The academic term has finally wound down, and with that comes a reduction in the amount of frantic scrambling I have to do for my day job. So, of course, I promptly took steps to create new work via various side hustles…
Anyway, here’s a round-up of the stuff I’ve managed to write in the last several weeks, followed by the usual clearing out of open tabs:
Me on Substack:
— Twitter and Midterms and Day Job, Oh My: A bunch of brief comments on things I was too busy to write about at greater length.
— The Mid Election: The US elections scaled the dizzying heights of “Meh.”
— The Kids Are Alright: We showed this to The Pip, who read it and said “This is so sappy! I hate it. Every single sentence of this is corny!” He’s not wrong.
— On Expertise and Priorities: Much as I’m in favor of teaching student to better assess expertise, it’s not going to fix much because our biggest problems involve differences in values, and that’s not something expert advice can fix.
— College Is Not What You Think It Is: Addressing some misconceptions about how elite higher education works.
Me Elsewhere:
— This dumbass obvious joke is going to end up being far and away the most popular thing I put on the Internet this month:
In the immortal words of Davd St. Hubbins, “Too much fucking perspective.”
Links Dump:
—Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty, by Emily Oster: I mostly agree with this, but of course it could never be squishy and anodyne enough not to become a point of conflict.
— Mad Max in Park Slope: Alternate Side of the Street Parking, by Freddie deBoer: Not the polemical or political stuff he’s famous for, but I liked this as a piece of writing.
— The Sad Death of Affirmative Action by Jay Caspian Kang: As always, very thoughtful and nuanced. Also, I always enjoy the typographic pecadillos of The New Yorker.
— What Happened When I Made My Students Cheat, by Joel Heng Hartse: I don’t know that I would try this, but it’s an interesting experiment to read about.
— How Stewart Made Tucker by Jon Askonas: A lengthy argument that the golden era of The Daily Show led directly to the appalling current state of “news” shows.
— Paywalls or Constant Intrusive Ads: Pick One by Freddie deBoer: Speaking of the appalling current state of affairs, he’s sadly right about writing on the Internet.
— Salt and salary: were Roman soldiers paid in salt? by Kiwi Hellenist: Another lovely anecdote shot down by ugly facts.
—If You're Scared of Competition, the World Will Eat You Alive, by Jason Pargin: Harsh, but not wrong.
— Academia: What Flips the Switch?, by Timothy Burke: As with a lot of commentary from academics, I think this is a hair too cynical about why people move into administration, but it’s worth reading.
Pseudo-Random Photo of the Week:
Just a dusting, not Buffalo-level stuff, but winter is definitely making itself known.
Pseudo-Random Song of the Week:
I actually looked up “Sally MacLennane” because it came up on shuffle play at a moment when people were being all maudlin about the maybe-end of Twitter (spoiler: it did not end then), but YouTube auto-played this next, and it’s mesmerizing.
So, yeah, a bunch of stuff. Heading into the holiday season with Thanksgiving this week, so it’s not clear how much writing I’ll be doing in the near-ish future, but if you want to find out, here’s a button:
And if any of the links above move you, the comments will be open:
If I had to park in a different spot every time, I am sure I would end up forgetting where my car was.