive. For a full year we resolved that we would curse more — much to the chagrin of my mother. Whenever I called, my dad would bellow: “How the fuck are you?!”
Cursing more was fun. It was funny. It was easy. At the end of the year, we wished each other a “happy fucking New Year,” and I set to work picking another positive resolution.
Last year, I realized I was wasting an inordinate amount of time listening to podcasts hosted by self-congratulatory comedians boasting about the importance of their work. Of course, there would be an episode of Serial or Waking Up With Sam Harris thrown into the mix, but overall, I was not listening to anything of real academic merit. The etymology of the dick joke could not be considered high brow media consumption. Clearly, this was not a valuable use of my time.
My resolution became clear: I wanted to read more. Anytime I would normally spend idly listening to a podcast - I would instead pick up a book.
I started December 1st (I am never ready to make big life changes on the 1st of January). I find I can keep my resolutions if I have a month to ease into them, but it didn't matter for this one. I did not “ease” into this resolution. In December of 2017 I read eight books. This quickly turned my resolution into a challenge. I wanted to see how many books I could read in one year. I didn’t think I could maintain the pace of two books a week while still working full time - but I wanted to see what I was capable of.
Any time one of my friends mentioned a book they were reading, I immediately added it to my list. I scoured the New York Times and Washington Posts “Best Books of the Year.” I joined Goodreads at some point in this venture (I can’t believe it took me this long). If a book was highly rated - I was going to read it.
I did not select books based on how long they were (even though Dave would like to believe I did). Maybe next year I will do that, so I can double my list — but that doesn’t sound very appealing.
As this year draws to a close, I can say that my resolution was a success. I am incredibly proud of myself for what I have accomplished. I’ve read more this year than I have in probably the past six or seven years combined.
I have not yet decided my next resolution - if you have a suggestion, I am open... As 2018 draws to a close, I can truly say “this was a good fuckin’ year.”
(Editors note: Dave has bolded all the books he has read, and therefore approves of. Thirty of them! So many good ones, but number 80 is my favorite book I read this year).
2018 Books:
1. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
2. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
3. Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris
4. The Power by Naomi Alderman
5. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
6. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
7. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
8. The Relic Master by Christopher Buckley
9. The Outline by Rachel Cusk
10. Little Fires Everywhere by Celest Ng
11. Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
12. What Made Maddy Run by Kate Fagan
13. Atonement by Ian McEwen
14. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
15. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D Vance.
16. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
17. Tenth of December by George Saunders
18. Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers
19. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
20. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
21. Bear Town by Fredrik Backman
22. My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman
23. White Houses by Amy Bloom
24. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
25. Cemetery John by Robert Zorn
26. The Breakdown by BA Paris
27. The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand
28. Less by Andrew Sean Greer
29. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
30. This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
31. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
32. Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin
33. Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
34. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
35. I’ll Be Gone In The Dark by Michelle McNamara
36. Surprise Me by Sophie Kinsella
37. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jasmine Ward
38. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
39. The Woman in The Window by AJ Finn
40. Drown by Junot Diaz
41. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
42. Artemis by Andy Weir
43. Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman
44. Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell
45. Calypso by David Sedaris
46. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
47. A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
48. The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
49. The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
50. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
51. The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine
52. The Hating Game by Sally Thorne
53. All The Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
54. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
55. Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
56. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
57. The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
58. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
59. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
60. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
61. Ask The Dust by John Fante
62. Lamb by Christopher Moore
63. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal
64. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
65. Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
66. American Pastoral by Philip Roth
67. The Shakespeare Requirement by Julie Schumacher
68. Straight Man by Richard Russo
69. Where the Crawdad Sings by Delia Owens
70. Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
71. The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman
72. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
73. This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
74. Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson
75. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
76. Florida by Lauren Groff
77. The Other Woman by Sandie Jones
78. Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
79. The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
80. Boom Town by Sam Anderson
I Might Remember This
So Stacey rushes into the office and proclaims it's the best day of her life and then she pulls an essay anthology out of a bag, and slams a boxed set of leather-bound classics (Dracula, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, etc) onto the table and then she goes into a long-winded and detailed account of how it's teacher appreciation week at Barnes and Nobles and how she got so many discounts because how she got the box of leather-bound books for next to nothing (two dollars? I can't remember) and I realized that this was some kind of woman thing -- "saving" money when you've actually spent money -- and I insisted that the books she bought weren't actually real books, they were prop books, and to prove this I read from each of them in a pompous British accent, and then I threw my apple at the trash and missed, and when I retrieved it, Stacey dared me to throw it at a helium balloon floating above the computer, and I took her up on the dare (and nailed the balloon from all the way across the room, a spectacular shot I might add, if I were a prick . . . which, apparently I am) and unfortunately the apple was a little mealy and it exploded all over the place when it hit the balloon and so I had to get down on the floor and clean up the apple shards and I'm recounting all this not because it's particularly profound, but because most off periods in the English office are uneventful and not memorable at all; aside from this one particularly weird off-period, I 'd have trouble discerning between any of the other ones from this year . . . and this is the theme of the first episode of a fantastic This American Life spin-off podcast-- how hard it is to remember a particular moment in any day of your life-- the podcast is called Serial, and I highly recommend it: a reporter revisits the alleged 1999 murder of a high school student and finds holes in the case (and if you know what happens, please don't spoil it, because I'm right in the middle of this thing and I love it).
Cold Times in Laramie
If you're looking for a grim, bloody, disturbing podcast that investigates the unreliability of memory and the possibility that all first-person accounts are distorted and tainted-- a podcast that will make you question your own memory of the life you thought you knew, then check out the newest Serial production: The Coldest Case in Laramie . . . but it's a fucking bleak story set in a bleak place and I've listened to seven of the eight episodes and I doubt there will be a satisfying resoution.
Philosophical Shit
I think teachers often forget Aristotle's idea that "the roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet" because they are already educated, so they know how to do the tasks they assign, and find it hard to imagine themselves stumbling around in the shadowy ignorance of Plato's allegorical cave; and while I do my best to empathize with the plight of my students, I certainly know some of my material too well to remember what it's like not to know it -- which is why teaching the podcast Serial has been so difficult and enlightening . . . I've learned that I am much better at reading than I am at listening, and that I have trouble with details, timelines, and auditory descriptions of geography . . . I made my students write an essay connecting Plato's cave metaphor to Episode 7 and 8 of Serial and one essay explained that Sarah Koenig couldn't be manipulating us (the audience) because she is also in a shadowy cave of ignorance, the maze of her investigation, and we are -- like Inception-- inside an even shadowier cave within her cave, and then I added another layer to this: though I am the teacher, I'm not great at organizing things this dense and detail-oriented, and so I am in an even darker cave within that cave; anyway, I am listening to the episodes two or three times, in order to plan and teach each one, and the students are helping me as much as I am helping them (and often summarizing and analyzing things in ways more eloquent and precise than I am capable of, which is impressive . . . and the main thing you should learn from all this, is that if you're life is on the line, you don't want me arguing your case).
Frustrating Stuff
Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas and Nice White Parents by the Serial podcasting crew both get at the same frustrating theme: even people who espouse progress and change may also be perpetuating a beneficial status quo.
Giridharadas exposes the truth of MarketWorld. Business people use corporations to exploit workers and the environment and the law to make huge sums of money, and then-- once they have become extraordinarily rich-- these same people abrogate democracy and construct win-win business-oriented solutions to the very problems they have relied on for their success.
It's not a fun read. The system is skewed, corrupt, and weighted impossibly in favor of the wealthy. Money can even bend ideas. Public intellectuals become thought leaders.
I think the only answer is unions. Workers need more power, not the well-meaning philanthropy of people interested in preserving the same systems that got them all their money and power.
If you don't feel like reading the book, watch the "Why Billionaires Won't Save Us" episode of Hassan Minaj's excellent show Patriot Act. I can't embed it because it's from Netflix, but here's Giridharadas on The Daily.
The new podcast Nice White Parents treads similar ground. It's tracing segregation and diversity in New York Public Schools all the way back to the 1950s. Again, the liberal white parents of NYC talk a good game about progress, de-segregation, and change, but when it comes down to it they want to preserve the system. They're not ready to sacrifice their kids' education for their ideals.
This makes sense. It's hard to change the system where you have succeeded. Frustrating stuff, if you're on the other side.
The Tritium Age of Podcasts
For the past few years, I've grown more and more enthusiastic about podcasts . . . and I wasn't sure why this happened, as the technology has existed for a while; I can remember the first one I listened to back in 2007 (The History of the Byzantine Empire by Lars Brownsworth) and while I certainly enjoyed learning about my favorite period in history for free, I couldn't imagine that this was anything groundbreaking, nor did I think that my friends would be interested in the topic (unlike now: I'm recommending podcasts to everyone, 24/7) and after I finished learning about Diocletian and Justinian, I immediately went back to Howard Stern (on my Sirius radio) but this New York magazine article explains what's behind the current renaissance in podcasting . . . and while I love the fact that podcasts have increased exponentially in variety and quality, I don't like the reason why . . . because the reason isn't intellectual and the reason isn't futuristic; in fact, the reason is mundane and environmentally destructive; the reason is cars . . . cars have gone on-line, and so on-demand listening is easy and convenient, and Americans drive a lot-- so the advertising money works if you have a successful podcast, and so I'm going to have to begrudgingly thank the internal combustion engine because I'm learning a shitload of cool stuff; here's a sample:
1) the 99% Invisible episode Vexillonaire taught me that if you want to design a flag, you should draw a one-inch by one-and-a-half-inch rectangle on a piece of paper, and draw your flag in that tiny space, because that small drawing is exactly how a flag looks when you view it up on a pole;
2) the Radiolab episode Cities taught me that the speed people walk in various cities correlates with all sort of things: income, patents created, the number of libraries, how many fancy restaurants exist, etc. etc. and the bigger a city is, the faster people walk;
3) Desi Serna's Guitar Music Theory taught me that in a blues progression, you can play the parent major scale over any dominant seventh chord, so if you've got an E7 chord, then you can imagine that it's the fifth degree of the progression and play an A major scale over it;
4) Sarah Koenig's Serial is still teaching me what this medium can do . . . and that on-demand-listening might be more controversial than anyone imagined.
1) the 99% Invisible episode Vexillonaire taught me that if you want to design a flag, you should draw a one-inch by one-and-a-half-inch rectangle on a piece of paper, and draw your flag in that tiny space, because that small drawing is exactly how a flag looks when you view it up on a pole;
2) the Radiolab episode Cities taught me that the speed people walk in various cities correlates with all sort of things: income, patents created, the number of libraries, how many fancy restaurants exist, etc. etc. and the bigger a city is, the faster people walk;
3) Desi Serna's Guitar Music Theory taught me that in a blues progression, you can play the parent major scale over any dominant seventh chord, so if you've got an E7 chord, then you can imagine that it's the fifth degree of the progression and play an A major scale over it;
4) Sarah Koenig's Serial is still teaching me what this medium can do . . . and that on-demand-listening might be more controversial than anyone imagined.
I Give Up: Here's a Bunch of Random Stuff From "Why We're Polarized"
I highly recommend Ezra Klein's new book Why We're Polarized for both liberals and conservatives-- and it should be the last thing you read that mentions national politics for a long while; warning, this post is going to be epically long-- because I dog-eared so many pages in the book and then used the Google Doc "voice-typing" tool to input all the information into the computer and while it was pretty fun to read aloud and watch the text scroll, the post is a total mess; you're not going to get accurate quotations, as I didn't take my time, but I'm going to boil down Klein's words into a sort of plagiaristic of Dave/Ezra Klein that is perfectly fitting for this ridiculous blog medium; while Klein is a self-avowed liberal (and usually a vegan . . . but not when he travels) who co-founded Vox and is a regular on the podcast The Weeds, this book is not a liberal paean . . . it's an explanation and the take-away is this: stop following national politics like it's more than a football match or a soap opera and-- if you truly want to enact political change-- start worrying about your hometown and the things going on in the state in which you live-- Jersey pride!-- these are the things you can actually influence; anyway . . . here is some stuff from the book, partly paraphrased, partly with Klein's wording, and partly insane rambling;
1) America used to be full of ticket splitters-- and you knew plenty of ticket splitters-- so you didn't identify too heavily with either party;
2) policy was a mixed bag . . . Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush signed legislation raising taxes for instance that would be unthinkable in today's Republican Party-- almost every elected Republican official has signed a pledge promising to never raise taxes under any circumstances; Bush also sign the Americans with Disabilities Act into law and oversaw a cap-and-trade program to reduce the pollutants behind acid rain; Reagan signed an Immigration Reform Bill the today's Democrats venerate and today's Republicans denounce; Reagan supported amnesty for illegal immigrants; President Bill Clinton' stance on illegal immigrants was much akin to Donald Trump's position; Clinton launched his administration with a budget designed to reduce the deficit and an all-out effort to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA . . . he famously ran against the left-wing of his own party flying back to Arkansas to preside over the execution of a brain-damaged inmate and publicly denounced the rapper Sister Souljah; in 1965 a Democratic president created a massive single-payer healthcare system for the nation's elderly-- but as liberal as Medicare was in both conception and execution-- it still received 70 Republican votes in the house as well as 13 Republican votes in the Senate; Obamacare, by contrast, was modeled off Mitt Romney's reforms in Massachusetts and built atop many Republican ideas relied on private insurance for the bulk of its coverage expansion and it ended up sacrificing its public option but the legislation didn't receive a single Republican vote in either the house or the Senate;1982 Senator Joe Biden voted for a constitutional amendment that would let States overturn Roe v Wade, etc. etc.
3) Policy and ticket splitting is no more . . . it's ALL identity politics on both sides-- and we're going to have to get used to and live with it . . . or maybe not because you probably don't live near people from the other party: House Democrats now represent 78% of all Whole Foods locations but only 27% of Cracker Barrels . . . it's easy to overstate the direct role partisanship is playing in these decisions, and while it's true that Democrats prefer to live among Democrats and Republicans like living among Republicans, people are still people . . . they look at schools and housing prices and crime rates and similar quality of life questions . . . BUT the big decision they make-- or their parents have made-- is whether to live in an urban or rural area . . . and as the parties become more racially, religiously, and ideologically sorted into geographically different areas the signals that tell us a place is our kind of place heightens our political divisions . . . most Republicans (65%) said they would rather live in a community where houses are larger and farther apart and where schools and shopping are not nearby, while a majority of Democrats (61%) prefer smaller houses within walking distance of schools and shopping; that's a preference that seems non-political on it's face but adds to the stacking of identities;4) psychology doesn't predict political opinions among people who don't pay much attention to politics, but it's a powerful predictor of political opinions among those who are politically engaged; unengaged citizens vote logically-- they look at what a candidate's policy will do for them or their community, while politically engaged people vote using identity and emotion . . . that's damn crazy and why the best way to think about the presidential election is to ignore it for 3.99 years and then take a quick look at each candidate's platform and decide which platform is better for you;
5) it's a mistake to imagine our bank accounts are the only reasonable drivers of political action-- as we become more political we become more interested in politics as a means of self-expression and group identity; it's not that citizens are unable to recognize their interests, it's that material concerns are often irrelevant to the individual's goals when forming a policy opinion;
5) it's a mistake to imagine our bank accounts are the only reasonable drivers of political action-- as we become more political we become more interested in politics as a means of self-expression and group identity; it's not that citizens are unable to recognize their interests, it's that material concerns are often irrelevant to the individual's goals when forming a policy opinion;
6) politicians are not equally responsive to all their constituents-- they're most concerned about the most engaged people who will vote for them and volunteer for them and donate to them and the way to make more of that kind of voter isn't just a focus on how great you are-- you need to focus on how bad the other side is; nothing brings a group together like a common enemy . . . remove the fury and fear of a real opponent and watch the enthusiasm drain from your supporters;
7) it turns out that there's only a weak relationship between how much a person identifies as a conservative or liberal and how conservative or liberal views actually are; one reason policy is not the driver of political disagreement is most people don't have very strong views about policy: it's the rare hobbyist who thinks so often about cybersecurity and who should lead the Federal Reserve-- but all of us are experts on our own identities;
8) Bill Clinton had the same "draconian" stance as Trump on immigration;
9) one study shows that Democrats and Republicans cared more about the political party of a student vying for a scholarship than the student's GPA . . . partisanship simply trumped academic excellence;
10) another study found that Democrats and Republicans performed better at math when the math skills helped them find an answer that boosted their ideology-- say gun control for liberals-- and the better the person was at math, the dumber they got when getting the problem wrong would NOT bolster their ideology . . . yikes;
11) it's become common to mock students demanding safe spaces, but if you look carefully at the collisions in American politics right now, then you find that everyone is demanding safe spaces-- the fear is not that the government is regulating speech, but that protesters are chilling speech, the Twitter mob rules the land looking for an errant word or a misfired joke . . . in our eagerness to discount our opponents as easily triggered snowflakes, we've lost sight of the animating impulse behind much of the politics and indeed much of life: the desire to feel safe, to know you can say what you want without fear;
12) Klein summarizes the first half of the book thusly: the human mind is exquisitely tuned to group affiliation and group difference; it takes almost nothing for us to form a group identity, and once that happens, we naturally assume ourselves in competition with other groups; the deeper our commitment to our group becomes, the more determined we make sure our group wins . . . making matters worse, winning is positional, not material; we often prefer outcomes that are worse for everyone so long as they maximize our groups advantage over other groups . . . the parties used to be scrambled both ideologically and demographically in ways that curbed their power, but these ideological mixed parties were an unstable equilibrium reflecting America's peculiar and often abhorrent racial politics; the success of the Civil Rights Movement and its alliance with national Democratic party broke that equilibrium and destroyed the Dixiecrat wing of the Democratic party and triggered an era of party sorting; ideological Democrat now means liberal and Republican now means conservative in a way that wasn't true in 1955; partisanship is in part a rational response to the rising party difference-- if the two sides hated and feared each other less 50 years ago, well that makes sense they were more similar 50 years ago, but that's sorting has also been demographic today the parties are sharply split across racial, religious, geographic, cultural and psychological lines . . . there are many many powerful identities lurking in that list and they are fusing together and stacking atop one another so a conflict or a threat that activates one, activates all of the characteristics and since these mega-identities stretch across so many aspects of our society they're constantly being activated in an era of profound powerful social change; a majority of infants born today in America are non-white and the fastest-growing religious identity is "no religious identity at all"; women makeup the majorities on college campuses; foreign-born groups are rising in population and rising in power and they want their needs reflected in the politics and culture; other groups feel themselves losing power want to protect the status and privileges they've in the past when America was "great" and this conflict is sorting itself neatly into two parties; Obama's presidency was an example of the younger more diverse Coalition taking power and Trump's presidency represented the older whiter Coalition taking it back;
13) an Essential Truth Klein has learned: almost no one is forced to follow politics-- there is some lobbyist in government affairs who need to stay on the cutting edge of legislative and regulatory developments to do their job, but most people who follow politics do it as a hobby in the way they follow a sport or a band; political journalism has to compete with literally everything else for retention; Rachel Maddow is a war with reruns of The Big Bang Theory; Fox competes with Xbox; time spent reading this book is time not spent listening to the podcast Serial;
14) misperceptions were high among everyone, but they were particularly exaggerated when people were asked to describe the other party; Democrats believe 44% of Republicans earn over $250,000 a year-- it's actually 2%; Republicans believed that 38% of Democrats were either gay, lesbian, or bisexual-- the correct answer is about 6%; Democrats believe that more than four out of every 10 Republicans are seniors-- in truth seniors make out about 20% of the GOP; Republicans believe that 46% of Democrats are black and 44% belong to a union and reality about 24% of Democrats are African American and less than 11% belong to a union; what was telling about these results is that the more interested in politics people were, the more political media they consumed, then the more mistaken they were about the other party . . . it makes sense if you think about the incentives driving media outlets . . . the old line on local reporting was if it bleeds it leads, but for political reporting the principal is if it outrages it leads-- and outrage is deeply connected to identity;
15) people have far more power to influence their mayor, state senator, or governor than they have to influence the national discussion; people should be involved in local politics and be most engaged in the tangible states of the politics nearest to their experience . . . of course you're likely to donate to defeat the politician who serves as the villain in the political dramas you watch rather than some local legislator whose name you can't remember . . . of course the stakes of national politics with their titanic clashes of good vs. evil, the storylines omnipresent on social media and television, dominate consciousness . . . but it's counterproductive;
16) people in America used to identify with their state more than the country-- but this has changed-- and it would have confounded the Founders . . . at the core of this newfound nationalization is an inversion of the founders most self-evident assumption: that we will identify more deeply with our home state and with our country . . . a guy named Hopkins proved this with a text analysis of digitized books-- state identity came up WAY more than national identity until recently. . . so I'm bringing that back: I'm Jersey strong and Jersey proud and Bruce and Bon Jovi and all that shit and the rest of the country can do what it wants;
17) America's political system is unusual in that it permits a divided government and is full of tools minorities can use to obstruct governance; imagine that you work in an office where your boss who you think is a jerk needs your help to finish his projects, but if you help him he keeps his job and maybe even get the promotion and if you refuse to help him, you become his boss and he may get fired; now add in a deep dose of disagreement. . . you hate his projects and believe them to be bad for the company and even the world and a bunch of colleagues who also hate your boss will be mad at you if you help him-- that's basically American politics right now, bipartisan cooperation is often necessary for governance but the rationale for the minority party is to stonewall; it's a hell of a way to run a railroad, but this was our structure during much of American History because one party was usually dominant enough to make cooperation worth it for the minority;
7) it turns out that there's only a weak relationship between how much a person identifies as a conservative or liberal and how conservative or liberal views actually are; one reason policy is not the driver of political disagreement is most people don't have very strong views about policy: it's the rare hobbyist who thinks so often about cybersecurity and who should lead the Federal Reserve-- but all of us are experts on our own identities;
8) Bill Clinton had the same "draconian" stance as Trump on immigration;
9) one study shows that Democrats and Republicans cared more about the political party of a student vying for a scholarship than the student's GPA . . . partisanship simply trumped academic excellence;
10) another study found that Democrats and Republicans performed better at math when the math skills helped them find an answer that boosted their ideology-- say gun control for liberals-- and the better the person was at math, the dumber they got when getting the problem wrong would NOT bolster their ideology . . . yikes;
11) it's become common to mock students demanding safe spaces, but if you look carefully at the collisions in American politics right now, then you find that everyone is demanding safe spaces-- the fear is not that the government is regulating speech, but that protesters are chilling speech, the Twitter mob rules the land looking for an errant word or a misfired joke . . . in our eagerness to discount our opponents as easily triggered snowflakes, we've lost sight of the animating impulse behind much of the politics and indeed much of life: the desire to feel safe, to know you can say what you want without fear;
12) Klein summarizes the first half of the book thusly: the human mind is exquisitely tuned to group affiliation and group difference; it takes almost nothing for us to form a group identity, and once that happens, we naturally assume ourselves in competition with other groups; the deeper our commitment to our group becomes, the more determined we make sure our group wins . . . making matters worse, winning is positional, not material; we often prefer outcomes that are worse for everyone so long as they maximize our groups advantage over other groups . . . the parties used to be scrambled both ideologically and demographically in ways that curbed their power, but these ideological mixed parties were an unstable equilibrium reflecting America's peculiar and often abhorrent racial politics; the success of the Civil Rights Movement and its alliance with national Democratic party broke that equilibrium and destroyed the Dixiecrat wing of the Democratic party and triggered an era of party sorting; ideological Democrat now means liberal and Republican now means conservative in a way that wasn't true in 1955; partisanship is in part a rational response to the rising party difference-- if the two sides hated and feared each other less 50 years ago, well that makes sense they were more similar 50 years ago, but that's sorting has also been demographic today the parties are sharply split across racial, religious, geographic, cultural and psychological lines . . . there are many many powerful identities lurking in that list and they are fusing together and stacking atop one another so a conflict or a threat that activates one, activates all of the characteristics and since these mega-identities stretch across so many aspects of our society they're constantly being activated in an era of profound powerful social change; a majority of infants born today in America are non-white and the fastest-growing religious identity is "no religious identity at all"; women makeup the majorities on college campuses; foreign-born groups are rising in population and rising in power and they want their needs reflected in the politics and culture; other groups feel themselves losing power want to protect the status and privileges they've in the past when America was "great" and this conflict is sorting itself neatly into two parties; Obama's presidency was an example of the younger more diverse Coalition taking power and Trump's presidency represented the older whiter Coalition taking it back;
13) an Essential Truth Klein has learned: almost no one is forced to follow politics-- there is some lobbyist in government affairs who need to stay on the cutting edge of legislative and regulatory developments to do their job, but most people who follow politics do it as a hobby in the way they follow a sport or a band; political journalism has to compete with literally everything else for retention; Rachel Maddow is a war with reruns of The Big Bang Theory; Fox competes with Xbox; time spent reading this book is time not spent listening to the podcast Serial;
14) misperceptions were high among everyone, but they were particularly exaggerated when people were asked to describe the other party; Democrats believe 44% of Republicans earn over $250,000 a year-- it's actually 2%; Republicans believed that 38% of Democrats were either gay, lesbian, or bisexual-- the correct answer is about 6%; Democrats believe that more than four out of every 10 Republicans are seniors-- in truth seniors make out about 20% of the GOP; Republicans believe that 46% of Democrats are black and 44% belong to a union and reality about 24% of Democrats are African American and less than 11% belong to a union; what was telling about these results is that the more interested in politics people were, the more political media they consumed, then the more mistaken they were about the other party . . . it makes sense if you think about the incentives driving media outlets . . . the old line on local reporting was if it bleeds it leads, but for political reporting the principal is if it outrages it leads-- and outrage is deeply connected to identity;
15) people have far more power to influence their mayor, state senator, or governor than they have to influence the national discussion; people should be involved in local politics and be most engaged in the tangible states of the politics nearest to their experience . . . of course you're likely to donate to defeat the politician who serves as the villain in the political dramas you watch rather than some local legislator whose name you can't remember . . . of course the stakes of national politics with their titanic clashes of good vs. evil, the storylines omnipresent on social media and television, dominate consciousness . . . but it's counterproductive;
16) people in America used to identify with their state more than the country-- but this has changed-- and it would have confounded the Founders . . . at the core of this newfound nationalization is an inversion of the founders most self-evident assumption: that we will identify more deeply with our home state and with our country . . . a guy named Hopkins proved this with a text analysis of digitized books-- state identity came up WAY more than national identity until recently. . . so I'm bringing that back: I'm Jersey strong and Jersey proud and Bruce and Bon Jovi and all that shit and the rest of the country can do what it wants;
17) America's political system is unusual in that it permits a divided government and is full of tools minorities can use to obstruct governance; imagine that you work in an office where your boss who you think is a jerk needs your help to finish his projects, but if you help him he keeps his job and maybe even get the promotion and if you refuse to help him, you become his boss and he may get fired; now add in a deep dose of disagreement. . . you hate his projects and believe them to be bad for the company and even the world and a bunch of colleagues who also hate your boss will be mad at you if you help him-- that's basically American politics right now, bipartisan cooperation is often necessary for governance but the rationale for the minority party is to stonewall; it's a hell of a way to run a railroad, but this was our structure during much of American History because one party was usually dominant enough to make cooperation worth it for the minority;
18) famous political pundits Ornstein and Mann mince no words in explaining that while both parties partake in bipartisanship, the Republicans have gone off the rails, to summarize their words: today's Republican Party is an insurgent outlier; it has become ideological extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition, all the declaring war on the government. . . . The Democratic party, while no Paragon of civic virtue, is more ideological centered and diverse, protective of the government's role as it developed over the course of the last century, open to incremental changes in policy fashion through bargaining with Republicans, and less disposed to or adept at take-no-prisoners conflict between the parties . . .
19) crucially the Democratic party isn't just more diverse in terms of its members, it's also more diverse in its trusted information sources and 2014 the Pew Research Center conducted a survey measuring trust in different media sources, giving respondents 36 different outlets to consider and asking them to rate their trust in each; liberals trusted a wide variety of media outlets ranging from center-right to left: ABC, Al Jazeera, BBC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, The Economist, The Ed Schultz Show, Google News, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Mother Jones, MSNBC, NBC, The New Yorker, The New York Times, NPR, PBS, Politico, Slate, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Yahoo . . . conservatives only trusted a handful of sources: Fox News, Breitbart, The Wall Street Journal, The Blaze, The Drudge Report, the Sean Hannity show, The Glenn Beck program, and The Rush Limbaugh Show.
20) Democrats are often derided for playing identity politics, but that is not in truth a difference between the parties . . . Republicans have built their coalition on identity politics as well, but the difference between the parties is at the Democratic candidates are forced to appeal to many more identities and more skeptical voters than Republicans do successful National Democrats construct broad Coalition and that's a practice a cut against the incentives of pure polarisation what national Republicans have learned to do its construct deep coalitions relying on more demographically and ideologically homogeneous voters . . . Republicans, instead of winning power by winning the votes of most voters they win the power by winning the votes of most places
21) Republicans appeal to voters significantly to the right of the median voter but it's forced them into a dependence on an Electra that feels its power slipping away and demands a response the portion it to its fears this is the way in which the parties are not structurally symmetrical and that's why they have not responded to a polarizing are in the same ways Democrats simply can't win running the kinds of campaigns and deploying the kinds of tactics that succeed for Republicans Democrats can move to the left and they are but they can't abandon the center in December 2018 well into the Trump era Gallup as Democrats and Republicans whether they wanted to see their party become more liberal or conservative or more moderate by a margin of 57 to 37% Republicans wanted their party to become more conservative by a margin of 54 to 41% Democrats wanted their party to become more moderate
22) the relevant factor I'm urging you to pay attention to his identity what identity is that article or Twitter thing or video invoking what identities making you defensive what does it feel like when you get pushed back into an identity can you notice it when it happens you log on to Twitter nine times a day can you take a couple of breasts at the end and ask yourself how differently you feel from before you logged on the ID here has become more aware of the ways that politicians and media manipulate us. There are reams of research showing the reaction to political commentary and information we don't like his physical. Are breathing speeds up, are pupils naira, our heart beats faster. Trying to be aware of how politics makes us feel, what happens when our identities are activated, threatened, or otherwise inflamed, is it necessary first step to gaining some control of the process. That is not to say we should become afraid of our identities being inflamed or strong emotion being Force for its to say we should be mindful enough of what's happening to make decisions about whether we're pleased with the situation sometimes it's worth being angry sometimes it's not we don't take the time to know which is which we lose control over our relationship with politics and become the unwitting instrument of others
24) For all our problems we have been a worse and uglier country at almost every other point in our history you do not need to go back to the country's early years when new arrivals from your drove out and murdered indigenous peoples brought over millions of enslaved Africans and wrote laws making women second-class citizens to see it just a few decades ago political assassinations were routine in 1963 President John F Kennedy was murdered on the streets of Dallas in 1965 Malcolm X was shot to death in a crowded New York City Ballroom in 1968 Martin Luther King Jr was killed as was Robert F Kennedy in 1975 Lynette Squeaky Fromme standing about an arm's length from President Gerald Ford aims her gun and fired the bullets fail to discharge Harvey Milk the pioneering gay San Francisco city Supervisor was killed in 1978 President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981 the bull shattered rivet punctured alone for much of the twentieth century the right to vote was for African Americans no right at all lynchings were common Freedom Writers were brutally beaten across the American South police had to escort young African-American children into schools as jeering crowd shouted racial epithets and threatened to attack violence broke out at the 1968 Democratic National Convention urban riots ripped across the country crime was Rising the United States launched an illegal secret bombing campaigning campaigning in Cambodia National Guard members fired on and killed student protesters at Kent State Richard Nixon Road a backlash to the Civil Rights Movement into the White House launched an Espionage campaign against his political opponents provoked a constitutional crisis and became the first American President to resign from office by impeachment proceedings this is not a counterintuitive take on American history by the way among experts that is closer to the consensus the varieties of democracy project
25) American democracy was far less Democratic and far less liberal and far less decent than today; Trump's most intemperate outbursts pale before the opinions that were mainstream in recent history and the institutions of American politics today are a vast improvement on the regimes that ruled well within living memory . . . if we can do a bit better tomorrow we will be doing much much better than we have ever done before.
19) crucially the Democratic party isn't just more diverse in terms of its members, it's also more diverse in its trusted information sources and 2014 the Pew Research Center conducted a survey measuring trust in different media sources, giving respondents 36 different outlets to consider and asking them to rate their trust in each; liberals trusted a wide variety of media outlets ranging from center-right to left: ABC, Al Jazeera, BBC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, The Economist, The Ed Schultz Show, Google News, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Mother Jones, MSNBC, NBC, The New Yorker, The New York Times, NPR, PBS, Politico, Slate, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Yahoo . . . conservatives only trusted a handful of sources: Fox News, Breitbart, The Wall Street Journal, The Blaze, The Drudge Report, the Sean Hannity show, The Glenn Beck program, and The Rush Limbaugh Show.
20) Democrats are often derided for playing identity politics, but that is not in truth a difference between the parties . . . Republicans have built their coalition on identity politics as well, but the difference between the parties is at the Democratic candidates are forced to appeal to many more identities and more skeptical voters than Republicans do successful National Democrats construct broad Coalition and that's a practice a cut against the incentives of pure polarisation what national Republicans have learned to do its construct deep coalitions relying on more demographically and ideologically homogeneous voters . . . Republicans, instead of winning power by winning the votes of most voters they win the power by winning the votes of most places
21) Republicans appeal to voters significantly to the right of the median voter but it's forced them into a dependence on an Electra that feels its power slipping away and demands a response the portion it to its fears this is the way in which the parties are not structurally symmetrical and that's why they have not responded to a polarizing are in the same ways Democrats simply can't win running the kinds of campaigns and deploying the kinds of tactics that succeed for Republicans Democrats can move to the left and they are but they can't abandon the center in December 2018 well into the Trump era Gallup as Democrats and Republicans whether they wanted to see their party become more liberal or conservative or more moderate by a margin of 57 to 37% Republicans wanted their party to become more conservative by a margin of 54 to 41% Democrats wanted their party to become more moderate
22) the relevant factor I'm urging you to pay attention to his identity what identity is that article or Twitter thing or video invoking what identities making you defensive what does it feel like when you get pushed back into an identity can you notice it when it happens you log on to Twitter nine times a day can you take a couple of breasts at the end and ask yourself how differently you feel from before you logged on the ID here has become more aware of the ways that politicians and media manipulate us. There are reams of research showing the reaction to political commentary and information we don't like his physical. Are breathing speeds up, are pupils naira, our heart beats faster. Trying to be aware of how politics makes us feel, what happens when our identities are activated, threatened, or otherwise inflamed, is it necessary first step to gaining some control of the process. That is not to say we should become afraid of our identities being inflamed or strong emotion being Force for its to say we should be mindful enough of what's happening to make decisions about whether we're pleased with the situation sometimes it's worth being angry sometimes it's not we don't take the time to know which is which we lose control over our relationship with politics and become the unwitting instrument of others
24) For all our problems we have been a worse and uglier country at almost every other point in our history you do not need to go back to the country's early years when new arrivals from your drove out and murdered indigenous peoples brought over millions of enslaved Africans and wrote laws making women second-class citizens to see it just a few decades ago political assassinations were routine in 1963 President John F Kennedy was murdered on the streets of Dallas in 1965 Malcolm X was shot to death in a crowded New York City Ballroom in 1968 Martin Luther King Jr was killed as was Robert F Kennedy in 1975 Lynette Squeaky Fromme standing about an arm's length from President Gerald Ford aims her gun and fired the bullets fail to discharge Harvey Milk the pioneering gay San Francisco city Supervisor was killed in 1978 President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981 the bull shattered rivet punctured alone for much of the twentieth century the right to vote was for African Americans no right at all lynchings were common Freedom Writers were brutally beaten across the American South police had to escort young African-American children into schools as jeering crowd shouted racial epithets and threatened to attack violence broke out at the 1968 Democratic National Convention urban riots ripped across the country crime was Rising the United States launched an illegal secret bombing campaigning campaigning in Cambodia National Guard members fired on and killed student protesters at Kent State Richard Nixon Road a backlash to the Civil Rights Movement into the White House launched an Espionage campaign against his political opponents provoked a constitutional crisis and became the first American President to resign from office by impeachment proceedings this is not a counterintuitive take on American history by the way among experts that is closer to the consensus the varieties of democracy project
25) American democracy was far less Democratic and far less liberal and far less decent than today; Trump's most intemperate outbursts pale before the opinions that were mainstream in recent history and the institutions of American politics today are a vast improvement on the regimes that ruled well within living memory . . . if we can do a bit better tomorrow we will be doing much much better than we have ever done before.
Jury Duty: You Don't Need to Be a Clairvoyant Racist Lunatic
Last week, my wife had jury duty on Wednesday and I had jury duty on Thursday. This week, my wife had her administrative observation on Tuesday and I had my administrative observation on Wednesday.
Weird.
I hope my wife doesn't get bitten by a rabid animal (probably a coyote) next Monday . . . because it's going to happen to me on Tuesday. These things come in threes.
As far as jury duty went, my wife got called upstairs but didn't have to fill out any questionnaires or do any interviews. So she didn't need to utilize any of the stupid advice people give about how to get out of jury duty.
"Tell the judge you're racist!"
"Tell the judge you can tell people are guilty just by looking into their eyes!"
"Act crazy!"
If you've ever been interviewed for a spot on a jury-- the process known in legal parlance as "voir dire"-- then you know this advice is absurd. You're in front of the general public, in a formal situation, talking to someone wearing robes, in a court of law.
You don't want to present yourself as racist clairvoyant lunatic.
You might run into these people in the future.
My wife sat in a room for a while and then got released early.
I was not as lucky as my wife.
I arrived at 8 AM, and snagged a choice seat at the one large table by the TV (advice from my wife) so I could get some grading done. The presiding judge came down and spoke to us about the importance of jury duty and the system. He explained the difference between an inconvenience and a hardship. Then we watched a video, which gave us some instructions on how to behave if we were on a jury. We instructed to not only listen to the witnesses, but to observe their body language and tone of voice as well. I had a problem with this, which I tucked away in the recess of my brain. Then I got back to reading quizzes.
I was called upstairs at 9:30 AM, with a hundred other citizens. One of the elevators was broken so we had to stuff ourselves into the good one, in shifts. We were crammed into a courtroom. I was sitting in between a tall white guy from Texas and an older African American gentleman with one earring who was working on an adult coloring book with some markers. The judge told us they needed 12 jurors for a criminal case, and then he told us a bit about the case. I can't reveal this information, or I might get fined $1000. The prosecutor and the defendant and the defendant's lawyer were all there. The defendant was accused of a violent crime. He was African-American and looked like a tough hombre. You'll understand why I mention his race soon enough.
We filled out two questionnaires and then the judge, prosecutor and lawyer interviewed possible jurors. This went on for hours. We finally got to break for lunch at 12:30 and I went to Tavern of George (a.k.a. Tumulty's) and inhaled a burger. The beer looked was tempting, but I didn't want to be found in contempt of court.
I went back, finished my grading, and added some information to my questionnaire. Quite a bit of information. There was nothing else to do. And I decided if I got called up that I wasn't going to repeat what I did last time I went through "voir dire." No pathetic pleading. I would not throw myself prostate upon the mercy of the court. My kids were older now, and more responsible. If I got called to be on a trial, so be it.
So I would be myself. I would explain that it was a rough time of year for me to miss-- because of the College Writing curriculum-- but that this was more of an inconvenience than a hardship.
At 2 PM, I got called up for some "voir dire." I took a deep breath and walked over to the table with the judge, the prosecutor, and the defendant's attorney. I sat down. I told the judge my school situation, but very plainly, without drama or histrionics, and he said he would consider it. Then we got into my questionnaire.
First he wanted to know why I said I wouldn't be able to convict someone just on testimony alone. I told him about the new Malcolm Gladwell book Talking to Strangers and just how difficult it was to determine whether a stranger was telling the truth or lying. I told him I had a problem with the instructional video, because its very difficult to determine anything credible from tone and body language. Some people always seem like they are telling the truth and other people always seem nervous or anxious or sketchy. And it doesn't mean much. I talked about the fallibility of human memory and the ambiguity of eyewitness accounts.
Then we went through the people my interactions with the legal world. My brother worked in the building. My dad was director of corrections. I had a few run-ins with the law, but mainly college shenanigans.
Then he asked me why I wasn't sure if the legal system was fair. I told him I had read and listened to a lot about Ferguson and the shooting of Michael Brown, and I had listened to Serial Season 3 in its entirety, which delved into the corruption int he Cleveland court system. I told him I had learned that sometimes the court system is designed to shake down and oppress people of color.
Then we took a look at the free response questions. We were upstairs for a long time and I had answered the questions comprehensively. For example, there was a question about how you get your news. I had listed every podcast I to which I subscribed-- this is a long list.
The judge saw this scrawling mess and said, "I don't think we've ever had anyone run out of room on the sheet."
We talked my favorite books and movies (the judge enjoyed The Irishman) and the prosecutor pursued the list of magazines I often read: The New Yorker and Harper's and Mother Jones and The Atlantic and Wired and The Week.
The judge took a look at the people I'd like to meet. I had listed The Wu-Tang Clan, Dave Chappelle, and Howard Stern. I forgot Larry David.
The judge thought about all this for a long moment and then said, "I'm going to have you take a seat over there."
He pointed at the jury box.
"Over there?" I said, in slight disbelief. I was headed toward the jury box! I quickly accepted it. It was my civic duty, it was only a six day trial, and my family would figure it out. It wasn't the end of the world. My students would be fine.
I took three steps, and then I heard the judge again. I turned. The prosecutor had just finished speaking to the judge. Telling the judge to dismiss me. No way the prosecutor wanted some liberal bombastic blowhard all full of random and useless information on his jury.
So I was dismissed. And I didn't have to act like a racist or a lunatic or a mind-reader.
I just had to be myself.
Weird.
I hope my wife doesn't get bitten by a rabid animal (probably a coyote) next Monday . . . because it's going to happen to me on Tuesday. These things come in threes.
As far as jury duty went, my wife got called upstairs but didn't have to fill out any questionnaires or do any interviews. So she didn't need to utilize any of the stupid advice people give about how to get out of jury duty.
Stupid Advice People Give You So You Can Get Out of Jury Duty
"Tell the judge you can tell people are guilty just by looking into their eyes!"
"Act crazy!"
The Real Deal with "Voir Dire"
If you've ever been interviewed for a spot on a jury-- the process known in legal parlance as "voir dire"-- then you know this advice is absurd. You're in front of the general public, in a formal situation, talking to someone wearing robes, in a court of law.
You don't want to present yourself as racist clairvoyant lunatic.
You might run into these people in the future.
My wife sat in a room for a while and then got released early.
I was not as lucky as my wife.
I arrived at 8 AM, and snagged a choice seat at the one large table by the TV (advice from my wife) so I could get some grading done. The presiding judge came down and spoke to us about the importance of jury duty and the system. He explained the difference between an inconvenience and a hardship. Then we watched a video, which gave us some instructions on how to behave if we were on a jury. We instructed to not only listen to the witnesses, but to observe their body language and tone of voice as well. I had a problem with this, which I tucked away in the recess of my brain. Then I got back to reading quizzes.
I was called upstairs at 9:30 AM, with a hundred other citizens. One of the elevators was broken so we had to stuff ourselves into the good one, in shifts. We were crammed into a courtroom. I was sitting in between a tall white guy from Texas and an older African American gentleman with one earring who was working on an adult coloring book with some markers. The judge told us they needed 12 jurors for a criminal case, and then he told us a bit about the case. I can't reveal this information, or I might get fined $1000. The prosecutor and the defendant and the defendant's lawyer were all there. The defendant was accused of a violent crime. He was African-American and looked like a tough hombre. You'll understand why I mention his race soon enough.
We filled out two questionnaires and then the judge, prosecutor and lawyer interviewed possible jurors. This went on for hours. We finally got to break for lunch at 12:30 and I went to Tavern of George (a.k.a. Tumulty's) and inhaled a burger. The beer looked was tempting, but I didn't want to be found in contempt of court.
I went back, finished my grading, and added some information to my questionnaire. Quite a bit of information. There was nothing else to do. And I decided if I got called up that I wasn't going to repeat what I did last time I went through "voir dire." No pathetic pleading. I would not throw myself prostate upon the mercy of the court. My kids were older now, and more responsible. If I got called to be on a trial, so be it.
So I would be myself. I would explain that it was a rough time of year for me to miss-- because of the College Writing curriculum-- but that this was more of an inconvenience than a hardship.
At 2 PM, I got called up for some "voir dire." I took a deep breath and walked over to the table with the judge, the prosecutor, and the defendant's attorney. I sat down. I told the judge my school situation, but very plainly, without drama or histrionics, and he said he would consider it. Then we got into my questionnaire.
First he wanted to know why I said I wouldn't be able to convict someone just on testimony alone. I told him about the new Malcolm Gladwell book Talking to Strangers and just how difficult it was to determine whether a stranger was telling the truth or lying. I told him I had a problem with the instructional video, because its very difficult to determine anything credible from tone and body language. Some people always seem like they are telling the truth and other people always seem nervous or anxious or sketchy. And it doesn't mean much. I talked about the fallibility of human memory and the ambiguity of eyewitness accounts.
Then we went through the people my interactions with the legal world. My brother worked in the building. My dad was director of corrections. I had a few run-ins with the law, but mainly college shenanigans.
Then he asked me why I wasn't sure if the legal system was fair. I told him I had read and listened to a lot about Ferguson and the shooting of Michael Brown, and I had listened to Serial Season 3 in its entirety, which delved into the corruption int he Cleveland court system. I told him I had learned that sometimes the court system is designed to shake down and oppress people of color.
Then we took a look at the free response questions. We were upstairs for a long time and I had answered the questions comprehensively. For example, there was a question about how you get your news. I had listed every podcast I to which I subscribed-- this is a long list.
The judge saw this scrawling mess and said, "I don't think we've ever had anyone run out of room on the sheet."
We talked my favorite books and movies (the judge enjoyed The Irishman) and the prosecutor pursued the list of magazines I often read: The New Yorker and Harper's and Mother Jones and The Atlantic and Wired and The Week.
The judge took a look at the people I'd like to meet. I had listed The Wu-Tang Clan, Dave Chappelle, and Howard Stern. I forgot Larry David.
The judge thought about all this for a long moment and then said, "I'm going to have you take a seat over there."
He pointed at the jury box.
"Over there?" I said, in slight disbelief. I was headed toward the jury box! I quickly accepted it. It was my civic duty, it was only a six day trial, and my family would figure it out. It wasn't the end of the world. My students would be fine.
I took three steps, and then I heard the judge again. I turned. The prosecutor had just finished speaking to the judge. Telling the judge to dismiss me. No way the prosecutor wanted some liberal bombastic blowhard all full of random and useless information on his jury.
So I was dismissed. And I didn't have to act like a racist or a lunatic or a mind-reader.
I just had to be myself.
Murder on a Sunday Morning
I highly recommend this documentary . . . almost as much as I highly recommend NOT being black in Gainesville, Florida when the police are out looking for a murder suspect (fans of the podcast Serial will love this . . . and Murder on a Sunday Morning has a unambiguous and satisfying ending, I promise).
Spoiler? Only If Dave is as Smart as John B. McLemore
I am just starting episode five of S-Town, the fantastic new podcast from the producers of This American Life and Serial, and I have a bold out-of-the-box prediction (especially considering the Flannery O'Connoresque Southern Gothic tone of the story) and I promise my speculative conjecture won't spoil a thing if you haven't started listening, but I'm making my guess and it's Bitcoin.
Tony Luke's is Better Than Jim's (and Other Notes for Future Trips to Philly)
Catherine and I spent the weekend in Philly (sans kids) and I'd like to note some highs and lows for both my readers and my future self:
1) Not only is the roast pork sandwich with sharp provolone and long hots at Tony Luke's better than the same offering at DiNic's-- but (though it's comparing apples to oranges . . . or pigs to cows) it's also better than a cheesesteak at Jim's-- and as an added bonus, the staff is actually cordial at Tony Luke's-- the woman taking my order didn't seem to mind at all that I had a question-- while Jim's has a "soup Nazi" feel to the ordering process . . . who do I order from? . . . the guy with the metal thingie? . . . did he make eye contact with me? . . . does that mean I need to say something? . . . I'm pretty far along in the line . . . am I too far in line? . . . should I have said something? . . . is it too late? . . . did I miss my chance?. . . do they have provolone? . . . do I have to say "wit wiz"? . . .. how do you spell "whiz"? . . . should I say "wit prov"? and after all the hazing, we were still underwhelmed by the cheesesteaks from Jim's this time around (although I must admit, that past times they were delicious);
2) our next trip to Philadelphia, I am going to get a cheesesteak from Tony Luke's and see if it is as good as the roast pork sandwich (because quite a few people were eating cheesesteaks there);
3) the Good Dog and La Locanda Del Ghiottone are great places to eat;
4) the tour of the Physick House is worth doing: the guy who does the tour is the great-great grandson of Dr. Physick-- "The Father of American Surgery"-- and while he's an eccentric man, who seems to be living his life both in the 18th Century and the present, simultaneously, there is no question that he knows a buttload about the house and the history of the area, which he gets across in passionate anecdotal fashion, with loads of bad puns, and -- odd as he is, and history buffs are usually quite odd-- at least he doesn't dress in period garb, which is a big plus . . . but be warned, the good Doctor's surgical tools are rather primitive and the accompanying diagrams made me light-headed and also, I'm pretty sure he explained to us, while discussing the family tree on the wall in the room with all the surgical tools, that he's seriously inbred;
5) The Hop Sing Laundromat has a lot of rules, so I put the kibosh on going there;
6) listening to the podcast Serial while driving is dangerous stuff . . . Lynn and Connell were so engrossed that they missed the exit . . . by thirty miles (but Lynn did get an A+ on the Episode 10 quiz that Catherine and I created for my class);
7) Connel got the perfect mojito at lunch at Cuba Libre, but then couldn't get the diner bartender to replicate it . . . but he does claim that the best drinks in the world are served at the awkwardly named Franklin Mortgage & Investment Company (but Catherine and I didn't go over there, as you have to mortgage your house to afford the drinks, which run fifteen dollars a piece-- but Lynn and Connel say it was well worth it, so next time I will suck it up and pay);
8) if you want to go to Farmicia, you need a reservation; same with Howl at the Moon, and McGillin's was a madhouse at 10 PM on a Saturday night, far too young a crowd (we walked in while the bouncers were breaking up a fight . . . the place was a giant frat party-- if you want to visit Philly's oldest bar, try the afternoon);
9) it's a long walk from the Old City to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, especially when it's pouring rain and you're only wearing a sweatshirt because your wife didn't emphasize the weather forecast (she told me, but she didn't TELL me);
10) the Thomas Bond House keeps the heat too high, so you have to break the rules and open the windows-- which have no screens because it's a restored historical house.
1) Not only is the roast pork sandwich with sharp provolone and long hots at Tony Luke's better than the same offering at DiNic's-- but (though it's comparing apples to oranges . . . or pigs to cows) it's also better than a cheesesteak at Jim's-- and as an added bonus, the staff is actually cordial at Tony Luke's-- the woman taking my order didn't seem to mind at all that I had a question-- while Jim's has a "soup Nazi" feel to the ordering process . . . who do I order from? . . . the guy with the metal thingie? . . . did he make eye contact with me? . . . does that mean I need to say something? . . . I'm pretty far along in the line . . . am I too far in line? . . . should I have said something? . . . is it too late? . . . did I miss my chance?. . . do they have provolone? . . . do I have to say "wit wiz"? . . .. how do you spell "whiz"? . . . should I say "wit prov"? and after all the hazing, we were still underwhelmed by the cheesesteaks from Jim's this time around (although I must admit, that past times they were delicious);
2) our next trip to Philadelphia, I am going to get a cheesesteak from Tony Luke's and see if it is as good as the roast pork sandwich (because quite a few people were eating cheesesteaks there);
3) the Good Dog and La Locanda Del Ghiottone are great places to eat;
4) the tour of the Physick House is worth doing: the guy who does the tour is the great-great grandson of Dr. Physick-- "The Father of American Surgery"-- and while he's an eccentric man, who seems to be living his life both in the 18th Century and the present, simultaneously, there is no question that he knows a buttload about the house and the history of the area, which he gets across in passionate anecdotal fashion, with loads of bad puns, and -- odd as he is, and history buffs are usually quite odd-- at least he doesn't dress in period garb, which is a big plus . . . but be warned, the good Doctor's surgical tools are rather primitive and the accompanying diagrams made me light-headed and also, I'm pretty sure he explained to us, while discussing the family tree on the wall in the room with all the surgical tools, that he's seriously inbred;
5) The Hop Sing Laundromat has a lot of rules, so I put the kibosh on going there;
6) listening to the podcast Serial while driving is dangerous stuff . . . Lynn and Connell were so engrossed that they missed the exit . . . by thirty miles (but Lynn did get an A+ on the Episode 10 quiz that Catherine and I created for my class);
7) Connel got the perfect mojito at lunch at Cuba Libre, but then couldn't get the diner bartender to replicate it . . . but he does claim that the best drinks in the world are served at the awkwardly named Franklin Mortgage & Investment Company (but Catherine and I didn't go over there, as you have to mortgage your house to afford the drinks, which run fifteen dollars a piece-- but Lynn and Connel say it was well worth it, so next time I will suck it up and pay);
8) if you want to go to Farmicia, you need a reservation; same with Howl at the Moon, and McGillin's was a madhouse at 10 PM on a Saturday night, far too young a crowd (we walked in while the bouncers were breaking up a fight . . . the place was a giant frat party-- if you want to visit Philly's oldest bar, try the afternoon);
9) it's a long walk from the Old City to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, especially when it's pouring rain and you're only wearing a sweatshirt because your wife didn't emphasize the weather forecast (she told me, but she didn't TELL me);
10) the Thomas Bond House keeps the heat too high, so you have to break the rules and open the windows-- which have no screens because it's a restored historical house.
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