Currently reading: My Father, the Pornographer by Chris Offutt 📚. Well-told, great details, and he takes his time unfurling the discoveries and weaving them in with his memories. But God, what a harrowing childhood he and his siblings had. Told with a tone of rather tired remembrance; there’s love there, sometimes (for his friends, his siblings, his mother), but little joy.
These are not serious people, and their proud and weaponized indifference is another reflection of their hollow rottenness and their desire to inflict their flaws on all of us to do a tremendous amount of damage, quickly. These days, some of the stupidest things are often also the most frightening.
Source: Florida’s Commissioner of Education thinks Jane Austen was an American. ‹ Literary Hub
“Proud and weaponized indifference” – Yes, this.
Finished audiobook: I Must Say by Martin Short 📚 We’d started listening to this last year and I finished it solo last night. Audiobook is the best way to experience Short as he does the voices, the characters, the singing, and his timing is exquisite. The middle career years are a bit of a slog, though he tipped me to some movies of his I’d never heard of. But the book’s heart is his relationship with his wife of 30 years, Nancy; the book’s last long sections detailing her cancer treatments and death were hard, tender, and full of love. I was so moved by his last conversation with Nancy that closes the book, and how his relationship with her was neverending (the book was written four years after her death). Come for the great showbiz stories, yes, but stay for the heart and the person.
A local online news service staffed by Duke journalism students recently started using AI to identify and draft news stories of interest. The AI has surfaced strong local content, but the articles need vetting and editing. More: Early lessons from 10th Street - 9th Street Journal
Good Lord…
Local exposure to poor individuals reduces support for redistribution among the well-off. In other words, wealthy people are more likely to favor government programs helping the poor if they never see poor people. Source: Science and Technology links (May 25 2024) – Daniel Lemire’s blog
For my wife, the vacation starts when we’re on the way to the airport. For me, vacation starts after all the mechanics and problem-solving of travel are behind me – TSA check, rental car, unfamiliar highways, how does the shower work, etc. That first meal after all these problems are behind me is when vacation starts for me.
