|
|
|
|
What is it about the human condition that we crave a cohesive narrative? We just love a good story. None are more compelling than the stories we create in our own minds. "Why didn't she call me back? I bet it was that Instagram post I tagged her in. I knew that was a bad idea." And really, at the heart of the best conspiracy theories are compelling narratives that connects dots we had struggled to connect before (perhaps because they shouldn't have been connected in the first place?)
It's difficult to step outside ourselves and reflect on whether the stories we're creating are true, at least in part because they are as true as we want them to be. If there's anything we're (hopefully) learning from the current global pandemic, data doesn't equal truth and apparently science isn't as 'truthy' as we once thought it was.
I don't have anything to tell you that you don't already know and if I say something you agree with, you already believed it. If I say something you disagree with, you've already got a narrative working to compartmentalize and dismiss it. (That's not an accusation, it's an observation. I do the same thing when the President praises unsafe drugs and retweets white supremacists.)
In any case...
- wear a mask
- wash your hands
- Black lives matter
|
|
|
What I'm Reading
Jonathan Darman
I haven't read a presidential biography in a minute and some recent conversations got me thinking about how our hindsight is often mis-aligned with the facts of history while wondering how historians will write about this year in particular.
Back when Amanda and I lived in Austin, we made a trip down to the LBJ ranch and the "Texas White House." LBJ has a really interested story and it was great to get a feel for what it might have been like in his administration (TL;DR - it would have been hell to be a staffer for LBJ...) Then, a couple years ago on a trip to LA for a friend's wedding, we ran up to the Reagan Presidential Library, complete with replica Oval Office, actual Air Force 1, Marine 1, Presidential limo, and one of the most impressive views around. What I didn't know, was just how much these two titans of politics overlapped. And I for sure didn't know just how polarizing each truly was.
As I understood it, Johnson presided over The Great Society and calmed a country reeling from an assassination before the Vietnam War proved an intractable issue and he decided not to run in 1968. Reagan was an actor who just sorta fell into politics one day and ushered in a populist, small-government era that largely persists today. Both of those narratives are wrong. Or at least incomplete.
This book is an excellent deep-dive into two of the most successful Presidential campaigns in history and does a really wonderful job exploring each of these larger-than-life figures as men, both starving for attention and acceptance.
I particularly like the attention paid to Reagan's complexity and guile: he was an absolute right-wing extremist that had to work really hard to shape public opinion to see him as a kind, gentle moderate. And at least in my view, there's a pretty clear line from Goldwater to Nixon to Reagan to our present, though of course the book was published in 2014, so it can't comment on what we're seeing now...
|
|
Around the Web
James Beckwith
I'm not sure about you, but when someone sends me a YouTube video or when I stumble across one with an interesting title, the first thing I do is look at the timer: how much of an investment is this video and do I think it'll be worth it? If the video is a minute or two, then sure, no big deal. 5 minutes? Maybe. 10 minutes? It better be good.
This video is 13 minutes. I figured I would watch 30 seconds or so and then start scrubbing ahead. I figured I could get the gist of it and then go about my day.
I was wrong.
This video is worth every single second of your time. Each sound, each flash of light represents a human life. The enormity and the weight of this video and its implications cannot be understated.
|
|
|
Just for fun
Dunder Mifflin gets a modern rebrand.
Limitless paper in a paperless world...
|
|
|
Like what you're reading? Share it with a friend
Question or suggestion? Reply to this email
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
