The latest research claims that “learning styles” are a myth but that reading aloud to one another is a good thing. I have to wonder sometimes if educational researchers ever consider their own biases?
Gary worried, when he brought me these stems, that they were bamboo from our neighbors’ ugly bamboo hedge. I think: No. At least, I hope not. Anyone?
Running on the highway, I once found a perfectly serviceable machete. The beach is our more common source of junk.
Yesterday was easier. Gary found a commercial grade 3/4 size garbage can kicking around in the creek a little over a half mile north. We almost filled it with plastic trash, including the rubber boot, but we didn’t find the oversize shoe this morning. The thick black lid in the upper right corner [above] was about ten inches across, and half under it, what is that flexible grill-like nylon object? It weighed a ton.
We’ve always gathered litter, but mostly stopped in March 2020. Even then, Gary would pick up dangerous stuff that could hurt someone: syringes and fluorescent light tubes. But we’re back at work.
Continue readingI took guitar lessons in my teens, and that was a long time ago. The late 60s. I still have the guitar, an unusually sweet Aria nylon-string that I haven’t played in fifty years. Gary cares for it. My lessons from Cathy Mack at Shoreline Music focussed on Childe ballads that Joan Baez was singing. I could finger-pick along with singing “The Trees They Do Grow High” and “The Cherry Tree Carole.” Anyone could play “the House of the Rising Sun” and pretty much every garage band of the day covered that one, though it really only made sense with a woman singing it.
Somehow, that brings me to “Jolene.”
We’ve been sorting and clearing for a few years. It’s gone well so far. The attics are empty. Most of my books are prioritized and the most precious of mine have moved East. We’ve talked a lot about the art and furniture that is important to us both. Gary even completely cleared his corner of the living room!
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Yesterday I shared a meme on my newly revived Facebook page. My friends “liked” or “loved” or “cared” that post. The meme contains a great story. I loved the story and appreciated the “truth” of it at first. But then I thought. The problem is that while the story may or may not be fiction, it certainly contains a lie.
This is a 2016 post from my old college class blog:
I said [That is, me, Jan Priddy] the first few paragraphs of this op-ed twenty-seven times to you, one at a time. It took me four days of conferences to explain to each of you that the papers you are currently writing are not about proving how right you are, but about reviewing several reasonable and sincere concerns and finding a solution that is about doing the right thing, not finding a hero or taking sides.
We live in a big, diverse society. There are essentially two ways to maintain order and get things done in such a society — politics or some form of dictatorship. Either through compromise or brute force. Our founding fathers chose politics.
Politics is an activity in which you recognize the simultaneous existence of different groups, interests and opinions. You try to find some way to balance or reconcile or compromise those interests, or at least a majority of them. You follow a set of rules, enshrined in a constitution or in custom, to help you reach these compromises in a way everybody considers legitimate.
The downside of politics is that people never really get everything they want. It’s messy, limited and no issue is ever really settled. Politics is a muddled activity in which people have to recognize restraints and settle for less than they want. Disappointment is normal.
But that’s sort of the beauty of politics, too. It involves an endless conversation in which we learn about other people and see things from their vantage point and try to balance their needs against our own. Plus, it’s better than the alternative: rule by some authoritarian tyrant who tries to govern by clobbering everyone in his way.
As Bernard Crick wrote in his book, “In Defence of Politics,” “Politics is a way of ruling divided societies without undue violence.”
Over the past generation we have seen the rise of a group of people who are against politics. These groups — best exemplified by the Tea Party but not exclusive to the right — want to elect people who have no political experience. They want “outsiders.” They delegitimize compromise and deal-making. They’re willing to trample the customs and rules that give legitimacy to legislative decision-making if it helps them gain power.
Ultimately, they don’t recognize other people. They suffer from a form of political narcissism, in which they don’t accept the legitimacy of other interests and opinions. They don’t recognize restraints. They want total victories for themselves and their doctrine.
This antipolitics tendency has had a wretched effect on our democracy. It has led to a series of overlapping downward spirals:
The antipolitics people elect legislators who have no political skills or experience. That incompetence leads to dysfunctional government, which leads to more disgust with government, which leads to a demand for even more outsiders.
The antipolitics people don’t accept that politics is a limited activity. They make soaring promises and raise ridiculous expectations. When those expectations are not met, voters grow cynical and, disgusted, turn even further in the direction of antipolitics.
The antipolitics people refuse compromise and so block the legislative process. The absence of accomplishment destroys public trust. The decline in trust makes deal-making harder.
We’re now at a point where the Senate says it won’t even hold hearings on a presidential Supreme Court nominee, in clear defiance of custom and the Constitution. We’re now at a point in which politicians live in fear if they try to compromise and legislate. We’re now at a point in which normal political conversation has broken down. People feel unheard, which makes them shout even louder, which further destroys conversation…
—“The Governing Cancer of Our Time” by David Brooks, FEB. 26, 2016 in The New York Times
Nearly eight years ago. And, mind you, David Brooks is a Republican. (This is why Obama was not able to put a centrist on the Supreme Court and why we got that sniveling whiner instead nominated by Trump. Brooks doesn’t mention McConnell who really ramped up the crazy. Even McConnell must be sorry about this by now.) Brooks was scared even before the election. Is this a little scary, given what is happening in Congress today? It should be making us all worried.
What I’ve been doing, what I haven’t been doing, what I wished would happen.
Continue readingI am ready for October to end. It is my favorite month, most years. My birthday and the shift into wearing sweaters. All good. But this year, October has been too much. Good and bad. Writing, knitting, weaving. An ouch. Overlapping Zoom meetings, three times this month. Busy is great, but I’m getting out of breath.
The light in the recycling room of our condo has been out for three weeks. The management company’s cleaning staff reported the light out, then a neighbor checked and found four other outages. Someone was sent to replace the recycling room light, but it still didn’t turn on. They concluded it was an issue with the ballast. This was discussed ad nauseam during the Zoom HOA meeting last night. In the middle of this, Gary went down and looked. The fluorescent tube was installed incorrectly. He had to come back up to get our ladder to fix it, and they were still talking about it when it was fixed. One Board member sent him a thumbs up in the Chat. You would think…
I recently began another push to improve my health. I ran the Bridge Crossing, which was fun but slower than I expected. I took my blood pressure this week: 140/84. That’s bad, sure, but a month ago it was 151/91. Twenty years ago my BP was 90/60 and had been throughout my younger adult life. My resting heart rate is generally 58-60, and that hasn’t changed. When I’ve asked medical people about why my blood pressure has changed, they only say: Well, BP changes as we age. Bullocks to that.
I’ve been vegetarian with occasional pescatarian lapses for 33 years. I eat organic. I do not eat fast food or ingest sodas or other unhealthy stuff. I’ve kept to the recommended coffee and alcohol servings for a woman.
For the past couple of years my weight has been good with a BMI of about 22.5. I could stand to lose another ten pounds, sure. I have recently cut alcohol consumption to 4 glasses of wine/month and shifted from my one and half cups of Gary’s industrial strength morning coffee to peppermint tea or chai. I run every other day. All good, right? We’ll see about my BP with these most recent changes.
I’ve sold five shawls this month at the local gallery, which is how many I sold in two hours last year at the Night Market (which was cancelled this summer). Not bad, but not great. I did finally find a better way of knotting my fringes that I am particularly pleased about. And another warp is working itself out in my head. I will put it on the loom next week after my loom is home. More purples and blues, I think.
This morning—okay, this is bad—I fell during my run this morning. I landed hard on concrete. Over the years, this is my fourth fall. I generally pop right back up and run on. Not this time. On my left cheekbone. Bashed knees. Slammed fingers. My first thought, before I tried to move and sit up: where am I injured? Hip is not broken—good. Face hurts. Knees hurt. Fingers hurt. I sit up. Swirl, so mild concussion? Two men immediately rush over. Are you okay? Are you okay? I’m okay. White kid on bike and Black construction worker. Do you need a bandaide? I’m fine. I can’t see where I am bleeding (later: little finger, left hand). Another construction worker, in hard hat. Are you okay? As soon as I can, I stand. Not in great shape, face hurts, hand, elbows. Knees stop hurting as soon as I begin to move. Then my shoulder hurts.
I give them credit, they hung on till I was moving.
So. Hands, especially the right one, hurts. I have a lump on my left cheekbone that suggests some color by tomorrow. Gary says I look like someone hit me. No one hit me. It was concrete. That pavement jumped right up and smacked me! Scraped hands and knees without touching my new running tights.
Knitting is painful, but so is typing, yet here I go.
I am now going to eat an entire little carton of raspberry sorbet. Okay, half.
I misplaced my blog, not the blog or the posts (which are only hiding), but the BLOG. I think I have it back. The posts are all still… here. Like this one. I hope. Let me know. Gary is still unable to comment, which is Not A Good Thing.
[UPDATE: Things seem to be where they should be. All good.]
…and this post showed up in my email “Junk” folder. So there’s that.
