Despite Trump, Things Are Getting Better

The new episode of "Making Sense," a conversation between Sam Harris and Andrew McAfee, is generally positive and inspirational (despite how boring Harris can be . . . you've got to get past his introductory bombast). 

McAfee discusses what he calls "the great uncoupling," which the modern phenomenon of progress with less resource consumption. Bits not bolts. Once upon a time, progress came with incredible costs. The industrial revolution wreaked havoc upon the environment, cities, families, and society. But, according to McAfee, now things are different.

The discussion runs the gamut: technology, UBI, the future of developing world, global warming, nuclear power, and the pros and cons of capitalism. And while capitalism has been getting a bad rap of late, it does seem to be the best way to raise all ships-- as long as there is a responsive government to deal with externalities. And one of the biggest externalities to capitalism and market economies is pollution. Your pig farm may be doing incredible business but if your pig shit rolls down the hill into my backyard, I need to be compensated for my loss. 

Air pollution is one of those externalities, and McAfee explains that there is a legitimate question about such an externality.

Has the Clean Air Act of 1970 gone too far? Are the costs more than the benefits? Are the regulations hurting business and the economy more than they are helping people avoid asthma, lung cancer, and other respiratory diseases?

And he explains that we have definitely answered that question. The answer is:

NO

Especially in New Jersey. But God only knows why, our current pussygrabber-in-chief loves air pollution. He loves it more than big business love it. He loves increased auto emissions as much as he hates California. It's weird, because everyone has to breathe the air, red or blue, rich or poor, immigrant or lily-white Trumpist. I get it when he bends the tax laws to punish the blue states. We're not his people. But the air is for everyone. What the fuck?

While you can't do much about the lunatic in the white house, you can help the problem. Burning wood fires is a major contributor to air pollution as well. I'm sure Trump supporters will react to this with disdain, but it's another externality. If my neighbor lights his fireplace, my kids suffer. So cut it out. Hang some LED lights on your deck like I did, and enjoy clean low wattage smoke-free lighting. And support nuclear power, because despite the excellent entertainment value of HBO's Chernobyl, the next generation of nuclear is the next step in the great uncoupling. 

Vacation is Over (Cue the Cave Crickets)

No time for abstractions and bombast today, I'm back from vacation and battling a horde of cave crickets inside my beautifully designed but ill maintained bike shed . . . I've been flushing them out with our leaf blower and I now I've got a fan running int here so they won't return; I just got back from Home Depot with a big sheet of plywood for a new floor, tar paper to seal things up, pressure treated four by fours so there's no need for kickstands, and a waning supply of determination.

Pun of the Century?

My friend Terry would not shut up yesterday about the imminent blizzard-- he kept abreast of the weather forecast on a minute-to-minute basis and streamed this information to the office in a constant cascade of meteorological bombast-- but moments before final dismissal, justice was served . . . I had a lexical epiphany and called him a "snow-it-all," and for a few hours, my self-esteem was riding high and I was much impressed with my wit, but after some research, I found out that "snow-it-all" is already defined at Urban Dictionary, so though I did think of the term in the moment, I can't take credit for coining up it.

Could This Be a Game Show?

I do a lesson with my Composition class on removing the "clutter" from their writing-- I like to teach the lesson just after a student uses the word "plethora" in an essay (or "myriad") and once we learn about clutter-- I use a couple of George Carlin bits to drive the idea home-- then, to completely exorcise the bombast, we write "clutter riddles"-- incredibly dense and prolix descriptions of everyday occurrences . . . and we try to guess what each passage is describing; I think this would be an excellent game show (perhaps The Test will do a trial run)-- here is an example that I wrote, and I'll put the answer in the comments:

1) when your antagonist commits an iniquitous act, you may find benevolence from a higher power, who will beckon you to enter the semi-circle and stand parallel to the diameter and then behold-- the sphere will be bequeathed to you by the hands of authority and you may launch the orb towards the halo in the firmament for one half the value, but still not no a negligible amount;

and here's my favorite one this year from the students;

2) the portal to the universe increases in magnitude and the fragile, delicate spheroid is ejected and immediately surrounded by a group of similar-minded experts who, with much frenzy and brouhaha, congregate, awaiting the high pitched frequency sound that will satisfy them. 

Let's Bask in Dave's Awesomeness

For those of you that visit here solely because you relish Dave's awkwardness, failures, pedantry, and bombast, you might want to stop reading today's post right now . . . because today's post is a tale of success, timing, and perfection; last Thursday, I was running my son's travel team practice at the high school turf field, and there was a lot going on: my other son had practice on the far side of the field, and some high school kids were playing a game of touch football in the middle of the field -- which would have been fine, except that every time they punted the ball it came flying end-over-end into our scrimmage by the goal, and after the third time this happened, I had one of my players bring me the ball -- and then --in the typically grouchy and hyperbolic fashion that I adopt after several hours of coaching-- I yelled to them: "You need to stop punting, because you're not good at it, and you're going to kill one of my players!" and then I held the ball out with both hands, tilted slightly downward and to the left, and launched a picturesque high-arcing fifty yard punt, on a perfect spiral, into the arms of the farthest kid (and I know it was a fifty yard, punt because I was at the goal line and he was at the fifty) and though I was probably a bit over-the-top and obnoxious in my tone with them, because of the  beauty of my punt, they apologized profusely (and later on, I gave them a quick lesson on how to punt a spiral).

Vince Lombardi Would Not Approve

No sport is more abstract than soccer, and at the high school level there seems to be a preponderance of English teachers coaching it (at least in my neck of the woods and the movie Dead Poet's Society) so you end up with comments like the one my friend and colleague Terry recently gave to The Star Ledger, in trying to explain how his team could completely dominate play, but only score two goals . . . Terry said: "They say it is easier to destroy than create" and while this statement pushes the limits of absurd profundity and bombast in the name of athletics, at least he restrained himself and didn't drop allusions to Shiva and Brahma in the rest of his game analysis.

Bibulous Bombast

Sometimes, after I have a few drinks, I like to sit down and start a sentence even though I don't know where it's going to end up, and any time I do this, it is a waste of everyone's time, so I always promise myself I'll never do it again, but like all promises made when sober-- promises never to dip tobacco again or eat fatcats or have more than six beers in a sitting or post blog entries with a buzz-- the pledge fades in comparison to the glow of alcohol, and so, once again, I have posted a rambling sentence with little or no literary purpose . . . something I won't be particularly proud of ten years from now, but still, it does capture a moment, minutia from a typical day, and perhaps that is worth something in itself . . . or not.