I was talking with a father the other day who was upset that his daughter uses GPS to get back and forth to work even though she knows the route.
The argument was that “kids these days” can’t get anywhere without technology.
I’ve got news for him: Kids aren’t the only ones.
I spent the first half of my adult life driving in circles anytime I went more than, oh, 20 miles from home. It is no secret in my family that I have the absolute worst sense of direction: Blindfold me, spin me around once, and see if I can find my way back home from anywhere other than the local Walmart.
Quick answer: I can’t.
Heck, you wouldn’t even have to blindfold me.
I was bemoaning this to a friend who insists nobody can be so directionally inept. He argues that I lack self-confidence, that if I had to find my way without strict instructions from Google Maps, I could.
I won’t quibble that confidence, or a lack thereof, plays a role. But it comes from a lifetime of squashed expectations.
It doesn’t help that my directional challenges are coupled with a typical Y-chromosome trait: an aversion to asking for help. I loathe stopping at strange gas stations, where one member of a posse of local Einsteins tells me to get back on the highway — which always has two names, one from 30 years ago and a current one — and head “a couple clicks” down to Route Whatever that crosses over Interstate Wherever.
Once in a great while, these directions work. Usually, however, they led only to another gas station, or sometimes the same one again, where I had to supplicate myself before another tribunal of crusty old cartographers.
In the pre-Internet days, I would pore over maps before going anywhere, jotting down notes I could tape to the dashboard.
But real life doesn’t look much like a map. All those neatly drawn intersections and clearly labeled routes look great when peering down from a bird’s eye view. At street level, however, everything looks different. Distances are hard to calculate. Street signs are missing. Roads are closed.
In the early days of digital mapping, I printed turn-by-turn directions from Yahoo Maps. Then I printed return directions because I didn’t trust myself to just reverse the first set.
It worked most of the time. Explicit directions helped even a knucklehead like me get to within a couple of blocks of my destination. Then if I had to ask a gas station Jedi, it wasn’t so humbling to find out I needed to make just one more left turn.
The situation is even better now that I can punch an address into my phone and get real-time directions. “Turn here” and “merge in another half mile” are orders I gladly accept. I, for one, welcome our robot overlords, at least where driving is concerned.
But even now, in this best of directional worlds, my ineptitude sometimes asserts itself.
On a recent trip to Myrtle Beach, I typed in our destination and selected the preferred route. It took me from Alliance to South Carolina by way of Columbus, which any yokel but me knows is far out of the way.
It turns out Google Maps was trying to avoid a toll road by adding an extra two hours to the drive, a bad tradeoff that my wife hasn’t let me live down yet, especially because I didn’t recognize how wrong it was.
I guess those gas-station know-it-alls could have set me straight, if people like that are still around, and if they’re not too busy posting on Twitter or swiping right on Tinder to help a directionally challenged oaf find the ocean.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Optimism after Trump's acquittal?
Let’s look on the bright side.
For Americans disappointed in the Senate’s decision not to admit witnesses and new evidence in President Trump’s impeachment trial last week, small amounts of hope are all we have.
An inclination toward pessimism will be even more tempting for people reading this after the GOP majority in the Senate acquits President Trump of impeachment charges over soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election and then obstructing investigations into that interference.
(Here on Sunday, when I’m typing these words, it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see where the trial is heading.)
So, while many progressives bemoan the rank partisanship that led to the only impeachment trial in history without witnesses and the distinct possibility that Trump will view acquittal as a green light not only for further tinkering in November’s election but also to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, regardless of the rule of law, it’s important to ponder a silver lining to this distinctly dark-orange cloud:
First, the American public now has the voting record of 51 senators who put party above loyalty to country and Constitution. Voters can and will remember this when voting for their re-election.
Granted, it’s doubtful that any Forever Trumpers will vote against these senators, but the 75 percent of Americans who signaled a desire for witnesses and new evidence in a recent Quinnipiac University poll might feel differently.
The biggest takeaway from that poll, however, is a different 75 percent. Seventy-five percent of independents wanted to learn more about the charges, and their votes are certainly in play. If enough of them turn away from GOP candidates, November could see a purge of historic proportions.
A second cause for optimism: Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee). While the senator and three other wavering Republicans caved in the eleventh hour and voted along party lines, their rationale for doing so is not an exoneration of Trump.
Alexander’s own words: “It was inappropriate and wrong for the president to do what he did. I think it was proved. The question is whether you apply capital punishment to every offense. And in this case I think the answer is no.”
The expression “damning with faint praise” comes to mind. While Alexander’s words will not put the brakes to Trump himself — the man is beyond shame — they will fuel further reflection by thoughtful conservatives who hold the senator’s many years of service in high regard.
Alexander’s words gave reporters a ready-made question to ask the acquitting senators: Do you agree that what Trump did was inappropriate and wrong? And if so, why did you vote the way you did?
The faux-noble GOP talking point arising from this second question is that removing Trump from office would further split an already polarized country. That makes a nice sound bite. But with the president ruling via Twitter, threatening Adam Schiff, the lead House manager in the Senate impeachment trial, and doling out grade-school-style nicknames to the glee of his base, what could “more polarizing” really look like?
A third cause for optimism: Regardless of what the Senate has decided, further evidence will keep finding its way into the public’s hands. John Bolton, in particular, appears to have much more to say, and we are learning some of it already.
What other revelations await? Will they stem from Trump’s never-released taxes? From his shaky understanding of the emoluments clause? From his less-than-stellar track record with women who have accused him of groping and rape? From additional Lev Parnas recordings?
I’m not much of a meme guy, but the image that shows the Trump glacier, with his impeachable offenses being the small part above water and “all the other (expletive) Donald has done” hidden below, feels about right.
Eventually, the truth will be known. When it happens, the Republicans who stood by their man at any cost will find their reputations sinking along with his.
And a final cause for optimism: Impeachment is forever, regardless of acquittal. Trump and his followers will always have to explain the asterisk next to his name.
Cold comfort in light of the trampling of the Constitution and almost certain future meddling in our elections, from without and within?
Yeah. But a comfort, nonetheless.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
For Americans disappointed in the Senate’s decision not to admit witnesses and new evidence in President Trump’s impeachment trial last week, small amounts of hope are all we have.
An inclination toward pessimism will be even more tempting for people reading this after the GOP majority in the Senate acquits President Trump of impeachment charges over soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election and then obstructing investigations into that interference.
(Here on Sunday, when I’m typing these words, it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see where the trial is heading.)
So, while many progressives bemoan the rank partisanship that led to the only impeachment trial in history without witnesses and the distinct possibility that Trump will view acquittal as a green light not only for further tinkering in November’s election but also to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, regardless of the rule of law, it’s important to ponder a silver lining to this distinctly dark-orange cloud:
First, the American public now has the voting record of 51 senators who put party above loyalty to country and Constitution. Voters can and will remember this when voting for their re-election.
Granted, it’s doubtful that any Forever Trumpers will vote against these senators, but the 75 percent of Americans who signaled a desire for witnesses and new evidence in a recent Quinnipiac University poll might feel differently.
The biggest takeaway from that poll, however, is a different 75 percent. Seventy-five percent of independents wanted to learn more about the charges, and their votes are certainly in play. If enough of them turn away from GOP candidates, November could see a purge of historic proportions.
A second cause for optimism: Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee). While the senator and three other wavering Republicans caved in the eleventh hour and voted along party lines, their rationale for doing so is not an exoneration of Trump.
Alexander’s own words: “It was inappropriate and wrong for the president to do what he did. I think it was proved. The question is whether you apply capital punishment to every offense. And in this case I think the answer is no.”
The expression “damning with faint praise” comes to mind. While Alexander’s words will not put the brakes to Trump himself — the man is beyond shame — they will fuel further reflection by thoughtful conservatives who hold the senator’s many years of service in high regard.
Alexander’s words gave reporters a ready-made question to ask the acquitting senators: Do you agree that what Trump did was inappropriate and wrong? And if so, why did you vote the way you did?
The faux-noble GOP talking point arising from this second question is that removing Trump from office would further split an already polarized country. That makes a nice sound bite. But with the president ruling via Twitter, threatening Adam Schiff, the lead House manager in the Senate impeachment trial, and doling out grade-school-style nicknames to the glee of his base, what could “more polarizing” really look like?
A third cause for optimism: Regardless of what the Senate has decided, further evidence will keep finding its way into the public’s hands. John Bolton, in particular, appears to have much more to say, and we are learning some of it already.
What other revelations await? Will they stem from Trump’s never-released taxes? From his shaky understanding of the emoluments clause? From his less-than-stellar track record with women who have accused him of groping and rape? From additional Lev Parnas recordings?
I’m not much of a meme guy, but the image that shows the Trump glacier, with his impeachable offenses being the small part above water and “all the other (expletive) Donald has done” hidden below, feels about right.
Eventually, the truth will be known. When it happens, the Republicans who stood by their man at any cost will find their reputations sinking along with his.
And a final cause for optimism: Impeachment is forever, regardless of acquittal. Trump and his followers will always have to explain the asterisk next to his name.
Cold comfort in light of the trampling of the Constitution and almost certain future meddling in our elections, from without and within?
Yeah. But a comfort, nonetheless.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Reinvention before irrelevance
“It. Is. Later. Than. You. Think,” began the old-time radio program “Lights Out.”
Now science is confirming it, at least as far as professional life is concerned. Studies indicate that “for most people in most fields, decline starts earlier than almost anyone thinks,” according to Arthur Brooks, writing in The Atlantic. (A condensed version of the article, “Learning to Accept Your Decline,” is printed in the Jan. 17 edition of The Week, where I read it.)
Brooks cites research indicating the first 20 years of a career are where one can expect an upward arc, followed by a quick peak, and then the start of decline. According to this logic, a doctor who begins her career at age 30 would be sharpest diagnostically at around 50, before becoming less effective with each subsequent year.
By the time most of us are 70, Brooks writes, “the likelihood of producing a major innovation ... is approximately what it was at age 20 — almost nonexistent.” Given that, people need to reinvent themselves as something else — grandparent, volunteer, flagpole sitter — to avoid irrelevancy and a rush to Prozac.
The article mentions one example of reinvention, Johann Sebastian Bach. He experienced early success as a musical prodigy, saw his style of music go out of fashion, and retooled himself as an instructor and author of a book on baroque style. It kept him from going “baroque” — get it? — financially and mentally.
This faster-than-anticipated decline has some curious implications politically. We have a septuagenarian president in the White House, of course, and several of the major Democratic contenders for the job are also in their seventies.
I’ve often wondered why a person that age would aspire to the presidency at a time in life when he or she should be slowing down and enjoying retirement. F. Scott Fitzgerald famously noted there are no second acts in American lives, so maybe the unusual aspirations of older candidates are the exception that proves the rule. Or maybe it is just Brooks’ idea of reinvention in action — from senator or governor or mayor to a bigger stage.
Beyond politics, Brooks’ piece has implications for me, personally. I taught for two years directly out of college before becoming distracted by a second career in newspapers. I returned to the classroom at the age of 32. Based on that, I should be close to hitting my peak, instructionally. For my students, this year and next could be the best Schillig they’ll ever get, a sobering thought, considering I have so much yet to learn about the art and science of teaching.
I’m also in my 19th year of writing this column, so I must be close to apogee here, as well. (Some readers have argued that I reached my peak 18 years ago, and everything since has been one protracted slide into the journalistic muck.)
Like everybody who reads about inevitable decline, I like to think I am the exception to the rule, but in all likelihood, I am not.
Brooks says one way to avoid depression is to study the dead, a Buddhist tradition of “corpse meditation” designed to familiarize ourselves with the next stage of our physical bodies, to stop denying and learn to embrace death. No thanks.
My weekly ritual of running 20-plus miles is designed to do a lot of things — knock off pounds, elevate me to a runners high, make me forget about my problems. It’s also sometimes to deny the march of years, the morning aches and pains that have become more familiar, the persistent belief that I’m starting to move and think like an old man.
So, while I’m running toward something positive out there on the road each day, I’m also running away from something negative. Each time I say no to the running shoes makes it easier to stay at home the next time and contemplate morbid thoughts. I’d rather run.
In other words, no second act as a corpse contemplator for this guy. Maybe I ought to try politics.
Perish the thought. If you ever see my name on a ballot, you will know with certainty that it is later than you think.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Now science is confirming it, at least as far as professional life is concerned. Studies indicate that “for most people in most fields, decline starts earlier than almost anyone thinks,” according to Arthur Brooks, writing in The Atlantic. (A condensed version of the article, “Learning to Accept Your Decline,” is printed in the Jan. 17 edition of The Week, where I read it.)
Brooks cites research indicating the first 20 years of a career are where one can expect an upward arc, followed by a quick peak, and then the start of decline. According to this logic, a doctor who begins her career at age 30 would be sharpest diagnostically at around 50, before becoming less effective with each subsequent year.
By the time most of us are 70, Brooks writes, “the likelihood of producing a major innovation ... is approximately what it was at age 20 — almost nonexistent.” Given that, people need to reinvent themselves as something else — grandparent, volunteer, flagpole sitter — to avoid irrelevancy and a rush to Prozac.
The article mentions one example of reinvention, Johann Sebastian Bach. He experienced early success as a musical prodigy, saw his style of music go out of fashion, and retooled himself as an instructor and author of a book on baroque style. It kept him from going “baroque” — get it? — financially and mentally.
This faster-than-anticipated decline has some curious implications politically. We have a septuagenarian president in the White House, of course, and several of the major Democratic contenders for the job are also in their seventies.
I’ve often wondered why a person that age would aspire to the presidency at a time in life when he or she should be slowing down and enjoying retirement. F. Scott Fitzgerald famously noted there are no second acts in American lives, so maybe the unusual aspirations of older candidates are the exception that proves the rule. Or maybe it is just Brooks’ idea of reinvention in action — from senator or governor or mayor to a bigger stage.
Beyond politics, Brooks’ piece has implications for me, personally. I taught for two years directly out of college before becoming distracted by a second career in newspapers. I returned to the classroom at the age of 32. Based on that, I should be close to hitting my peak, instructionally. For my students, this year and next could be the best Schillig they’ll ever get, a sobering thought, considering I have so much yet to learn about the art and science of teaching.
I’m also in my 19th year of writing this column, so I must be close to apogee here, as well. (Some readers have argued that I reached my peak 18 years ago, and everything since has been one protracted slide into the journalistic muck.)
Like everybody who reads about inevitable decline, I like to think I am the exception to the rule, but in all likelihood, I am not.
Brooks says one way to avoid depression is to study the dead, a Buddhist tradition of “corpse meditation” designed to familiarize ourselves with the next stage of our physical bodies, to stop denying and learn to embrace death. No thanks.
My weekly ritual of running 20-plus miles is designed to do a lot of things — knock off pounds, elevate me to a runners high, make me forget about my problems. It’s also sometimes to deny the march of years, the morning aches and pains that have become more familiar, the persistent belief that I’m starting to move and think like an old man.
So, while I’m running toward something positive out there on the road each day, I’m also running away from something negative. Each time I say no to the running shoes makes it easier to stay at home the next time and contemplate morbid thoughts. I’d rather run.
In other words, no second act as a corpse contemplator for this guy. Maybe I ought to try politics.
Perish the thought. If you ever see my name on a ballot, you will know with certainty that it is later than you think.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Keep an eye on the little things in Trump circus
In the many rings that make up the Trump circus, it can be difficult for Americans to know where to focus their attention.
Gasp at the hypocrisy of Vice President Mike Pence invoking JFK’s “Profiles in Courage” in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed to urge Democrats to abandon impeachment and you miss the administration’s proposed rollback of healthy requirements for school lunches, offered on the birthday of Michelle Obama, who made school nutrition a priority.
Pay attention to the neutering of environmental protections and the president’s disavowal of climate change and you overlook his attempts to “reinstate” prayer in public schools. (“Reinstate” is in quotation marks because students have always had the right to pray in public schools, despite the president’s ridiculous statement about “a growing totalitarian impulse on the far left that seeks to punish, restrict and even prohibit religious expression,” a line that was almost certainly written for him, as it is a complete, albeit inaccurate, thought with words of more than one syllable each.)
This whipsawing of public attention is intentional. By keeping Americans off-kilter and continually amazed, by sowing discord and disbelief through every public utterance, Trump is able to induce, ultimately, a sense of torpor in many Americans, making it easier to go along to get along with their pro-Trump neighbors, to keep their heads down and avoid risking the wrath of what daily feels more like a cult founded on cruelty, isolationism and ignorance.
Ultimately, whatever happens with the Senate impeachment trial and at the ballot box in November, Trump will have left his crude, barbarous stamp on America for years to come, in ways obvious and subtle.
One example of the latter: The recent revelation that the National Archives has edited an exhibit that celebrates 100 years of women’s voting.
At least one image in the exhibit has been altered, the Washington Post reported last week, to blur the name of Trump on signs held by protesters at the 2017 Women’s March along Pennsylvania Avenue, one day after the president’s inauguration.
A sign that read “God Hates Trump” has had Trump’s name blurred, the newspaper reports. Other signs have had words for female anatomy blurred.
A spokeswoman for the Archives says the agency is attempting to stay out of “current political controversy” by these edits. This is a ludicrous statement.
The National Archives is dedicated to the preservation of history and the people who make it, in all its messy, ugly, beautiful manifestations.
Protests are part of history. They are controversial by design because they attempt to disrupt the status quo. In the years leading up to the ratification of the 19th Amendment on Aug. 18, 1920, women activists riled many conservatives by advocating for economic and political equality. Many people fought diligently to silence these voices, and many others, by looking the other way, supported attempts to suppress women’s rights.
Now, 100 years later, the National Archives is attempting to silence voices of the descendants of those early suffragists.
On the one hand, this disappointing bowdlerization makes sense. Minor bureaucrats, with families to feed and problems of their own, do not want to rankle the president or become the target of his next defamatory tweetstorm.
It’s much easier to stay quiet, to blur an image and history, to pretend the real reason is concern over schoolchildren who will visit the exhibit and see “nasty” words — including one that is medically appropriate — for female genitalia. (How sad that women’s body parts are still seen as “dirty,” which is, after all, another means of denigration and control.)
In the Trump era, the only women who are worthy of approval are the ones who support the president and support their husbands, who always know best, provided the husbands support the president, too. It also helps if these women and their husbands are not brown and speak English as their native language.
These are the unspoken, and sometimes spoken, tenets of Trump, and minor functionaries seeking not to be ground up in the cogs of the great machine will do what they must to avoid being called out. They don’t need direct orders. The last three years have made the “right” course of action painfully obvious. This is how totalitarianism advances.
So while the big spectacles of current politics call out for our attention, we should also be mindful of what occurs in the shadows. For it is there the real changes are taking effect, little ones that will continue to reverberate long after the Trump circus has pulled up stakes and left town.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Gasp at the hypocrisy of Vice President Mike Pence invoking JFK’s “Profiles in Courage” in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed to urge Democrats to abandon impeachment and you miss the administration’s proposed rollback of healthy requirements for school lunches, offered on the birthday of Michelle Obama, who made school nutrition a priority.
Pay attention to the neutering of environmental protections and the president’s disavowal of climate change and you overlook his attempts to “reinstate” prayer in public schools. (“Reinstate” is in quotation marks because students have always had the right to pray in public schools, despite the president’s ridiculous statement about “a growing totalitarian impulse on the far left that seeks to punish, restrict and even prohibit religious expression,” a line that was almost certainly written for him, as it is a complete, albeit inaccurate, thought with words of more than one syllable each.)
This whipsawing of public attention is intentional. By keeping Americans off-kilter and continually amazed, by sowing discord and disbelief through every public utterance, Trump is able to induce, ultimately, a sense of torpor in many Americans, making it easier to go along to get along with their pro-Trump neighbors, to keep their heads down and avoid risking the wrath of what daily feels more like a cult founded on cruelty, isolationism and ignorance.
Ultimately, whatever happens with the Senate impeachment trial and at the ballot box in November, Trump will have left his crude, barbarous stamp on America for years to come, in ways obvious and subtle.
One example of the latter: The recent revelation that the National Archives has edited an exhibit that celebrates 100 years of women’s voting.
At least one image in the exhibit has been altered, the Washington Post reported last week, to blur the name of Trump on signs held by protesters at the 2017 Women’s March along Pennsylvania Avenue, one day after the president’s inauguration.
A sign that read “God Hates Trump” has had Trump’s name blurred, the newspaper reports. Other signs have had words for female anatomy blurred.
A spokeswoman for the Archives says the agency is attempting to stay out of “current political controversy” by these edits. This is a ludicrous statement.
The National Archives is dedicated to the preservation of history and the people who make it, in all its messy, ugly, beautiful manifestations.
Protests are part of history. They are controversial by design because they attempt to disrupt the status quo. In the years leading up to the ratification of the 19th Amendment on Aug. 18, 1920, women activists riled many conservatives by advocating for economic and political equality. Many people fought diligently to silence these voices, and many others, by looking the other way, supported attempts to suppress women’s rights.
Now, 100 years later, the National Archives is attempting to silence voices of the descendants of those early suffragists.
On the one hand, this disappointing bowdlerization makes sense. Minor bureaucrats, with families to feed and problems of their own, do not want to rankle the president or become the target of his next defamatory tweetstorm.
It’s much easier to stay quiet, to blur an image and history, to pretend the real reason is concern over schoolchildren who will visit the exhibit and see “nasty” words — including one that is medically appropriate — for female genitalia. (How sad that women’s body parts are still seen as “dirty,” which is, after all, another means of denigration and control.)
In the Trump era, the only women who are worthy of approval are the ones who support the president and support their husbands, who always know best, provided the husbands support the president, too. It also helps if these women and their husbands are not brown and speak English as their native language.
These are the unspoken, and sometimes spoken, tenets of Trump, and minor functionaries seeking not to be ground up in the cogs of the great machine will do what they must to avoid being called out. They don’t need direct orders. The last three years have made the “right” course of action painfully obvious. This is how totalitarianism advances.
So while the big spectacles of current politics call out for our attention, we should also be mindful of what occurs in the shadows. For it is there the real changes are taking effect, little ones that will continue to reverberate long after the Trump circus has pulled up stakes and left town.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Vertical, horizontal, and 'Orphan Train'
In 2020, most people experience the media horizontally, as opposed to vertically.
This doesn’t mean that we watch TV lying down vs, standing up. Instead, it means that we watch programs at times that are convenient to us, which is not necessarily at the same times as our neighbors and friends.
It can take weeks to get around to watching a particular episode of, say, “The Tonight Show.” Or it can take months to make it all the way through the 10-episode first season of “You,” while other viewers polish it off in a weekend. Plot all those dates on a graph and it would be horizontal.
Back in the day (said the crotchety old man), most entertainment was vertical. Consumers listened to the same radio stations and watched the same TV programs at the same time as everybody else.
If something was missed, it was really missed. Maybe it would be repeated over the summer, at the whim of some anonymous programmer, or maybe it wouldn’t.
Vertical entertainment drew folks together around water coolers (remember those?) and provided common talking points. With only three networks and a handful of static-filled independent stations, TV pickings were slim, so chances were good that most everybody was tuning in to the same stuff — vertical entertainment for the masses.
This started to change with the advent of recordable media. Betamax and VHS machines allowed viewers to capture vertical entertainment and watch it horizontally — whenever they wanted. Now, with the arrival of Netflix, Hulu and a bevy of other streaming services, viewers watch (or, in the case of podcasts, listen to) almost everything horizontally. Somebody recommends something, and maybe you’ll get around to it — eventually.
Vertical TV — those must-see-them-at-the-same-time-as-everybody-else events — are limited to breaking news of truly monumental proportions and high-stakes sporting events. The Super Bowl is probably the last bastion of vertical TV, where more than half the charm comes from knowing you are watching the same big plays and big-budget commercials at the same moment as the neighbor across the street and people across the country.
Readers, of course, have always experienced books horizontally. Even book-club members reading the same title are doing so at slightly different times — Barb has barely cracked the cover, while James is two-thirds of the way through.
Alliance’s One Book One Community program is a unique mixture of horizontal and vertical experiences. Readers are chugging through this year’s book, “Orphan Train” by Christina Baker Kline, at their own speed, which makes the process horizontal.
But they are also invited to participate in several communal events, such as a “Documenting Your Family History” presentation at 7 p.m. on Feb. 10 at First United Presbyterian Church, along with two other events on March 2 and March 9 at Rodman Library. Programming culminates with an appearance by the author March 26 at Union Avenue United Methodist Church.
All of these are vertical events, with people interacting with one another at the same time, extending and amplifying their horizontal reading of the novel.
For the record, I’m not objective where this book and the OBOC are concerned. As part of the committee, I can attest that members worked hard over the last few months to find a book for readers across the greater Alliance area to enjoy, and we believe we’ve found a winner with “Orphan Train.”
The future of entertainment may be horizontal, with more and more people pursuing different options at different times and fragmenting audiences in ways that are exciting and lead to more diversity.
But there is still something to be said for a communal experience, which is why it’s nice to see scores of people turning out for live events like this year’s OBOC programming.
I hope many readers elect to go vertical in 2020 and hop aboard the “Orphan Train” in the next few weeks.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
This doesn’t mean that we watch TV lying down vs, standing up. Instead, it means that we watch programs at times that are convenient to us, which is not necessarily at the same times as our neighbors and friends.
It can take weeks to get around to watching a particular episode of, say, “The Tonight Show.” Or it can take months to make it all the way through the 10-episode first season of “You,” while other viewers polish it off in a weekend. Plot all those dates on a graph and it would be horizontal.
Back in the day (said the crotchety old man), most entertainment was vertical. Consumers listened to the same radio stations and watched the same TV programs at the same time as everybody else.
If something was missed, it was really missed. Maybe it would be repeated over the summer, at the whim of some anonymous programmer, or maybe it wouldn’t.
Vertical entertainment drew folks together around water coolers (remember those?) and provided common talking points. With only three networks and a handful of static-filled independent stations, TV pickings were slim, so chances were good that most everybody was tuning in to the same stuff — vertical entertainment for the masses.
This started to change with the advent of recordable media. Betamax and VHS machines allowed viewers to capture vertical entertainment and watch it horizontally — whenever they wanted. Now, with the arrival of Netflix, Hulu and a bevy of other streaming services, viewers watch (or, in the case of podcasts, listen to) almost everything horizontally. Somebody recommends something, and maybe you’ll get around to it — eventually.
Vertical TV — those must-see-them-at-the-same-time-as-everybody-else events — are limited to breaking news of truly monumental proportions and high-stakes sporting events. The Super Bowl is probably the last bastion of vertical TV, where more than half the charm comes from knowing you are watching the same big plays and big-budget commercials at the same moment as the neighbor across the street and people across the country.
Readers, of course, have always experienced books horizontally. Even book-club members reading the same title are doing so at slightly different times — Barb has barely cracked the cover, while James is two-thirds of the way through.
Alliance’s One Book One Community program is a unique mixture of horizontal and vertical experiences. Readers are chugging through this year’s book, “Orphan Train” by Christina Baker Kline, at their own speed, which makes the process horizontal.
But they are also invited to participate in several communal events, such as a “Documenting Your Family History” presentation at 7 p.m. on Feb. 10 at First United Presbyterian Church, along with two other events on March 2 and March 9 at Rodman Library. Programming culminates with an appearance by the author March 26 at Union Avenue United Methodist Church.
All of these are vertical events, with people interacting with one another at the same time, extending and amplifying their horizontal reading of the novel.
For the record, I’m not objective where this book and the OBOC are concerned. As part of the committee, I can attest that members worked hard over the last few months to find a book for readers across the greater Alliance area to enjoy, and we believe we’ve found a winner with “Orphan Train.”
The future of entertainment may be horizontal, with more and more people pursuing different options at different times and fragmenting audiences in ways that are exciting and lead to more diversity.
But there is still something to be said for a communal experience, which is why it’s nice to see scores of people turning out for live events like this year’s OBOC programming.
I hope many readers elect to go vertical in 2020 and hop aboard the “Orphan Train” in the next few weeks.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Thursday, January 9, 2020
Which word was your favorite last year?
“Words, words, words,” responded Hamlet when asked what he was reading.
The Prince of Denmark may have been feigning madness or may have been certifiably insane when he answered. Nonetheless, his slap-happiness captures the feelings of many wordsmiths when faced with a growing list of “words of the year.”
Each December, linguists comb through headlines and social media posts to determine how language helped to define the zeitgeist of the previous twelve months. This past year was no exception.
The American Dialect Society chose ”(my) pronouns” as 2019′s word of the year to reflect the growing practice of people telling others how they wish to be addressed, as he, she, they or some other option.
In the same vein, Merriam-Webster gave the nod to “they” because of its increased use among nonbinary people and people who do not wish to be identified by biological sex. (The American Dialect Society chose “they” as its word of the decade.)
Meanwhile, National Public Radio’s Geoff Nunberg designated “disinformation” as his choice because of the number of institutions that twist and spin facts to suit a particular narrative. (NPR itself selected “they.”) Nunberg also noted that “quid pro quo” and “OK, boomer” had their moments in 2019.
Dictionary.com went with “existential,” Oxford Dictionaries named “climate emergency,” and Cambridge Dictionary, way out of left field, chose “upcycling.”
Always the contrarian, I choose a word or phrase each year that I wish would go away, retired to some dusty mantel after receiving a gold watch for meritorious service.
Last year around this time — OK, it was February, but bear with me, I’m trying to start a tradition here — I made a pitch to retire “reach out.”
Professional people are always reaching out to colleagues, guest speakers, their children’s orthodontist, the local taxidermist and the company that collects their garbage from the curb each week.
I argued then, and still believe now, that “reaching out” is a way to elevate a humdrum part of existence and infuse it with profundity. It sounds far less exciting to say I will email somebody and ask for directions.
Reaching out, however, conjures images of Michelangelo’s God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, arm outstretched to deliver life through a brush of His index finger.
My plea didn’t make much of an impact. At a meeting a few weeks ago, I heard attendees promise to “reach out” at least three different times, and the phrase still haunts my emails.
Undeterred, however, here is my choice of another heinous expression that should be relegated to the dustbin: Asking for a friend.
As with all overused expressions, asking for a friend started strong. It was wry, cynical and funny, sometimes all at once.
It’s not a sign of ignorance when you install a Command Strip upside down, right? Asking for a friend.
What if I’m a megalomaniacal leader who starts wars with foreign countries to distract from my impeachment problems at home? Asking for a friend.
It’s an expression that launched a thousand (million?) memes, and that’s the problem. It’s no longer witty. Now it’s just old and tired and pathetic.
Yet I see from a quick Twitter search that lots of people are still asking for a friend, and at least one regular podcast bears that name. So I see no indication that the expression has worn out its welcome.
As somebody brilliant once said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Until two minutes ago, I thought that was another quote from “Hamlet,” which would make a nice way to tie this column’s conclusion to its introduction.
What happens when your column-ending Shakespeare quote was actually written by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
You know who I’m asking for.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
P.S. to my grammarian readers: Yes, that last sentence should be “you know for whom I’m asking,” but I hated the sound of it. A thousand lashes to me with an Oxford unabridged dictionary.
The Prince of Denmark may have been feigning madness or may have been certifiably insane when he answered. Nonetheless, his slap-happiness captures the feelings of many wordsmiths when faced with a growing list of “words of the year.”
Each December, linguists comb through headlines and social media posts to determine how language helped to define the zeitgeist of the previous twelve months. This past year was no exception.
The American Dialect Society chose ”(my) pronouns” as 2019′s word of the year to reflect the growing practice of people telling others how they wish to be addressed, as he, she, they or some other option.
In the same vein, Merriam-Webster gave the nod to “they” because of its increased use among nonbinary people and people who do not wish to be identified by biological sex. (The American Dialect Society chose “they” as its word of the decade.)
Meanwhile, National Public Radio’s Geoff Nunberg designated “disinformation” as his choice because of the number of institutions that twist and spin facts to suit a particular narrative. (NPR itself selected “they.”) Nunberg also noted that “quid pro quo” and “OK, boomer” had their moments in 2019.
Dictionary.com went with “existential,” Oxford Dictionaries named “climate emergency,” and Cambridge Dictionary, way out of left field, chose “upcycling.”
Always the contrarian, I choose a word or phrase each year that I wish would go away, retired to some dusty mantel after receiving a gold watch for meritorious service.
Last year around this time — OK, it was February, but bear with me, I’m trying to start a tradition here — I made a pitch to retire “reach out.”
Professional people are always reaching out to colleagues, guest speakers, their children’s orthodontist, the local taxidermist and the company that collects their garbage from the curb each week.
I argued then, and still believe now, that “reaching out” is a way to elevate a humdrum part of existence and infuse it with profundity. It sounds far less exciting to say I will email somebody and ask for directions.
Reaching out, however, conjures images of Michelangelo’s God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, arm outstretched to deliver life through a brush of His index finger.
My plea didn’t make much of an impact. At a meeting a few weeks ago, I heard attendees promise to “reach out” at least three different times, and the phrase still haunts my emails.
Undeterred, however, here is my choice of another heinous expression that should be relegated to the dustbin: Asking for a friend.
As with all overused expressions, asking for a friend started strong. It was wry, cynical and funny, sometimes all at once.
It’s not a sign of ignorance when you install a Command Strip upside down, right? Asking for a friend.
What if I’m a megalomaniacal leader who starts wars with foreign countries to distract from my impeachment problems at home? Asking for a friend.
It’s an expression that launched a thousand (million?) memes, and that’s the problem. It’s no longer witty. Now it’s just old and tired and pathetic.
Yet I see from a quick Twitter search that lots of people are still asking for a friend, and at least one regular podcast bears that name. So I see no indication that the expression has worn out its welcome.
As somebody brilliant once said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Until two minutes ago, I thought that was another quote from “Hamlet,” which would make a nice way to tie this column’s conclusion to its introduction.
What happens when your column-ending Shakespeare quote was actually written by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
You know who I’m asking for.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
P.S. to my grammarian readers: Yes, that last sentence should be “you know for whom I’m asking,” but I hated the sound of it. A thousand lashes to me with an Oxford unabridged dictionary.
Maker of wonder gunk gets into the cleanup business
Just when I thought I couldn’t be any angrier at DuPont, the company announces it will buy a water-purification company.
The 2018 documentary “The Devil We Know” and the 2019 movie “Dark Waters” reveal how DuPont Chemical released gunk related to the manufacturing of Teflon and various waterproofing products into the atmosphere.
For decades, the company dumped toxic chemicals into the nation’s waters. One such substance, PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as C8), is now estimated to be in the blood of 99 percent of Americans, including newborns.
The coverup by the company extends 70 years, as revealed in detailed reporting by Sharon Lerner of The Intercept. Research by DuPont’s own scientists revealed as early as 1961 that C8 was toxic. The company even performed human tests in 1964, asking volunteers to smoke cigarettes laced with C8 and noting that they were sick for hours after.
Nonetheless, DuPont forged ahead with its manufacturing, burying drums of C8 on the banks of the Ohio River near its manufacturing plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and out at sea.
Later, the company dumped its miracle toxin straight into the Ohio River and submerged it in unlined landfills. Women were moved off the line that specifically handled C8 over concerns about birth defects. Employees were diagnosed with leukemia and kidney cancers at higher-than-average rates. A farmer whose land is adjacent to one of DuPont’s landfills lost his entire herd.
Eventually, after a class-action suit and plenty of bad publicity (although not nearly enough, to my way of thinking), DuPont settled for what a layman might think of as an astronomical figure but which really represents only a small part of one year’s profit, admitted no guilt (still doesn’t), and switched out C8 with another type of wonder ick possessing similarly-concerning side effects.
Ultimately, the DuPont debacle illustrates the danger of something our current administration touts as a benefit — rolling back environmental safeguards like the Clean Water Act in the name of increased profits.
In the case of DuPont, such safeguards likely wouldn’t have mattered. The company avoided fallout by staying several steps ahead of the EPA (which issued an advisory for PFOA and similar compounds only in July 2016), engaging in corporate capture (basically infiltrating government agencies with people sympathetic to a company’s views) and writing checks big enough to make the problem go away.
Now, in the ultimate act of corporate hubris, DuPont will buy Desalitech Ltd., which makes reverse osmosis products to remove the same types of toxins that DuPont dumped into our water.
Yes, you read that correctly: The company that made billions by creating this mess will now be paid to clean it up. That’s good work if you can get it. Just ask the manufacturers of naloxone, which stops opioid overdoses and is manufactured by some of the same pharmaceutical giants who gave us opioid addicts in the first place.
According to a report by the Environmental Working Group, Desalitech makes about $6.5 million a year. This isn’t chump change, but it is minuscule compared to the $84 billion that DuPont made from the beginning of 2018 through July of last year.
So either DuPont executives see environmental clean-up as a huge growth area or views Desalitech as a way to position itself for any future problems with chemical disposal. Or both.
It’s always possible, I suppose, that DuPont wants to do the right thing and use Desalitech to clean up all the water it has helped to pollute for free.
If you believe that, I have some chemically contaminated land I’d like to sell you, cheap.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
The 2018 documentary “The Devil We Know” and the 2019 movie “Dark Waters” reveal how DuPont Chemical released gunk related to the manufacturing of Teflon and various waterproofing products into the atmosphere.
For decades, the company dumped toxic chemicals into the nation’s waters. One such substance, PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as C8), is now estimated to be in the blood of 99 percent of Americans, including newborns.
The coverup by the company extends 70 years, as revealed in detailed reporting by Sharon Lerner of The Intercept. Research by DuPont’s own scientists revealed as early as 1961 that C8 was toxic. The company even performed human tests in 1964, asking volunteers to smoke cigarettes laced with C8 and noting that they were sick for hours after.
Nonetheless, DuPont forged ahead with its manufacturing, burying drums of C8 on the banks of the Ohio River near its manufacturing plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and out at sea.
Later, the company dumped its miracle toxin straight into the Ohio River and submerged it in unlined landfills. Women were moved off the line that specifically handled C8 over concerns about birth defects. Employees were diagnosed with leukemia and kidney cancers at higher-than-average rates. A farmer whose land is adjacent to one of DuPont’s landfills lost his entire herd.
Eventually, after a class-action suit and plenty of bad publicity (although not nearly enough, to my way of thinking), DuPont settled for what a layman might think of as an astronomical figure but which really represents only a small part of one year’s profit, admitted no guilt (still doesn’t), and switched out C8 with another type of wonder ick possessing similarly-concerning side effects.
Ultimately, the DuPont debacle illustrates the danger of something our current administration touts as a benefit — rolling back environmental safeguards like the Clean Water Act in the name of increased profits.
In the case of DuPont, such safeguards likely wouldn’t have mattered. The company avoided fallout by staying several steps ahead of the EPA (which issued an advisory for PFOA and similar compounds only in July 2016), engaging in corporate capture (basically infiltrating government agencies with people sympathetic to a company’s views) and writing checks big enough to make the problem go away.
Now, in the ultimate act of corporate hubris, DuPont will buy Desalitech Ltd., which makes reverse osmosis products to remove the same types of toxins that DuPont dumped into our water.
Yes, you read that correctly: The company that made billions by creating this mess will now be paid to clean it up. That’s good work if you can get it. Just ask the manufacturers of naloxone, which stops opioid overdoses and is manufactured by some of the same pharmaceutical giants who gave us opioid addicts in the first place.
According to a report by the Environmental Working Group, Desalitech makes about $6.5 million a year. This isn’t chump change, but it is minuscule compared to the $84 billion that DuPont made from the beginning of 2018 through July of last year.
So either DuPont executives see environmental clean-up as a huge growth area or views Desalitech as a way to position itself for any future problems with chemical disposal. Or both.
It’s always possible, I suppose, that DuPont wants to do the right thing and use Desalitech to clean up all the water it has helped to pollute for free.
If you believe that, I have some chemically contaminated land I’d like to sell you, cheap.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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