{"id":24073,"date":"2019-06-18T12:36:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T19:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=24073"},"modified":"2019-06-19T06:50:02","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T13:50:02","slug":"tuesday-bag-o-hot-takes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=24073","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Bag o’ Hot Takes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"D9Rw7IzW4AEoJcL\"<\/a>Saw this on Instagram and copied it. Now to send it to my children so they can repost it\u00a0every Father’s Day until my giant ego and I die, at which point we’ll no longer give a shit. That’s a photo of Robin Olds<\/a>, by the way, one of the all-time archetypal fighter pilots.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Father’s Day, mine was jim-dandy.\u00a0Our son Gregory sent me a die-cast model of a Honda Goldwing, an exact match of the one I ride, right down to the color. I placed it prominently on my toy shelf in the home office.\u00a0Our daughter Polly remembered to wish me a happy Father’s Day, which was\u00a0both pleasant and unexpected (no snark … I was sincerely touched).<\/p>\n

I was allowed to spend a little money on Amazon, where I ordered a new wood bead seat cover for the truck. It came the very next day and\u00a0is already\u00a0installed (the old one’s on my home office chair, presently being sat upon). Donna, who never stops reminding me how much she hates smoked meats, let me set up the Weber and smoke a turkey breast and a pack of weisswurst over mesquite. I thought it turned out great, and Donna did a\u00a0convincing job of pretending to enjoy her dinner (okay, now I’m snarking, but just a little).<\/p>\n

We topped off Father’s Day by watching Three Days of the Condor on streaming TV, then, once it was dark and somewhat cooler, driving to the corner Dairy Queen. We took the doggies\u00a0and shared the small ends of our single-scoop cones with them. A great day all around.<\/p>\n

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A few days ago I\u00a0wrote about Trump’s proposed\u00a0paint schemes for new Air Force One aircraft<\/a>. I’m a docent at Pima Air and Space Museum, where we have a former Air Force One painted in the blue & white livery introduced by the Kennedys in 1962. I always stop in front of that plane and tell the story of how\u00a0Jack, Jackie, and designer Raymond Loewy came up with the design, but lately, in light of the news, I feel obliged to mention that a new\u00a0design is on the way.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I realized what a minefield this topic is. A visitor sitting behind me in the tram started peppering me with questions, and it quickly became clear he was trying to trap me into saying something about Trump … whether\u00a0positive or negative I can’t say. Either way, he wanted to stir up trouble. And either way, it’s a road I can’t go down with visitors.<\/p>\n

Until now, I’ve been able to avoid saying Trump’s name in front of museum visitors. The closest I ever come is when I say the “current president” flies on Marine Corps helicopters. But it seems impossible to talk about a new paint scheme for Air Force One aircraft without mentioning the name of the only person who’s pushing the idea.<\/p>\n

How to talk about anything Trump-related without offending someone? I’m not sure it’s even possible. Maybe I’ll just play it safe and leave the entire subject alone.<\/p>\n

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I saw this on Twitter yesterday, the start of a thread<\/a> posted by Kyle Kashuv, a survivor of the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. I don’t know if his survivor status played a\u00a0role in\u00a0getting him\u00a0a slot at Harvard, but never mind,\u00a0the college withdrew his acceptance\u00a0after learning\u00a0of racist and anti-Semitic comments Kyle posted to social media two years ago, a few months before the shooting.<\/p>\n

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Several young Parkland survivors have been in the news, most\u00a0speaking out as\u00a0impassioned advocates of gun control. Kyle is a conservative pro-gun exception with a large right-wing following, but that doesn’t appear to be the reason Harvard withdrew his acceptance. You can read some of the posts Harvard objected to here<\/a> … I’m not going to quote them because\u00a0they’re too offensive even for me.<\/p>\n

Long story short, Kyle says he’s grown in the two years since he posted that shit. He was 16 then; he’s 18 now. In his thread, he explains how\u00a0his views have changed and matured over\u00a0the past two years, and asks if Harvard believes people can change, as he has … but just as you begin to feel some sympathy for him, he\u00a0throws this turd in the punchbowl:<\/p>\n

Throughout its history, Harvard\u2019s faculty has included slave owners, segregationists, bigots and antisemites. If Harvard is suggesting that growth isn’t possible and that our past defines our future, then Harvard is an inherently racist institution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t know how you react to that, but my reaction\u00a0was instant and strong: he blew it right then and there. Kyle’s not sincere. He’s not being honest. His\u00a0views haven’t changed. I wouldn’t want him going to school with my grandchildren. Or yours.<\/p>\n

Did you have a moral compass when you were 16? Most of us did. I was a right asshole in many ways, but I knew racism and anti-Semitism was wrong and I never would have said the kinds of things Kyle said … not merely said but\u00a0shouted out to the whole world. I grew up\u00a0around kids who\u00a0said shit like that. I didn’t hang with them, but they were there, the deplorables of the 1960s. Not one of them was college material, let alone Harvard.<\/p>\n

Nope. Sorry, Kyle.\u00a0Tell you what, though, it might not be too late to apply for a scholarship at\u00a0one of those evangelical\u00a0institutions down South. Or you can skip\u00a0higher education entirely and become a Fox News anchorperson.<\/p>\n

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Speaking of Twitter, one of the people I follow there is an alt-media personality named Xeni Jardin<\/a>, long associated with the website Boing Boing<\/a>\u00a0and an occasional\u00a0guest on cable news, where she talks about social media and tech. Here’s something she posted that caught my eye:<\/p>\n

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The New York Times\u00a0piece she linked to is here<\/a>, or you can click on the graphic above to link to it. I realize very few of you subscribe to the NYT and can read the entire article. I can’t afford a subscription myself, and could only read the first paragraph before hitting a paywall. A friend who subscribes sent me a text extract* of the article, and after reading it\u00a0I’m down with Xeni’s take:\u00a0“This article does for alcoholism what Gwyneth Paltrow does for cancer wellness.”<\/p>\n

My friend, the one who sent the text of the NYT article, is a moderate drinker, very much in control of himself. He knows I no longer drink and wanted to know what I thought after reading the article. I’ll share with you what I wrote in reply:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been following reaction to\u00a0the article on Twitter since early this morning. One of the more interesting comment threads was started by Xeni Jardin. She\u2019s a recovering alcoholic who still goes to AA meetings. Many of the people who responded to her are likewise AA, but not all. There are other ways to quit and people who\u2019ve taken those roads are represented in the thread too. You can read the thread<\/a>\u00a0if you want (and in any case, Xeni is a good follow).<\/p>\n

My own comment to Xeni, posted a few moments ago: “Yes. If you drink, you drink. AA wasn’t part of my journey, but knowing I must not have even one drink was & is. People who know they need to quit will seize on this article as an excuse not to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some folks can get away with light drinking and never fall into heavy drinking. Seems to me you & your wife fall into that category, and I admire you for that. Twelve-plus years back I had to face two facts about myself: I wasn\u2019t in control of my drinking, and I needed to quit totally. Drinking less was not an option. It turned out I had the willpower to quit on my own, and I thank my lucky stars for that. Most people need support, which they get through programs like AA.<\/p>\n

We both know lots of people who\u2019ll look you in the eye and maintain they\u2019re in control. They tell us if we could see them in their regular lives, when they\u2019re not actively drinking like they are at the moment (which coincidentally is every fucking time we see them), we’d know they never touch the stuff. Well, we both know they\u2019re lying. They know it too.<\/p>\n

Lots of people will seize upon this article as an excuse to put off doing what they know they must do. They\u2019ll go to one of those alcohol-free nights at a bar and convince themselves they\u2019ve turned over a new leaf and are now \u201cmindful drinkers,\u201d like the photoshopped young\u00a0drunks they used to illustrate this pernicious piece.<\/p>\n

I keep coming back to what Xeni and I and most of the people on\u00a0Twitter\u00a0are saying \u2026 it ain\u2019t quitting if you don\u2019t quit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*The full text of the NYT article, minus graphics and ads, is below the fold if you want to read it.<\/p>\n

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The New Sobriety<\/a><\/h2>\n

by Alex Williams, June 15, 2019:<\/p>\n

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We\u00a0all know what sobriety used to be: sober, in all meanings of the word.<\/p>\n

It was a seltzer with lime instead of Bordeaux with a Michelin-starred meal; a trip to the gym on Friday evenings while everyone else hit happy hour. For those with a serious alcohol problem, it was a worthy decision, maybe even a lifesaving one. It could even be fun, when it wasn\u2019t all amends and affirmations. But it had an air of privacy and quiet.<\/p>\n

Well, my friend, this has changed. It seems not even sobriety will be saved from enjoying a made-for-Instagram moment, with new hashtaggable terms like \u201cmindful drinking\u201d and \u201csober curious.\u201d No longer do you have to feel left out or uncool for being sober. You maybe don\u2019t even have to completely stop drinking alcoholic beverages?<\/p>\n

This is according to a new generation of kinda-sorta temporary temperance crusaders, whose attitudes toward the hooch is somewhere between Carrie Nation\u2019s and Carrie Bradshaw\u2019s. To them, sobriety is something less (and more) than a practice relevant only to clinically determined alcohol abusers. Now it can also just be something cool and healthful to try, like going vegan, or taking an Iyengar yoga class.<\/p>\n

Anonymous? Hardly. No longer is the topic of sobriety confined to discreet meetings in church halls over Styrofoam cups of lukewarm Maxwell House. For these New Abstainers, sobriety is a thing to be, yes, toasted over $15 artisanal\u00a0mocktails<\/a>\u00a0at alcohol-free nights at chic bars around the country, or at \u201csober-curious\u201d yoga retreats, or early-morning dance parties for those with no need to sleep off the previous night\u2019s bender.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n