A few friends shared with me some of the textbooks that their extremely religious sister uses to homeschool her children. They were hilarious! Extremely inaccurate and full of indoctrination garbage. Then we all realized that this is what these kids’ “education” amounts to… not as funny anymore. Maybe their only textbook isn’t the Bible, but that doesn’t mean it’s any good.
After her eldest child was bordering on middle school age and still completely illiterate, she wound up sending the lot back to public schools. Thank god, but I still feel awful for those kids.
I was this kid. It led to a lifelong love of reading and illustration which I’ve shared with friends and continue to cherish to this day. Sometimes the only think driving me out the door is the opportunity to draw something new or chance upon a good book or magazine. It also led to terrible eyesight, but generally your daughter is probably going to be fine.
To each his own. I find the meandering prose refreshing. Especially in an article like this where I’m predisposed to find the subject distasteful, it breaks down the defenses a bit and helps me to keep an open mind. When you get to that point, you find it’s not just about “how some TikTok manager games the system.”
Not that every article written in this way is a winner. But this one benefitted from the format imo
That seemed resolved by the end of the article, by the admission that this guy sometimes has 9 bad ideas in a row and the 10th is a winner. The highlighted example was one of the bad ideas, but it illustrates generally how the promotion process works
You can look up the listings for the rentals after the house has been flipped. And damn, good for you being able to purchase a home without financing! Most of us can’t pull that off
The worrying part is that my friends aren’t “sad and poor” by any means. But they’re still regularly outbid (by huge margins) by these companies, which they then watch turn the properties into rentals. I don’t know what the larger trends are, but as my circle attempts to break into homeownership for the past 3 or 4 years, I am the only person who managed to dodge this trend (truly through luck alone) and remain the only homeowner.
While I agree the mom and pop landlords also pose a problem, they don’t have the capital to outbid new buyers by tens of thousands, or to leverage dozens of existing properties. Bidding against them is not a perpetual David vs. Goliath battle.
I can’t speak for all of the US, but locally the most common way that affordable housing is built is because we have local government mandates which require it of large companies who build in my area. It seems to work very well; ours is the fastest-growing region in my state, and homelessness has been low.
I won’t argue with you on the developing underclass, but the numbers have shown for a while now that there is a very real housing shortage. Part of the problem here is that we’re not building to keep pace with the population.
Among my friends seeking to buy houses, the greater problem is the ability of large companies to buy up whatever is on the market, which they then immediately turn into a rental. It’s nearly impossible to compete with a company who will pay $50k over asking price, in cash, for the house you’re trying to get. Comparatively, immigrants don’t have the purchasing power to compete, so saying they’re the problem is a weird conclusion to draw.
Zoning law in some places makes building new homes very difficult, so I would like to see less/different local regulation there. But other than zoning it seems it would help more if the government would step in to disallow large leasing companies buying up giant swathes of the housing stock just to flip into rentals. Maybe incentivize those companies to increase their ratio of new construction, to help solve this supply issue.
> you won’t find more compelling missions and dedicated people, anywhere
My friends and family working for the (federal) government would take issue with this statement. If you’re looking for mission-driven people, imo a mission-based nonprofit is the way to go. I’m curious, are/were you in government yourself?
Fertility doesn’t have much to do with it after the kid is already born, and that’s when parental leave becomes relevant. The fact that women are still seen as the de facto parent responsible for childcare for all those nights and weekends is more a cultural thing than biological.
There’s a book called ‘Daily Rituals: How Artists Work’ that details the daily routines of famous creative folks. The early morning work session is common, but so is the late-night session. Strict routines are common, but so is spontaneous creation on a whim. It’s cool to see all the ways people create; very neat book.
I prefer to use large-ish regional banks that cover my state and some territory in nearby states. They’re big enough that service costs are low and offerings are good. But it’s nice to be able to walk into a branch where they’re already familiar with the local economy/industries/markets.
While I agree with your general point, recall that DC is on the East Coast, and that there recreational marijuana use isn’t nearly so culturally accepted as it is on the West.
I grew up in a similar place, which had too few freeways around it and navigating anywhere was a major headache. Now I live in a highly walkable town near a few freeways, and it’s much nicer; I can avoid driving altogether and walk/bike around town, or I can easily get to the nearby city by car. There’s a happy medium to be found.
Walking to the store is great when it’s a habit to do so every day, so you’re just picking up some fresh meat and produce for whatever dinner you’re making that night. It’s a very pleasant (and healthy) lifestyle. For trips where you need to make larger and heavier purchases, it’s also very enjoyable to bike.
But the distinction between the apparent pattern and its underlying cause is important. If the cause of this method of “trying to adapt to your environment” isn’t actually some bizarre psychological paradox after all, that fact has important implications for how we treat people in these scenarios.
Amateur artist here. I rely on imagining images with lots of detail. Then drawing/painting it out is almost a matter of tracing the mental projection onto the canvas. Often the image in my mind is more clear to me than whatever is physically in front of me. It is a lot like intentional dreaming.
It makes sense and I intellectually understand the premise, but emotionally it fell flat for me. This could be due to a number of reasons, e.g. the writing, the animation, the voice acting, my headspace at the time of watching… I had to pause the movie to stop bawling after that first 10 minutes, so it’s possible that the bar for emotional connection was simply set too high after that.