Syllabus #59

What is there to say, really?  We're here, and by we I mean the Royal We.  Just me.  Who knows, though.  Maybe you're here, too?  If you'd like to stay awhile, help yourself to this week's bounty. 

If I eat this, will I die or develop superpowers?

Not surprised that this hideous incident made national news, and heartened to see how seriously The Tennesseean is handling it.


Useful advice for anyone overwhelmed with that little bullet point on your to-do list that says "dismantle systemic racism" and you're like oh my god, I just learned that you occasionally have to clean the inside of your dishwasher and now this?  Is there a YouTube video for this?


I mean, can you blame them?  Who is the shithole now?  Spoiler alert - it us.


That is an example of true courage and generosity.


What a wonderfully pointless exercise - one that I could see myself undertaking.  If I were to do this in New Jersey, I would definitely walk the streets looking for houses that have that weird iron horse and carriage cutout on the storm door.  I don't think I've seen that on one single house in Nashville, and I spend an inordinate amount of time walking these streets.  Is that a Northeast thing?  A Philly area thing?  In the book Long Bright River by Liz Moore, set in Philadelphia, the narrator mentions that specific detail about a house, and it made me realize, yea, those shits were everywhere but I can't remember the last time I saw one.  Also, most houses here have front porches and thus no need for a storm door, so that might be part of it?  Somebody needs to get on that.  Report back.


We are putting parents of school-age children in an impossible position.  But really, we have been doing it for decades, ever since it became common/acceptable/necessary for women to work outside the home.

"Tell me how he mocks her — which is the only way he knows how to engage with opponents. Or, rather, tell me how he does so without seeming even more obscene than he already does and turning off everyone beyond the cultish segment of the electorate that will never abandon him."  

I can get on board with all these arguments for why Tammy Duckworth would make a fine running mate for Biden, EXCEPT FOR THIS ONE.  Also, no offense to anyone named Tammy, but you need to change your name.  Is Frank Bruni seriously implying that Duckworth's disability is what makes her the best choice because when Trump ultimately attacks and mocks her, doing so will dig his own grave with any voter who has a shred of decency?  I dunno man, first of all, you're not actually wrong in a world that operates according to an actual social contract, but that's still sort of sick and it cheapens all of her other accomplishments and traits to recommend her on that basis.  Plus, we don't live in a world that operates on any kind of predictable social contract as we used to know it.  You would think D.T.'s pussy-grabbing would have alienated all women and most decent men, but we saw how that went.  Not to mention a laundry list of racist and xenophobic statements he has made.  You really think ableism is going to be his downfall?  


Analog Reading:

Finished Amnesty by Aravind Adiga.  There was something about the prose that made me hurry through this book to be done with it.  I appreciated the story very much so I don't want to be overly critical, but this wasn't a favorite for me.

Devoured The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom.  I sped through this one for different reasons.  I gulped it down the way you do a milkshake on a hot day, when it has reached just the perfect consistency to suck it easily through a straw.  I was surprised to find myself so quickly at the bottom of the cup, inhaling air.  Just like a milkshake, it was at once delicious and sad.

Started Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker.  Really just a few pages in at this point, so I have no judgements, but it is an odd coincidence that I picked up two nonfiction books in a row about families with twelve children.