My Inner Puritan

 Why did we need to double the size of our houses in the last 50 years?

Why did we need to increase the proportion of SUV's and pickups we buy to 80 percent of new vehicles?

Why does the average American family spend $1700 on clothing in a year?

Road Rage, Then and Now

My cousin remembers the experience in the 1930s of riding with her father driving.  He was a reckless driver; she says he had "road rage" before the name.

For those who don't remember the days before the interstate, and who no longer regularly drive in rural areas, two-lane roads were standard.  In hilly areas, such as upstate New York, that meant a lot of blind curves, and no-passing zones.  On long drives, like that from Maryland to Minneapolis, or even North Fenton to Ithaca, those zones were frustrating to those of us who are impatient.  Find yourself behind a car whose driver was old, or cautious, or law-abiding (those were more common in those days than now), on a road with lots of traffic coming towards you, with a number of curves or hills, you'd get more and more frustrated, each time you swerved over the middle line and saw a car coming, or ran out of the dashed passing line and into the double white line.

Eventually either the slowboat in front of you would turn off, or you'd take the chance of passing when you really shouldn't.

Afghanistan and US

 Just finished Elliot Ackerman's "Act Five, America's End in Afghanistan". I liked it very much. While the title might imply it's all about the exit from Afghanistan, it's not, not entirely. The construction is different: the thread which drives the narrative is a series of attempts at coordinating through calls with friends and strangers the permissions and logistics of getting Afghans who worked for America and their families onto the planes after the fall of Kabul.  The desperation of the efforts contrasts with his description of the vacation trip with wife and children. 

Another thread is composed of episodes from his tours in Afghanistan (serving first as a Marine officer with the 1-8 (regiment), then as an officer working with paramilitaries (Afghan troop and US special forces), and finally as a CIA paralmilitary officer doing the same. A third thread covers episodes from his life outside of Afghanistan. These threads provide context for his calls.  He weaves his threads together into a nice tapestry, colored with thoughts on America's two wars (he served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan).

He's critical of all the administrations--Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden for their decision, but most of all critical of Americans for the growing separation between society and the military, and the growing inolvement of the military in partisan politics.  It was published in this summer, when we still feared the outcome of the 2022 elections, which went better, more quietly, than we thought then.  

Loss of Authority

 Was thinking about the question of authority--who has it, what does it mean, etc.

Seems to me "authority" has drained away from the people and organizations which had it in my youth. It's perhaps particularly so in the family--as the patriarchy has decline, so has the authority of the father (maybe it's the same thing).

Surveys of the public on their respect for various institutions, police, schools, churches, etc. show a decline over the past decades.  As further confirmation, here's an ngram of American sources (the graph is a smoother decline if you leave the setting at "English").

The Return of Covid

 This NYTimes piece says it may be returning. People mostly aren't masking--the Post mentioned very few masked at last night's state dinner. And they aren't boosting.

(I got my fifth shot, the co-valent booster) the other day.  I sometimes mask, sometimes don't.)  We seem to be accepting of  roughly 300 deaths a day, or maybe 100,000 a year. What does the future hold 

The Visual Revolution

 Discussing our childhoods with a cousin, we both had the experience of Life magazine. For me it was a new perspective on the world.  Before another cousin passed on a few old copies of Life in the late 40's, I hadn't seen many pictures.  Newspapers at that time didn't print many photographs, certainly nothing in color. What pictures I did see were mostly advertising illustrations. 

There were, of course, the newsreels at the movies, but we didn't go to them very often, usually just to Disney movies maybe four or five times a year.

The same cousin who provided the issues of Life also passed on a few National Geographics.  Both magazines were a revelation, in their different ways.  For one, my definition of decolletage is linked to Sophia Loren. 

Since the 1950's we've become a much more visual culture, between the internet, cellphones, and streaming video. I don't know what the change means for other aspects of society, though likely today's childen will never have the same feelings as I did in viewing Ms. Loren (whose wikipedia entry images doesn't include any low necklines.)

Different Browsers, Different Strokes

I use Chrome as my default browser. There seems to be some setting(s) which inhibit accessing certain urls/sites. In some cases when I click on a url the page will start to load a bit, showing maybe a geometric figure, but no content loads.  In other cases there's no activity. 

Possibly connected, sometimes I get a message about the site not being secure--i.e., not using https.  Some of the time I can understand; it's an small website, likely not regularly updated, but some of the time it's idiosyncratic, a site which I can access some of the time, or almost all the time.

Today I tried to access a wikipedia website, which froze.  So I switched to Firefox and had no problem.  

When I look at the settings in Chrome, I don't see anything which is likely the cause. 

The Rise of Individualism

Is there a relationship between the decline of amateurism, most recently seen in the NCAA's new rules on name, image, likeness (NIL) and the desire to work remotely?

I think there is.  Both were subjects in today's newspapers. Today's not a good blogging day, may expand my thoughts later.

The Enduring Greatness of Jim Brown

 When my family first got a TV, the NY Giants games were the ones mostly on TV, so I became a Giant fan. I remember the games with the Cleveland Browns and the greatest NFL back, Jim Brown (who once scored 6 touchdowns against my alma mater, setting a record that lasted for 40+ years, and he didn't just score TD's, he kicked the extra points as well).

When I got to college, I worked in a dorm kitchen along with a man from Long Island.  At that time lacrosse was very much a niche sport; I think it was popular on Long Island and upstate NY where Native Americans continued to play. As good as Jim Brown was at football, he was better at lacrosse, as John told me at the time and was ratified by the lacrosse people.  

Changing of the Guard

 We're seeing a turnover of House leadership for the Democrats. That's good; we need younger members and younger leaders. Sen. Schumer seems to have been effective in the Senate, but there too I'd like to see newer leadership. 

While there's a reasonable argument that some people of my age and above still have good judgment, and that judgment is the most important attribute of a leader, I think it's mistaken.  Leadership is many things, judgment only part of it. So somehow I'd like to see the Democrats come up with a new candidate for the presidency in 2024, but one with good chances of winning, and one who will help candidates for other offices on the ballot. Maintaining control of the Senate will be difficult; the map is against us.  Continuing to make progress in state legislatures and governorships is very important.