Ted Gioia had a good Substack post today, listing ten reasons why technology is suddenly (?) making things worse. He linked to several older posts which laid the groundwork for his observations, which I saved to my Reader inbox — love that feature! — so I can read or in some cases re-read them. The Honest Broker more than pays back the subscription price for me. So far it’s the only thing in my feed I am glad to pay money for, and I think I’ve stopped paying for anything else. (I still support Alan Jacobs through BMAC, but for different reasons than getting good value from his writing.) I suppose I should take another look around, stumbling across something else I enjoy as much as The Honest Broker would be a great thing.
I agree with most of what Gioia observes, except that he like many other smart and historically grounded writers gives more credence to the government-for-the-people take on the past couple of centuries, i.e. that we had rapaciousness, but big government and big labor and the welfare state brought it under control, and then unfortunately the system began to fall apart, people lost faith in it and/or started to rebel against its contstraints, which weakened it further, enough so the bad guys could regain control. I’ve read enough “secret history”, particularly about 19th century America, to be persuaded that the bad guys have always wielded power, both in the absence of big govt and by means of it when it came around. Some things do seem to have gotten better during the big govt era, on balance, though I think you can argue that it was a mixed bag, and may have also planted the seeds of its own demise. Anyway, like I first learned from reading Postman, look to these guys for critical analysis and not for possible solutions, those you need to figure out on your own — in large part because your personal effectiveness exists at a much smaller, more local scale than they are examining, and anything you can actually do to good effect is unlikely to be on their radar. (Oliver Burkeman may be an exception to this, his big insight can be applied directly in everyday life.)
E came home with some pills, the Little Clinic said it was bronchitis. Her Medicaid card worked, but I thought she had been removed from the system. Maybe just from our household, but given a different on-her-own status? I’ll be curious to see if there is any followup saying no, in fact you aren’t on Medicaid. In any case I hope the pills help.
Last night I made my ground beef “stroganoff”, just a pound of gb with salt, pepper, garlic powder and some sour cream mixed in at the end. I added a couple of cheese sticks (still more than a bag remaining, now that I don’t eat them daily), melted first in the microwave. It was really good! I think my food intake at this point is balanced, or maybe slightly less that I need. I hover between 149-150, occasionally see 148 or 151. Curious to see how a week of camping affects things. I don’t plan to eat anything extra, but lunch will be a little different, either non-salad tuna with oil and olives (maybe a handful of nuts?), or cottage cheese with a pickle.
Watched a video yesterday by a woman who focuses on Swedish death cleaning. This one not so much about that, but her experience having to suddenly deal with her mom’s stuffed-full house after moving her to assisted living, which redoubled her conviction that she would never place a similar burden on her own kids. The original book about SDC was cheap on Kindle so I bought it and will eventually read or at least skim it. But in her video she mentioned a few principles, one of which struck me: throw out your garbage! There is a lot of stuff that has theoretical value but no one in your family will ever, ever use — so get rid of it now, rather than making your love ones have to sort through it! This is more basic even than things like old power supplies and such. I just went through my office and cleaned out the white bins, of old tea and the NuSalt shakers and other stuff that if anyone wanted some of it some day, they should almost certainly buy new, fresh versions of. And I plan to go through the rest of the house with the same eye, tossing out old medications and things like that. Not just to spare family having to get rid of it, there really isn’t that much. But it’s satisfying to do, and will help cement the proper attitude, and will keep me running my eyes over all the stuff in the house, thinking about whether the stuff that doesn’t obviously qualify as garbage still ought to be tossed out, or at least dealt with in some way.
Some work on organizing camping gear, should be able to take the softside tote plus one small tote. Tomorrow I need to devote myself to finishing the job, loading up the car, getting cooler stuff ready.
Made another omelet for supper, enjoyed it greatly. Probably more calorific than the old 4 or 5 egg plus cheese ones, but still within limits as an occasional meal I think. Will keep an eye on the scale.
E’s car jump gizmo came, I charged it up for her and traded for mine once she got home.
Was going to start in on Daniel Craig 007 but couldn’t find Casino Royale on my streaming services, and the Plex version is only SD. The others are on Prime. Found Perfect Days on Hulu (not mentioned on JustWatch when I looked …) and watched half of that, very good. Found Sherlock on Hulu (also not on JustWatch!), rewatched first episode. Very fun! I’ll enjoy working through the rest.