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Portugal Part III: Sintra and Roaming Lisbon

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Waiting on a Train

The Full Series:

Part I: Travel to Lisbon

Part II: Lisbon – Castelo de São Jorge, Belém, and Food Tour

Part III: Sintra and Roaming Lisbon

Part IV: Travel and Food Tour of Porto

Part V: Porto, Francesinhas, Harry Potter, and a Birthday

Part VI: Last Day in Porto

Part III: Sintra and Roaming Lisbon

The day began in the usual way with pastries and coffee at the local pastelaria, taking home piles of pastries for the kids. The plan for the day was a trip to Sintra, a town about 17 miles west of Lisbon. Only it was Europe, so they use kilometers and there are more of them. The good news is that it wasn’t raining. As recently as two days prior to us leaving on the trip, the weather apps were calling for rain basically the entire week. In reality, the only rain I experienced was during the five feet or so from an airport shuttle to the stairway up to the plane as we were departing. The bad news was that the day we were headed to Sintra, the winds out of the south were fierce and Saharan sand was in the air.

We made our way down hill to the Rossio train station where, following a delay owing to a bathroom search, we caught our train to Sintra. The train ride begins with a long tunnel which I found a little disorienting, but Wikipedia tells me is 2.9 km long and “is considered one of the most important works of engineering in Portugal.” We found ourselves in the Sintra town square and probably tackled the sightseeing in the least efficient possible way. The two main sites are the Moorish Castle and Pena Palace. Both places are cool, but less than authentic. The castle was built by the Moors in the 8th and 9th centuries after they conquered the Iberian peninsula. Its utility as a defensive site diminished over the years and, in the 19th century, Ferdinand II rebuilt the walls, replanted some trees, and manicured the grounds inside the walls. If I recall the plaques correctly, Ferdinand used the place for meditation and reflection. In the mid-19th century, the palace was on the site of a former monastery that was reduced to ruins by the 1755 earthquake.  The design is pure storybook which is a little odd considering it was built and used during a time period recent enough to include a telephone. Essentially the sites were play things for Portuguese nobility.

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view.

Even so, the first thing we wanted to see was the Moorish Castle. The thing about castles is that they work better when they are higher than the enemy. There are all kinds of options for having someone take you up to the top of the big hill – buses, cabs, tuktuks. But the area by the train station was crowded and we wanted to get away from the hordes. So, we just started walking and walking and walking, ever upward. It was actually a beautiful hike, but it did leave us with another 12 mile, 150 flight day.  The wind was strong, clocking in at 20 miles per hour, and as I mentioned, there was sand in the air from the Sahara. This phenomenon apparently affected a broad patch of Europe, including at least Spain and Germany as well.  For the most part, the hills surrounding the castle sheltered us from the wind, but occasionally you’d crest a hill or find yourself exposed to southerly winds and you could really feel it. You didn’t want to be wearing your hat when you climbed on top of one of the towers. Even with the dust limiting visibility, some of the views were pretty amazing. On a clear day, you must be able to see forever.

From the castle, we hiked down a bit, then took a bus from a lower parking lot up to the palace. By the time we got there, the dust was really obscuring any kind of view. The inside was kind of weird just because the furniture was recognizable – a lot of stuff that you could imagine maybe a rich grandparent having. It lives in an uncanny valley that’s not contemporary and is maybe historical, but only just barely. The colorful towers were pretty though.

Lunch at the Apeadeiro

By that time, it was probably 2 pm, we’d been working hard, and some of us were starting to bonk. It was a great time for lunch. Our food tour guide, Irene, had emailed us some potential recommendations, and we went with Apeadeiro. I had squid and chorizo. Harper had squid and shrimp. Both of them were good, but her fries were amazing. Sometimes it’s the simple things! After lunch, we broke up the band. Matt, Suzie, and Sydney headed back to Lisbon while Amy, Cole, Harper, Kenza, and I explored Sintra a bit more. Eventually it occurred to us that we didn’t know the train schedule. We got paranoid that the train that Google showed us might be the last one, so we rushed to catch it. I suspect it was not the last train, but better safe than sorry.

Once back in Lisbon, we still weren’t ready to be done, so we wandered. It seems to me that Lisbon would be a challenging place to live – although I’m sure you get used to it. But it is a remarkable place to be a tourist who is willing to walk but with no particular destination. The streets, alleys, stairs, and walkways twist and turn up and down, and it seems that there is always an unexpected and interesting shop or restaurant or bar crammed into every nook and cranny. In our wanderings, we came across a place purporting to be the world’s oldest book store, the Livraria Bertrand.

I said-a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie
To the hip hip hop-a you don’t stop the rock.

At that point, Harper was fading but Amy, Cole, and Kenza wanted to keep exploring. Harper and I started making our way back to the apartment. However, we hadn’t made it too far before we found a little record store that we had to check out. Harper has a turntable and is a budding fan of vinyl. This place had bins full of random 45s they were selling for 1 euro apiece. Harper picked up “Amanda” by Boston and “Come on Eileen” by Dexie’s Midnight Runners. I passed on but probably should’ve bought a copy of “Rapper’s Delight” by “Chagrill’s Gang.” When I got home, the Internet told me that this is an obscure Portuguese knock-off of the famous version by the Sugarhill Gang.  As we were leaving, what appeared to be the owner’s buddy came in with an armload of cold Super Bocks and was popping the tops. Tough to say whether they were making any money, but listening to music and drinking beers doesn’t seem like a bad way to spend a Wednesday night in Lisbon.

From the record store, the rest of the walk was surreal. We were following the path given to us by Google Maps. There was an outdoor escalator. There was an impossibly narrow alley. Then we passed a staircase that Harper said she was glad we didn’t have to take. But I’d navigated too far. The map was taking us up the stairs.

We have since named it the Stairway to Heaven. Just a never-ending staircase that went between buildings in some cases and between barren, graffiti-filled walls in others. We passed a guy talking on the phone about an increase in income which he planned to use to get a garden. Harper is convinced this was about drugs somehow. About 2/3 of the way up the stairway (though, at this point, we didn’t know how long we had left to climb), Harper was absolutely gassed. But, she heard some voices behind us and was paranoid, so she soldiered on. (To be clear, we never caught a whiff of trouble or danger from anyone the entire time we were in Portugal. But, it was dark and the environment was strange, so the mind plays tricks.) At long last, we made it to the top and, much to our surprise, we recognized the place. The point where the stairs ended were only about 1.5 blocks from our apartment. Home at last.

I’m certain that those stairs weren’t anywhere near as long as what they seemed at the time. And they will just grow longer, steeper, and weirder as we tell this story in years to come. And that’s what I love about these vacations. One day, Harper will probably be telling her kids about that walk home. It won’t be a big deal. Nothing life changing. Just a fun, peculiar moment with her Dad. And, even if we didn’t do anything else on this trip, that memory would’ve been worth all the price of admission.

Streets of Lisbon

Braun, State’s Rights, Miscegenation, and Contraception

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Reporter Dan Carden: “So you would be o.k. with the Supreme Court leaving the question of interracial marriage to the States?”

Indiana Senator Mike Braun: “Yes.”

This wasn’t a “gotcha” question and Senator Braun didn’t misunderstand it. He just said the quiet part out loud. And, by this, I’m not saying that Sen. Braun disapproves of interracial marriages. If I had to guess, they probably don’t bother him at all. What he did was forthrightly acknowledge all of the other rights that are impaired when one tries to attack the legal underpinnings of Roe v. Wade and to embrace “state’s rights.” The fact of the matter is that you can’t embrace “state’s rights” without getting all kinds of nasty stuff all over yourself. And ignoring Roe’s acknowledgment that the Constitution protects a right to privacy even though that right is not explicitly articulated in the text of the Constitution means that one’s right to marry someone of a different race (Loving v. Virginia) or use contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut) or marry someone of the same sex (Obergefell v. Hodges) are rights that are subject to the whims and popular prejudices of the voters in your state. As Hodges characterized the decision in Griswold, the fundamental rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause “extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices that define personal identity and beliefs.” The identification and protection of these fundamental rights has not been reduced to any formula.

“State’s rights,” of course, is the fig leaf thrown over a preference for slavery when coming out and saying that the “peculiar institution” was an outright good became an abominable thing to say in polite society. Despite the fact that the declarations of the Confederate states said explicitly that they were purporting to leave the U.S. because they wanted to keep enslaving other humans; after the North proved itself stronger than the Confederate insurrectionists, Southern apologists pivoted to claims that the South was only fighting for “state’s rights.” This was also the term used to whitewash a popular preference for Jim Crow laws in many of those same states. It’s no accident that southern white conservatives tend to be the demographic most fond of the concept. It’s a principle that seems to become most prominent when used in service of state laws that impose burdens on less politically powerful demographics. It’s not a principle that seems to come up very much when determining whether, for example, the federal government ought to continue criminalizing marijuana despite state level legalization.

One complaint I saw on social media was that the question about interracial marriage was a “gotcha” question. The rationale was that interracial marriage has been widely accepted for a long time. Probably the same feelings hold for contraception. No state is going to go back to banning interracial marriage or contraception. Though the recent conservative attacks on transgender people don’t inspire a bunch of confidence along these lines, I suspect that this sentiment is probably right. Society has moved on and, while contraception was taboo in the 60s and mixed marriages were still shocking in the 70s, people are by and large very comfortable with these things, and only fringe types get worked up by them. Gay marriage might even fit into the no-big-deal-anymore category even though this blog is old enough to have documented a time when the Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives counted a state-level ban on the practice as being of supreme importance to the state. But we’ve moved along precisely because the Supreme Court recognized Constitutional protections for these individual choices even where popular prejudices resulted in such choices being illegal. When society didn’t crumble, we mostly got on with our lives and forgot why anyone got so worked up over such things.

Abortion is the thing that folks like Braun want to focus on. And, when the issue is considered in good faith, it’s a thornier issue. It comes down to a moral question about when and why life should be entitled to legal protection. Specifically, what is it about human life that merits greater protection than other kinds of life? And when does a human egg and human sperm or combination thereof reach the point when the law ought to diminish the rights of a woman in order to protect that emerging life? In Roe, the Supreme Court grappled with that question, trying to balance things with its trimester tests. Opinions can and do differ on whether the Supreme Court struck the correct balance, but the bigger problem is that many of the arguments that are ostensibly about the sanctity of fetal life are, in reality, stalking horses for other questions about gender relations, sexual morality, and the primacy of religion in our society. That’s why efforts to reduce abortions through increased access to birth control or sexual education don’t cut much ice with the anti-abortion crusaders despite evidence that they work. That’s why a focus on protecting and improving life after it has been born seems to fall on deaf ears. Fred Clark and others have done a good job over the years documenting when and why the anti-abortion movement came into being. He says that, among non-Catholics anyway, concern about abortion is “younger than the Happy Meal.”  The reality is that the anti-abortion movement owes more to conservative operatives like Paul Weyrich and evangelical leaders who seized on abortion as a rallying cry that was more socially palatable than protecting segregated schools which had been more of an animating principle for that group prior to 1979.

So, you have a movement that is framed as being about abortion but designed in a way that will, not accidentally, favor the status quo on issues of race, sex, and religion. When someone like Braun is talking about judicial philosophy on abortion, it’s not a “gotcha” to ask him about related questions dealing with race, sex, and religion. When he can’t manage to thread the needle or even forthrightly acknowledges that they’re all tied together, it’s not because he’s misunderstood the question. It’s because all of these things are a package deal.

Portugal Part II: Lisbon – Castelo de São Jorge, Belém, and Food Tour

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Matt and Suzie getting the morning started.

The Full Series:

Part I: Travel to Lisbon

Part II: Lisbon – Castelo de São Jorge, Belém, and Food Tour

Part III: Sintra and Roaming Lisbon

Part IV: Travel and Food Tour of Porto

Part V: Porto, Francesinhas, Harry Potter, and a Birthday

Part VI: Last Day in Porto

Part II: Lisbon – Castelo de São Jorge, Belém, and Food Tour

The adults were up and about at 8 a.m. and went foraging. Up the hill was Pastelaria Baga Baga, a little pastry shop that we went to a few times. The coffee was good and the pastries were cheap. So, we ate pasteis de nata (a type of custard tart) and drank coffee at a table on the sidewalk, then took breakfast back for the kids. Then it was time to get walking. The first stop was Castelo de São Jorge, a place that has probably been fortified for a couple thousand years. The Moors built fortifications in the 900s and the Portuguese took it back during the Second Crusade. It was a pleasant place to stroll around as a tourist. Storming it as a hostile soldier must’ve been a nightmare. For most of the crowd, the peacocks on the grounds seemed to be the central attraction. I was partial to the views, the concession stand selling Sagres, and the sign next to a statute of Manuel I imploring visitors, “please do not lean on the foot.”

A note on the beers in Portugal: primarily they sell two kinds, Sagres and Super Bock. Most places will have one or the other but not both. With the huge selections we tend to have in U.S. establishments, there was something refreshing about being able to order “a beer” and getting whichever of the two they have on tap. Both are pleasant, if unremarkable. They put me in mind of Mexican beers, “Dos Equis” kept jumping to mind. As between the two, I’m on Team Super Bock.

That Pink Street sure is Pink!

Once we were finished with the castle, it was time for our first trolley ride. Amy had acquired 72 hour Lisboa passes for us which got us on and off the public transportation for no extra charge. The trolleys are very useful in a town as hilly as Lisbon. You need to have good balance and not mind crowds because they can get pretty full, and you’ll have to stand. I can’t imagine what Lisbon is like for folks who aren’t able to walk very well. Still, for us, the trolley rides were fun. We headed down to “Pink Street” which, true to its name, is a street painted pink. That stop was fairly underwhelming. I think it’s more of a night life type area, and there wasn’t a ton for a family of four to see on an early Tuesday afternoon.

From Pink Street, we took a tram to the Belém area where we saw Belém Tower, Padrãodos Descobrimentos, and Jerónimos Monastery. Of these, Jerónimos was the most interesting. The architecture is just stunning, and it contains the tomb of Vasco de Gama. The Monument of the Discoveries is a giant slab that takes the shape of the prow of a Portuguese caravel. It features Prince Henry the Navigator at the point, flanked by Portuguese discoverers. It was erected in the 1950s and 60s to commemorate 500 years since the death of Prince Henry and celebrate the Portuguese accomplishments during the Age of Discovery. Doing anything to commemorate that era is bound to generate mixed feelings, and this was no exception. Its importance to the Portuguese and the course of human history can hardly be overstated. Those voyages of discovery connected the civilizations of the world. That said, the impact of slavery, spread of disease, and misery that followed in the wake of those voyages can also hardly be overstated. A monument that is purely celebratory is going to miss the mark. At least it did for me, even as I was glad to see it. In particular, the limestone square adjacent to the monument, depicting a compass rose and a map of the world was stunning.

 

I would have liked to visit the Maritime Museum which is also in that area, but time simply did not permit. We had scheduled a food tour for that evening. We met our guide, Irene, at the Rua Augusta Arch. The arch and that whole area of Lisbon were constructed after the 1755 earthquake. I’m sure students of architecture will flinch at my characterization, but the layout is on the Enlightenment model – all straight lines and symmetry. I had forgotten about the earthquake until this trip, but the first time I learned about it was reading Candide where the fact of the earthquake and the destruction it caused were some of the challenges to Candide’s Panglossian worldview.

Harper at the Padrãodos Descobrimentos

Our food tour guide, Irene, was a chef native to Italy who had lived in Lisbon for several years. (In fact, for whatever reason, all of the people who showed us around Portugal ended up being foreign to the country. Fabiola who drove us from the airport was Brazilian, Irene was from Italy, our food tour guide in Porto was French, and our Harry Potter tour guide in Porto was Brazilian.) The Lisbon food tour and the restaurants that Irene picked for us were fantastic. We had eight people in our crew, so we hogged most of the tour slots, but along with us were Nicole from Philly and Nathan from D.C. The first stop was Mantegeria Salva where we had meat, cheese, bread, and port wine. I’m certainly doing the food a disservice by failing to be more specific with my descriptions, but those details escape me. All I can say is that it was a great start. (I will mention that they had a cod refrigerator out on the sidewalk with the front wheels sitting on blocks. It was not the most stable design choice! No harm done, but there was a scare when those wheels came off the blocks.) The second stop was my favorite, Cantinho do Aziz, featuring cuisine from Mozambique. We had two kinds of samosas, one with meat and one without. Despite my carnivorous ways, the vegetarian option was easily my preference. There was also a curry dish that was pretty amazing.

I neglected to record the names of stop three, but it featured cod and potatoes. The potatoes were a kind of chip that struck exactly the right balance between crisp and soft. Irene said she was still trying to figure out how they did it. The last place was Amuralhas Tapas e Vinhos where, as the name would suggest we had wine and a number of tapas dishes. In particular, I recall the flamed sausages were good. We also had shot glasses of ginjinha, a sweet cherry drink (that you sip and do not shoot). I’m glad we had it because it’s a distinctive drink in Portugal, but it was a little sweet for my tastes (as was the port – which is why, even though I like wine, I ended up primarily drinking beer.) The guided food tours (we did another one in Porto) were Amy’s idea. She’s right that these are a great way to get introduced to a new place.

According to the data from my watch, we finished the day having climbed the equivalent of 146 floors and having walked about 12 miles.

On the food tour: our crew plus Nathan from D.C. and Nicole from Philly.

Portugal Part I: Travel to Lisbon

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Packed in the back. On the Road to Chicago!

The Full Series:

Part I: Travel to Lisbon

Part II: Lisbon – Castelo de São Jorge, Belém, and Food Tour

Part III: Sintra and Roaming Lisbon

Part IV: Travel and Food Tour of Porto

Part V: Porto, Francesinhas, Harry Potter, and a Birthday

Part VI: Last Day in Porto

Part I: Travel to Lisbon

This was a trip that was supposed to happen almost two years ago. I think a lot of people are having trips like that. We started making the plans in the latter part of 2019. As originally contemplated, it was going to be longer and take place in June 2020. Amy and her sister, Suzie, were going to attend an international WordPress conference in Porto, Portugal, and we were going to extend the itinerary to include Lisbon, Madrid, and Barcelona. And then the world shut down.

Fast forward to 2022, and – after an impressive Omicron jag – COVID cases were low, vaccinations were easily available, and the world was more or less open again. Also, our Air Portugal credits from 2020 were set to expire, so we booked a trip for Spring Break. We banked on the fact that Cole was going to make the Indiana All-State band and scheduled our departure to be during Spring Break but after his performance. Suzie’s daughter, Kenza, drove up from Tennessee, we caught Cole’s performance on Sunday the 13th, and headed up to O’Hare that evening where we also met up with Sydney, Kenza’s step-sister. I suppose a dramatis personae is probably in order at this point: Myself, 50 year old Midwestern ne’er do-well. Amy, my long suffering wife and chief architect of this expedition. Cole, my son, age 18. Harper, my daughter, age 16. Amy’s sister and web-design business partner, Suzie. Suzie’s husband Matt. Suzie’s daughter, Kenza. And Matt’s daughter, Sydney.

OHare snacks

Amy & Kenza saved the day with cart booze and snacks!

When we got to the terminal, all of the restaurants and bars were closing down, which seems like a money-losing proposition. Even though it was a Sunday night, there were clearly still a lot of people in the terminal willing to spend money. But, Amy & Kenza saved the evening, bringing back an armload of booze and snacks from a cart that was just about to close. We set up shop at an empty section of the closed food-court and waited for our flight. Eventually, we made our way to the gate. The number of people getting turned away at the gate because they’d neglected the airline’s instructions to get a negative COVID test was, frankly, stunning. We must have counted at least 10 when while we were sitting there. O’Hare has a place where you can get the test if you wait until the last couple of hours. But waiting until the last hour on a Sunday night made it impossible for them to get back to the facility, get tested, clear security, and get back to the gate before the flight departed. The next flight out wasn’t until Wednesday. I can’t imagine spending that kind of money on international travel and then ignoring the travel requirements. Amy had us scheduled for a regular test on Friday and then a back up, rapid test for Sunday afternoon, just in case. (The regular test worked out fine, no problem.)

The flight was uneventful. Took off at around 11:15 (Central Daylight) and landed at about noon Lisbon time. Customs seemed like it was moving along fairly rapidly but at one point turned glacial. I think it was a shift change. We arranged for a driver to pick us up from the airport since we didn’t know our way around town yet. Fabiola was from Brazil and was terrific. She is originally from Brazil and is learning English. While I would always recommend learning as much of the local language as possible, I have to say, our almost total ignorance of Portuguese didn’t hurt us much. Seemed that most folks knew at least some English, and usually quite a bit. I know a fair amount of Spanish, so signs and other written material was usually pretty easy to follow. But understanding spoken Portuguese is well beyond me.

Alley luggage

Through the alley, across the cobblestones, to the right, then up, up, up, and up a little more.

We met up with Matt & Suzie who had been in Lisbon for a couple of days. We had Fabiola drop us off at the little two-person studio they had rented because the four bedroom Airbnb we had booked wouldn’t be available for a couple of hours. In retrospect, with the delay in clearing customs, we probably could have just been delivered straight to our apartment. It was not that far from Matt & Suzie’s location, but that part of Lisbon is either in or very near the Alfama neighborhood and very hilly. So, we found ourselves dragging luggage across cobble stones and stairs, mostly going straight up. It was quite the workout!

We hit a grocery store for some necessities (chief among them, beer and wine). Cole, being 18 and legal to drink in Portugal, had his first (to our knowledge, and probably in reality) beer and wine samplings and hated them both. However, throughout the rest of the trip he would take well enough to the beer. Properly fortified, we headed back out into Lisbon to look for some dinner. Monday nights seem to be a slow night for restaurant operations. Matt had scoped out some likely locations in the previous few days, but they were closed. We ended up at a place called Grehaldor de Alfama.  The restaurant was at a location that seemed to be catering to tourists, but it was a cozy place that seemed to have a husband and wife running it. It could have been a function of a long day traveling, but for me, everything I ate there was fantastic. The lady taking our orders told me I didn’t want the sardines when I tried to order them, so I ended up having salmon and then variously eating the bass, steak, and cod that others didn’t quite finish. There was also some kind of sausage appetizer to which flame was applied at our table. It was also very good. We then climbed the hills back to our apartment and promptly crashed. I slept for about 11 hours. No problem with jet lag!

All together for a fantastic dinner in Lisbon!

Education = Economy = Quality of Life

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Felt like I should have a chart.

I’m not an economist. When I see a lot of charts and numbers about the economy, they tend to wash over me. On an individual level, for example, I don’t tend to care what my house is worth as long as I’m comfortable living in it. That view extends to my opinions on public policy where the economics numbers tend not to penetrate for me unless they offer insight as to whether the economy is helping to people to live happy, meaningful lives. In my estimation, that’s ultimately what an economy is for.

Fortunately, Michael Hicks is an economist, and he writes things that help me understand the relationship between Indiana’s economy and the well-being of its people. You should go read his recent Substack post, “Chasing Smokestacks Isn’t Working.” In it, he makes the case that our lawmaker’s economic policy choices have not been working well for Indiana. In particular, chasing and subsidizing manufacturing jobs has not done much to help Hoosiers over the last decade or so. Despite a great deal of effort and money to incentivize factory jobs in Indiana, “A factory job today pays no differently in Indiana than it did in the Clinton Administration, and a new factory job pays a bit less.” The manufacturing jobs we’re adding are low wage and “low skill (or at least low formal education.)” Workers in Indiana have experienced a declining share of GDP in terms of wages and benefits.

Meanwhile — and these parts jumped out because discussions of education policy are like catnip to me — “[s]pending on public education is well down from 2010 levels, spending on higher education much lower than in 2010, and on a per student basis declining faster than at any time in state history. … Indiana just doesn’t have the educated workforce the modern economy needs. Educational attainment means higher wages for everyone.” And I’ll just block quote and bold this next bit because it’s important:

The link between educational attainment and per capita income is not a mirage conjured by some faculty member. Rather it is one of the most continually regular empirical facts in the social sciences.

So, we’re chasing low paying factory jobs associated with low educational attainment, eroding our investment in public education, producing fewer educated Hoosiers, and losing more of the kids we do educate here. Consequently, the firms with the high-skill, high-pay  jobs that require higher education are less likely to locate in the State. An eroding school system is exacerbated by limited options for local communities to make themselves into places where people wish to live. This is not from Professor Hicks, but some of the challenges faced by local government arise from fairly strict limitations on the taxes they are permitted to levy and dictates from Indianapolis tying the hands of local officials on any number of issues. In a different publication, Prof. Hicks (and colleagues) argue that improving quality of life in communities, not just limited to the ability to do business in the community, is key to rejuvenation and prosperity. Low taxes and mere employment are not enough.

Communities should aspire to strong schools and they need to have recreational opportunities, cultural activities, and solid transportation infrastructure. Again, this is me speaking, but if you own a company or are important enough as an employee to drive location decisions for the business, are you going to move your family and the families of your executives or in-demand employees to some sad, dying town with no prospects and nothing to do? Of course not. Even if you might be willing to plop down a factory where it’s not too important who’s manning the machines to pump out a few widgets. Maybe you’ll even visit once a quarter. If you’re a decision maker or someone with pull, you’re going to make damn sure that your kids are able to go to a top-notch school. (I think a non-trivial reason that West Lafayette has been doing well is that, in addition to Purdue, it has the West Lafayette schools — consistently ranked highly in the nation and at or near the top in Indiana.)

Once again, I’m reminded of the “No Time to Lose” study by the National Conference of State Legislatures from six years ago about lessons we can learn from world-class education systems. (Spoiler: vouchers and privatization isn’t something that any of the best school systems in the world do.) On the subject of manufacturing, the study discusses developing a Career and Technical Education path for those students preferring more of an applied education rather than a more academic approach. This shouldn’t be an educational backwater like so many vocational programs. It should be geared to boosting the national economy and providing a higher standard of living for a broader base of the population. From the study:

Singapore and Switzerland, in particular, have built strong systems of CTE with close ties to industry. Singapore uses a school-based model and Switzerland uses an
employer-based model. In these countries, CTE is not perceived as a route for students lacking strong academic skills, but as another approach to education, skills development and good jobs. CTE is well funded, academically challenging and aligned with real workforce needs. It is hands-on, attractive to students and parents, and can lead to university for students who may seek professional and managerial positions later. For other students, CTE is a pathway to good jobs, by building technical skills that can be achieved much earlier than the traditional academic experience.

If you followed the education shit show from this most recent installment of the General Assembly, even though ISTA managed to persuade the General Assembly not to enact the worst ideas, you know that our state is not taking seriously the lessons of world-class educational systems in other countries. More teaching by untrained, unlicensed teachers? Permit lawsuits from people who are made uncomfortable by what they’re taught? Post a year’s worth of lesson plans prior to the school year? These are not the proposals of people serious about making sure our schools can compete against the best in the world.

I’m just repeating myself from other posts over the years, but we need to beef up our education schools, attract the best students to them, pay them commensurate to our expectations, give them the respect of upper echelon professionals, and rely on them to teach the kids. We need to properly fund our traditional public schools and stop fragmenting the system with vouchers and other privatization schemes. We need to invest in local public infrastructure and amenities. And, we need to trust that these investments will create a virtuous feedback loop that will offer returns in the form of an improved quality of life that outweighs the money spent on the investments.

Things Can Always Get So, So Much Worse

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Sheila Kennedy has a good post (but, of course she does!) entitled “Who Are We?” She discusses a Brett Stephens column (so, I’m at least a third level of abstraction here) and concludes:

The pertinent question is the one Stephens first identified: who are we? And the answer is, we are a country with sound and valuable ideals–granted, a country that often falls short of those ideals–a country with a majority of citizens who are devoted to those ideals, but who are currently demoralized by a loud and angry tribal minority that is working to abandon the principles the rest of us struggle to achieve.

Ukraine is fighting Russia. We are fighting the enemy within.

I’d suggest there are a good number of tribal factions demoralizing us, but otherwise fully agree with her point. Our media landscape is structured to reward content that draws attention, and the most reliable way to draw attention is to make people angry. Negative partisanship, in turn, is a reliable way to provoke anger. Cable news wants you to tune in and stay tuned through the commercials. Its programming is a means to that end. Twitter and Facebook want you to click and keep scrolling. Loud voices telling you to hate the Other or to be afraid because They are trying to get you are a good way to keep you plugged in. The relentless negativity begins to seep in and even people who have things pretty good begin to resent the world in which they live and take for granted or even vilify institutions which they really ought to appreciate.

In my mind, the Russia-Ukraine situation really underscores that latter point. Hobbes observed that life in a state of nature was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. The institutions we have created – our military, courts, banks, government, transportation and communication infrastructure, etc. – are designed to insulate us from that state of nature. When they are insulating us properly, we can take them for granted and focus narrowly on their shortcomings. And, to be sure, there are shortcomings. But when an asshole with enough firepower undertakes to take them all away, it becomes easier to appreciate some of the things our predecessors have built and left us with.

It’s ridiculous to think that a megalomaniac in Canada or Mexico would some day be rolling into the U.S. precisely because we have grotesquely overspent on our military. It’s less ridiculous to fear that we would do that to others because of our own checkered past when it comes to respecting the sovereignty of other nations. We should teach that history and learn from it without whitewashing it; but, at the same time, we need not resign ourselves to the idea that these misdeeds constitute our essence. And if the military could not protect us from a neighboring megalomaniac, how would we react when the banks no longer functioned, when the courts were no longer available and individual violence was the only way to resolve disputes, and when government offices are abandoned or populated with foreign puppets? Or maybe the banks collapse and currency is no longer reliable? Rather than annoyingly slow during construction season, roads are cratered and impassable and the only remotely trustworthy news you can gather comes from whatever you can gather off of shortwave radio when the sun goes down and the signal gets stronger.

I suppose this is just a periodic reminder – to myself as well as anyone who happens to read – that there is also joy in the world. Improvements to the status quo should always be welcome, but don’t fail to appreciate what you have and know that, if history is any guide, things can always get so, so much worse.

I think the General Assembly hates our public school system.

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The General Assembly is in session. A bus load of terrible education legislation is coming your way!

I know I’ve been critical of the General Assembly for its approach to educational policy over the years, but its really outdoing itself with the fire hose of shit it’s directing at our local schools this year.

The biggest turd in the punch bowl is HB 1134. Let’s start with its “transparency” requirements. (Transparency is good, right? Can’t be against transparency any more than you can be against God, Mom, and Apple Pie!) The new IC 20-30-17 requires school corporations to post a ton of curricular material for classes in the August preceding the school year. I’m not sure you can tell exactly what’s required because, IC 20-30-17-5(b), which really seems like it’s going to be the critical bit of that chapter does not seem to be written in a complete sentence. Not later than August 1 of each year, the school corporation is required to post, in a manner that is disaggregated, in a manner that is accessible, and in a manner that shows bibliographic information, …. something. It’s not clear what. The next subdivision says that a summary of educational activities (which is a broadly defined term) has to be posted as far in advance as possible, but it’s not at all clear what has to be posted by August 1. In any case, this is just another administrative burden heaped on the shoulders of teachers and administrators that is extremely unlikely to have any real world benefits. If a parent has questions about their kids’ education, how about just asking?

A similarly misguided effort at transparency or parental input or some other glittering generality would mandate a “Curricular Materials Advisory Committee.” Right out of the gate, it’s clear that the advisory committee has no jurisdiction over standardized tests. That could obviously cut into the College Board’s bottom line, and that just wouldn’t do. The advisory committee is directed to have more parents than educational professionals and to have a majority of people who don’t work for the school corporation. The advisory committee is charged with making sure educational materials “are representative of the community’s interests and aligned with Indiana academic standards.” Most communities have a wide variety of interests that sometimes conflict with one another, so that’s not terribly helpful guidance. They also will make recommendations about how to comply with the incomplete sentence about posting curricular materials.

Then there is the “CRT” inspired provisions that I discussed in an earlier blog post. All sound fairly inoffensive taken on their face (e.g. no one should be taught or forced to embrace the idea that a person can be racist simply by virtue of their race). But it’s more than suspicious that these bills are reactive to efforts to teach, for example, that racism has resulted in structural inequality that persists regardless of anyone’s individual intent. Politically, I think the right has deemed it advantageous to take advantage of a panic among parents that little Johnny might be taught to believe that he should feel guilty about being a racist because he’s a white boy. Regardless of the underlying substance, I’m on record as not liking the General Assembly dictating curriculum. Additionally, there is a provision that would create an incentive to bring suits by awarding attorney’s fees to a prevailing plaintiff (which could be an out of district advocacy group) while not awarding such fees to a school that successfully defends against a suit. (To get fees, the school would have to prove that the out of district advocacy group or whoever was litigating in bad faith — which is a very heavy lift.)

Finally, there are provisions limiting a school’s ability to provide social-emotional support to students. Candidly, I do not understand the nuances of these provisions. I don’t know the support services and recommendations schools are currently providing, how they are objectionable, and what schools would be permitted to do in terms of addressing social emotional problems that are affecting the students’ educational progress if this legislation passed. Friends of mine seem to indicate that this is sparked by questions of sex and gender. (HB 1134 also has the provisions directed at school librarians discussed in connection with SB 17, below.)

SB 83 would mandate the right of members of the public to yell at school boards; something that’s not guaranteed with respect to any other public body. It’s dressed up as preserving the right of the public to provide input to their elected officials. And, I think a lot of us have a sort of Norman Rockwell vision of the informed citizen participating in the civic process. But, you’ll note that this legislation is borne out of a series of school board meetings where angry patrons sought to intimidate school boards away from implementing mask mandates as the pandemic was surging. The Public Access Counselor was asked what boards could do to maintain civility at these meetings as necessary to do their jobs. He observed, “[G]overning bodies can choose whether to extend the courtesy of a comment forum, and therefore revoke it if misused. Tumult, disorder, and disturbance on the part of the audience should not be tolerated by a board, council, or commission.” That discretion is removed only in the cases of school board meetings. And, what’s more, the provision is incredibly vague, the meeting must “be open at all times for the purpose of permitting members of the public to provide public comment.” It doesn’t say anything at all about what the public comment must look like. Can the Board limit the comment period to 30 seconds? Prohibit repetitive comment? No idea! Presumably if angry anti-maskers are allowed to remain in close proximity to make hostile noises at the members of the school board, the spirit of the law will be satisfied.

HB 1251 and SB 356 provide for “adjunct teachers.” The “adjunct teacher” doesn’t have to know much about how to teach, just has to have experience in the content they are going to teach. At root, this is a declaration that teaching is not a profession. Understanding how different kids learn, knowing how to assess their current level of understanding and communicate the new information based on learning styles and existing sets of knowledge, etc. is incidental. Any geek off the streets who’s spent 4,000 hours reading John Grisham novels, can be a reading teacher. Not incidentally, this looks like a way to water down collective bargaining contracts. There is also a provision that directs the Department of Education to study “parent-teacher compacts” which seem to be some sort of individual contract between teachers and parents that would potentially entitle the teacher to get paid through the state and access public teacher retirement benefits.

SB 17 removes protections for school librarians that currently exist with respect to material alleged to be “harmful to minors.” The public commentary on this has been a little overwrought since “material harmful to minors” is defined by IC 35-49-2-2 and basically tracks the definition of obscenity: appeals to prurient interest, patently offensive to prurient interests, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. So, the likelihood of schools having much in the way of qualifying material seems pretty small. But, by the same token, the utility of removing bars to prosecution of school librarians is nil. It’s a political move to exploit a panic among parents that naughty stuff might be in the school libraries. Probably comes from the same folks who were certain that there was Satanic ritual abuse of children in the Comet Ping Pong basement. And, now that I type it, I suppose there’s a group of people who similarly imagine that our public schools are immoral corrupters of children.

HB 1072 would reward traditional public schools for the hard work of promoting and securing passage of a referendum tax levy public question by diverting the resulting funds to charter schools. This is pernicious because, among other things, the traditional public school can identify the nature of its needs and educate the public on how the referendum will address those needs (e.g. continue to support music, sports, extracurricular activities, smaller class sizes, etc.) but cannot make any such commitment on behalf of the charter schools. And, as we’ve seen from recent scandals, charter schools in Indiana are more likely to suffer from lack of oversight, conflicts of interest in contracting, unreliable student counts, opaque spending, and no discernible advantage in student outcomes as compared to traditional public schools.

I’m sure there is more oozing about in various bills, but that’s enough for a Sunday afternoon. If someone with more knowledge wants to correct or expand upon what I’ve written, I’d appreciate it. There’s a *lot* floating around out there, and I just took a crash course by reading a lot of the legislation. I don’t pretend to have a lot of deep knowledge.

In any case, you’ll note that none of this is particularly geared toward making our kids smarter, wiser, more productive, or better citizens. Mainly they’re just cultural proxy wars where teachers, school boards, and liberals are the enemy and students are collateral damage.

 

 

Larry DeBoer on inflation and local government finance

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Larry DeBoer, Everybody’s Favorite Economist (TM), has a good post on the subject of how inflation might impact local government finance in Indiana. If inflation caused property values, assessed values, income, and permitted levies to all increase at the same time, it wouldn’t be that much of a problem. But the system isn’t structured to allow that to happen. There is a lag between properties increasing in value, the properties being assessed for that increased value, and the increased assessment hitting the tax bill. Permissible tax levies are allowed to increase by the state’s growth quotient which takes into consideration the previous 6 years, so low inflation years prior to a high inflation year will limit the inflationary effect on the growth quotient. There’s also a 6% limit on the increase in maximum levies, so such levies could not catch up to inflation that exceeds 6%.

Larry explains the issues better and in more depth than I do, so his post is definitely worth checking out directly.

HB 1040: Grab Bag of Educational Grievances

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There is some irony in requiring public schools with free busing to instruct kids that socialism will lead to the destruction of our way of life.

Rep. Prescott has introduced HB 1040 which has a little bit of everything: red-baiting, CRT panic, pro-COVID measures, sex. All in a school setting! This has at least elements that show up in other bills that are circulating through the General Assembly. So, even if this bill doesn’t advance, the likelihood is that you’ll see at least pieces of it moving in other legislation.

It repeals IC 20-19-5 which requires the Department of Education in cooperation with the Department of Child Services, Department of Correction, and the Division of Mental Health to develop and coordinate the children’s social, emotional, and behavioral health plan that is to provide recommendations concerning (A) comprehensive mental health services; (B) early intervention; and (C) treatment services. The plan is supposed to include, among other things:(1) procedures for the identification and assessment of social, emotional, and mental health issues; (2) procedures to assist a child and the child’s family in obtaining necessary services to treat social, emotional, and mental health issues; (3) procedures to coordinate provider services and interagency referral networks for an individual from birth through twenty-two (22) years of age; (4) guidelines for incorporating social, emotional, and behavioral development into school learning standards and education programs; and (5) that social, emotional, and mental health screening be included as a part of routine examinations in schools and by health care providers. The cynical part of me says he wants to get rid of this because “social, emotional, and mental health aren’t *real* issues.” Hopefully I’m doing the Representative a disservice and there’s something more innocuous and sensible going on with this repeal.

Next, we’re on to the Critical Race Theory part of the bill. (The Wikipedia entry makes it clear that the definition of CRT is pretty fuzzy. That entry has it as a cross-disciplinary and intellectual movement based on critical legal studies holding that, among other things, “racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices of individuals.” In common discourse, the definition can get even fuzzier. But as I discuss a little below, I don’t think the debate club objections to the definition or lack thereof end up being very persuasive.)  In any case, the bill prohibits schools from promoting the following concepts:

(1) One (1) race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex.
(2) An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.
(3) An individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of the individual’s race or sex.
(4) Members of one (1) race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex.
(5) An individual’s moral character is determined by the individual’s race or sex.
(6) An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.
(7) An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, or anguish or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex.
(8) Meritocracy or traits such as hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or designed by a particular race or sex to oppress members of another race or sex.
(9) Indiana or the United States was founded as a racist or sexist state or nation and is fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist.
However, notwithstanding the above, this legislation dictates that it does not prohibit instruction of the history of an ethnic group; the impartial discussion of controversial aspects of history; or  the impartial instruction on the historical oppression of a particular group of people based on race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion, or geographic region.

First of all, I don’t like the General Assembly dictating curriculum. Second, it contains a private enforcement mechanism which creates a bounty in the amount of $5,000 plus attorney fees for successful prosecution. Regardless of the merits or lack of merit of the substance of the law, it creates incentives that will be an absolute shit show and will very much disincentivize schools from teaching, for example, historical oppression of a particular group even though the law specifically permits such instruction.  The boundaries between the permissible and impermissible will be permeable enough to lead to expensive litigation.

As to the substance of these provisions, I don’t want to #BothSides the issue, but I’m gonna #BothSides the issue. I think politicians and policymakers on the right-wing are cynically exploiting fears people have about their kids by turning a molehill into a mountain. I think the left-wing commentariat is disingenuously trying to tell people that the molehill doesn’t exist. When this came up in the context of the Virginia elections, folks on the left often responded by adopting a very technical definition of what constitutes Critical Race Theory and saying it wasn’t taught anywhere and/or claiming that this was an effort to, for example, eliminate teaching that slavery was part of American history.  There was little effort to grapple with the notion that curriculum informed by Critical Race Theory or Critical Theories generally might be making its way into course work, school support services, or other aspects of the educational system — even if Critical Race Theory itself was not taught. (As it happens, in West Lafayette an anti-racist advocacy group has presented the school board with a demand to “add a course in critical race theory to the core curriculum.” The demand, presented in the Summer of 2020, predated the Virginia election campaigns.) On the right, there seems to be a deliberate effort to misunderstand how racism in the past can lead to structural inequality in the present. Caught in the middle are people who don’t have any particular interest in the power struggle but who are open to working with others to make things more equitable.  As with so many things these days, there are some fairly loud people demonizing people on the other side, so it is easy to ignore people of good will quietly trying to figure out the best way to make things better. This bill will absolutely not be productive to people of good will. But, maybe it will help people screaming at each other to get elected.

And then we move on to the pro-COVID provisions. Basically, it lets anyone – student or teacher – opt out of a mask requirement. It also prohibits requiring a student or school employee to be vaccinated against COVID as a condition of attendance. The traditional move is to characterize this as a pro-liberty move. But, as Jeremy Bentham observed, “rights and obligations, though distinct and opposite in their nature, are simultaneous in their origin, and inseparable in their existence. According to the nature of things, the law cannot grant a benefit to any, without, at the same time, imposing a burden on some one else[.]” In this case, the right to be mask-free necessarily requires others to breathe more of the virus-laden air expelled by the person exercising that right. There’s always going to be tension when balancing individual rights with the well-being of the community. In the middle of a pandemic, this is not the right balance to strike. For the most part, we should leave these decisions in the hands of our public health officers who can respond in a manner that’s both better informed and more agile than what can be done by the legislature.

But, Doug, you may ask — does this bill fight communism? Yes, dear reader. Of course it does. This bill is a floor wax *and* a dessert topping. Students must receive instruction that socialism is incompatible with the principles of freedom upon which the United States was founded and that if it were to replace our current form of government, “the government of the United States would be overthrown and existing freedoms under the Constitution would no longer exist.” Never mind that most Americans wouldn’t know socialism if it deposited a social security check into their FDIC-insured bank accounts. This instruction isn’t limited to socialism but also applies to “Marxism, communism, totalitarianism, or similar political systems.” Not sure if this totalitarianism or ‘similar political systems’ would encompass fascist or nationalist ideologies.

Onto sex. A school has to get parental consent before providing instruction on (1) abortion; (2) birth control or contraceptives; (3) sexual activity; (4) sexual orientation; (5) transgenderism; or (6) gender identity. (Is being transgender an ‘ism’?) This is well-trodden area in the culture wars. I’ll just mention that the best way to reduce the need for abortions is to provide good sex education and access to contraception.

And now “transparency.” There’s an incredibly burdensome online posting requirement for books, lectures, and “all materials presented to students in connection with an educational activity.” This will require a great deal of effort on the part of the school, and very little of the material will be reviewed. Of the material reviewed, I suspect a good chunk of that will be associated more with political axe grinding than any real effort to engage with the school on improving the quality of instruction received by students. The cost/benefit analysis of these provisions is heavy on the “cost” side and light on the “benefit” side.

Finally, there is a prohibition on providing students with mental health services without parental consent. The legislation singles out counseling with respect to abortion and gender identity for special attention but seems to require consent even for behavioral evaluations, personality analyses, mental health surveys, and assessments for the purpose of providing multi-tiered systems of support and positive behavior interventions. Seems like this will hamstring schools seeking to adjust educational approaches based on particular behavioral needs of the students.

 

Books of 2021

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So, I messed around and kept a list of the books I read in 2021. Here they are:

1. Ready Player 2 by Ernest Cline. This was a cash grab from the success of Ready Player 1, and it was not very good.

2. The Fold by Peter Clines. Kind of a multi-verse thriller. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

3. Colonel Roosevelt by by Edmund Morris. I’m a sucker for T.R. biographies. If you want to feel lazy, read a book about Theodore Roosevelt. This one focuses on the post-Presidency period of his life.

4. Providence by Max Barry. A crew of four humans fight aliens in far off space with a super high-tech ship. Good page turner. It’s been compared to “Starship Troopers.” I was put in mind of “the Forever War.”

5. Bluescreen by Dan Wells. Kind of a cyber noir novel. Everyone is jacked into the future Internet pretty much constantly. A drug is introduced that hijacks the interface.

6. The Outsider by Stephen King. All-American suburban dad is implicated in a horrific murder. Turns out there is a creepy supernatural monster involved.

7. The Body by Bill Bryson. Bryson, in his inimitable style, takes you on a tour of the human body and its systems.

8. Sandman v. 1 by Neil Gaiman. A graphic novel where the Dream Lord is imprisoned, escapes, seeks vengeance and tries to make amends.

9. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green. Robot sculptures suddenly appear all over the world. People suddenly start experiencing a collective dream where they can solve puzzles. There is conflict between battling collectives that organize through social media.

10. Fields of Blood by Karen Armstrong. This is a history of religion and its connection to violence. Armstrong makes the argument that the violence isn’t really a function of religion so much as a function of the agricultural and subsequently industrial revolutions and the governments that make them possible. When religion becomes attached to those who govern, the violence inherent in governance becomes part of the religion.

11. Dark Age by Pierce Brown. This is part of the Red Rising series (book 2 in the second trilogy.) Kind of a space opera involving humans that have been genetically engineered over the centuries into types of people designated by colors. The Golds are the rulers. The Reds traditionally work the mines. One of the Reds transforms into a Gold and rises up. Fighting ensues. I really like this series.

12. Recursion by Blake Crouch. Centered on technology that enables people to go back to a previous point on their personal timeline, cognizant of the old timeline. Hijinx ensues.

13. Waterknife by Paolo Bacigalupi. Set in the near future where climate change has put water at an extreme premium in the southwestern United States. The borders between states have been closed, and fighting to obtain water rights is vicious. This one was extremely good. Highly recommend.

14. Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown. Focused primarily on Joe Rantz, it tells the story of Rantz in the 1920s and 30s and his making it onto the University of Washington rowing team. Then it tells the story of the team that eventually made it to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Another highly recommended book.

15. In the Garden of Spite by  Camilla Bruce. A fictionalized version of the story Belle Gunness, the serial killer who eventually settled in LaPorte, Indiana. She had bad luck with husbands and suitors but very good luck with insurance. (One of her husbands happened to die on the very day he had two insurance policies in place.)

16. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell. A breezy biography of the Marquis de Lafayette and the Revolutionary War.

17. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. An ordinary Londoner finds himself in London Below where things are a lot different. Love this story.

18. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Another book by Bacigalupi with environmental catastrophe as its background. I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I did the Waterknife.

19. On the Trail of Genghis Khan by Tim Kope. Kope decides to ride horses from eastern Mongolia across the Asian steppe to the Danube River. I really enjoyed this one as well. There’s a fish-out-of-water aspect as he learns to handle the horses and camping, and then the people he meets on the trail are fascinating. But the best character is Tigon, a puppy he acquires early in the journey that grows up on the way.

20. The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. I hated this one. There was a stream of consciousness approach that I suppose was intended as artistic but to me comes off as disorganized and in need of editing. It’s kind of an autobiographical work of fiction that wanders around the author’s teen years as a debater and disaffected youth in the suburbs.

21. American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Another re-read of a Gaiman story I love. Gods are brought to the New World by the people who believe in them. As that belief wanes, so does the gods’ quality of life and power. Odin is a grifter running a con.

22. A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols. An account of the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race where nine sailors sought to be the first person to complete a solo, non-stop yacht circumnavigation of the globe. Very good book. Highly recommend.

23. Sapiens by Yuval Harari. Basically a survey of the history of human kind from the Stone Age through the present. Entertaining but probably a little superficial.

24. Endurance – Shackleford’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. This is an account of the harrowing voyage led by Sir Ernest Shackleford in 1914 with the intent to cross Antarctica. The ship became encased in ice before it could even get to the continent. They had to survive in the ship, then on the ice pack when it was crushed, and eventually, Shackleton would have to make an open sea voyage in a lifeboat across hundreds of miles in the Southern Ocean. Another great book.

25. Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots. Fun story about a world where heroes and supervillains get support staff through temp agencies. Our heroine is really good with spreadsheets.

26. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. A boring but reasonably happy physics professor is thrown from his normal life by an alternate reality version of himself who had sacrificed family life to pursue scientific greatness by inventing a means of traversing the multiverse.

27. Rooster Bar by John Grisham. Frustrated lawyers steal money from bad guys and wind up on a beach somewhere. But I guess that’s most John Grisham stories. This wasn’t one of his better efforts.

28. Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson. Near future, global warming has made living unpleasant. A Texas billionaire pulls together influential people from places where sea levels rising will cause immediate problems – the Netherlands, Venice, Singapore, Houston, etc. He creates a cannon to shoot sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere which will be a temporary reprieve from the warming until we can figure out more comprehensive methods. I pretty much love all Neal Stephenson books, so I can’t offer any kind of reliable guidance on how good or bad this one was. I enjoyed it.

29. Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston. An account of the archeological find in the jungles of Honduras. Lidar technology made it possible to detect lost cities in impenetrable parts of Honduras. These sites line up a bit with legends of a “Lost City of the Monkey God” and point to a previously unknown or at least little known civilization in Central America.

30. Tippecanoe County and the Flood of 1913 by Arnold Sweet and Pete Bill. An account of the impact of the flood of 1913 on Tippecanoe County. The flood in the spring of 1913 cut off Lafayette and West Lafayette with water rising to something like 32 feet. For several days after reading that, when driving in downtown Lafayette or across the river in West Lafayette, I couldn’t help but imagine the water that had been in those places. It destroyed the Brown Street bridge and the Main Street bridge. And the railroad bridge was significantly damaged.

31. The Institute by Stephen King. Kids with telekinetic powers are harvested and placed in the Institute to be weaponized against foreign leaders.