Memory, and history, can be a bit vague

Kathleen was looking for a project to get into and, for whatever reason, settled on reading and digitizing the materials we have from my mother and father. These include a scrapbook compiled by Kathleen for my parents' 40th wedding anniversay (1989). along with various legal documents and printed letters.

But the most intriguing document is a diary written by 9-year-old John W. Kennedy, detailing one year in his life. That year was 1937. I don't like to get in Kathleen's way when she is immersed in such projects, though she is generous in sharing little tidbits that amuse, fascinate, or puzzle her. A future post may relate some highlights.

But once I can wrap up my St. Luke's UMC history project for the time being - I am pausing after taking readers from the late '70s through 2004 - my goal is to begin writing some sort of history of at least part of my family. My current model is a good one: Kathleen's book that she wrote on her mother and father, complete with their descendants. She quite logically argues that the sheer number of people involved in going further back would be overwhelming.

So, right now, focusing on John and Barbara Kennedy is the specific goal. Kathleen has digitized so many images over the years (long before her current efforts) and she has the subscription to Ancestry, which I can borrow from and maybe use for even more arcane research. 

Neither of us remembers how we came to possess so many documents from my parents, though I suppose Mike must also have quite a few. Particularly legal ones, of course, as he functioned as the family attorney for many years. Just the other day, I sent him a plea for some details on the history of Walnut Ridge, the housing development just south of West High School in Iowa City, developed along with Mace Braverman, a business partner of dad's.  

Just to show how life goes, today Kathleen shared a copy of a document I wrote on June 14, 2023... Barbara's birthday. When she asked me about it, I had no recollection. But seeing it reminded me that I wrote it as part of this very blog. Brother Tim has asked for the siblings to write down some memories of our mother and send them to him to compile this coming June 14. Mom would be 99.

One of the points of that post, clearly, was to point out the irony of our elder granddaughter going off to Iowa that coming fall to attend college. I also speculated a bit on how Grace might have been affected by her great grandmother, even though they never met. 

I guess we can reasonably speculate on how we are products in some diffuse way of our ancestors, most of whom we never met and many of whom we know nothing. We do know they lived and reproduced, of course. We are living proof.

My interest in the history of my family, or my church, or community or long-time home is in trying to better understand HOW people lived and how some of their journey led to the always compelling story of... ME. 

I still haven't come up with the specific anecdotes I will contribute to the family project. But having some primary source documents should help me. 

And later today we will drive up to DIA to pick up granddaughter Anna, flying back due to receiving a jury summons and without recourse to defer. She is flying back from Iowa, a second great granddaughter now living where Barb spent so many years making a life. 

To brag a tiny bit: Anna earned four A's and one A+ this past semester. That is the sort of thing my mom would have shared widely, perhaps at bridge or at the Elks pool. 

But now I am straying into memories of Barbara Fern Guffey Kennedy. 

Resisting the urge to feel smug

Here is today's brief post from Seth Godin (who blogs every day and has done so for over a dozen years):

"It’s useful and satisfying to have people go along with your wishes and your taste.

"But hoping that they’ll be delighted to do so and thank you for pointing out their previous errors might be asking for too much.

"It’s one thing for people to act as if you’re right. It’s a whole other thing for them to acknowledge that they are wrong. It might not be worth what it costs to achieve."

He rarely comments directly on politics or a specific event, preferring larger points that a reader can adapt as desired to their lives. 

So, I had two immediate reactions:

1. If one of my writing students submitted this as a draft, I would respond with "these are compelling claims but where is your support?" In other words, one of my themes in teaching any sort of writing is that no matter how "true" our claims may be, they are not as convincing as they could be without specific examples taken from personal experience, observation, or research. It's not up to the readers to supply their own examples.
2. I immediately plugged in the chaos of Republican senators arguing with Trump's stooge Blance about the proposed "settlement" with the IRS. Everything about this stinks of corruption, not to mention hubris. The hubris grows from the sin of pride, where Trump and his minions believe there is nothing they can't get away with at this point. Evidently, some sort of line was crossed with many among the 53 Trump toadies who, until now, have just nodded and avoided blame and generally refused to even offer a timid question about their Dear Leader's insanity. 

And THAT led me to imagining some future where many Americans (even cowardly politicians) will feel regret over allowing a wannabe king undermine our nation. I know. Science fiction stuff.

And THEN I thought that Seth's advice will come in handy. At some point, despite having been "right" for so long and despite enduring endless humiliations both great and small, anyone who might be termed "anti-Trump" or anti-oligarchy or anti-fascist would do well to simply offer quiet thanks. They must resist the urge to force public repentence.

Even in my youth, when I went to confession regularly as a good Catholic boy should, the reality was that my pitiful little "sins" were expressed through a screen in a darkened box to an anonymous priest. There was no command to later exit the little box and proclaim my latest "I had impure thoughts five times" admission. 

By the way, some of my male friends advised me that "impure thoughts" was the perfect sin to confess. Vague but clearly, well, not right. But also so common that the priest would hardly notice. Most of the time my penance would be ten Hail Marys and an act of contrition... recited silently in a pew in the back of the church. 

And then I could exit the building and go in search of my next impure thought.

I see a parallel with all the deluded Trumpers who will at some point develop amnesia about some of the worst of their behaviors. 

It would be nice if they all could have some quick and painless process to "confess," quietly and superficially, and then move on with their lives. 

I don't need their apologies. I want to see different behaviors. 

But I will confess that I will privately feel inordinate joy.

Once again... it didn't quite work out as I planned

Another semester in the books. Another set of mixed results.

I honestly don't know why I ever expect anything other than mixed results... my hopes and expectations only occasionally match what students produce and it's been that way since 1976. Fifty years should be enough to make it clear.

This spring I tried a new strategy with my CSU online Strategic Writing & Communication class, where I created a methodical "scaffolding," forcing each student to complete key steps in the process of researching and writing a recommendation report. The theory was that successfully completing those several steps (from a topic proposal to an annotated bibliography to an "executive summary" and more) would make finalizing the report relatively painless. 

I also added a final memo assignment, where students were asked to reflect on the process and how it all worked. There was a section asking about AI being used as a tool in the course, as well.

Interestingly, nearly everyone in the course commented on how they liked the "scaffolding" and discovered so much about the complexities of writing a report. They almost all liked the fact that I did not categorically ban AI but instead asked for it to be used in specific ways, always with transparency.

So, that should mean that the final reports were better than they have been in the past, right?

Ha! Not right. 

Many of the reports ended up basically having very little "there" there. It's a researched recommendation report, focused on a "client" that each student could choose... with my hope being that even pretending to have a client would help sharpen the arguments and the advice. 

I am still analyzing how so many ended up earning 65-75 percent on what amounted to the final exam for the course... and still were able to earn an A-. 

But my first theory is that I created so many steps, each earning x points along the way, that even a dismal score of 60/100 didn't really tank their grades. Good for them, I suppose, but disappointing to me. My goal was for the final recommendation report to be the culmination and the clear evidence about what was learned in the course. 

Right now, I plan to spend some time before fall semester crafting one MORE assignment that builds to the final report, one that asks students to share a few paragraphs that include in-text citations gleaned from their research. If I had any revelation, it was that they simply did not realize that they can't just plop findings and writing from a source directly into an academic document. 

It's not that their writing made no sense. It's that it made sense without any clear support.

I suspect that AI is partly to blame, as students must have dumped at least some of their research into the chats and received logical but unsupported conclusions from the robots. And that led to lots of bullet point lists of positives and negatives and conclusions. Most of those, however, did not connect with the "client" they had chosen but remained frustratingly general.

So, I know the task.

A big question is whether I can keep this particular course ahead of the rapid improvements in generative AI... and whether it matter all that much. 

Isn't there a drug for that?

I read a provocative post from blogger Scott Young this week that explores why people feel bad when a lot of objective evidence is that they should be pretty happy. His thesis is that we are victims of our own success, basically eliminating the biggest challenges humans have faced but also raising our expectations. 

Here's an excerpt that helps summarize the problem: 

But if we define a utopia as a society that gives people an abundance of the things they want, then, at least compared to nearly all actually-existing societies, we’re living in it! True, there are still problems that might be solved in some glorified Star Trek future that don’t exist today: teleportation, robot butlers, cures for aging and world peace. But if we avoid speculative futures, it’s pretty clear that we’re closer to the utopia of human desires than we’ve ever been in the past.

Yet, if we look at human flourishing, the kinds of things we need to be psychologically fulfilled, the picture doesn’t look so good. Rates of depression and anxiety have skyrocketed. People are anxious, fearful, inattentive and unhappy.

One story you can tell about this trend is that technology is to blame. The rise of smartphones, social media and easy entertainment have glued us to screens rather than real friends, hobbies and time for reflection. If so, the problem would be not that we live in a world without those things (friends, hobbies and time for reflection still exist, after all), but that our world has too much the things people desire, and they crowd out the things we actually need.

Then he explores three options that might lead to more optimism: prudence, regulation, and technology that modifies our brains to want more of what we need. 

Prudence is based on the idea that we can control our desires and act in our best interest. Being better educated about the effects of, say, certain drugs, could prompt us to avoid those temptations and dangers. But millennia of experience shows that most people aren't going to exercise prudence, at least not consistently.

Regulation means more laws that forbid certain activities or products, more regulations that control content on social media, etc. We can ban cell phones from schools. We can raise taxes on tobacco. Australia recently banned youths from using social media. The problem, Young points out, is that democracy doesn't work well when almost every aspect of life is controlled. Where is free will?

Technology is most obvious with the newish GLP-1 drugs that inhibit impulses, not only leading to weight loss but to less addiction overall. Lots of people use a low dose of anti-depressants to reduce stress and worry. Those Ozempic-style drugs are not perfect yet, and the steep costs or long-term effects likely scare some users away, but it is likely that costs will come down and such drugs will become safer and safer. More users, more confidence... more sales and money to be made.

Here's his final graf: 

I find it hard to get enthused about a future where we create an abundance of human vices, and cure that abundance by creating drugs that make us desire them less. It sounds, well, dystopian. But I suspect that this will end up being the path humanity follows, if only because it is easiest.

That sounds like wisdom to me. Humans rarely choose the hard way when there are easier options. 

I suspect I could lower my blood pressure by a combination of exercise and weight loss and diet, but I can take a tiny does of Lysinopril, and voila! My readings are perfect. 

Technology it is. 

Already dreaming of next season

As long as I am thinking about basketball (see last week's entry), I was not surprised to read today that the plan for the Iowa Women's team is to return to the "four outside and one inside" strategy the team used so successfully for many years. The greatest success was during Caitlin Clark's four years, of course.

We have a tremendous center, rising junior Ava Heiden, who is 6-4 and aggressive and seems to be steadily adding more skills to her game. We have one of the top entering frosh in the country - McKenna Woliczko is her name - and she's 6-2 and quick and can play inside or out. Then there are two transfer guards coming in from Georgia who have the potential to make immediate contributions... plus the three or four returners from last season. 

Everyone else on the team bailed... NIL has ended any sense of order or even loyalty among players, but coaches never had to worry about that and the NCAA ticked everyone off for so many years that it's just how it is. Each year there will be lots of changes... I saw that there were about 1,000 college players looking for try a new school (with a new contract). 

It's tough for a team like Iowa to put together enough money to compete financially with Big Ten teams from larger states in football, but with basketball, you just need to find enough money to buy the affections of a very few players to be competitive. 

Ironically, Caitlin Clark accellerated this "money ball" in college athletics, just as she has accellerated the salaries for the WNBA. It's amazing what one extremely talented performer can do.

And that takes me back to my original point. Modern basketball does demand at least one tall player, just to keep a larger team from crushing you on the boards. But everyone else is kind of positionless... running off screens, lurking outside the three-point line, eager to take those 3s unless something very close to the basket shows up. 

My brothers and I often bemoan the clear lack of mid-range shooting -- we grew up thinking that the epitome of great basketball was being accurate from 15-feet. I remember our entire offense when I was a senior in high school was either "feed the post" or pop up the free throw lane to the "elbow" and either shoot or drive. I spent endless hours trying to perfect the 15-foot bank shots made famous by Sam Jones of the Boston Celtics.

But there was no three-point line then. Not for high school and not even for college. 

Like so much in modern life, things change and when we spend much time comparing the past to the present, we are not only being a bit cranky but also a bit illogical. 

Caitlin CLark was once-in-a-lifetime, so that's over. Hey, I want Obama back. Heck, I'll take an Eisenhower. And I already miss Colbert and he's not done for another ten days. I miss Letterman and his replacement is about to be "retired." 

All of Caitlin's games are on TV - the next one is tomorrow night. Dave found some other stuff to do, just less often, on Netflix. So will Colbert. We are already drawing up plans to visit Chicago and the soon-ot-open Obama Presidential Library this fall. 

Kathleen and I will, of course, renew our Big Ten Network subscription just before football season begins in late August and will watch/record all the Iowa games: football, men's and women's basketball. The details continue to change, but our Iowa fan tradition continues. 

Go Hawks!

 

Already bored with the NBA playoffs, we turn to the WNBA

The WNBA is back in action, and we are pulling for the Indiana Fever almost entirely due to Caitlin Clark. Last year was a dud, full of injuries for her. I thought she had "bulked up" too much after the league tried to bully her in her first year. All the muscle may have led to her soft tissue injuries, whatever those are. 

She looked sore at time today in the 107-104 loss to Dallas, going 2-9 on three-pointers. Looked like she was getting treatments on her lower back and that soreness might have affected her lift on those long jumpers. 

But it was an exciting game, with not a lot of defense from either team. 

But my point is that it's nice to have CC back as someone to root for. Local teams have been disappointing this year other than the Avalanche. I hope they win the Stanley Cup, but honestly have zero interest in watching hockey. I would bet a lot of money that I have never seen a goal scored in real time on occasions where I did watch a match on TV. 

Replays can be slowed down, which is nice, and it turns out that I can just find all the scoring replays online if I care.

The Nuggets fell apart in the playoffs, not able to stand up to the bullying of the Timberwolves. The NBA is certainly exciting but there is so much pushing and whacking that the basketball quality is beside the point. I'd rather watch the women, who are also shoving and reaching but not so blatantly and ceaselessly.

And that takes us to the Rockies, who are vastly improved over last season's disaster but still reside firmly in last place in their division. They may only lose 90 games instead of 119. That would actually be the sort of improvement that most teams would be overjoyed by. But when you are comparing to a season that threatened to set a new record for losses, there's a long way to go.

I used to look forward to journeying downtown to Coors Field to watch the Rox. The stadium is one of the best in the league and we used to enjoy homefield advantage. But the last homestand was 1-5, so...

And that is today's sports wrap up from Denver.

The groveling among the cult members is staggering

Those in power feel they can manipulate language any way they wish, and with no repercussions. Unfortunately, most people let it slide.

The "86 47" brouhaha is a classic. First, Comey should not have posted the photo of the "found art" from a walk on the beach. A bit of discretion would have been nice... or simply resisting the impulse to post something mildly amusing. Comey, BTW, is not a man worthy of our respect. I could not care less what happens to him, but I cling to some sense of basic justice.

Second, "86 46" can be found all over the internet referring to Biden, and no one paid much attention.

Third, to twist "86" to mean "kill" our Dear Leader is insulting to us all. The etymology of "86" is murky, with the most likely original use being to note that a shop or restaurant or bar was out of something. "86 the scallops. We're all out." One server might share this with another to avoid confusing customers. 

There may also be some validity to "86" rhyming with "nix," and "nix" has its own obscure history, likely from German's nichts, which means nothing or none. 

Fourth, many have pointed out that you can watch a lot of crime movies and will never hear "We need to 86 Harry..." in a threatening conversation. To suggest that it is common among murderers to use that expression is fatuous. 

Fifth, there is little doubt among most Americans (and those clinging to the Republican Party are NOT most Americans) that Trump really does need to go. Failing an armed revolution, this can only be accomplished by finding ways to limit his outrageous behavior and that of his minions until the next presidential election. 

About 70 percent of Americans would be cheering right now if the country could "86 47" tomorrow. 

But this "86" silliness will soon pass as MAGA leaders continue to assault the English language and any sense of truth with the next lie or exaggeration or convoluted phrase. The endless language games is the point. Those in power can never let up.

In our everyday lives, if we found ourselves constantly having to listen to someone who constantly and gleefully lies... lies as effortlessly as he breathes... we would soon find ways to avoid that person. 

Unfortunately, simply ignoring the president is just not possible. Also unfortunately, calling him on the endless lies and half-truths and trolling is not going to change the minds of his mindless followers. Many of them joined the cult because they enjoy the chaos.

Logic and dictionaries are tools of the Libs. 

And it's just so fun to see non-cultists sputter in rage. Too many of our neighbors are excited by "blood and circuses," no matter how unethical and immoral and greedy those organizing the circuses are. 

Those who revel in howling at the world cannot be reasoned with. Their bloodlust is overwhelming. 

All that matters is surviving until the next couple elections can soundly defeat the authoritarians, the billionaires that fund them, and the millions who prefer obsessing over trans volleyball players rather than the murdering of innocents.

Does that seem too harsh?

Or, maybe, not quite harsh enough?