a scratch pad for half-formed thoughts by a liberal political junkie who's nobody special. ''Hard Heads, Soft Hearts'' is the title of a book by Princeton economist Alan Blinder, and tends to be a favorite motto of neoliberals, especially liberal economists.
mobile
email

 
Big Talk

This Roxane Gay piece struck a nerve:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/opinion/sunday/hate-that-doesnt-hide.html

IMO, it's up to all of us to find a path in between 1) The apathy and indifference of Cousin Pookie 2) The hysteria and panic of Henny Penny 3) The clouds of Nader-Steinian solipsism 4) The pits of Strong Sadian despair.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/white-house-ignores-executive-order-requiring-count-of-civilian-casualties-in-counterterrorism-strikes/2018/05/01/2268fe40-4d4f-11e8-af46-b1d6dc0d9bfe_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.741e4229314f

There seems to me a kinship between an unwillingness to account for who you are bombing and why, and an unwillingness to account for which families you are separating, and why. In both cases, an indifference to hurting people, and an unwillingness to talk about how to hurt people less. Or, heaven forfend, even help.

At times like this, I feel an immense affection for the people who wrote and refined the Civil Rights Act. They set a standard of right conduct for us to live up to, and orient ourselves by. If human beings make it to the year 3000, the Civil Rights Act will be one of the glories of the 20th century.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIVsLeOuSMs

Little Talk:

I have an uncle who, for a time, was perhaps a trifle over-fond of the Tolstoy short story, "How much land does a man require?" I like the story myself, or at least don't mind it. And lately, I have been playing around with the frame, "How much X does a man require?", where X = work, play, screen time, recreational screen time, etc, etc.

On work, I am finding the pattern of a work week that I like is 4 work days, 2 half days, and 1 off day. If I am feeling enthusiastic, the half days will be more work than off, if not, not.

Therefore my work week will be, on average, 5 work days. How many work weeks in a year?

The upper bound is the preposterous Malcom Gladwell suggestion, 360 / 365 days in a year, which basically suggests 52 work weeks, 7 days a week, - Chinese New Year.

I wasn't willing to endorse 360 / 365, but maybe 336 / 365? This leaves 29/30 days in a year unaccounted for, with 48 work weeks. This is a nice round number, enabling you to divide the work year into six eight week terms, or vice versa.

Under this rule, 48 work weeks a year, 5 days a week, X would equal 240. This seems plausible.

However, when I look at great vacations I am aware of, many of them were longer than 4 weeks.

If you want to create space in the year for said great vacations, that would imply 6 or even 8 weeks of vacation.

Therefore X would equal 52 work weeks, 5 days a week, - 30 or 40 vacation days = 220 or 230 work days in a year.

So my answer to "How much work does a man require?" would be 220-240 days of work in a year.

But what kind of work? Not sure, but I am paying attention to my ratio of desk / non-desk activity.

The question I was asking here was not so much, "How much should you work?", but rather "How much should you encourage yourself to work, even if you don't necessarily feel like it?", as well as "How much should you encourage someone in your care to work, even if they don't necessarily feel like it?".

next post: 12/18/2018


posted by KR at 2:33 PM