The Weekend in Foolish Attention

Bits and bytes of the week

I’M IN WICHITA THIS WEEKEND. It’s Mother’s Day and I miss the fam! So, yesterday I hit the road and headed south to hang out with my awesome relatives, have some great food, and celebrate my mom correctly—in person. The thing is that Wichita isn’t so bad when I’m just visiting. Heading back Monday and into the thick of the Millennium Park Summer! If I don’t get shot or beaten with an anti-Zionist placard, I’ll consider it a win.

“Can we PLEASE get an airdrop at Columbia university? We need 900 Acai Bowls, 1,300 Impossible Burgers on gluten free bread with sugar free vegan ketchup and 3,000 bottles of pH 9.0 electrolyte water. This is urgent @ UNRWA.”—Eve Barlow

ENOUGH FENCE-SITTING. The judge should just put Trump in jail for violating the gag order and Biden should just stop sending Bibbie weapons. No more half measures already. Also, protest without arrests has no teeth whatsoever—it’s the crackdown that provides legitimacy or it’s just a bunch of people taking over spaces and breaking into buildings without consequence and becomes a series of house parties—the difference between a mob and a protest is the inevitability of jail time.

LEARN TO ARGUE BETTER. We don’t argue very well in this country. We take tone too personally, we assume our moral superiority with every topic, we lose all sense of humor in the verbal melee. Try arguing about things that don’t really matter. It’ll train you to debate without anger and begin to navigate the appropriate approaches to substantive disagreement—no anger, no ad hominem, no rancor. The breakdown in society’s ability to passionately advocate for a position has more to do with the over emphasis on emotional foundation over logical persuasion. If persuading your partner in an argument to change their mind or provide an alternative solution is not the goal, the exercise is pointless. I believe this is a result of arguing online—which is like screaming into a plastic bag.

Change someone’s mind about:

The best cheese.
The awfulness of the Star Wars prequels.
Working out in the morning is better than working out in the afternoon.
Is a hot dog a sandwich?
Is it the pants or the person that makes one look fat?

WE VOTE FOR WHO WE ARE. I can’t watch Donald Trump speak anymore. Not because he’s a turd of a human being or that I disagree with most of his views on things. I can no longer listen to him because it’s embarrassing. This greedy, insecure troll was my president. He was the president of my country. An asshole with a persecution complex and no shame in the hopelessly ignorant spew pouring from his gaping maw.

Donald Trump is greedy. He is thin-skinned and easily offended. When wronged, he seeks revenge and usually uses social media to exact it. He is inarticulate, jumps to erroneous conclusions, exudes crassness like it is perspiration. He is sexist, bigoted, and a master manipulator. He unashamedly consumes fast food (so he’s obese), is so vain that he wears orange skin toner and affects the most transparent hair disaster imaginable.

He has little understanding of the workings of government, of compromise, of basic ethics.

In other words, he’s exactly the mirror image of most Americans (including the extremist white supremacists and the Bohemian Woke) up to, and including, a sense of finding ways around the rules.

Perhaps we should start from the ground up. Try acting presidential ourselves. Be more like our favorite president in demeanor and focus. Be the president you want to vote for.

What are the qualities of a president that we could all rally behind?

Thoughtful.
All inclusive.
A deal maker between two opposing ideologies.
Articulate.
Kind but firm.
Honest.
A scholar of the Constitution, the law, ethics, and international diplomacy.
Compassionate rather than vindictive.
Forward thinking.
Pragmatic.
Willing to make mistakes, own them, and correct them.

I submit if that’s the kind of President we want we should start by doing our level best to embody these qualities ourselves.

I’m open to graduates from whatever school who understand what they need to commit to being in an independent news environment. But I don’t think we can assume that they’ve been trained for that, if they’ve been trained for safe spaces. The newsroom is not a safe space. It’s a space where you’re being exposed to lots of journalism, some of which you are not going to like.—New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn

LEARNING TO DRIVE ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE ROAD. One difference between Wichita and Chicago is the pronoun thing. Not a lot of folks in Kansas going the nonbinary route so there’s less confusion in that area of the country. Here? Lots of people recreating themselves and experimenting with identity.

“Why is it so hard for you to just use my preferred pronouns? What’s your issue?”

“No issue. Really. I guess the best way to see it is that I’ve been driving on American roads since I was fourteen years old. That’s forty-four years of driving on the right hand side of roads. In the past couple of years, we’re being told that sometimes and on certain roads, we have to drive on the left. It’s a difficult adjustment, especially when you don’t know until you’re on the road to drive on the left side. I don’t mind driving on the left hand side sometimes but the habit to drive on the right is so ingrained it’s practically automatic.

“When I see someone who appears to be a woman, the automatic pronoun is ‘she.’ While using ‘they’ is grammatically correct, it doesn’t come naturally after forty-four years of one kind of use. I understand the desire to shift our driving practices but the change takes some time.”

“So, if you misgender me, can I say ‘Left hand side’ and you’ll know what I mean?”

“Perfecto.”

THIS is a kitchen gadget I want…

CALM DOWN. According to Axios, only 8% of college students are involved in the current rash of campus protests and only 13% consider the war in the Middle East of major importance. On the other hand, 40% rank healthcare reform as the most important issue. Most of the kids are just fine and even those occupying lawns with tents and hair salons are just exercising their rights. Chill out, already.

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Have a spectacular weekend, avoid the tornadoes and zombies, and enjoy your week. Thanks for reading!