...said Bartleby the Scrivener in Herman Melville's famous 1853 short story. Usually I prefer to dig right in and do things. Here are a few that I'm passing up for now.
Longtime fan of yours that I am, I would prefer that you gave up flying. Your (our) carbon footprint cannot afford it. You set a bad example. This hokum stating and restating that there is nothing individuals can do about climate change, that it all has to come from larger institutions, needs to stop. It's nonsense. We're the end users. Yes, we need all players, but we can individually do an enormous amount to cut CO2e. And we must.
Longtime fan of yours that I am, I would prefer that you gave up flying. Your (our) carbon footprint cannot afford it. You set a bad example. This hokum stating and restating that there is nothing individuals can do about climate change, that it all has to come from larger institutions, needs to stop. It's nonsense. We're the end users. Yes, we need all players, but we can individually do an enormous amount to cut CO2e. And we must.
Way late with comments. I almost wrote instantly, somehow got distracted.
1. Decatur. A friend of mine got a place on Decatur Island a few years ago, goes up all the time from here in Seattle. I always think, what a nuisance. But it didn't occur to me to get a seaplane. That would make all the difference.
2. Facebook. I never posted, but went to it all the time for a dozen years as a way to keep up with family and friends. Photos, etc. But June 2020 was the breaking point. During the CHOP occupation on Capitol Hill here in Seattle, I couldn't bear the neighbors's posts worrying about the protestors coming down the hill towards the lake to bring mayhem to our neighborhood. I had to quit. Haven't gone back. I do miss the family and friend photos though.
3. Musk. I didn't get off Twitter until two months ago. Missing it a lot, but surviving. I read with great interest your explanation of why the two of you bought a Tesla. I never would, on the basis that he has consistently lied for years about its capabilities, but it's not for me to say what others should do. And now there's the news of lying about range. He can't help himself I guess. It's part of his business model. I hope range is never an issue for you.
4. Concierge medicine. We moved to a concierge practice 9 1/2 years ago, reluctant at first because its existence was an example of the inequities in our health care system, but finally getting tired of constantly having to find new primary care physicians. We wanted stability, and it has worked well for us. I especially enjoy the leisure of our annual checkups, lasting typically an hour and a half. But every time I see our wonderful doctor, I am aware of how fortunate we are to be able to afford this luxury. (The American Prospect has begun an interesting series this week on the business of health care.)
Musk is losing - badly and irreversibly - in the market for ideas.
He cannot tolerate it, because it erodes his fantasy of exceptionalism, or he never would have fixated on twitter.
What I cannot fathom is the horde of limited partners who abrogated their fiduciary obligations to indulge his fantasy. Not just sovereign butchers or fanboys, but seasoned domestic investors who are stewarding the assets of retirees and universities. They do not deserve the pass they are getting.
Very well put. One of the mysteries of capitalism and corporate "governance."
GENERAL REPLY: It's going to be quite a while before there is electricity, land-line phone, or internet service where we live. Incredibly destructive by highly localized storm. Will report on that when I can get to a "real" internet place, tomorrow. Thanks to all.
"Tesla’s most ardent early adopters have, to a significant extent, soured on the boss. Out of dozens of questions repeated verbatim from our 2019 survey, the steepest change of opinion was the drop in Musk’s approval. In total, the follow-up survey posed more than 130 questions; the lowest scores went to Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter — which he renamed X — and to the divisive tweets that followed."
Yes, thanks. Our experience is limited — we've had our Model Y now for just ten weeks — but SO FAR it has been all positive. But I am watching these reports, and watching our vehicle.
can we all fit into your suitcase and travel with you on your incredible journey!
what a summer it has been, here's hoping you are both enjoying every minute
yes, seaplanes seem like so much fun - send a picture if you fly one!
Herman Melville, goodreads quotes:
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.
A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
“It is not down on any map; true places never are.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale
“Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.”
“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale
“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.”
“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.”
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”
Diana, thank you! And on the seaplane point — you can be sure that if and when I have the chance to do this again, I'll share and post a pic. More later.
You won't be surprised to hear that I disagree about the Covid origins issue. Quammen makes some nice points, including the ones you quote. In principle he calls for closer look at empirical data and bemoans the tendency to slip into mere stories. In practice he gives a very superficial and in some ways distorted glimpse of the evidence while slipping into lots of story telling.
A coronavirus RNA sequence has over 100,000 bits of information, which tell their own sort of story. One does not need dubious FBI reports to read it. The story is not especially "dark", just one of boring routine human screw-ups that happened to have terrible consequences.
I appreciate the question from the lead author of the famous Proximal Origins, K. G. Andersen, to his coauthors: "Destroy the world over sequence data? Yay or nay?". Perhaps their decision to tell a story different from the one told by the sequence data was for the best at the time. At this point, however, I think we already know enough to say our emphasis should be on regulating the wild-west labs around the world. The most alarming work that we know of is not in China but the Netherlands. It's a pressing need, not addressed by bland stories about how maybe sometime we'll hear exactly what happened in Wuhan. Fortunately people with a solid quantitative bent ike Zeynep Tufekci are calling for the press to be more forthright, rather than abandoning the story to Republican politicians.
Michael, thank you for this and your trenchant-but-civil disagreement. For reasons noted below, I will get back to a more "substantive" reply if and when the electric power comes back on.
Also, to be clear zoonotic hosts are still a very big deal, especially the European mink farms which Tufekci is now warning could easily lead to H5N1 crossover to humans. It's striking how little we seem to have learned.
I am so with you on the unpleasantness of writing on a fone. My father was a fast typist, and I learned--very quickly--to type in summer school the summer I turned 14. My sister in law just turned on a movie, but I'm sure I'll be commenting more later.
Thank you David. Yes, smart phones are inescapable and indispensable, but in several measurable ways they have just made life objectively worse. One: people walking around looking at their hands, as opposed to looking at (a) traffic barreling down the street their crossing [obviously even worse if the person looking at the phone is also driving the car] and (b) *the world* that is around them. Thoreau onward, and long before people, people have noted the value of *walking and looking around* (as opposed to walking and looking down). More later.
I run and walk with my dog in beautiful places, and occasionally see people staring at their fones (my spelling for smartfones) and I can't believe it, and then I realize that those people have problems, which may be so simple as an addiction to information.
As for drivers on their fones, I've landed on my horn around them, but they seem to avoid reacting. Although I've noticed that a lot less since the pandemic than before. Maybe there's been enforcement in Massachusetts (there are fines here).
Saturday evening update: Thanks to all for reading and comments. I can reply tomorrow. HUGE derecho-style storm in DC just now, trees down everywhere, no power in broad area — doing this (arrgh) by phone. Will log in tomorrow assuming power is back.
Love this post ... every single one of the topics are choosing not to write today made me smile and sometimes laugh out loud. Not exactly apropos of your post, but something about it made me think of a comment Kai Ryssdal made on Marketplace yesterday -- specifically, he used this phrase: "this good but uncertain economy." I can't imagine any economist or economics/marketplace journalist referring to "this CERTAIN economy." Wouldn't the economy, whether good or bad at any given moment, by its very nature always be uncertain?
I look forward to your "I prefer to" time for seaplane flying and writing. For reasons I find it challenging to narrate, likely related to my technology-centric writing experience, I find water flying to be the most uniquely exquisite of aviating pleasures. Perhaps it is because of what we get to see close-up from the water and the air, or the feeling of freedom in four dimensions (latitude, longitude, altitude, and water), all mixed in with a satisfying sense of accomplishment.
Bruce, thank you! I *loved* doing seaplane training at Kenmore in Seattle, for the reasons you describe. And I look forward to seeing you with your Icon (if that is what you have ended up with.)
For onlookers: Bruce Holmes was one of the heroes of my 2001 book 'Free Flight.' A lot that is *safe* about modern aviation has Bruce to thank, from his years at NASA and elsewhere.
An excellent theme, and a fitting list of subjects for (temporary) limbo. I would personally prefer never again to read any speculations about Donald Trump and his legal troubles, but I suppose that's too much to hope for...
Thanks. And boy do I agree about the nonstop surfeit of *speculation* about Trump's legal troubles (and so much else). As I've said maybe six billion times in this space and others, political writing that is mainly about "oh, here's something that might happen, or maybe not" is way way less useful than writing that says, "Here is what has happened, and why." Like the giant NYT takeout today about John Dingell's role in creating the behemoth that is the modern NRA.
All good choices, especially on the ability of a medium to pack so much information into a small space (the link to your 'Landing in Leesburg').
There's so much going on, hard to know where to waste time by digging in, with the risk of being led down a rabbit-hole. For me, a useful rule-of-thumb applies: a long piece should at least mention a key concept. For example, one on origins of a virus should discuss recombination. (Quammen does mention it.) Hence the need for a quick "search" function to run across the text.
Thank you. Really do appreciate it. On the search function, 100% agree about the utility. I *think* the online NYT has the standard Cmd-F search utility, or their own little search box, but not sure. Will dig it further when I can.
Longtime fan of yours that I am, I would prefer that you gave up flying. Your (our) carbon footprint cannot afford it. You set a bad example. This hokum stating and restating that there is nothing individuals can do about climate change, that it all has to come from larger institutions, needs to stop. It's nonsense. We're the end users. Yes, we need all players, but we can individually do an enormous amount to cut CO2e. And we must.
Longtime fan of yours that I am, I would prefer that you gave up flying. Your (our) carbon footprint cannot afford it. You set a bad example. This hokum stating and restating that there is nothing individuals can do about climate change, that it all has to come from larger institutions, needs to stop. It's nonsense. We're the end users. Yes, we need all players, but we can individually do an enormous amount to cut CO2e. And we must.
Thanks; I appreciate your concern. And, yes, this will happen (on our part) very soon.
Sorry, I was a bit crazed by other things.
Please pretend you didn’t see my note. I do truly always enjoy your writing.
🌸🌸
Way late with comments. I almost wrote instantly, somehow got distracted.
1. Decatur. A friend of mine got a place on Decatur Island a few years ago, goes up all the time from here in Seattle. I always think, what a nuisance. But it didn't occur to me to get a seaplane. That would make all the difference.
2. Facebook. I never posted, but went to it all the time for a dozen years as a way to keep up with family and friends. Photos, etc. But June 2020 was the breaking point. During the CHOP occupation on Capitol Hill here in Seattle, I couldn't bear the neighbors's posts worrying about the protestors coming down the hill towards the lake to bring mayhem to our neighborhood. I had to quit. Haven't gone back. I do miss the family and friend photos though.
3. Musk. I didn't get off Twitter until two months ago. Missing it a lot, but surviving. I read with great interest your explanation of why the two of you bought a Tesla. I never would, on the basis that he has consistently lied for years about its capabilities, but it's not for me to say what others should do. And now there's the news of lying about range. He can't help himself I guess. It's part of his business model. I hope range is never an issue for you.
4. Concierge medicine. We moved to a concierge practice 9 1/2 years ago, reluctant at first because its existence was an example of the inequities in our health care system, but finally getting tired of constantly having to find new primary care physicians. We wanted stability, and it has worked well for us. I especially enjoy the leisure of our annual checkups, lasting typically an hour and a half. But every time I see our wonderful doctor, I am aware of how fortunate we are to be able to afford this luxury. (The American Prospect has begun an interesting series this week on the business of health care.)
Musk is losing - badly and irreversibly - in the market for ideas.
He cannot tolerate it, because it erodes his fantasy of exceptionalism, or he never would have fixated on twitter.
What I cannot fathom is the horde of limited partners who abrogated their fiduciary obligations to indulge his fantasy. Not just sovereign butchers or fanboys, but seasoned domestic investors who are stewarding the assets of retirees and universities. They do not deserve the pass they are getting.
Very well put. One of the mysteries of capitalism and corporate "governance."
GENERAL REPLY: It's going to be quite a while before there is electricity, land-line phone, or internet service where we live. Incredibly destructive by highly localized storm. Will report on that when I can get to a "real" internet place, tomorrow. Thanks to all.
As a short time reporter and long time English teacher, I have long depicted Bartleby as the first modernist. Thanks for backing me up.
My pleasure, and thanks for reading!
From Bloomberg, "Tesla Owners Talk" 7/29:
"Tesla’s most ardent early adopters have, to a significant extent, soured on the boss. Out of dozens of questions repeated verbatim from our 2019 survey, the steepest change of opinion was the drop in Musk’s approval. In total, the follow-up survey posed more than 130 questions; the lowest scores went to Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter — which he renamed X — and to the divisive tweets that followed."
Yes, thanks. Our experience is limited — we've had our Model Y now for just ten weeks — but SO FAR it has been all positive. But I am watching these reports, and watching our vehicle.
Best of luck with it!
I always love—and marvel at—your columns.
You are so gracious to say that; thank you.
totally marvelous, thank you!
can we all fit into your suitcase and travel with you on your incredible journey!
what a summer it has been, here's hoping you are both enjoying every minute
yes, seaplanes seem like so much fun - send a picture if you fly one!
Herman Melville, goodreads quotes:
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.
A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
“It is not down on any map; true places never are.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale
“Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.”
“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, the Whale
“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.”
“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.”
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”
Diana, thank you! And on the seaplane point — you can be sure that if and when I have the chance to do this again, I'll share and post a pic. More later.
you and Deb could always just go with a pilot on an excursion flight
I am sure a scenic pilot would be very glad to have 2 trained pilots on board as guests!
enjoy your summer, everyone!
You won't be surprised to hear that I disagree about the Covid origins issue. Quammen makes some nice points, including the ones you quote. In principle he calls for closer look at empirical data and bemoans the tendency to slip into mere stories. In practice he gives a very superficial and in some ways distorted glimpse of the evidence while slipping into lots of story telling.
A coronavirus RNA sequence has over 100,000 bits of information, which tell their own sort of story. One does not need dubious FBI reports to read it. The story is not especially "dark", just one of boring routine human screw-ups that happened to have terrible consequences.
I appreciate the question from the lead author of the famous Proximal Origins, K. G. Andersen, to his coauthors: "Destroy the world over sequence data? Yay or nay?". Perhaps their decision to tell a story different from the one told by the sequence data was for the best at the time. At this point, however, I think we already know enough to say our emphasis should be on regulating the wild-west labs around the world. The most alarming work that we know of is not in China but the Netherlands. It's a pressing need, not addressed by bland stories about how maybe sometime we'll hear exactly what happened in Wuhan. Fortunately people with a solid quantitative bent ike Zeynep Tufekci are calling for the press to be more forthright, rather than abandoning the story to Republican politicians.
Michael, thank you for this and your trenchant-but-civil disagreement. For reasons noted below, I will get back to a more "substantive" reply if and when the electric power comes back on.
Whoops, only ~64k bits of info per sequence.
Also, to be clear zoonotic hosts are still a very big deal, especially the European mink farms which Tufekci is now warning could easily lead to H5N1 crossover to humans. It's striking how little we seem to have learned.
I am so with you on the unpleasantness of writing on a fone. My father was a fast typist, and I learned--very quickly--to type in summer school the summer I turned 14. My sister in law just turned on a movie, but I'm sure I'll be commenting more later.
Thank you David. Yes, smart phones are inescapable and indispensable, but in several measurable ways they have just made life objectively worse. One: people walking around looking at their hands, as opposed to looking at (a) traffic barreling down the street their crossing [obviously even worse if the person looking at the phone is also driving the car] and (b) *the world* that is around them. Thoreau onward, and long before people, people have noted the value of *walking and looking around* (as opposed to walking and looking down). More later.
I run and walk with my dog in beautiful places, and occasionally see people staring at their fones (my spelling for smartfones) and I can't believe it, and then I realize that those people have problems, which may be so simple as an addiction to information.
As for drivers on their fones, I've landed on my horn around them, but they seem to avoid reacting. Although I've noticed that a lot less since the pandemic than before. Maybe there's been enforcement in Massachusetts (there are fines here).
Saturday evening update: Thanks to all for reading and comments. I can reply tomorrow. HUGE derecho-style storm in DC just now, trees down everywhere, no power in broad area — doing this (arrgh) by phone. Will log in tomorrow assuming power is back.
…and by ❤️ I mean: too bad about all that lost-to-the-capitalists-and-crazies AM radio bandwidth.
You might have had three, or maybe five, excellent local meteorologists vying for your attention.
Instead, 🤷🏻♀️.
Love this post ... every single one of the topics are choosing not to write today made me smile and sometimes laugh out loud. Not exactly apropos of your post, but something about it made me think of a comment Kai Ryssdal made on Marketplace yesterday -- specifically, he used this phrase: "this good but uncertain economy." I can't imagine any economist or economics/marketplace journalist referring to "this CERTAIN economy." Wouldn't the economy, whether good or bad at any given moment, by its very nature always be uncertain?
Thank you! And nice point about "this CERTAIN economy." I will have to use that myself — and will try to remember to give credit! ;)
I look forward to your "I prefer to" time for seaplane flying and writing. For reasons I find it challenging to narrate, likely related to my technology-centric writing experience, I find water flying to be the most uniquely exquisite of aviating pleasures. Perhaps it is because of what we get to see close-up from the water and the air, or the feeling of freedom in four dimensions (latitude, longitude, altitude, and water), all mixed in with a satisfying sense of accomplishment.
Bruce, thank you! I *loved* doing seaplane training at Kenmore in Seattle, for the reasons you describe. And I look forward to seeing you with your Icon (if that is what you have ended up with.)
For onlookers: Bruce Holmes was one of the heroes of my 2001 book 'Free Flight.' A lot that is *safe* about modern aviation has Bruce to thank, from his years at NASA and elsewhere.
An excellent theme, and a fitting list of subjects for (temporary) limbo. I would personally prefer never again to read any speculations about Donald Trump and his legal troubles, but I suppose that's too much to hope for...
Thanks. And boy do I agree about the nonstop surfeit of *speculation* about Trump's legal troubles (and so much else). As I've said maybe six billion times in this space and others, political writing that is mainly about "oh, here's something that might happen, or maybe not" is way way less useful than writing that says, "Here is what has happened, and why." Like the giant NYT takeout today about John Dingell's role in creating the behemoth that is the modern NRA.
All good choices, especially on the ability of a medium to pack so much information into a small space (the link to your 'Landing in Leesburg').
There's so much going on, hard to know where to waste time by digging in, with the risk of being led down a rabbit-hole. For me, a useful rule-of-thumb applies: a long piece should at least mention a key concept. For example, one on origins of a virus should discuss recombination. (Quammen does mention it.) Hence the need for a quick "search" function to run across the text.
Thank you. Really do appreciate it. On the search function, 100% agree about the utility. I *think* the online NYT has the standard Cmd-F search utility, or their own little search box, but not sure. Will dig it further when I can.