A wonderful short essay on soccer & politics in Brazil, from Andrew Downie in the London Review of Books: Sócrates & Brazilian Democracy.
Joan Barry & two forms of political belief
This article is fascinating. It follows Joan Barry, a Missouri Democrat whose politics don’t neatly fit entirely within party lines, as she tries to make some room for pro-life Democrats within the party. I think it reveals some damaging assumptions undergirding contemporary political life. Consider why one person quoted rejects Barry’s position: Right now it’s really important to stand for something. Later on, someone else uses very similar language to dismiss Barry:
Fall Walks, Silverwood Park
2018-10-17 2018-10-18
Truth vs useful knowledge: Teaching business students *How to Think*
I’m teaching Alan Jacobs’s book How to Think to my business communication students this semester. Communicating and thinking are inseparable, and I’ve always tried and struggled to integrate critical thinking into my course. Previously, I’ve tried using John Lanchester’s How to Speak Money, in addition to assorted essays and excerpts, without much success. But Jacobs’s book has gone much better so far, because it does something that the other books haven’t: it meets the students where they’re at, in a social-media environment that is shaping their habits of thinking and communicating in ways none of us fully recognizes or understands.
I work with a lot of different foreign languages, & Korean is my favorite, hands down. The font we use makes it look like hieroglyphics from the future.
Everything you need to know about Facebook’s understanding of journalism—in one useful ad!
Happy 85th birthday to the great Wayne Shorter! We mere mortals can celebrate by reading Ethan Iverson on Shorter’s transcendental year, 1964.
While you read, listen to his albums from that year: Night Dreamer, Juju, & Speak No Evil. 🎂📚🎶
Craigslist purchase of the year. $30!
In a remarkable essay for NYT Magazine, Ilya Kaminsky revisits Odessa, city of his birth.
Time & silence, Tolstoy’s ears, fathers & mothers & sons, WWII, the essay is about everything, & nothing. (“When I say the word nothing, I name something that is there.”)
Centrist Democrats in the Age of Trump
Yesterday, the NYT published an interesting, and beautifully photographed, article on ND senator Heidi Heitkamp. The piece is framed in terms of the difficulty of her decision to approve or oppose Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. But by the middle of article, it’s reasonably clear she’ll be one of the Democrats who will approve the nomination; the real issue is the impact of Trump’s misguided trade wars on Midwestern farmers.