A couple people have asked if I would rejoin Twitter with Elon Musk’s takeover of the service. I think this is based on a misconception - I was never banned from Twitter formally. I lost my Twitter privileges as a matter of my own integrity because of very bad behavior. Besides, Twitter is not a good match for my personality at all. I’m much happier off of it.
Please check me out on the EdSurge podcast.
This Week’s Posts
Monday, October 24th - The One That Looks
Fatalism about identity issues provides no incentive for members of dominant groups to change.
Tuesday, October 25th - Two Education Stories That Are Just Begging for Good Journalism
Freddie on the assignment desk grind.
Friday, October 28th - Mad Max in Park Slope: Alternate Side of the Street Parking
My weekly war.
We also continued the Jesus’ Son book club.
From the Archives
Song of the Week
Non-Garbage Online Reading
This 40,000-word piece on crypto by Matt Levine is an amazing accomplishment.
Book Recommendation
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith, 1943
Just a delight. A deeply observed, achingly sweet coming-of-age story about a young girl at turn-of-the-century Brooklyn, this book moves unhurriedly through the life of a poor family and its struggles and successes. I'm sure I'm using this word wrong, but there's something so wonderfully <i>premodern</i> about the book; it's a real relief to read something that's totally allergic to winking and has no meta-theatrics at all. Francie is a beautifully drawn character. And I know we're not supposed to romanticize poverty, but the poverty depicted in this book just is so damn romantic. It can get perhaps a bit saccharine at times, but that's the price of being filled with such consistently moving sentiment. Highly recommended.
NFL Picks of the Week
Back in money. Honestly a lot of my strategy is just looking for big juicy lines and betting they’re a little too big. In that vein, I like the Chicago Bears +10 over the Dallas Cowboys. Yes, Dak Prescott’s back, but I think he’ll have some rust to shake off, and after watching the Bears move the ball against the Patriots, I don’t know why a team that’s played a soft schedule like the Cowboys is laying ten to them. Take the points and the value.
Season record: 7-1-0
Comment of the Week
I don’t think I’ve ever read a better description either of the New York City parking shuffle, or of that routine as a metonym (?) for other aspects of New York life. The Germans could make a wonderful vocabulary for this: Parkplatzglück, when you’re happy about your parking space. Parkplatzschmerz, when you park, then on your way to your door see an even better space you could have taken (you don’t dare try, b/c if you walk back to your car and get in, the driver who’s now ahead of you could take it AND the guy behind you could take your previous space, leaving you spaceless). There’s even Parkingplatzschadenfreude, when you pull into a space knowing the guy behind you is hunting too.
Also I like this mundane Freddie: very gemütlich. - Jeff G.
That’s it. I’m mostly off for vacation next week. Happy Halloween!
“The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called ‘Keep to–morrow dark,’ and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) ‘Cheat the Prophet.’ The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.”
- G. K. Chesterton, “The Napoleon of Notting Hill”
Twitter ruins writers. It gets in their head and then reading or watching/listening to stuff they produce reads just like it was written by the childish dysfunctional twitter cult hivemind. It's frustrating and tragic.