I have a few irons in the proverbial fire at the moment but nothing ready to go today, so for now let's have a peek behind the curtain and see what's simmering on the TOA back-burners.
The best advice of the pandemic
I read on a training page about a marathon runner who always walks through the water stations. I think this is critical advice for many runners - especially those like me who are prone to overdoing it from time to time - but the underlying wisdom in the idea is that we all generally struggle to stop, and maybe learning how to stop would make a world of difference.
Lately, I notice this lesson playing out in the little daily interactions of pandemic life. Most people walking toward each other seem perfectly happy to veer far out of the way to avoid a close pass; sometimes one person steps into the street. But this solution allows for continuous movement, which I suspect is relevant. My suspicion is that we much prefer to go the long way around when the alternative is stopping and letting someone go first. In fact, I often see people brush past each other on the sidewalk, well within the danger zone of corona transmission, when if one or the other had simply stopped - sometimes just for two seconds - safe passage for all could have been assured.
Teaching Van Persie syndrome
I wrote a few years ago about Robin Van Persie, a forward for Arsenal who made a controversial transfer to Manchester United at the tail end of his prime. Many wondered why he would switch from a very good team to a slightly better team; a couple of years later, Kevin Durant make a similar decision in the NBA.
My main point was that Van Persie left because he realized that at Arsenal he would stagnate as the best player whereas at Manchester United he would improve, spurred on by the slightly higher quality of teammate in his new squad. I think many of us have heard a version of this thinking - if you are the smartest person in a room, go find another room. I fear this is a pretty standard way of thinking, and explains why certain institutions are eroding. This might be particularly true in teaching because this is a terrible attitude for teachers, whose response should be to stay in the room until everyone else is just as smart.
UFOs
For some reason, when people talk about UFOs they don't talk about possibilities like aliens arriving with a cure for cancer or Yoda planting a giant tree that converts greenhouse gases to clean air. No, it's always an invasion with ray guns and laser missiles. Why? Is it just because conspiracy theorists overcompensate for a lack of imagination with pattern recognition skills?
Advice for Dave Chappelle
The '8:46' special was one of the most remarkable performances of the pandemic, but I have some feedback regarding his use of certain slurs. In short, show (by telling) don't tell (by using labels).
The race to Racist Joe
The Washington Football Team announced its new name on July 13 in a short statement. I don't think anyone was surprised by this announcement, demonstrating that when it comes to change it's almost always a matter of when, not if. I think Trader Joe's has reached this point. An online petition demanding the grocery store chain remove racist branding from its stores received thousands of signatures and forced the supermarket to consider the possibility; it eventually announced that it would not make any changes to its brand names, disputing the claim of racism.
The only thing that is certain to me is that these brands will eventually change because thousands of people never accidentally agree that a corporate brand is racist. The crowd is small today but its ranks will swell in the coming years. For now, these labels join other 'when not if' candidates such as Christopher Columbus Park in the North End and sports teams that have yet to follow Washington's example. In the meantime, I'm working out my own thinking about Trader Joe's, particularly because I've long referred to it, jokingly, as "Racist Joe's" without ever understanding why those words came to mind in the first place.
Reading reviws
These are piling up again thanks to the reopening of local libraries. I may try to write a full post for each book, but I'm considering a return to old ways for some books, writing about them in groups of three or four when I don't have too much to say about my reading experience.
Can we trust TOA?
Longtime readers may recall that I did a similar exercise back in April with mixed follow through - I wrote about some things but I never got around to the others. Who knows? No promises with today's list, but I assure you I am working on all of the above.
Until then, masks on, and maybe stop here and there when the situation calls for it.
Thanks for reading.
