Stumbled on my journal from 2017 while cleaning. It has footprints from the hospital when Paco was born. I wept for god knows how long.
Oh how do I miss that kid. 💔
A rare day with all kids asleep before 7:30. I have the little on my lap while I watch baseball.
🗞️ Why Ohio State is the most recession-proof program in college football, The Athletic
“Ohio State made its 1,000th appearance in the AP poll this week, 72 more than any other team dating to 1936. Since Woody Hayes took over in 1951, it has had just four losing seasons out of 74, the fewest in the FBS. And after some modest lulls by Ohio State standards in the 1980s and ’90s, the consistent winning has been taken to another level in the 21st century with national championships won by three consecutive head coaches.”
Go Buckeyes!
A student gave me an “impact award” from last semester. This was a nice surprise as we begin the fall term.
Just paid the final hospital bill for Paco. It still doesn’t feel real that’s gone, but looking at the pre-insurance costs underscores just how sick he got without warning.
I miss him every moment of every day.
Currently reading: Syllabus: The Remarkable, Unremarkable Document That Changes Everything (Skills for Scholars) by William Germano 📚
Finished reading: On Revision by William Germano 📚
Revisiting The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman now that he been named a Doctor of the Church. 📚
So if an appendectomy wasn’t enough, the big kid got stung by a wasp after watching Bad Guys 2 today—just as he was getting into the car.
🗞️ Curate your own newspaper with RSS via [Citation Needed]
A year or so ago I quipped about RSS at a panel; later that day a younger colleague thanked me for the comment. He never heard of RSS. In light of Google Zero, one has to wonder if, in hindsight, this was the goal of Google all along.
🗞️ Notes on Spite, Hollis Robbins, Substack
To talk about spite is to betray it. Spite operates through concealment and misdirection. Spite succeeds best when its motivations remain hidden from all but its intended target. Spite is forensic. Spite is a creative brief, born of a rejection that when veiled becomes fuel.…
Or, ask me how I got through graduate school.
I finished reading: The Distracted Mind by Adam Gazzaley 📚
Oh, the perils of being a vice-president
Being the Vice-President can be lonely, and the payoff almost never arrives.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, is, by most accounts, the president’s point person on mass deportation and immigration enforcement. Russell Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, leads the effort to terrorize federal employees, bring the federal bureaucracy to heel and seize the power of the purse from Congress. The Department of Government Efficiency, formerly run by Elon Musk, is busy dismantling the nation’s research capacity and working to centralize government data on Americans.
Vance might have been on the ballot in November, but you’d be hard-pressed to find him anywhere in this triumvirate. He holds no particular portfolio of issues or items to pursue, and he appears to have no special relationship with the president. On occasion, you’ll see Vance engaged in the sorts of civic activities that vice presidents are often made to perform — those events where it is important that someone from the high end of the administration makes an appearance but not so important that you would send the president or the secretary of state. Even then, however, Vance seems to do less of this than past vice presidents. This is perhaps because, unlike his predecessors, President Trump is less interested in governing than he is in playing the role of head of state."
From Jamelle Bouie’s recent op-ed in the NY Times, which is partly right and partly flawed still echoes the spirit of John N. Garner’s quip that the Vice-Presidency is no worth a warm bucket of piss. We will recall, of course, that Joe Biden was the first VP since George H.W. Bush to be elected President (and before that it was Nixon who, like Biden, had a break in service before winning).
Burgers, baseball, family movie, clean kitchen, kids asleep. That’s a great Saturday. But on the last Saturday of summer vacation?! Miracles exist, folks.
🎥 The only problem with this otherwise delightful NYT cooking & Kenji Lopez-Alt video on cooking hamburgers is that my kids talked me into making hamburgers for dinner while we watched it. Admittedly, this isn’t actually a problem.
🗞️ Hulk Hogan, shirt-shredding Superstar of Pro Wrestling, Dies at 71, New York Times Obit.
Hogan was the face of pro wrestling for decades, with his blond hair and horseshoe mustache, colorful bandannas and massive biceps, which he referred to as “24-inch pythons.”
RIP.
A year ago today, Paco started jiujitsu. Surprisingly, I never posted his original “First day of class” photo. I did post his first stripe on his white belt. Here’s his first day of class pick.
My God it surprises me how much I can miss that little guy. 💔
I’m so glad I took that snapshot.
🗞️ Colbert and the End of Late-Night TV, Ben Sass, Wall Street Journal
That, ultimately, is why the end of the Late Show matters historically. Mr. Colbert wasn’t attempting something as important as what Carson did—or his heirs David Letterman, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. As much as they made a meaningful mark on American culture, they weren’t essential to the life of the republic. But this fading of an era is occasion to acknowledge that having some shared things does matter to a stable political culture.
Broke out the french press after a long hiatus. Too long, indeed. ☕️
Wheels up in PHX. Heading to a funeral later today—father of a good friend who lived to see 91—in California.