The Best Paragraph I've Read...

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Dachshunds, the German dog breed known for their distinctive long bodies and short legs, face an uncertain future if proposed changes to an animal protection law are approved, Germany’s kennel club said. A draft of the bill, from the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture, was published in February and aims to combat “torture breeding,” or breeding to produce animals with characteristics that will cause them to suffer, and to regulate the online trade of animals.

However, the draft contains requirements that could end the breeding of certain dogs, such as the dachshund, according to a statement from the V.D.H., Germany’s kennel club."

This paragraph comes from the New York Times. The article is titled: "Germany's Beloved Dachshund Could Be Threatened Under Breeding Bill." The author is Derrick Bryson Taylor. You can read the full article here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/world/europe/dachshund-dog-breeding-ban-germany.html

Zac & Don discuss whether banning the breeding of dachshunds is an example of too much regulation creep. Zac also reflects on his own dachshund and whether he seems to be in pain. Zac & Don then consider whether it is too much regulation to mandate that all table saws have finger saving technology. Finally, they wonder if the government should require that more python meat be sold.

The following articles are also discussed in the podcast:

"How Much Would You Pat to Make Sure You Never Sawed Off a Finger?" Author: Ben Blatt

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/30/upshot/table-saws-safety-cost.html

"Python farming as a flexible and efficient form of agricultural food security"

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-54874-4

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Across the street, another strip was torn down to make way for a Raising Cane’s and a Chipotle, both also equipped with drive-throughs.

This part of town was never exactly the height of urban design; it had long been sprawly, car-oriented, and not great for walking. But the redevelopment gave it another character entirely. Before, the businesses there were destinations you could walk to if you wanted. Now, an enormous concrete retaining wall was built outside the Chick-fil-A, closing it off from sidewalk access like a fortress to fast food capitalism. The place had become so hostile to anyone outside a car that no one was going to get in there on foot. It was not a destination, but a place meant to be driven through — which is to say, no place at all."

This paragraph comes from Vox.com. The article is titled: "Mega drive-throughs explain everything wrong with American cities." The author is Marina Bolotnikova. You can read the full article here:

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/24089853/mega-drive-throughs-cities-chick-fil-a-chipotle

Zac and Don discuss the continued rise of drive-through culture in America. They discuss the impact it has left on cities and whether using the drive-through is actually an efficient use of time. Don also makes a good case for never ordering drive-through french fries.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"When you look at the role that trash talk plays in creating group bonds, it has very clear applications in creating a sense of “us versus them.” When you talk crap about a rival, you’re reinforcing a sense of identity. You’re reinforcing who we are and who they are. One theory about why trash talk works to throw people off their game is that it leverages a fear of social isolation, of ostracization, of being kicked out. It’s taking advantage of that deep-seated, primal fear that we’re going to be left on our own, and we’re going to die. To bring it to a biological level, trash talk is suggesting you do not have the resources to survive."

This paragraph comes from an interview with Rafi Kohan who is discussing his book on Trash Talk. The interview is conducted by Scientific American. The interviewer is Jessica Hullinger. You can read the full interview here:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psychology-hacks-for-resisting-trash-talk/#:~:text=One%20theory%20about%20why%20trash,we're%20going%20to%20die.

Zac and Don discuss Trash Talk. They talk about whether trash talk works and what it's ultimate purpose is. They also wonder if trash talk has a bigger impact on nice or mean people. They also share their best piece of trash talk they've ever given.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Organizations are trying to protect themselves from lawsuits, but the whole administrative apparatus comes with an implied view of human nature. People are weak, fragile, vulnerable and kind of stupid. They need administrators to run their lives. They have to be trained never to take initiative, lest they wander off into activities that are deemed by the authorities to be out of bounds. The result is the soft despotism that Tocqueville warned us about centuries ago, a power that “is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild.” In his Liberties essay, Edmundson writes that this kind of power is now centerless. Presidents and executives don’t run companies, universities or nations. Power is now held by everyone who issues work surveys and annual reports, the people who create H.R. trainings and collect data. He concludes: “They are using the terms of liberation to bring more and more free people closer to mental serfdom. Some day they will awaken in a cage of their own devising, so harshly confining that even they, drunk on their own virtue, will have to notice how their lives are the lives of snails tucked in their shells.” This essay comes from the New York Times. The essay is titled; "Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts." The author is David Brooks. You can read the full article here: Opinion | Administrators Will Be the End of Us - The New York Times (nytimes.com) Zac and Don talk about the rule makers who keep making more and more rules in our society. Do we have too many rules or not enough? Are the rules getting in the way of people being able to build anything? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Need some NCAA Tournament bracket advice? How about just picking by mascot?

Zac & Don use the Wall Street Journal's NCAA Tournament historical mascot data to pick their entire bracket. They found the mascot data from an article titled: "Cats vs. Birds: The Whimsical Way to Fill Out Your NCAA Tournament Bracket." The article is written by Rosie Ettenheim and Laine Higgins. You can read the full article here:

⁠https://www.wsj.com/articles/cats-vs-birds-ncaa-tournament-bracket-march-madness-b91b86ec

Zac & Don are also joined by their good friend Kevin Kopec who is a College Basketball guru. Kevin give his tremendous insight into many NCAA tournament teams and picks his own bracket the traditional way. Who has a better bracket? Listen to find out.

You can see Zac & Don's bracket along with Kevin's bracket online. You can also enter your own bracket in their bracket pool to see if you can beat either of them.

Just click on the link below to join The Best Paragraph I've Read's bracket pool!

https://fantasy.espn.com/tc/sharer?challengeId=240&from=espn&context=GROUP_INVITE&edition=espn-en&groupId=4c8f5970-17a8-4890-910d-2536f77777e5

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"So we're like lab rats?" asked Cassie. "Just a bunch of kids being experimented on? This is terrible! We're kids! We're precious. Our parents tell us at least ten times a day how special we are! We get hugs for flushing the toilet, and allowances if we remember to wash our hands! Your experiment doesn't make me feel special. It makes me feel like a Monopoly piece being moved around the board."

This paragraph comes from the book Crypto School. The author is Zac Abeel. You can learn more about the book or purchase it here:

https://www.amazon.com/Crypto-School-Zac-Abeel/dp/B0CVQT975H/ref=sr_1_1?crid=17SF8GKG18GSO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Wgpi-UDUjrU0nUQ6IAa5tUlO4Fv-wvoNepR9Lm71HB6uMg1IDA34hIfART_aMR94oSFfkWO8WTrB0TticMdEl6jP7tVopt5ZCxnlILeefbrV1knx1ZQkVtlEnB_lmJpRiqxz2RdIjXBDLAM0N2kfyeceqqa1iSGcUURoEKtOPjsrvXoMrgSDQQl1LjGlkGOiNNVf2MJNsMVqnmbO4PsCD7Hjy_HTPbyWAiWbcahSnms.7GNJpzLpR7YTIVq-Eqr_fBfOKJh-7VoivEtqwqkSZRw&dib_tag=se&keywords=crypto+school&qid=1710284903&sprefix=crypto+schoo%2Caps%2C455&sr=8-1

Zac & Don discuss some of the ideas, characters, and plot in the story Crypto School. They also reflect on whether some of the story's ideas can be found in real classrooms. Could using cryptocurrency work in schools? Is it a good idea to let people just purchase their final grades? How much experimentation happens in school?

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Filling out brackets for the NCAA tournament is a rite of March. It’s also a famously inexact science, where the grandmother who picks teams based on their mascots has as good a chance of winning as the analytics geek who spent hours poring over team sheets.

You could reference the Madness Machine, The Wall Street Journal’s bracket generator based on reams of data from the NCAA and basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy. Or you could go for a more subjective approach: Is red your favorite color? Are you more of a dog person or an ornithophile? Do you like to watch teams where super tall players dominate?

As it turns out, there is a way to quantify whimsy. The Journal looked at all-time results from the NCAA tournament since 1985, when the field expanded to 64 teams, to determine which mascots and colors performed the best, and whether bigger was indeed better come March. It’s an objective look at subjectivity.

This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "Cats vs. Birds: The Whimsical Way to Fill Out Your NCAA Tournament Bracket." The article is written by Rosie Ettenheim and Laine Higgins. You can read the full article here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cats-vs-birds-ncaa-tournament-bracket-march-madness-b91b86ec

Zac and Don discuss the merits of filling out an NCAA tournament bracket according to historical data on mascots, color, and height. Zac and Don also discuss the men who have to guard Caitlin Clark in practice.

You can read the Caitlin Clark article here:

https://theathletic.com/5190331/2024/01/30/caitlin-clark-kamilla-cardoso-juju-watkins-practice-players/

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

KLAY THOMPSON was skeptical at first. This was back in 2018, when Warriors coach Steve Kerr had arranged for the motivational speaker Tony Robbins to visit practice. Robbins spoke about many things that day, but what stuck for Thompson was Robbins’s habit of keeping his pool just above freezing and jumping in every morning. Robbins swore it was the best way to start the day.

Thompson was not much of a cold guy, but he did have an outdoor pool at his Oakland home and he did have a hard time waking up. So one winter morning he headed out and leaped in. It was, Thompson says, “very hard, very cold.”

Upon getting out, however, the chill had given way to mild euphoria, the result of what one researcher termed a flood of “the happy hormones”—endorphins, serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin—activated by the body’s cold response. So the next day, and the day after that, Thompson did it again. “You get out and you just feel like you can accomplish anything,” he said recently, sitting in a hallway in Chase Center after practice. “Everything throughout the day seems a lot easier.”

This paragraph comes from Sports Illustrated. The article is titled: "Ice? Ice, Baby!" The article is written by Chris Ballard. You can read the full article here:

https://www.si.com/basketball/2024/02/01/ice-baths-athletes-klay-thompson-lebron-james

Zac and Don discuss the latest trend in America - cold water plunges & ice baths. They wonder if cold water can actually help people mentally and physically. Zac does some research and shares his results.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "The arc of corporate life used to be predictable. You made your way up the career ladder, acquiring more prestige and bigger salaries at every step. Then, in your early 60s, there was a Friday-afternoon retirement party, maybe a gold watch, and that was that. The next day the world of meetings, objectives, tasks and other busyness faded. If you were moderately restless, you could play bridge or help out with the grandchildren. If you weren’t, there were crossword puzzles, TV and a blanket. Although intellectual stimulation tends to keep depression and cognitive impairment at bay, many professionals in the technology sector retire at the earliest recommended date to make space for the younger generation, conceding it would be unrealistic to maintain their edge in the field. Still, to step down means to leave centre stage—leisure gives you all the time in the world but tends to marginalise you as you are no longer in the game." This paragraph comes from The Economist. The article is titled: "Why you should never retire." The essay is written by Bartleby. You can read the whole article here: https://www.economist.com/business/2024/01/25/why-you-should-never-retire Zac & Don discuss the idea of Don retiring. They also discuss the idea of relevance at work and whether that is a good idea for not retiring. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Lynn Shelmerdine passes oil rigs and tumbleweed on her way to work. Most men she knows drive pickup trucks and quite a few wear cowboy hats. But she’s emphatic that her part of Montana, despite being in Mountain time, is the Midwest rather than the Wild West.

It’s “family, family, family and I think that’s what Midwestern people are—family comes first and working hard and providing for your family,” says Shelmerdine, a 60-year-old retired teacher who runs Elks Lodge #1782 in Sidney, Mont., a small oil and agricultural city about 10 miles from the North Dakota border.

“Meat and potatoes…county fairs and we definitely have lots of casseroles—we call them a hot dish,” she says. Don’t forget marshmallows in salads. “You got a church potluck, you’re gonna get that.”

Everyone knows places such as Ohio and Minnesota are solidly in the Midwest. But a recent poll finds that the Midwest is more a state of mind than just a place you can point to on a map."

This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "It's Amazing How Many Americans Think They Live in the Midwest. When they Don't." The authors are Ben Kesling and Jennifer Levitz. You can read the full article here:

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/midwest-u-s-survey-west-geography-97c18794

Zac & Don discuss the borders of the Midwest. They wonder why so many Americans want to see themselves as part of the Midwest. They also share their thoughts on which states should be included in the Midwest.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Sometime in recent history, possibly around 2004, Americans forgot to have fun, true fun, as though they’d misplaced it like a sock. Instead, fun evolved into work, sometimes more than true work, which is where we find ourselves now.

Fun is often emphatic, exhausting, scheduled, pigeonholed, hyped, forced and performative. Adults assiduously record themselves appearing to have something masquerading as “fun,” a fusillade of Coachellic micro social aggressions unleashed on multiple social media platforms. Look at me having so much FUN! Which means it is nothing of the sort. This is the drag equivalent of fun and suggests that fun is done.

When there are podcasts on happiness (“The Happiness Lab,” “Happier”); a global study on joy (The Big Joy Project); David Byrne offering reasons to be cheerful; workshops on staging a “funtervention”; fun coaches; and various apps to track happiness, two things are abundantly clear: Fun is in serious trouble, and we are desperately in need of joy.

This paragraph comes from the Washington Post. The article is titled: "Fun is dead." The author is Karen Heller. You can read the full article here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/of-interest/2023/12/23/fun-is-dead/

Zac and Don discuss whether fun is dead. They wonder if maybe people have expectations for fun that are unreal. They wonder if maybe fun is about who you are with and not what you are doing. They also wonder if specific age groups struggle with fun more than others...

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: S.L. Price was a newspaper guy, making his bones as a young reporter at the Sacramento Bee and Miami Herald in the ’80s and ’90s. He covered sports, but those publications also allowed him to dip in on other beats; one day he might be reporting from the Olympics, the next he would be in thick of hurricane coverage. “I loved working for newspapers so much,” Price said. But in 1994, enticed by a significant salary bump, he left the world of dailies for a job at Sports Illustrated. It didn’t take long for Price to realize that he had reached a promised land. “It was the gold standard,” he recalled. Price spent the next 26 years at Sports Illustrated, authoring 47 cover stories and profiling the likes of Serena Williams, Lionel Messi, and even Barack Obama. For much of that time, the magazine hummed with all of its editorial horsepower. “Everybody in the building was smarter than you, and they made you look better,” he said of Sports Illustrated’s salad days, when the magazine was still flush with advertising revenue, and its pages rich with high-quality journalism. Price and his colleagues were supported by a deep newsroom infrastructure and empowered by the financial strength of the magazine, allowing it to become “a hub of great ideas and daring journalism.” Whereas “the problem with journalism today,” he added, is that “so much of it is undermined subtly by this lack of confidence, fueled by a lack of money.” This paragraph comes from Vanity Fair. The article is titled: "The Worst That It's Ever Been": Inside Sports Illustrated Winter of Discontent." The author is Tom Kludt. You can read the full article here: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/sports-illustrated-future Reporter and Author Mark Synder joins Zac and Don to talk about the decline of Sports Illustrated. They talk about what Sports Illustrated used to mean and how it has declined. They also talk about how the business of sports journalism has changed. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Is a collection of interesting numbers and statistics surrounding this year's presidential election. These numbers come from Politico. You can read the full article and all of the numbers here:

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/30/2024-election-numbers-00133327

Government teacher Kevin Kopec joins Zac and Don to discuss the political statistics they found most interesting as election season begins.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

The roots of boys’ problems are complex. Things that once benefited boys in school, including male teachers, recess and vocational classes, have dwindled in recent years.

The post pandemic ubiquity of technology also has contributed to boys’ problems—and parents’ frustration. “If you have the option between studying for boring chemistry and playing a videogame, who would choose the chemistry homework?”

And with Chromebooks in tow throughout the school day, boys are accessing YouTube and games during class. Girls have their share of tech problems, too. But the desire for likes and connection that makes social media so appealing—and at times harmful—can benefit girls as they pursue positive feedback from teachers and peers, psychologists say.

Parents, tutors and education experts say boys need extra encouragement to understand the payoff of working hard in school. Basically, they need a bigger reason than letter grades.

This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "Boys Are Struggling. It Can Take Coaches, Tutors and Thousands a Month to Fix That." The article is written by Julie Jargon. You can read the full article here:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/middle-schoolers-academic-success-innovation-40e8456d

Zac and Don are joined by middle school principal David McKay. The three share their thoughts on middle school boys and their learning needs. They discuss whether the national trends of boys struggling to learn are true. They debate the merits of potential solutions.

The following article is also referenced during the podcast:

Inside the Schools Where Boys Can Be Boys

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"The free throw is supposed to be an easy point after a foul: a direct, unguarded shot 15 feet from the backboard. But there’s an art to it. The ball, most players and fans would say, should leave the fingers gracefully, make a wide arc, avoid the rim — and “splash” straight into the net, as the N.B.A. sharpshooter Steph Curry called it. With the help of analytics, other shots have evolved in pro basketball. But not the free throw, and over the past 30 years, its success rate in the N.B.A. has barely budged from around 77.

The shot’s stagnation stems from the mockery that awaits any variation to the “nothing but net” technique in the United States. Bank shots — bouncing the ball off the glass before it falls through the net — are derided as amateurish for anything but layups. But a devoted group of players in the Korean Basketball League, or K.B.L., have embraced the unorthodox technique."

This paragraph comes from the New York Times. The article is titled: "Nothing but Backboard: Why Some Korean Basketball Players Love the Bank Shot." The article is written by John Yoon. You can read the full article here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/sports/basketball/bank-shot-south-korea-basketball.html Zac and Don discuss free throw shooting technique. They wonder why more pros don't make a change their technique when they are terrible at free throws. They wonder if underhand or bank shot is the best technique.

Zac and Don also reference the following podcast episode from Malcolm Gladwell during their discussion:

https://omny.fm/shows/revisionist-history/the-big-man-cant-shoot

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"The Cybertruck, for all of its many faults, lives up to this promise. Too many other EVs don’t. A fully electric Ford F-150 Lightning is a technological feat that can power a house for up to three days, but from a distance, you can’t tell it apart from its gas-powered cousin. Other EVs are even more Wonder Bread: The electric Hyundai Genesis G80 is so similar to its gas twin that it has been described as an “EV in disguise.” Toyota is working on a simulated stick shift for EVs that will let drivers pretend to manually shift gears, and many EVs spurt out fake engine noises.

Some EVs, such as the retro-futuristic Hyundai Ioniq 6, are more sci-fi, but on the whole, carmakers are trying to make the jump to EVs easier by sticking with the big-grilled designs that drivers already know. That’s apparently why Ford made the F-150 EV look so familiar. “The car market is quite conservative,” Clarke said, “because for most people, a car is the second-biggest purchase they’ll make.” That tendency is dumbing down the truly world-changing capabilities of the electric car."

This paragraph comes from The Atlantic. The article is titled: Admit It, The Cybertruck Is Awesome." The author is Saahil Desai. You can read the full article here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/cybertruck-tesla-electric-pickup-design/676201/

Zac and Don wonder what is a bigger deal? The new Cybertruck or the Improved Big Mac. Which will impact more people? Which will have more staying power?

Zac and Don also discussed the following article from the Wall Street Journal and author Heather Haddon:

No More Dry Burgers: McDonald's Overhauls It's Biggest Item

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

This week we discuss laws, the people who decide the law, and whether those very people can have social media accounts. Here are the articles we read:

"Leaf Blower Fight Roils Greenwhich, Conn., How to World's Most Perfect Lawns" Wall Street Journal. Author: Joseph De Avila

"Can public officials block you on social media? It's up to the Supreme Court" NPR. Author: Nina Totenberg

"This Louisiana Town Runs Largely on Traffic Fines. If You Fight Your Ticket, the Mayor is Your Judge" ProPublica. Authors: Samantha Sunne, Dannah Sauer, and Lee Zurik

Zac and Don discuss all three articles as they debate which side of each legal questions are they.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Before epilepsy was understood to be a neurological condition, people believed it was caused by the moon, or by phlegm in the brain. They condemned seizures as evidence of witchcraft or demonic possession, and killed or castrated sufferers to prevent them from passing tainted blood to a new generation.

Today we know epilepsy is a disease. By and large, it’s accepted that a person who causes a fatal traffic accident while in the grip of a seizure should not be charged with murder. That’s good, says Stanford University neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky. That’s progress. But there's still a long way to go.

After more than 40 years studying humans and other primates, Sapolsky has reached the conclusion that virtually all human behavior is as far beyond our conscious control as the convulsions of a seizure, the division of cells or the beating of our hearts. This means accepting that a man who shoots into a crowd has no more control over his fate than the victims who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It means treating drunk drivers who barrel into pedestrians just like drivers who suffer a sudden heart attack and veer out of their lane.

The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish people for things they have no control over,” Sapolsky said. “We’ve got no free will. Stop attributing stuff to us that isn’t there.”

This paragraph comes from the Los Angeles Times. The article is titled: "Stanford scientist, after decades of study, concludes: We don't have free will." The article is written by Corinne Purtill. You can read the full article here:

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2023-10-17/stanford-scientist-robert-sapolskys-decades-of-study-led-him-to-conclude-we-dont-have-free-will-determined-book

Zac and Don discuss professor's claim that humans do not have free will. They wonder if this applies to the short and long term. They also wonder if this claim could impact future court cases. They also debate whether this is an important question to consider.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

When self-checkout kiosks began to pop up in American grocery stores, the sales pitch to shoppers was impressive: Scan your stuff, plunk it in a bag, and you’re done. Long checkout lines would disappear. Waits would dwindle. Small talk with cashiers would be a thing of the past. Need help? Store associates, freed from the drudgery of scanning barcodes, would be close at hand to answer your questions.

You know how this process actually goes by now: You still have to wait in line. The checkout kiosks bleat and flash when you fail to set a purchase down in the right spot. Scanning those items is sometimes a crapshoot—wave a barcode too vigorously in front of an uncooperative machine, and suddenly you’ve scanned it two or three times. Then you need to locate the usually lone employee charged with supervising all of the finicky kiosks, who will radiate exasperation at you while scanning her ID badge and tapping the kiosk’s touch screen from pure muscle memory. If you want to buy something that even might carry some kind of arbitrary purchase restriction—not just obvious things such as alcohol, but also products as seemingly innocuous as a generic antihistamine—well, maybe don’t do that.

This paragraph comes from The Atlantic. The article is titled: "Self-Checkout Is A Failed Experiment." The article is written by Amanda Mull. You can read the full article here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/10/self-checkout-kiosks-grocery-retail-stores/675676/

Zac and Don discuss their experiences with the self check out kiosks. They reflect on the misery of grocery store lines. They offer potential solutions. They also wonder if the problem of grocery stores lines will ever be fixed.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Forty years ago, when I was earning my Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, the research seemed clear. Studies back then showed that kids who attended schools in low-income communities were at higher risk for substance abuse, anxiety, and depression, compared with kids who attended schools in more affluent communities. Suniya Luthar, then at Columbia University, was among the first to document a change. Beginning in the late 1990s, she found that the previous association had flipped. In a seminal study published in 1999, Luthar and her Yale colleague Karen D’Avanzo documented that affluent kids were now at higher risk for substance abuse, and scored higher on measures of anxiety and depression, compared with low-income kids. Multiple subsequent studies, including several authored by Luthar, replicated and extended this finding. In 2009, researchers at New York University coined the term “affluenza” to describe this new phenomenon: upper-middle-income and affluent kids now at greater risk for psychiatric disorders and substance abuse compared to their low-income peers.

This paragraph comes from the Institute for Family Studies. The article is titled: "When Is the 'Best' School Not the Best?" The author is Leonard Sax.

You can read the full article here:

https://ifstudies.org/blog/when-is-the-best-school-not-the-best

Zac and Don discuss the findings that high achieving schools are not helping students achieve better futures. They wonder if their school district fits within the definition of high achieving. They also wonder if these findings will change how parents and students perceive school.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: In the first release of U.S. history and civics scores since the start of the pandemic, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation’s Report Card, showed a decline in students’ knowledge that reversed gains made since the 1990s. According to the data, 13% of eighth-graders met proficiency standards for U.S. history, meaning they could explain major themes, periods, events, people, ideas and turning points in the country’s history. About a fifth of students scored at or above the proficient level in civics. This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal in an article titled: "Eighth-Graders History, Civics Test Scores Hit Record Low." The article is written by Ben Chapman. You can read the full article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-eighth-graders-dont-know-much-about-history-test-scores-show-56ef367c Zac and Don discuss America's low History and Civics test scores. They wonder if the test is flawed and if students had the right incentives. They also wonder if you can still be a good American citizen even if you failed the test. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Zac & Don discuss the second half of the new Elon Musk biography. Does Elon have too much power when it comes to Free Speech? War? What about the Algorithm, The Idiot Index, Production Hell & More!

You can read the full biography here:

https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1982181281/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=hjIpY&content-id=amzn1.sym.5f7e0a27-49c0-47d3-80b2-fd9271d863ca%3Aamzn1.symc.e5c80209-769f-4ade-a325-2eaec14b8e0e&pf_rd_p=5f7e0a27-49c0-47d3-80b2-fd9271d863ca&pf_rd_r=BHH6YCDSCH0THX7RPQJG&pd_rd_wg=vrzG1&pd_rd_r=e0737cba-e0cf-4875-ad7a-01b7b91ccf6c&ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mr_hp_atf_m

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Let’s just get this out of the way: I don’t like dogs. I don’t like the way they smell. I don’t like the way they jump on your dry-clean-only pants. I especially don’t like the way they “get to know you.” (I generally don’t like to be poked down there unless it’s so someone can tell me whether I have HPV.) I don’t believe animals are equal to people; I can’t believe $15,000 pet surgeries exist in a country where not every person can get health care.

I’ve long kept this feeling to myself, because in America, saying you don’t like dogs is like saying you think the Taliban has some good ideas. Recently, however, I learned about a community of people just like me: The Dogfree Subreddit. I don’t use Reddit much, but immediately, I was taken by r/Dogfree’s tagline: “We don’t like dogs.” I had never before seen this, my most taboo opinion, written out so plainly.

This paragraph comes from an essay in The Atlantic. The essay is titled: "I Don't Like Dogs." The essay is written by Olga Khazan. You can read the full essay here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/people-who-hate-dogs-reddit-dogfree/675372/

Zac and Don discuss the essay and share their personal opinions on whether they like dogs. They also wonder if America has gone too far with it's bending of the rules for dogs.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Economists, sports scientists and psychologists have analyzed Olympic performances and chess matches, as well as thousands of online quizzes to determine the average age when people peak mentally and physically. They are trying to understand how our brain and bodies work and if there are lessons on strengthening each. The good news is that while we may have peaked in one endeavor, we are likely getting better in another. This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "Here's When We Hit Our Physical and Mental Peaks." The article is written by Clare Ansberry. You can read the full article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/heres-when-we-hit-our-physical-and-mental-peaks-3b0f9a01 Zac and Don discuss physical and mental peaks. They reflect on whether they are personally peaking or more on the downside of life. They also wonder whether someone can peak at horse riding or sailing. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: It’s been almost 2,000 years since the Roman Empire reached the historic peak of its power. But many men still contemplate it — quite a lot. A new social media trend prompting women to ask the men in their lives how often they think about ancient Rome reveals that it crosses the minds of many men on a weekly basis. Even daily. Or more — to the surprise and confusion of their loved ones. “Three times a day,” answered one woman’s fiancé in a TikTok video. “There’s so much to think about,” he explained, eliciting a stunned look into the camera from his soon-to-be wife. “They built an entire world-dominating society,” another man exclaimed when asked by a bewildered-looking woman to justify why he contemplates ancient Rome. This paragraph comes from the Washington Post. The article is titled: "How often do men think about ancient Rome? Quite frequently, it seems." The article is written by Leo Sands. You can read the whole article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/09/14/roman-empire-trend-men-tiktok/ Zac and Don discuss if they have been thinking about Ancient Rome. They share the thoughts of their friends and wonder if America should be spending more or less time thinking about Rome. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "His heritage and breeding, along with the hardwiring of his brain, made him at times, Callous and impulsive. It also led to an exceedingly high tolerance for risk. He could calculate it coldly and also embrace it feverishly. "Elon wants risk for its own sake," says Peter Thiel, who became his partner in the early days of PayPal. "He seems to enjoy it, indeed it times be addicted to it." He became one of those people who feels most of alive when a hurricane is coming. "I was born for a storm, and calm does not suit me," Andrew Jackson one said. Likewise, with Musk. He developed a siege mentality that included an attraction, sometimes a craving, for storm and drama, both at work and in the romantic relationships he struggled and failed to maintain. He thrived on crises, deadlines and wild surges of work. When he faced tortuous challengesc, the strain would often keep him awake at night and make him vomit. But it also energized him. "He is a drama magnet," says Kimbal. "That's his compulsion, the theme of his life." This paragraph comes from the new Elon Musk biography. The author is Walter Issacson. You can purchase the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1982181281 Zac and Don share their thoughts on the first half of the biography. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Taco Bell’s food-innovation staff, which includes sixty developers, focusses on big questions: How do you make a Cheez-It snack cracker big enough to be a tostada? What are the ideal Cheez-It dimensions to guarantee that the tostada won’t crack inconveniently when bitten into? Or consider the Doritos Locos Taco: What safeguards can be implemented to prevent the orange Doritos dust from staining a consumer’s hands or clothing? Can fourteen Flamin’ Hot Fritos corn chips be added to the middle of a burrito and retain their crunch? Can a taco shell be made out of a waffle, or a folded slab of chicken Milanese? These are all problems of architecture and scalability; fast food is assembly, not cooking.

This paragraph comes from The New Yorker. The article is titled: "Taco Bell's Innovation Kitchen, The Front Line In the Stunt-Food Wars." The author is Antonia Hitchens. You can read the full article here:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/24/taco-bells-innovation-kitchen-the-front-line-in-the-stunt-food-wars Zac and Don discuss the innovations of Taco Bell. They discuss the science and engineering behind the development of the Crunchwrap and Doritos Locos Taco. They also discuss how Taco Bell has impacted their lives.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Consider: only between 10 and 30 percent of second-hand donations to charity shops are actually resold in store. The rest disappears into a machine you don’t see: a vast sorting apparatus in which donated goods are graded and then resold on to commercial partners, often for export to the Global South. The problem is that, with the onslaught of fast fashion, these donations are too often now another means of trash disposal—and the system can’t cope. Consider: around 62 million tons of clothing is manufactured worldwide every year, amounting to somewhere between 80 and 150 billion garments to clothe 8 billion people. We rarely see the networks of people involved in processing, reselling, and eventually reusing the things we donate—vast networks that encircle the globe like a ball of yarn, conveying our unwanted things to people in places like Afghanistan or Togo or Bangladesh. Like anything we put in the bin, they are sent “away.” In this case not thrown, but given." This paragraph comes from GQ. The article is titled: "What Really Happens to the Clothes You Donate." The author is: Oliver Franklin-Wallis. You can read the full article here: https://www.gq.com/story/oliver-franklin-wallis-wasteland-excerpt#:~:text=Consider%3A%20only%20between%2010%20and,export%20to%20the%20Global%20South. Zac and Don discuss conventional thinking and wonder which generally accepted idea should be ignored. In addition to ignoring the conventional thinking of donating used clothes, they also wonder if we should not replant trees that have been burned in forest fire, and if we are already drinking too much water. You can read the replanting trees and drink water articles here: Replanting Trees https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/sequoias-national-park-18261745.php Drinking Water https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/08/drinking-water-hydration-amount-importance/674926/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Comes from a new book titled Mountain Top: The Inside Story of Michigan's 1997 National Title Climb. The authors are Nick Baumgardner & Mark Snyder. You can purchase the book here. Zac and Don are joined by co-author Mark Snyder. They discuss Michigan's 1997 championship football season. Marks shares some of his favorite coach and player anecdotes. They discuss the process of writing the book. They also wonder whether it's easier to win in college football today or back in the 90's. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Steady growth in Internet shopping has been accompanied by steady growth in returns of all kinds. A forest’s worth of artificial Christmas trees goes back every January. Bags of green plastic Easter grass go back every spring. Returns of large-screen TVs surge immediately following the Super Bowl. People who buy portable generators during weather emergencies use them until the emergencies have ended, and then those go back, too. A friend of mine returned so many digital books to Audible that the company now makes her call or e-mail if she wants to return another. People who’ve been invited to fancy parties sometimes buy expensive outfits or accessories, then return them the next day, caviar stains and all—a practice known as “wardrobing.” Brick-and-mortar shoppers also return purchases. “Petco takes back dead fish,”Demer said. “Home Depot and Lowe’s let you return dead plants, for a year. You just have to be shameless enough to stand in line with the thing you killed.” It almost goes without saying that Americans are the world’s leading refund seekers; consumers in Japan seldom return anything. This paragraph comes from the New Yorker. The article is titled: "What Happens to All the Stuff We Return?" The article is written by David Owen. You can read the full article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/21/the-hidden-cost-of-free-returns Zac and Don discuss the world of retail and online shopping returns. They reflect on some of the returns they have made. They marvel at how how cheap certain goods remain even when the cost of returns are built in. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Plaintiffs’ lawyers are pitching school boards throughout the country to file lawsuits against social-media companies on allegations that their apps cause classroom disciplinary problems and mental-health issues, diverting resources from education. Nearly 200 school districts so far have joined the litigation against the parent companies of Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube. The suits have been consolidated in the U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif., along with hundreds of suits by families alleging harms to their children from social media. The lawsuits face a test later this year when a judge is expected to consider a motion by the tech companies to dismiss the cases on grounds that the conduct allegedly causing the harm is protected under the internet liability shield known as Section 230. School districts say teachers and administrators waste valuable time responding to cyberbullying and other disciplinary problems, adding new training and school policies around social-media use, and counseling youths whose addiction to online apps is leading to anxiety, depression or suicidal thoughts. This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "Schools Sue Social-Media Platforms Over Alleged Harms to Students." The article is written by Sara Randazzo and Ryan Tracy. You can read the full article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/schools-sue-social-media-platforms-over-alleged-harms-to-students-ebca91a5 Middle School Principal Sara Wendland joins Zac and Don to discuss the issue of social media in schools. They share their thoughts about the proposed lawsuit. They also talk about their jobs in schools and how social media impacts their day and school climate. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: It’s not the wedding professionals’ fault that weddings are expensive. The fact is that weddings are luxuries, not necessities. It costs a lot to make something look nice; it costs even more to make it feel nice—to make sure all your guests are comfortable, and well fed, and entertained. A wedding is not a photograph of a wedding. A wedding—a good wedding—is immersive theater, a living, breathing work of art. This paragraph comes from The Atlantic. The article is titled: "The Fake Poor Bride." The author is Xochitl Gonzalez. You can read the full article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/07/luxury-wedding-planners-industrial-complex-cost/674169/ Zac and Don discuss the world of weddings and wedding planners. They admire the expense and considerations needed when planning a wedding. They also discuss the fallout on the day after a wedding. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

A tourist is a temporarily leisured person who voluntarily visits a place away from home for the purpose of experiencing a change. This definition is taken from the opening of "Hosts and Guests," the classic academic volume on the anthropology of tourism. The last phrase is crucial: touristic travel exists for the sake of change. But what, exactly, gets changed? Here is a telling observation from the concluding chapter of the same book: "Tourists are less likely to borrow from their hosts than their hosts are from them, thus precipitating a chain of change in the host community." We go to experience a change, but end up inflicting change on others.

This paragraph comes from an essay in the New Yorker, titled: "The Case Against Travel." The essay is written by Agnes Callard. You can read the full essay here:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/the-case-against-travel

Zac and Don reflect upon the arguments made against travel. They also reflect upon their recent summer travels and how that fits within the case against travel.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The idea of building a desalination plant in Mexico has been discussed in Arizona for years. But now, a $5 billion project proposed by an Israeli company is under serious consideration, an indication of how worries about water shortages are rattling policymakers in Arizona and across the American West. On June 1, the state announced that the Phoenix area, the fastest-growing region in the country, doesn’t have enough groundwater to support all the future housing that has already been approved. Cities and developers that want to build additional projects beyond what has already been allowed would have to find new sources of water. This paragraph comes from the New York Times, in an article titled: "Arizona, Low on Water, Weighs Taking It From the Sea. In Mexico. The article is written by Christopher Flavelle. You can read the full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/10/climate/arizona-desalination-water-climate.html The following article from Vox.com is also discussed: Let's Talk About the Biggest Cause of the West's water crisis. Zac and Don discuss water scarcity in America's west. They wonder if desalinization technology is the ultimate solution for everything. They also wonder what role water prices need to play. They also wonder how much we should care about the water intensive crop of alfalfa. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Listen, the US is a big dumpster fire. At least, it's easy to feel that way with the constant horrible news — and any and all apathy and distress we feel is valid. But we often tend to forget about the good things about America. So, when Reddit user u/hippiechick725 asked, "What's the best thing about the US?" and a bunch of people from other countries or those who have traveled a lot chimed in, it was actually a really needed reminder of the things Americans can appreciate about the US. So, in case you need a little bit of perspective and positivity, read on to hear what people think the US is actually killing the game at. This paragraph comes from an article in BuzzFeed titled: "America Gets A Lot Of Hate, But You Can't Deny That These 35 Things About It Are Actually So Top Tier." The article is written by Hannah Marder. You can read the full article here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahmarder/good-things-about-america Zac and Don consider the BuzzFeed list of things that make America great. They discuss everything from Costco, year round fruit, regional food, national parks, the ADA Act, Entertainment, being nice and more. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Inside the repurposed warehouse, human superballs fling themselves from unwieldy plastic rings and bars suspended from steel scaffolding, while others scurry up the trio of towering, curved (better known as “warped”) walls looming in the corner, the tallest of which stands a foreboding 14' 8". On the rear wall, there is a peg board, navigated by ninjas who insert and hang from wooden rods along a jagged course of holes. And beside that hangs a homemade wooden salmon ladder, which a ninja ascends by dangling from a horizontal metal pole and heaving it up a series of vertical grooves. The kids, many of whom aren’t quick to make eye contact with strangers and are prone to slumped shoulders, seem to double in size in that room. They laugh and—quite literally—bounce off the walls. This paragraph comes from Sports Illustrated. The article is titled: "Go Ninja." The article is written by Brian Burnsed. Zac and Don discuss the sport of Ninja Warrior. They wonder if it is really sport or more of a reality exhibition. They also talk about whether Ninja Warrior has reached its peak in popularity and whether it should become an olympic sport. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Is wrestling real? Is it fake? The answer to both questions is, paradoxically, yes. The outcome of each contest is scripted. The body slams and submissions are choreographed. Sworn enemies are, in all likelihood, friends. But the Undertaker (Mark Calaway) really did throw Mankind (Mick Foley) off the top of that steel cage during a 1998 King of the Ring pay-per-view match. Foley really did fall 16 feet and crash through the announcers’ table. He was carted off on a stretcher, only to fight the paramedics and stumble back to the ring, where the Undertaker once again sent Foley’s massive body flying, this time through the “Hell in a Cell” chain-link roof. A bit later, the Undertaker choke-slammed him onto a pile of thumbtacks. By the time the match was over, Foley had a badly injured shoulder and a broken tooth shoved up his nose. Professional wrestling delivers sensory overload that’s almost impossible to capture with mere description. “It’s the best [thing] I’ve ever seen in my whole life,” Andy Warhol said of a 1985 match at Madison Square Garden. This paragraph comes from The Atlantic in an article titled: "How Wrestling Explains America." The article is written by John Hendrickson. You can read the full article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/03/wwe-wrestling-trump-mcmahon-politics/673517/ This article is a part of a review of the following book: Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America https://www.amazon.com/s?k=vince+mcmahon+book&sprefix=vince+mc%2Caps%2C182&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_8 Zac and Don review the recent biography of Vince McMahon and the WWE. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

Zac and Don speak with Melissa Middleton as she gets ready to retire from education. They ask her about the changes she has seen in education. They ask her about being a librarian, books bans, whether students are losing an interest in reading, and more!

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

As many economists, including Sarah House of Wells Fargo, have argued, “you don’t even need to actually default on the debt for there to be real damage in the economy.” At Bloomberg Economics, a team led by Chief US Economist Anna Wong modeled a scenario where a protracted standoff leads to elevated market stress, and Treasury is forced to cut social spending to prioritize funds to repay the debt. They estimate, conservatively, that gross domestic product could contract at an annualized rate of 8% in the second half as a result.

Through wars, recessions and the pandemic, Americans have benefited from the US Treasury bond being the closest thing there is to a risk-free asset, allowing the federal government to fund itself often at lower costs than its peers. Demand for those securities supports a $24 trillion market that is the world’s deepest and most liquid. US Treasury bonds also anchor a world-spanning network of financial transactions.

Even if a last-minute deal averts a default, America’s reputation as a country that honors its debts could take a hit, with the effects lingering for months or even years.

This paragraph comes from Bloomberg in an article titled: "The True Cost of an Extended US Debt Ceiling Standoff." The article is written by Saleha Mohsin and Enda Curran. You can read the full article here:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-18/debt-ceiling-standoffs-threaten-an-already-wobbly-dollar

Zac and Don discuss the current debt ceiling drama. They wonder if the president and congress will make a deal at the last minute. They also discuss the merits of President Biden minting a one trillion dollar coin.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The Best Paragraph I've Read: Did they plan to study specifically with one of us? Was our institution particularly strong in the academic disciplines that interested them? Most of them couldn’t really tell me why they wanted Duke. They just knew that they should want it. It would validate them. It would impress their friends. Translation: It was highly ranked — currently tied for the 10th-best university in the country, ahead of half of the Ivy League, according to the justly embattled but perversely enduring bible for such matters, U.S. News & World Report. To many anxious teenagers making what feels like the most important decision of their lives, that marker must mean something, so they let it mean almost everything. They come to believe that the luster of the institution they attend, as established by its ranking and its exclusivity, will not only define their place in the world but also determine their professional success and contentment. And they minimize other, better criteria for choosing a college. This essay comes from the New York Times. The essay is titled: There's Only One College Rankings List That Matters. The essay is written by Frank Bruni. You can read the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/opinion/problem-college-rankings.html Zac and Don discuss the realities of choosing a college. Should young people spend more time thinking about what a college has to offer rather than just the brand name? Will The New York Time's new college choosing system actually make a difference? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Do you get a promotion every year, in your job?” Antetokounmpo answered, after a long pause in which he placed his head in his hands. “No, right? So every year you work is a failure? Yes or no. No? Every year you work, you work towards something, towards a goal, which is to get a promotion, to be able to take care of your family, provide a house for them, or take care of your parents. You work towards a goal – it’s not a failure. It’s steps to success.”

"There’s always steps to it,” Antetokounmpo continued. “Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships. The other nine years [were] a failure? That’s what you’re telling me…why do you ask me that question? It’s the wrong question.”

“There’s no failure in sports. There’s good days, bad days. Some days you are able to be successful, some days you’re not. Some days it’s your turn, some days it’s not your turn. And that’s what sports is about. You don’t always win. Some other people are going to win. And this year, somebody else is going to win. We’re going to come back next year and try to be better.”

This quote comes from Milwaukee Bucks center Giannis Antetokounmpo. The quotes comes from an essay written in the Wall Street Journal by Jason Gay. You can read the full article here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/giannis-antetokounmpo-failure-speech-bucks-nba-a37beed1

Zac and Don discuss Giannis's opinion of whether he and his team failed. They connect the opinion to their own lives and to other instances of life success and failure. They wonder if there is any merit to those who disagree with Giannis.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: After some observation, researchers concluded these generative agents were able to "produce believable individual and emergent social behaviors." AI avatars named Isabella Rodriguez and Tom Moreno, for instance, debated the town's upcoming election. When Isabella asked Tom what he thought of Sam Moore, the candidate running for mayor of Smallville, Tom replied with his opinion. "To be honest, I don't like Sam Moore," the AI Tom said. "I think he's out of touch with the community and doesn't have our best interests at heart." The agents were also able to respond to their environment. Isabella turned off her stove and made a new breakfast when she was told her food was burning. AI agent John Lin had spontaneous conversations without being prompted throughout the day, as he followed a schedule he'd made. Agents were even able to organize a Valentine's Day party without prompts. When Isabella was given the task, she managed to "autonomously" invite friends and customers she met at the local cafe and decorate the party venue. The agents she invited made plans to arrive at the party together at 5 p.m. Maria, an AI agent invited to the party, even asked her "secret crush" Klaus on a date to join her at the party, and he agreed. This paragraph comes from the Business Insider. The article is titled: "This is what Happened When 25 AI Avatars Were Let Loose in a Virtual Town." The article is written by Aaron Mok. You can read the full article here: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-avatars-let-loose-in-virtual-town-display-beginnings-agi-2023-4 Zac and Don discuss many ideas surrounding AI. They talk about Google's new AI technology, if we should be afraid of AI, if AI will take our jobs, and whether the technology might just fade into the background. They also talk about how schools should consider using AI and whether AI proves we are all just living in a simulation. Here are links to the other AI articles we read/watched: The End of Recommendation Letters https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/04/chatgpt-ai-college-professors/673796/ At what rate should we tax AI? https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/04/at-what-rate-should-we-tax-ai-workers.html Ideas for Regulating AI Safety https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/04/ideas-for-regulating-ai-safety.html 60 Minutes: The AI Revolution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=880TBXMuzmk What Happens When AI Has Read Everything https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/01/artificial-intelligence-ai-chatgpt-dall-e-2-learning/672754/ Rogue AI Could Kill Everyone https://nypost.com/2023/01/26/rogue-ai-could-kill-everyone-scientists-warn/ AI Can Save Education from Itself https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-can-save-education-from-itself-chatgpt-reform-information-skills-tools-reasoning-opportunity-11674513542 ChatGPT is Coming for Classrooms Don't Panic https://www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-is-coming-for-classrooms-dont-panic/ ChatGPT Will Change Housework https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2023/04/chatgpt-ai-use-domestic-labor-housework/673735/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

This week Zac and Don talk with Don's student teacher Sam Posey. They talk about college teacher preparation programs and meeting the requirements to be a teacher. They talk about why the teaching profession seems unappealing to Sam's generation. They discuss whether we should prepare future teachers differently. They also talk about being a student teacher and some of the challenges that go with learning how to be a teacher. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "In louisiana, it takes $1,485 and roughly 2,190 days to become an interior designer. In Washington, it takes $319 and 373 days to become a cosmetologist. The District of Columbia requires $740 to become an auctioneer, and a college degree to watch children for someone else. (Having and watching your own children continues to be an unlicensed affair.) In Kansas, you have to cough up $200 to work as a funeral attendant. And Maine requires $235 and 1,095 days to become a travel guide. Want to move states? That could mean you have to relicense, as if, say, cutting hair is materially different in Massachusetts than it is in New York." This paragraph comes from The Atlantic. The article is titled: "Permission-Slip Culture Is Hurting America." The article is written by Jerusalem Demsas. You can read the full article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/state-licensing-requirements-cosmetologists-landscape-architecture/673196/ Zac and Don discuss the role of professional licenses in our society. They reflect on their own respective licenses to teach and how they benefit from it. They also wonder if there should be many fewer licensed professions. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Forty years ago, the most anxious kids in America were those in low-income households. Beginning in the late 1990s, that flipped, according to the researcher Suniya Luthar. In a series of studies, she found that rich teens in high-achieving schools were the most anxious and depressed. One possibility she explored was that the most rigorous schools created an environment where kids worried too much about how they measured up to their peers in grades, activities, and college admissions." This paragraph comes from The Atlantic. The article is titled: "We're Missing A Key Driver of Teen Anxiety." The author is Derek Thompson. You can read the full article here: We’re Missing a Key Driver of Teen Anxiety - The Atlantic Zac and Don discuss the connection between parent pressure and teen anxiety. They wonder if this pressure has always been there. They also wonder if this is just an issue for the wealthy in society. They also wonder if there are any solutions to this issue. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The printing press had fooled the world with too many books especially of ancient and scholastic learning that were either obsolete, irrelevant, or misleading for the pursuit of true knowledge. He compared the proliferation of books to the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel. This paragraph comes from the Marginal Revolution blog. You can read the full post here: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/02/who-was-the-most-important-critic-of-the-printing-press-in-the-17th-century.html#:~:text=Bacon's%20critique%20of%20the%20printing%20press%20was%20influential%20and%20controversial,of%20knowledge%20production%20and%20dissemination. Zac and Don discuss Sir Francis Bacon's critique of the printing press. They talk about the similar issues and feelings that humans are facing today when it comes to so many words being constantly produced today. They also discuss whether Bacon's idea of having a small group of people decide what should be published is a good idea. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "The ways we socialize and date, commute and work are nearly unrecognizable from what they were three years ago. We’ve enjoyed a global pandemic, open employer-employee warfare, a multifront culture war, and social upheavals both great and small. The old conventions are out (we don’t whisper the word cancer or let women off the elevator first anymore, for starters). The venues in which we can make fools of ourselves (group chats, Grindr messages, Slack rooms public and private) are multiplying, and each has its own rules of conduct. And everyone’s just kind of rusty. Our social graces have atrophied. We wanted to help." This paragraph comes from an article in New York Magazine titled: "Do You Know How to Behave? Are You Sure? How to text, tip, ghost, host, and generally exist in polite society today. You can read the full article here: https://www.thecut.com/article/tipping-rules-etiquette-rules.html Zac and Don discuss some of the new social rules that people should follow. They agree on some - don't wake up your spouse. But disagree on others - do you need to be ready when you step up to order food? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "But fairness matters. The U.S. economy is the envy of the world because of its core tenets of free markets, robust legal frameworks, and capitalism. The protections against arbitrary seizure attract investment and enable risk-taking. And vigorous open competition between companies drive innovation forward. Banning a company based on hypotheticals—preying on fear and paranoia without compelling evidence—would be a terrible precedent. It would feed the perception that the U.S. can retroactively change the rules when a foreign competitor wins in the marketplace, chilling future investment. And it opens the door for other countries to ban U.S. apps unilaterally to advance their own domestic agendas." This paragraph comes from Barrons.com in an opinion essay titled: "Don't Ban TikTok. Here's a Plan to Fix It." The author is Tae Kim. You can read the full essay here: https://www.barrons.com/articles/tiktok-ban-how-to-fix-db5c0928 Zac and Don discuss whether America should ban TikTic. Will this help teenagers? Does a ban keep the nation safe from China? Or is banning the social media app a sign of a loser mentality that will have little to no impact? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Underpinning Bed Bath & Beyond's success was an innovative way of doing business. In addition to deliberate clutter, stores were designed with a "racetrack" floor plan that looped around the store so customers would walk by all the merchandise. Instead of grouping shopping baskets at the entrance, they placed them throughout the store. Messrs. Eisenberg and Feinstein ordered goods and set prices, but gave store managers the autonomy to reorder whatever they wanted, which allowed them to stock their stores according to local tastes. the company operated on a shoestring budget. It used cardboard boxes as waste baskets. Post-it Notes were considered too expensive. Both men still use scrap paper." This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "The Bed Bath & Beyond Founders Let Go." The article is written by Suzanne Kapner. You can read the full article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/bed-bath-beyond-bankruptcy-stock-founders-11674778627 Zac and Don talk about the slow death of Bed Bath and Beyond. They talk about what made the stores unique and reflect upon their shopping experiences as young adults. They also wonder which box stores are next to go out of business. The follow article is also referenced in the podcast: Nearly 2,000 CEOs Think Their Companies Won't Be Able To Make Money In 10 Years Survey Says https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/04/pwc-ceo-survey-their-firms-will-struggle-to-make-money-in-10-years.html --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: How important is luck? Few questions more reliable divide conservatives and liberals. As conservatives correctly observe people who amass great fortunes are almost always extremely talented and hard-working. But as liberals also rightly note countless others have those same qualities yet never earned much. In recently years social scientists have discovered that chance events play a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people once imagine. This paragraph comes from the book Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy. The author is Robert H. Frank. You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Success-Luck-Good-Fortune-Meritocracy/dp/0691167400/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1674661150&sr=8-1 Zac and Don discuss the book and it's ideas surrounding the controversial topic of individual success. Is one person solely responsible for their success or should factors such as luck and collective infrastructure also be taken into account? They also wonder if all of the book's ideas totally fit together into a cohesive book. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Heard:

Comes from the a16z Podcast.  In this episode Disney CEO Bob Iger is interviewed about running and managing a creative company with creative people.  You can listen to the full episode here:

https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/creators-creativity-and-technology-with-bob-iger-L98rXqw2

Zac and Don are joined by Lake Orion High School head principal Dr. Daniel Haas.  The three discuss how much schools and Disney have in common.  They talk about whether teachers should be seen as creative talent and what is the proper way to give feedback.  In addition they discuss some of the current challenges that public schools face.  

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: MEDIEVAL MONKS WERE, in many ways, the original LinkedIn power users. Earnest and with a knack for self-promotion, they loved to read and share inspiring stories of other early Christians who had shown remarkable commitment to their work. There was Sarah, who lived next to a river without ever once looking in its direction, such was her dedication to her faith. James prayed so intently during a snowstorm that he was buried in snow and had to be dug out by his neighbors. But none of these early devotees could ward off distraction like Pachomius. The 4th-century monk weathered a parade of demons that transformed into naked women, rumbled the walls of his dwelling, and tried to make him laugh with elaborate comedy routines. Pachomius didn’t even glance in their direction. For early Christian writers, Pachomius and his ilk set a high bar for concentration that other monks aspired to match. These super-concentrators were the first millennium embodiment of #workgoals, #hustle, and #selfimprovement. This paragraph comes from Wired.com. The article is titled: "Easily Distracted? You Need to Think Like a Medieval Monk." The article is written by Matt Reynolds. You can read the full article here: https://www.wired.com/story/medieval-monks-distraction/ Zac and Don consider the plight of Medieval Monks trying to avoid distraction. They wonder if our world today is any different than their world when it comes to distractions and how to avoid them. They discuss whether the monks can serve as an inspiration for us today. They also wonder if being distracted is a bad thing. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "When I heard that you could 3-D-print a building, I imagined something akin to a “Star Trek” replicator—a machine that would whir briefly and then spit out a fully formed house. The actual process is messier and more laborious, and, at the moment, it is largely used to construct walls, while conventional methods are used for foundations, floors, roofs, and finishes. But walls are among the most costly and labor-intensive aspects of home-building, and, in the majority of newly built U.S. homes, they’re likely to be made out of drywall panels mounted on wooden frames. Though drywall is easy to produce and relatively inexpensive, it takes a while to install, is not particularly sturdy, and is susceptible to mold. 3-D-printing advocates argue that rethinking our walls is a step toward building cheaper, more resilient houses." This paragraph comes from an article in the New Yorker. The article title is: "Can 3-D Printing Help Solve the Housing Crisis?" The article is written by Rachel Monroe. You can read the full article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/23/can-3-d-printing-help-solve-the-housing-crisis Zac and Don are joined by expert builders Chad, AJ, and Bud Swett. The group discusses their opinion of 3-D printing and if it can actually make a difference in building houses. They also discuss the building trades and if America is emphasizing these career opportunities enough to students. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "The world is closer to catastrophe than ever: the Doomsday Clock, the metaphorical measure of challenges to humanity, was reset to 90 seconds before midnight on Tuesday. The science and security board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said the move — the closest to widespread calamity humanity has ever been judged to be — was "largely, though not exclusively" due to the war in Ukraine." This paragraph comes from NPR.org in an article titled: "The Doomsday Clock moves to 90 seconds to midnight, signaling more peril than ever." The article is written by Bill Chappell. You can read the full article here: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/24/1150982819/doomsday-clock-90-seconds-to-midnight A Second Best Paragraph I've Read: "Even with challenges facing current and future generations, Gates says anyone born in the next few decades will be better off than people born at any previous point in history. I’m still very optimistic that it’d be much better to be born 20 years from now, 40 years from now, 60 years from now than any time in the past,” Gates said Monday in an interview at the Lowy Institute, a think tank in Sydney, Australia." This paragraph comes from CNBC.com in an article titled: "Bill Gates is 'very optimistic' about the future: 'Better to be born 20 years from now than any time in the past.' You can read the full article here: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/24/bill-gates-is-very-optimistic-about-future-of-earth-humanity.html Zac and Don talk about the recent change to the Doomsday Clock and Bill Gate's prediction. They wonder which source is more accurate. They also discuss whether there is anything an individual can do when they hear of such large and dramatic predictions. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "There’s just so many institutions that connect us. whether It’s the university of California. weather it’s the us government. whether it’s having served in a military branch. And our institutions have been under attack. Without strong institutions, without believing that we are all working in the agency of something bigger than ourselves, we all Turn very individualistic and start believing that were exceptional and that our belief supersedes are need to reinvest back in these institutions." This paragraph comes from a monologue given by Professor Scott Galloway on his podcast The Prof G Pod. The specific podcast episode is November 17th. The monologue begins at the 40:29 mark. You can listen to the podcast episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/my/podcast/money-and-power-in-the-world-of-soccer-with-rory-smith/id1498802610?i=1000586546961 Zac and Don talk about the importance of institutions in America. They comment on Professor Galloway's comments. They wonder why many are so distrustful of their institutions. They also talk about individuals and wonder if America has grown tired of specific people who seem desperate to remain in the spotlight. Zac and Don reference the following article from Politico.com: 2022 Is the Year We All Finally Got Tired of Narcissists https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/12/26/is-2022-the-year-we-all-finally-got-over-narcissists-00075270 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Following established guidelines about prescription drugs would seem to be an obvious course of action, especially for the professionals that do the prescribing. Yes doctors and their family members are less likely than other people to comply with those guidelines, according to a large-scale study co-authored by an MIT economist." This paragraph comes from an article in MIT News. The title is "Physician, heal thyself?" The article is written by Peter Dizikes. You can read the full article here: https://news.mit.edu/2022/physicians-medicine-guidelines-1215 Zac and Don wonder what is a more human response - to not follow the advice of doctors or to root for the freedom of runaway cows. You can read the runaway cow article here: "Fugitive Cows in Quebec Elude Captors and Inspire a Following" Written By Vipal Monga https://www.wsj.com/articles/fugitive-cows-in-quebec-elude-captors-and-inspire-a-following-11671464755 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "The larger concern when it comes to NYU’s sacking of Maitland Jones is that we’ve normalized a college culture where students imagine that studying 10 hours constitutes a full week’s academic work. Whether or not students have other interests or responsibilities, treating college as an expensive multiyear holiday isn’t good for students, colleges or the taxpayers who subsidize much of this activity. And it’s insulting to all those young people who routinely put in 10-hour days waitressing, driving trucks, working construction and otherwise keeping us fed, clothed and housed." This paragraph comes from an American Enterprise Institute editorial. The title is: "Are college classes too hard for students? Alarming numbers say 'yes.' The editorial is written by Frederick Hess. You can read the full editorial here: https://www.aei.org/op-eds/are-college-classes-too-hard-for-todays-students-alarming-numbers-say-yes/ Zac and Don discuss whether college's should be able to fire professors for making their courses too hard. They also wonder if students should have a voice when it comes to a course's difficulty. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "At least three petitions on Change.org seek to sleigh Ms. Carey’s 1994 holiday hit, “All I Want for Christmas is You.” One begs the Federal Communications Commission to ban it from radio and calls it “the bane of shoppers, retail workers and pedestrians.” A representative for the singer declined to comment. The pop diva encourages people to start playing her song the day after Halloween. In a recent video posted by her Twitter account, she transforms from a Peloton-riding witch to a reindeer-riding Santa Claus. “IT’S TIME!!!,” she tweeted Nov. 1." This article comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "All They Want for Christmas Is to Stop That Mariah Carey Song." The article is written by Joseph Pisani. You can read the full article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/mariah-carey-all-i-want-for-christmas-song-shopping-retail-11670857012 Zac and Don discuss Mariah Carey's famous Christmas song and its remarkable longevity. They also discuss the fall of Sears and wonder if the company could have saved itself. Finally, they talk about whether the lawsuit against Kraft for false labeling is legitimate. You can read the Sears and Kraft Lawsuit stories below: Last Christmas for Sears by Lauren Coleman-Lochner, Eliza Ronalds-Hannon, and Erin Hudson https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-18/are-sears-stores-still-open-christmas-2022-could-be-its-last Kraft Lawsuit by Rachel Treisman https://www.npr.org/2022/11/28/1139415169/velveeta-mac-and-cheese-lawsuit-prep-time --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Unfortunately, my experience at Dons Restaurant was not nearly as pleasant. The tacos were really bad, and the Coke was overly salty. The atmosphere was quiet, but it was also quite sweaty. The worst part, however, was the mean service. I wouldn't recommend Dons Restaurant to anyone." This paragraph comes from ChatGPT. It was created by artificial intelligence after Zac Abeel asked for an original restaurant review that included the words: Dons Restaurant, bad tacos, quiet, sweaty, salty coke, mean service. While you cannot find this exact paragraph, you can explore this amazing technology here: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/ Zac and Don talk about the implications of ChatGPT on education and society. They wonder how schools will respond to a technology that can write an essay or improve an essay upon request. They wonder if there is a need to teach writing anymore. They wonder if using AI generated writing is plagiarism or is it just like using a calculator in math class. They throw out ideas on what school in the future could look like. Zac and Don also reference the following article from The Atlantic: The End of High School English written by Daniel Herman --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: It was a good book, the student told the 14 others in the undergraduate seminar I was teaching, and it included a number of excellent illustrations, such as photographs of relevant Civil War manuscripts. But, he continued, those weren’t very helpful to him, because of course he couldn’t read cursive. Had I heard him correctly? Who else can’t read cursive? I asked the class. The answer: about two-thirds. And who can’t write it? Even more. What did they do about signatures? They had invented them by combining vestiges of whatever cursive instruction they may have had with creative squiggles and flourishes. Amused by my astonishment, the students offered reflections about the place—or absence—of handwriting in their lives. Instead of the Civil War past, we found ourselves exploring a different set of historical changes. In my ignorance, I became their pupil as well as a kind of historical artifact, a Rip van Winkle confronting a transformed world. This paragraph comes from an essay in The Atlantic. The essay is titled: "Gen Z Never Learned to Read Cursive." The author is Drew Gilpin Faust. You can read the full essay here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/gen-z-handwriting-teaching-cursive-history/671246/ Zac and Don talk about cursive writing. They had to learn it in school. Their children and their classmates do not have to learn it. They discuss if this is a big deal or not. They wonder if our society lose anything if we can't read and write in cursive? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Thanks to a group of anonymous benefactors, students educated in the city's K-12 school system receive paid tuition at almost any college in the state. Other cities have similar initiatives, but the Kalamazoo Promise is unusually generous. It's also one of the few programs of its kind to have been robustly evaluated — in this case by Timothy Bartik, Brad Hershbein, and Marta Lachowska of the Upjohn Institute. They found that the Kalamazoo Promise made a major difference in the lives of its beneficiaries — more so than other, similar programs made in theirs. But the average impact disguises a stark gender divide. According to the evaluation team, women in the program "experience very large gains," including an increase of 45% in college-completion rates, while "men seem to experience zero benefit." The cost-benefit analysis showed an overall gain of $69,000 per female participant — a return on investment of at least 12% — compared to an overall loss of $21,000 for each male participant. In short, for men, the program was both costly and ineffective. This paragraph comes from an article at www.nationalaffairs.com. The article is titled: "Why Men Are Hard to Help." The article is written by Richard V. Reeves. You can read the full article here: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/why-men-are-hard-to-help Zac and Don discuss the statistics that show boys falling behind in society. They discuss why this trend is happening. They wonder if this is a topic that can be rationally discussed. They also debate whether schools should be taking this issue more seriously. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"You got a better theory? Have at it. Maybe the evidence emerging over coming hours and days will illuminate new possibilities. For now, though, it’s worth reflecting that election night surprises — and even murky, inconclusive results—are themselves a vindication of democratic culture. Operatives, journalists, the politicians themselves — they are all frauds when they profess with any confidence that they know what’s going to happen. Here was a confusing result that suggests a country searching for a new normal after years of bizarre upheavals. That is politics working the way it is supposed to."

This paragraph comes from Politico.com.  The article is titled: "The 2022 Election Was Almost Normal."  The article is written by John F. Harris.  You can read the full article here:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/11/09/the-2022-election-was-almost-normal-00066036

Fellow social studies and government teachers Kevin Kopec and Tom Romito join Zac and Don.  The four discuss the recent national election results.  They talked about the results they found most interesting.  They also speculate on the 2024 election.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

It’s a transition away from more than a decade of “gee-whiz” projects—think self-driving cars, flying cars, metaverses and crypto—all fueled by seemingly limitless cash and venture-backed meal-replacement slurries. The task at hand now: the sometimes-boring but always-important work of building and expanding businesses that actually make money, by delivering things people and companies want and need. Sent from my iPhone.

This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal.  The article is titled: "Tech Is Getting Boring.  That's a Good Thing."  The article is written by Christopher Mims.  You can read the full article here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-is-getting-boring-thats-a-good-thing-11667016004

Zac and Don talk about the Big Tech companies.  They talk about their failed projects, slowing growth, and their still VERY profitable businesses.  They wonder if these companies are still cool.  They pick their favorite Big Tech stock for the next ten years.  

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

There is no paragraph or article this week.  Instead, Zac and Don speak with their longtime friend and colleague Chad Swett who is on the verge of retiring from education.  The three discuss whether education and students have changed over the past twenty-five years.  They also seek Chad's advice for teachers remaining in the profession along with his proudest moments in the classroom. 

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "The past two decades, however, have witnessed a resurgence in door-to-door. Tom Karren, the founder of Vantage Marketing, which has more than a thousand reps selling pest control, said, “Twenty-two years ago, I was told after my first summer on the doors—by my family, my professors, my mentors—that door-to-door was a dying industry. Now it’s at least fifty times bigger.” Industry leaders estimate that between fifty and a hundred thousand knockers go out every summer. The boom was fuelled in part by the advent of the national “Do Not Call” list, in 2003, which dampened phone solicitation, and in part by the very information glut that helped cripple door-to-door in the first place. To deter customers from doing research—to reconstruct the gloriously profitable world of information asymmetry—companies need to catch them unawares. Who among us, when we answer the door, has any inkling of the actual cost of a treatment for ants, roaches, and mice in a three-thousand-square-foot house? Shopping online is about finding the best price; shopping on your doorstep is about being bowled over by someone with all the answers." This paragraph comes from the New Yorker in an article titled: "Sam Taggart's Hard Sell." The article is written by Tad Friend. You can read the full article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/08/sam-taggarts-hard-sell Zac and Don discuss door to door salesman. They reflect upon their experience with sales people. They also discuss their surprise at a career that can be quite lucrative. They also wonder if the profession of sales should be offered in schools. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "The cost of raising a child through high school has risen to more than $300,000 because of inflation that is running close to a four-decade high, according to a Brookings Institution estimate. It determined that a married, middle-income couple with two children would spend $310,605—or an average of $18,271 a year—to raise their younger child born in 2015 through age 17. The calculation uses an earlier government estimate as a baseline, with adjustments for inflation trends. The multiyear total is up $26,011, or more than 9%, from a calculation based on the inflation rate two years ago, before rapid price increases hit the economy, the Brookings Institution said." This paragraph comes from an article in the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "It Now Costs $300,000 To Raise a Child." The author is Rina Torchinsky. You can read the full article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/it-now-costs-300-000-to-raise-a-child-11660864334 Zac and Don discuss the new average cost to raise a child. They also discuss other numbers that they have seen in the news recently. Below are links to the other stories discussed: $75 Fine Dining Menu for Dogs in San Francisco https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/dogue-restaurant-dogs-17484518.php 12% Chance of a Nuclear Detonation https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/09/will-a-nuclear-weapon-be-launched-in-combat-by-the-end-of-2023.html 6PM Is the New Dinner Hour in New York https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/t-magazine/eating-early-new-york-restaurants.html 2:01:09 Is the New Marathon Record https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2022/09/25/eliud-kipchoge-berlin-marathon-world-record/#:~:text=Kipchoge%20slowed%20in%20the%20final,%3A40%2C%E2%80%9D%20Kipchoge%20said. 20 Quadrillion Ants are on Earth https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/19/ants-population-20-quadrillion/ 20,000 Uses of Cotton Bag = Single Use Plastic Bag https://twitter.com/AlecStapp/status/1566797139023462405 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Welcome to the year 2030. Welcome to my city - or should I say, "our city." I don't own anything. I don't own a car. I don't own a house. I don't own any appliances or any clothes. It might seem odd to you, but it makes perfect sense for us in this city. Everything you considered a product, has now become a service. We have access to transportation, accommodation, food and all the things we need in our daily lives. One by one all these things became free, so it ended up not making sense for us to own much. This paragraph comes from an essay written on Forbes.com. The title is "Welcome to 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better." The essay is written by Ida Auken. You can read the full essay here: Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better (forbes.com) Zac and Don discuss this vision of the future. They try and decide if this is a positive or negative future and how realistic of a vision it is. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Under scenarios deemed likely by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a connection between ocean currents and discharge would increase the overall discharge rate in one region of the continent by some 10% by the end of the century. But to emphasize the idea being tested, the modelers used human influences almost three times larger. Even though that fact is stated in the paper, reporters rarely catch such nuance, and the media goes with headlines such as “Antarctic Ice Melting Could Be 40 Percent Faster Than Thought” with the absurd statement that “a massive tsunami would swamp New York City and beyond, killing millions. London, Venice and Mumbai would also become aquariums.” A more accurate headline would read: “Ocean currents connecting antarctic glaciers might accelerate their melting.” This paragraph comes from an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal By Steven Koonin. The title of the article is "Don’t Believe the Hype About Antarctica’s Melting Glaciers" You can read the full article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-believe-the-hype-about-antarcticas-melting-glaciers-ice-sheet-climate-change-global-warming-sea-levels-greenland-iceberg-ocean-11663618509 Zac and Don are joined by Dr. Elizabeth Herndon of Oak Ridge National Labs. They discuss climate headlines and whether the media does an accurate job matching the headline to the science. They talk about the challenges of communicating complex ideas to people without a science background. They also discuss climate change solutions and how best to think about the issue. Here is Dr. Herndon's contact information and biography: https://www.ornl.gov/staff-profile/elizabeth-m-herndon --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: I drive a stick shift. It’s a pain, sometimes. Clutching and shifting in bumper-to-bumper traffic wears you out. My wife can’t drive my car, which limits our transit options. And when I’m at the wheel, I can’t hold a cold, delicious slushie in one hand, at least not safely. But despite the inconvenience, I love a manual transmission. I love the feeling that I am operating my car, not just driving it. That’s why I’ve driven stick shifts for the past 20 years. This paragraph comes from The Atlantic in an essay titled: "The End of Manual Transmission." The essay is written by Ian Bogost. You can read the full essay here: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/08/stick-shift-manual-transmission-cars/671078/ Zac and Don discuss their experiences with driving manual transmissions. They wonder if it's a big deal that manual transmissions in cars are going away. They evaluate the author's premise that the human machine relationship has become out of synch. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Technology is disrupting the market for education just as it has disrupted the market for news. We do not yet know how the industry will shake out, but a few points can be made with confidence. Online education offers tremendous savings both in terms of money and of time. Online education will also increase the quality of education for many but not all courses, especially as investment in complementary technologies increases. The for-profit universities have already moved heavily into online education and the non-profits are poised to follow. What is less clear is who will be delivering the online content of the future, how knowledge will be assessed, and how learning will be credentialed. We should also not count the old model out. Having never observed an alternative, we may not yet fully appreciate the old model’s strengths. The Oxford model weathered previous technological storms, not the least of which was the printed book. Nevertheless, the disruption potential is peaking now. This paragraph comes from a 2012 article in the Journal Cato Unbound. The title of the article is "Why Online Education Works." The article's author is Alex Tabarrok. You can read the full article here: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2012/11/12/alex-tabarrok/why-online-education-works/ Dr. Shannon Smith of Michigan Virtual joins Zac and Don. The three discuss the last ten years of online education. They discuss whether online education over the past decade has met the promises that Mr. Tabarrok wrote about. They also reflect on online education during the pandemic and current models of online instruction. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The movement, known as E.A. to its practitioners, who themselves are known as E.A.s, takes as its premise that people ought to do good in the most clear-sighted, ambitious, and unsentimental way possible. Among other back-of-the-envelope estimates, E.A.s believe that a life in the developing world can be saved for about four thousand dollars. Effective altruists have lashed themselves to the mast of a certain kind of logical rigor, refusing to look away when it leads them to counterintuitive, bewildering, or even seemingly repugnant conclusions. For a time, the movement recommended that inspirited young people should, rather than work for charities, get jobs in finance and donate their income. More recently, E.A.s have turned to fretting about existential risks that might curtail humanity’s future, full stop. This paragraph comes from an article in the New Yorker titled: "The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism." The article is written by Gideon Lewis-Kraus. You can read the full article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/the-reluctant-prophet-of-effective-altruism Zac and Don discuss the concept of Effective Altruism. They wonder if this style of doing good is the best way to help the most people. They wonder if the belief in helping future generations is the best use of today's resources. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Non-Americans Are Sharing The Quintessential "American" Things They've Always Wanted To Experience."

This paragraph comes from BuzzFeed in an article titled: "Non-Americans Are Sharing The Quintessential "American" Things They've Always Wanted To Experience, And The Responses Are Honestly So Funny."  The article is written by Hannah Dobrogosz.  You can read the full article here:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahdobro/american-things-non-americans-want-to-try

Zac and Don discuss the list of quintessential "American" experiences.  They try and decide if these experiences fit the topic or if they are just romantic notions from popular culture.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: A shirt would only muffle the Liver King’s message: that the modern world has made men unconscionably soft, and that the only way to fight back is by living more like our earliest, most-jacked ancestors. The way to accomplish this, according to the Liver King, is by following his nine “ancestral tenets” (sleep, eat, move, shield, connect, cold, sun, fight, bond), doing the most brutal workouts imaginable, and, above all, eating more raw liver—the nutrient-dense meat favored by, as his website puts it, “lions, great whites, and other wild alpha organisms.” This paragraph comes from a www.gq.com article. The title is: "In the Court of the Liver King." The article is written by Madeleine Aggeler. You can read the full article here: https://www.gq.com/story/in-the-court-of-the-liver-king-brian-johnson-ancestral-supplements Zac and Don discuss the lifestyle of the Liver King. They wonder if people want to live like him or just watch on social media. They also discuss the rise in "soft" men and if the Liver King has a good answer for them. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The Libermans’ theory is that, in terms of stuff that America’s big wealth can invest in, people are more appealing than the current catalogue of middling venture-capital funds, shipping firms, and companies selling toothbrushes by mail. Instead of putting money into a fund for startups, investors would be free to find an ingenious entrepreneur and invest in her entire career. Rather than buying shares of Spotify, a fund could buy into a portfolio of the futures of emerging hip-hop artists, all of whom would get that cash. Most of us are more excited about our brilliant friends than about the companies they work for. And while the average age of an S. & P. 500 company is approximately twenty years—most die young—people do better. The stronger their boost off the blocks, the longer they can keep trying, increasing their odds of success. This paragraph comes from the New Yorker. The article is titled: "Is Selling Shares In Yourself The Way Of The Future?" The article is written by Nathan Heller. You can read the full article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/01/is-selling-shares-in-yourself-the-way-of-the-future Zac and Don talk about the idea of selling shares in oneself. Could this be a good way to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor? Does this allow humans a debt free way to access capital? Are there any downsides? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: In any case, an airplane is just transportation. A big ship is a floating manse, with a hierarchy written right into the nomenclature. If it has a crew working aboard, it’s a yacht. If it’s more than ninety-eight feet, it’s a superyacht. After that, definitions are debated, but people generally agree that anything more than two hundred and thirty feet is a megayacht, and more than two hundred and ninety-five is a gigayacht. The world contains about fifty-four hundred superyachts, and about a hundred gigayachts. For the moment, a gigayacht is the most expensive item that our species has figured out how to own. This paragraph comes from the New Yorker. the article is titled: "The Haves and Have-Yachts." The article is written by Evan Osnos. You can read the full article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/25/the-haves-and-the-have-yachts Zac and Don discuss the world of yachts and the rich who own them. They discuss why the yacht seems to make sense as something for the rich to own. They also wonder what it must be like to have a yacht and deal with the issues that come with owning one. The following Wall Street Journal article about collecting basketballs for Larry Ellison's yacht is also discussed: https://www.wsj.com/articles/larry-ellisons-overboard-basketball-retriever-tells-all-1398985562 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Milk is still pasteurized and homogenized, as Chamberlain’s carton boasted, but it’s also been lionized and demonized, canonized and eulogized, weaponized and publicized. Got Milk? Milk has left society in general and sports in particular polarized. “It has been argued about for at least the past ten thousand years,” writes Mark Kurlansky in his 400-page history of milk called Milk! “It is the most argued-over food in human history.” Former Cardinals, Titans and Lions defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch drank two gallons a day in high school. Vegan athletes like Cam Newton and Kyrie Irving won’t touch it with a 10-foot crazy straw. Pasteurized, Homogenized, Modified—and Marginalized: Wilt’s greatest moment also marked the last great peak for milk, whose consumption in America, by 1962, had already been in decline for 10 straight years. Milk consumption in the U.S. has now been in decline for 70 consecutive years. This paragraph comes from Sports Illustrated. The article is titled: "Who's Still Got Milk?" The author is Steve Rushin. You can read the full article here: https://www.si.com/more-sports/2022/07/06/milk-the-strength-issue-daily-cover Zac and Don talk about milk. They wonder if it actually has any health benefits. They wonder why it's consumption continues to decrease and if it can ever make a comeback. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read It was a sticky Thursday afternoon in the middle of summer break when dozens of teenagers walked through the doors of their high school. One of the world’s most dominant teams was about to start math practice. There was probability in one classroom and pre-algebra next door, code-breaking down the hall and number theory around the corner. And there were few adults to be found anywhere. The students would spend the rest of the day teaching each other. I had also come here to learn from them. I wanted to understand how this otherwise average public high school in Florida had managed to win 13 of the last 14 national math championships. The Buchholz High School math team is a dynasty built by one teacher with a strategy for identifying talent, maximizing potential and optimizing the American system of education. This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "How a Public School in Florida Built America's Greatest Math Team." The article is written by Ben Cohen. You can read the full article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secrets-of-americas-greatest-high-school-math-team-11657791000 Another Best Paragraph I've Read: The education requirement for teachers in Arizona has changed. Under legislation Gov. Doug Ducey signed earlier this week, a person only needs to be enrolled to get their college degree to begin teaching in public schools. It’s a big change, and it’s been met with mixed reactions. This paragraph comes from azfamily.com. The article is titled: "Educators no longer need a college degree to begin teaching in Arizona Public Schools. the article is written by Amy Cutler. You can read the full article here: https://www.azfamily.com/2022/07/09/educators-no-longer-need-college-degree-begin-teaching-arizona-public-schools/ Zac and Don are joined by middle school principal David McKay. The three discuss the job of being a teacher by talking about the pros and cons of Arizona's new teacher requirements. Then they discuss the merits of a Florida school letting a former Wall Street trader decide their math curriculum. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: One of the first staged train wrecks was done in 1895 by a railroad equipment salesman named A.L. Streeter in Ohio. The wreck used the same formula that nearly all other staged train wrecks would follow for the next 40 years. Organizers would lay a stretch of track, usually anywhere from 1,800 feet to a mile-long, and then get two old steam locomotives and put them at either end of the track facing each other. They would then hire two brave locomotive engineers to wait for a signal from the organizer. When they got the go-ahead, the engineers would pull the throttles back as far as they could to get the locomotives up to speed. They would then jump from the locomotive before the two trains crashed in front of a crowd who had paid a few dollars to see the spectacle. This paragraph comes from Atlas Obscura. The article is titled: "For 40 Years, Crashing Trains Was One of America's Favorite Pastimes." The article is written by Justin Franz. You can read the full article here: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/staged-train-wrecks Zac and Don discuss America's fascination with watching train wrecks both real and otherwise. They talk about America's former cultural pastime of watching real train wrecks. They also wonder if this episode in American culture should be taught in schools. Finally, they discuss modern day "train wrecks" that people like to watch. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

For the past decade, people like me—youngish, urbanish, professionalish—got a sweetheart deal from Uber, the Uber-for-X clones, and that whole mosaic of urban amenities in travel, delivery, food, and retail that vaguely pretended to be tech companies. Almost each time you or I ordered a pizza or hailed a taxi, the company behind that app lost money. In effect, these start-ups, backed by venture capital, were paying us, the consumers, to buy their products.

It was as if Silicon Valley had made a secret pact to subsidize the lifestyles of urban Millennials. As I pointed out three years ago, if you woke up on a Casper mattress, worked out with a Peloton, Ubered to a WeWork, ordered on DoorDash for lunch, took a Lyft home, and ordered dinner through Postmates only to realize your partner had already started on a Blue Apron meal, your household had, in one day, interacted with eight unprofitable companies that collectively lost about $15 billion in one year.

This paragraph comes from The Atlantic.  The article is titled: "The End of the Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy."  The article is written by Derek Thompson.  You can read the full article here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/06/uber-ride-share-prices-high-inflation/661250/

Zac and Don discuss the issue of prices and how they are impacting people this summer.  They discuss the price increases in the gig economy.  They also discuss Arizona Ice Tea fighting to keep their product at ninety-nine cents.  They also talk about Venice Italy using prices to try and reduce the number of people visiting the city.  

You can read the other two articles here:

LA Times: "As inflation soars, how is AriZona iced tea still 99 cents?"  Written by Sam Dean

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-04-12/az-iced-tea-inflation-99-cents

NPR: "A day trip to Venice will require a reservation - and a fee."  Written by the Associated Press

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/03/1109615164/italy-venice-travel-new-rules#:~:text=Tourists%20who%20choose%20not%20to,the%20city%20is%20very%20crowded.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The regulatory state exists because of the practical necessity for a traffic cop to oversee common resources and enforce minimum norms of safety and fairness. This is a dynamic role, requiring government to be an active umpire in a crowded world, adapting to new challenges while keeping its own house in order. But America's massive, convoluted, rigid legal structure makes it almost impossible for government to do this job sensibly and within budget. Laws are piled upon laws, making adaptation essentially illegal. Congress doesn't clean out the stables in part because of a constitutional flaw -- our founders didn't anticipate that it would be much harder to repeal a law than passing it in the first place. Bureaucracies don't clean out regulations for the additional reason that the agencies become inbred, and are run by people who do things this way because that's how it's always been done. This paragraph comes from The Atlantic. The article is titled: "Obsolete Law - The Solutions." the article is written by Philip K. Howard. You can read the rest of the article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/03/obsolete-law-0151-the-solutions/255141/ Zac and Don discuss why it's so hard to repeal laws and regulations. They also wonder about regulations they would like to see repealed. The following article from National Affairs is also frequently discussed in the conversation: The Next Phase of Regulatory Reform (Author: James Broughel) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: “I need you to take him.” The father on the phone was upset. If his 10-year-old son did not make the team at the $2,500-per-season private baseball club where I coached, the boy would lose friends and the family’s routines would be upended, he argued. They would have to drive to another suburb for ball games. Looking for a deeper, more forceful argument, the dad added: “This team is our community.” The privatization of American youth sports over the past 40 years is one of those revolutions of late-stage capitalism that should shock us more than it does. We have commodified the play of millions of children into a $19.2 billion business, weakening volunteer-based programs that promise affordable sports for all children. It is a trend mirrored by our schools, hospitals and military. Once-proud public institutions are being privatized, with many unintended consequences. For millions of American families, paying private for-profit clubs—euphemistically termed “travel teams”—thousands of dollars a year to organize athletic games for their children is now an unquestioned way of life that shapes family routines, work schedules and commutes. That is why I was sympathetic to the angry dad’s argument and, in the end, took his son for the team. This paragraph comes from www.americamagazine.org. The article is titled: "How America Sold Out Little League Baseball." The article is written by John W. Miller. You can read the rest of the article here: https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2022/05/19/catholic-youth-sports-little-league-club-baseball-243016 Zac and Don talk about the rise of youth sports culture. They wonder if its good for parents and kids to take sports so seriously at a young age. They talk about why parents are willing to spend so much time and money on club sports. They also talk about the future of baseball in America. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The historian Phoebe S. K. Young finds that Americans have long struggled to decide what camping is, and who is allowed to do it. Over the decades, the act of sleeping outside has served wildly varying ends: as a return to agrarian ideals, a means of survival, a rite of passage for the nuclear family, a route to self-improvement, and a form of First Amendment expression. In Young’s account, it becomes a proxy for disputes about race, class, and rootlessness—all the schisms in the American experiment. This paragraph comes from The New Yorker. The article is titled: "The Confounding Politics of Camping in America." The article is written by Dan Piepenbring. You can read the full article here: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-confounding-politics-of-camping-in-america Zac and Don discuss the question: What is camping? How do you define it? They also talk about America's complicated view of those who camp and their reasons for it. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: IN 2018, TOM CRUISE finally joined Instagram, and fans sure felt the need for speed: He picked up 550,000 followers in less than an hour. Now he's up to 6.5 million followers, and they're greeted by the actor's self-assessment of his own career in his bio. He could have gone with "Three-time Oscar nominee," or "Sold $10 billion worth of movie tickets." But instead, he picked: "Actor, producer, running in movies since 1981." It's a winking, self-aware nod to this much-memed chapter of his Hollywood career. He always gets the rogue bad guy with the rogue nuclear codes from the rogue country, and he does it in a sprint. By one running blog's count, he's run in 44 of his 52 movies, and that includes two running scenes in his newest movie, "Top Gun: Maverick," which opens this week nationwide... ... ... But that raises the question... Is Tom Cruise actually a good runner? This article comes from ESPN.com. The article is titled: "Tom Cruise runs. But is he any good at it?" The article is written by Ryan Hockensmith. You can read the full article here: https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/33966556/tom-cruise-running-top-gun-maverick Zac and Don discuss whether Tom Cruise is good at running. Don breaks down his form and shares his knowledge about high level running. Some of Tom Cruise's best movie runs are also discussed. Zac and Don reference this video that shows every Tom Cruise movie run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Q2MgdMskQ&t=38s --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: As Bryan Caplan notes in his 2011 book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, parents have only small effects on their children’s health, life expectancy, education, and religiosity (though studies have found that they have moderate effects on drug and alcohol use and sexual behavior, particularly during the teenage years, as well as how kids feel about their parents). Some examples: One of the largest randomized controlled trials on breastfeeding found that it had no significant long-term effect on a variety of outcomes. A careful study of television use among preschoolers found that TV had no long-term effects on child test scores. A randomized trial suggests that teaching kids cognitively demanding games, such as chess, doesn’t make them smarter in the long term. A meta-analysis of bilingualism found that it has only small effects on a child’s cognitive performance, and that even these may be due to a bias in favor of publishing positive study results. This paragraph comes from an article in the Atlantic. The article is titled: "The One Parenting Decision That Really Matters." The article is written by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. You can read the full article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/parenting-decisions-dont-trust-your-gut-book-excerpt/629734/ Zac and Don discuss the article's conclusions about parenting and location. Should parents accept that on average they will have little influence on how their children turn out as adults? Is there anyway nurture can fight back against nature? How should we think about the data that suggests where you raise your child is the most important parenting decision? Zac and Don reference the location data from The Opportunity Atlas. You can visit the interactive map and data here: https://www.opportunityatlas.org/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Are you looking to consider the grim realities of war, or to acknowledge the humanity of “the enemy”? Top Gun elides those inconvenient complications. If you are in search of some full-throttle patriotism, however, this film has you covered. Top Gun indulges in its metaphors. A hero who is young and arrogant and attempting to come to terms with his legacy might remind you of a country you know. And again and again, that hero is absolved. Maverick disobeys orders; he gets sent to Top Gun anyway. His antics get Goose in trouble with their superior; Goose forgives him. A series of scenes with Charlie goes roughly like this: She criticizes one of Mav’s flight maneuvers; unable to tolerate the negative review, he throws a tantrum and drives away on his motorcycle; she chases after him in her car, almost causing a pileup on a busy street; she catches up to him; he braces for her outrage; instead, she tells him she’s falling in love with him. There are many versions of this exchange in Top Gun. Maverick is someone who fails not just upward, but skyward. This paragraph comes from an essay in The Atlantic titled: "Top Gun Is an Infomercial for America." The essay is written by Megan Garber. You can read the full essay here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/top-gun-infomercial-for-america/619013/ Zac and Don discuss the movie Top Gun. They wonder if the movie and its main character Maverick serve as a symbol of America. They wonder if the movie is serious enough. They wonder how the rest of the world views the movie. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Stacey is a hard-liner in a war being waged in homes everywhere as grown-ups attempt to limit smartphone use that they believe can be harmful to kids, even as they struggle to establish healthy habits with their own phones. And, big surprise, the parents aren’t winning. Because it’s not just their children they’re up against, but also a tech industry pushing products that insiders say are designed to be addictive and a society that has largely capitulated to the norms and urges and expectations all those phones and apps have created. Even when it comes to kids. Fifty-three percent of American children have a smartphone of their own by age 11, according to a 2019 report by Common Sense Media. By the time they’re 16, 89 percent of kids have one. An earlier report by Common Sense Media found that 50 percent of teenagers felt addicted to their smartphones and that 59 percent of their parents thought that was the case. All of this has coincided with a startling increase in mental health challenges among adolescents, which some psychologists believe might be tied to the adverse effects of social media use. As Stacey sits with young patients who are grappling with anxiety or depression or lack of focus and can’t fathom cutting back their smartphone use, a single thought tends to run through her head: “This is so stupid, that these little devices are controlling these kids.” This paragraph comes from an article in the Washington Post titled: "Meet the parents who refuse to give their kids smartphones." The article is written by Ellen McCarthy. You can read the full article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/05/09/parents-kids-smartphones/ Zac and Don talk about smartphones and kids. Should kids never be given a smartphone? Is it bad if kids feel excluded because they don't have a smartphone? How should parents think about this issue? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

When Covid-19 began to sweep across the country in March 2020, schools in every state closed their doors. Remote instruction effectively became a national policy for the rest of that spring.

A few months later, however, school districts began to make different decisions about whether to reopen. Across much of the South and the Great Plains as well as some pockets of the Northeast, schools resumed in-person classes in the fall of 2020. Across much of the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast,   school buildings stayed closed and classes remained online for months.

These differences created a huge experiment, testing how well remote learning worked during the pandemic. Academic researchers have since been studying the subject, and they have come to a consistent conclusion: Remote learning was a failure.

This paragraph comes from the New York Times's The Morning.  The title of the article is "New research is showing the high costs of long school closures in some communities."  The author is David Leonhardt.  You can read the full article here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/briefing/school-closures-covid-learning-loss.html

Zac and Don discuss the findings on education during the pandemic.  They discuss what other data would be interesting to know concerning the pandemic and education.  They also wonder if people will learn any lessons about pandemics and education and use them in the future.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

Share your comment about the 90's.  What did we get right or wrong?  What do you remember about the decade?  Please share your name and where you're from.  We hope to post a compilation podcast of your comments.

Click Here.  Look for the plus button to make your recording. 

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

The internet was coming.  The internet was coming.  The internet was coming.  When was it coming?  Soon.  How soon?  Not today, and maybe not tomorrow.  But definitely soon.  It was always never quite there.  And then, one day, there it was - impossible to avoid and impossible to recognize until the update was complete and all alternatives had been eliminated.  

There was no date for when the transfer of power occurred.  The record of the transfer has edited itself.   

This paragraph comes from Chuck Klosterman's book The Nineties.  You can purchase the book here: 

https://www.amazon.com/Nineties-Book-Chuck-Klosterman/dp/0735217955/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+nineties+chuck+klosterman&qid=1651107429&sprefix=the+nin%2Caps%2C257&sr=8-1

Zac and Don finish up their discussion of Chuck Klosterman's remarkable book.  

Please consider sharing your opinion of our 90's podcast.  Please tell us what we got right, wrong, or anything else.  Click Here.  Then look for the plus button to make your recording.  

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Every exploit was graded on a sliding scale, and those following the rules most dogmatically were sanctioned most strictly. Conversely, if your only core value was conventional success, you would never be seen as credible, but you also couldn't be criticized for abandoning the values you never originally possessed." This paragraph comes from Chuck Klosterman's book The Nineties. You can purchase the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Nineties-Book-Chuck-Klosterman/dp/0735217955/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+nineties+chuck+klosterman&qid=1651107429&sprefix=the+nin%2Caps%2C257&sr=8-1 Zac and Don discuss their favorite ideas and memories from Klosterman's remarkable book. Some of the topics include: Selling Out, the movie American Beauty, Grunge Rock vs Garth Brooks, Watching Whatever Was on TV, The Effects of Renting Too Many Videos, Crystal Clear Drinks, and the Downside to Finally Getting A College Football Playoff. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: “Tell me about this stain,” 46-year-old Vaughn Smith asks his clients. “Well,” says one of the homeowners, “Schroeder rubbed his bottom across it.” Vaughn knows just what to do about that, and the couple, Courtney Stamm and Kelly Widelska, know they can trust him to do it. They’d been hiring him for years, once watching him erase even a splattered Pepto Bismol stain. But this time when Vaughn called to confirm their January appointment, he quietly explained that there was something about himself that he’d never told them. That he rarely told anyone. And, well, a reporter was writing a story about it. Could he please bring her along? Now as they listen to Vaughn discuss the porousness of wool, and the difference between Scotchgard and sanitizer, they can’t help but look at him differently. Once the stool stain is solved, Kelly just has to ask. “So, how many languages do you speak?” “Oh, goodness,” Vaughn says. “Eight, fluently.” “Eight?” Kelly marvels. “Eight,” Vaughn confirms. English, Spanish, Bulgarian, Czech, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian and Slovak. “But if you go by like, different grades of how much conversation,” he explains, “I know about 25 more.” Vaughn glances at me. He is still underselling his abilities. By his count, it is actually 37 more languages, with at least 24 he speaks well enough to carry on lengthy conversations. He can read and write in eight alphabets and scripts. He can tell stories in Italian and Finnish and American Sign Language. This paragraph comes from an article in the Washington Post by Jessica Contrera. The article is titled: "The remarkable brain of a carpet cleaner who speak 24 languages." You can read the full article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2022/multilingual-hyperpolyglot-brain-languages/ Zac and Don discuss the story of Vaughn Smith and the 37 languages that he is familiar with. They wonder if his story is a tragedy or a triumph. They discuss whether public schools and society do a good job identifying talent and helping it reach it's full potential. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: In the meantime, Chinese studios are getting better at making movies, and they’re not afraid to take an anti-American stance. In 2017’s popular “Wolf Warrior 2,” the Chinese hero Leng Feng saves African villagers from an American mercenary called Big Daddy, who proclaims his people’s supremacy moments before Leng triumphs and kills him. The consequences are asymmetrical. Chinese movies proudly showcase their country’s values while American movies remain silent about China — skewing the messages people hear not just in the U.S. and China but across the globe. American movies can even give the impression that China is better. In the 2014 movie “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” U.S. officials were portrayed “in unflattering tones,” according to PEN America. The Chinese characters in the film, which was made with the Chinese government’s support, were more often selfless and heroic. Variety called the movie “a splendidly patriotic film, if you happen to be Chinese.” “Transformers” made more than $1 billion at the box office — $300 million of it from China. From a business perspective, it was a success. This article comes from the New York Times in an article titled "American Self-censorship." The article is written by German Lopez. You can read the full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/20/briefing/china-us-censorship.html Zac and Don wonder which is the bigger problem in Hollywood. They discuss Hollywood's increasing self censorship when it comes to making international movies. They wonder if it is a problem that movie makers think so much about the Chinese market. They also talk about the plight of Hollywood puppet wranglers. Do they need a union? You can read the puppet wrangler article here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/the-jim-henson-company-craftspeople-unsafe-work-conditions-1235111978/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Before I went to Florida, I had thoughtlessly anticipated a convocation of fogies, or at least of people more of my parents’ generation, within range of eighty, or even that of my grandparents, a few of whom I saw wither away years ago at well-appointed but thoroughly depressing old-age enclaves outside of Philadelphia. But many if not most of the people I met in Daytona felt more like peers than elders—at least according to my ever-expanding delineation of my cohort. Here was a world of people a little older than I who had reached a stage of life that I hadn’t considered myself to be on the verge of. These people had made their decision to squeeze as much pleasure out of life as their circumstances, and the country’s economic construct, would allow. It was fun, more than fulfillment, that drew them here. The Edenic lure of retirement had once been a bit of a mirage: by the time you got to it, you were hardly able to make the most of it. But now earlier retirement (or semi-retirement), better health, increased longevity—at least for some—and the emergence of an infrastructure to accommodate these circumstances have created a stage that may not have existed before. It’s hard to know whether this is something to look forward to or to dread. This paragraph comes from an article in The New Yorker. The article is titled: "Retirement the Margaritaville Way." The author is Nick Paumgarten. You can read the full article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/28/retirement-the-margaritaville-way? Zac and Don discuss the retirement community Latitude Margaritaville. They talk about what it is like and if they would enjoy moving there. They also talk about the importance of social connections while wondering about what retirement should be. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

the Best Paragraph I've Read: Your ability to make life more difficult is unmatchable. If an easy solution is available—and I mean a mind-numbingly obvious one—you decide that maybe the fix can’t be so simple and that you’d better let things marinate for a few days, at which point, yes, they’ve now become the nasty thing that you imagined, seeped in a rancid cesspool of indecision and procrastination (and, literally, rotting food). By the time you get ready to take any form of action, someone has come along and done the cleanup for you, which is what you wanted all along. This paragraph comes from a humor essay in the New Yorker. The essay is titled: "Your Personality, Explained By Your Annoying Household Habits." The essay is written by Nicole Rose Whitaker. you can read the full essay here: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/your-personality-explained-by-your-annoying-household-habits Zac and Don discuss each annoying habit and its personality type from the essay. They discuss which habit and personality type they most resemble. They also talk about other habits and behaviors that they use to judge people. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Justice, as we’re frequently told, is supposed to be blind. But court seats have never been filled by blind picks. “A judge is a lawyer who is a politician who has a friend,” Judge Paul Leahy once told his then-clerk Floyd Abrams, piercing his way to the truth. Liberal presidents pick liberal nominees and conservative presidents pick conservative ones. It’s built into the system. Filling the Supreme Court with partisan nominees is one of the reasons parties campaign so hard to win the presidency! After almost two centuries of decrying partisan courts, why can’t we accept the Supreme Court has always been and always will be a political playground? This paragraph comes from Politico.com in an essay titled: "Let's Be Real: The Supreme Is Political and Always Has Been." The article is written by Jack Shafer. You can read the full article here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/01/28/supreme-court-is-political-always-has-been-00003224 Zac and Don are joined by former Judicial Law Clerk of the Eastern District of Michigan Theresa Serra. They discuss the idea of whether the Supreme Court has always been a political institution. They also talk about how lawyers see America's highest court and what the path is to become a justice. They also discuss whether it is time for John Roberts to step down and more. The following article from Politico is also discussed during the episode: "Take the Hint, John Roberts - It's Time For You To Retire, Too" --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Every step of the way, to everyone around us, we should be asking the question, what are you building? What are you building directly, or helping other people to build, or teaching other people to build, or taking care of people who are building? If the work you’re doing isn’t either leading to something being built or taking care of people directly, we’ve failed you, and we need to get you into a position, an occupation, a career where you can contribute to building. There are always outstanding people in even the most broken systems — we need to get all the talent we can on the biggest problems we have, and on building the answers to those problems. This paragraph was written by Marc Andreessen in an essay titled: "It's Time to Build." The essay is posted on www.a16z.com. You can read the full essay here: https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/ Zac and Don celebrate their 100th episode by revisiting the first article they ever discussed. Zac and Don reflect on the last two years in America. They talk about what has been built and what has not been built. They discuss the pandemic, education, democracy, the war in the Ukraine and more. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: When the brain encounters information, especially during the act of reading and learning, it's searching for and making connections to what is personally relevant and meaningful. What is relevant and meaningful to an individual is based on his or her cultural frame of reference. Finding cultural relevance and personal connections give us perspective, engages our attention, and assists us in interpreting and inferring meaning, enabling the depth of understanding and interest needed for what are considered acts of high intellectual processing such as conceptualizing, reasoning, or theorizing. Unfortunately, teachers are too often unaware of the fact that the connections they choose to assist students in understanding concepts being taught are in fact "cultural," reflective of the lived, familiar experiences of students who are not students of color, leaving students of color in a state of disconnect, and often a deep sense of frustration. As much as they search to find the relevance that would enable them to be engaged and make meaning, they are unable, so their innate ability for high levels of cognitive processing is inhibited... ... ... Cultural responsiveness is not a practice; it's what informs our practice so we can make better teaching choices for eliciting, engaging, motivating, supporting, and expanding the intellectual capacity of ALL our students. These paragraphs comes from the book Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain. The book is written by Zaretta Hammond. You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Culturally-Responsive-Teaching-Brain-Linguistically/dp/1483308014/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=culturally+responsive+teaching+and+the+brain&qid=1646875792&sprefix=culturally%2Caps%2C168&sr=8-1 Diversity Equity and Inclusion Coordinator Michelle Cureton joins Zac and Don. They discuss some of the key ideas in Ms. Hammond's book including what it means to be a culturally responsive teacher. If you have questions or would like to contact Michelle here is her email address: michelle.cureton@lok12.org --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: A fighter plane equipped with artificial intelligence could eventually execute tighter turns, take greater risks, and get off better shots than human pilots. But the objective of the ace program is to transform a pilot’s role, not to remove it entirely. As darpa envisions it, the A.I. will fly the plane in partnership with the pilot, who will remain “in the loop,” monitoring what the A.I. is doing and intervening when necessary. According to the agency’s Strategic Technology Office, a fighter jet with autonomous features will allow pilots to become “battle managers,” directing squads of unmanned aircraft “like a football coach who chooses team members and then positions them on the field to run plays.” This paragraph comes from the New Yorker in an article titled: "The Rise of A.I. Fighter Pilots." The article is written by Sue Halpern. You can read the article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/24/the-rise-of-ai-fighter-pilots Zac and Don talk about the challenge of getting humans pilots to trust the A.I. that is learning to fly their planes. They also talk about the concept of A.I. in war and if humans should always have the final say in "kill" or "no kill" decisions. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: State Rep. Norlin Mommsen's bill would require cameras to be installed in all public school classrooms that are not being used for special education or gym. Parents or legal guardians would be given access to live feeds, which they could access while school is in session. School districts would be required to pay to set up and maintain the cameras. Mommsen told The Center Square, a news offshoot of the conservative Franklin Foundation, that teachers should welcome his legislation, arguing that the effort would "showcase the great work our teachers do," while holding schools and teachers accountable. He compared the classroom surveillance to police body cameras, which law enforcement agencies across the country have increasingly adopted in the wake of high profile police killings of Black people. "Similar to a body camera on a policeman, a camera takes away the 'he said, she said' or 'he said, he said,' type argument and lets them know 'hey, we are doing a good job.' It takes that argument away." This article comes from yahoo.com. The article title is: "Iowa Republican wants cameras in public school classrooms so parents can monitor teachers 'similar to body camera on a policeman.' The article is written by Brent D. Griffiths and Nicole Gaudiano. You can read the full article here: https://news.yahoo.com/iowa-republican-wants-cameras-public-203413352.html Zac and Don discuss three recent education legislative proposals. They discuss the merits of cameras in classrooms, teacher retention bonuses, and a mandate for schools to offer a personal finance course. You can read about the other two legislative proposals here: Teacher Retention Bonuses (Detroit News) https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2022/02/06/teacher-staff-retention-bonuses-michigan-whitmer/49771831/ Mandatory High School Personal Finance Course (Detroit Free Press) https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2022/01/01/high-school-curriculum-financial-skills-money-management/9059586002/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The star of the show was the F-150 Lightning—an electric version of the pickup that belongs to the best-selling vehicle line of any kind in the U.S. since the early nineteen-eighties. In a good year, Ford sells on average nine hundred thousand gas-powered F-series trucks, and earns about forty billion dollars annually from the line. The Lightning, together with the Mach-E, and an electric Ford Transit, its cargo van, collectively represent the hundred-and-eighteen-year-old automaker’s best and perhaps last chance to catch up with Elon Musk and Tesla, the dominant company in E.V. sales. (Tesla delivered close to a million electric vehicles worldwide in 2021; Ford dealers sold only about forty-three thousand E.V.s globally last year.) When Ford’s electric truck goes on sale this spring, the future of mobility will meet America’s favorite ride—a momentous encounter not only for Ford but for all of us, whether we drive, bike, or walk. The future of the planet, and of human life on it, may depend on how rapidly the auto industry can reduce tailpipe emissions. This article comes from the New Yorker. The article is titled: "America's Favorite Pickup Truck Goes Electric." The article is written by John Seabrook. You can read the full article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/americas-favorite-pickup-truck-goes-electric Zac and Don discuss the question, which company is making the best investment - The Ford Motor Company with it's new electric truck? Or The McCormick Spice company and its recent purchases of popular hot sauce brands? Both of these iconic companies have been around for a century. Zac and Don wonder if each can last another 100 years. The following article on McCormick's purchases of hot sauce brands can be read here: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-mccormick-franks-cholula-hot-sauce-supremacy/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Semmelweis Reflex: People tend to reject evidence that doesn’t fit the established worldview. Named for Ignaz Semmelweis, a surgeon who, before the discovery of germs, claimed washing hands could help prevent patient infections. He was ridiculed and locked away in a mental asylum Planck’s Principle: “Science progresses one funeral at a time.” Scientists, being human, don’t easily change their views, so science advances not when scientists win or lose arguments, but when they die so that younger scientists with more refined views can take their place. Bias Against Null Results: Studies that find something surprising are more interesting than studies that don’t, so they’re more likely to be published. This creates the impression the world is more surprising than it actually is. Also applies to news, Twitter. p-hacking: “If you torture the data for long enough, it’ll confess to anything.” Academics get around the Bias Against Null Results by performing many statistical tests on data until a significant result is found then recording only this. p-hacking is largely why we have a… Replication Crisis: A large proportion of scientific findings have been found to be impossible to replicate, with successive tests often yielding wildly different results. Too many studies are bunk to take any of them at face value. Luxury Beliefs: Cultural elites often adopt views that signal status for them but hurt the less fortunate. E.g. Those who claim that concern about Islamism is Islamophobic appear open-minded but in fact dismiss the (usually Muslim) victims of such extremism. h/t: @robkhenderson Bulverism: Instead of assessing what a debate opponent has said on its own merits, we assume they’re wrong and then try to retroactively justify our assumption, usually by appealing to the person’s character or motives. Explains 99% of Twitter debates. Scout Mindset: We tend to approach discourse with a “soldier mindset”; an intention to defend our own beliefs and defeat opponents’. A more useful approach is to adopt a “scout mindset”; an intention to explore and gather information. h/t: @JuliaGalef Operation Mindfuck: A conspiracy theory that can protect you from conspiracy theories. The Operation is being conducted by persons unknown, and is a plot to make you believe lies. Whenever you receive information, ask yourself, is this part of Operation Mindfuck? Hitchens’ Razor: What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. If you make a claim, it’s up to you to prove it, not to me to disprove it. Decision Fatigue: The more decisions you make in a day, the worse your decisions get, so rid your life of trivial choices. Steve Jobs, Barack Obama & Mark Zuckerberg have been known to wear only 1 or 2 outfits to work so they don’t have to choose each day. Cumulative Culture: Humanity’s success is due not to our individual IQs but to our culture, which stockpiles our best ideas for posterity so they compound across generations. The ideas we adopt from society are often far older than us, and far wiser. These concepts come from the website: www.nextbigwhat.com. They are written by Gurwinder Bhogal. You can read the author's full list of concepts here: https://nextbigwhat.com/40-concepts-that-you-will-enrich-your-knowledge/ Zac and Don discuss twelve more of the 40 concepts that will enrich your knowledge. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: YEARS AGO, I asked a friend what kind of case she planned to buy for her shiny new flip phone. She paused, a little offended. “I don't like to buy stuff for my stuff,” she said. Those words drilled directly into my hippocampus, never to depart. She's right! I thought. Don't buy stuff stuff! So simple! ... ... ... The problem is that certain kinds of stuff simply attract more stuff. The home is an obvious one: It craves sofas, sweaters, buffet cabinets, chandeliers. Computers are another; they grow USB tendrils. Smartphones beget earbuds, cloud backups, and music service subscriptions. This paragraph comes from an essay in Wired Magazine by Paul Ford. The essay is titled: "A Grand Unified Theory of Buying Stuff." You can read the article here: https://www.wired.com/story/a-grand-unified-theory-of-buying-stuff/ Zac and Don talk about the idea of Stuff's Stuff. They talk about all of their stuff's stuff and wonder if this is a reason for many of the human caused problems in the world. At the same time they wonder if Stuff's Stuff represents why life is so great for people - so many cheap items that can be thrown away after one use! They also debate the merits of Mr. Ford's theory on stuff and how it can be a mask that hides actual mastery. Finally, they wonder if education is a place that can get blinded by stuff's stuff instead of learning. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "The way it works is a little like a crypto-infused and lawsuit-focused GoFundMe, if the crowd stood to profit from their investment. The company takes advantage of a rule created through former President Barack Obama’s JOBS Act, which allowed a private company to crowdfund up to $5 million from Americans, regardless of their wealth. Using the Avalanche blockchain, Ryval will allow “all investors regardless of accreditation status” to purchase tokens associated with a specific case and then hold or trade them on the open market. Whoever owns the token at the time of a settlement or verdict then cashes in." This paragraph comes from www.vice.com. The article is titled: "Tech Startup Wants To Gamify Suing People Using Crypto Tokens." The article is written by Maxwell Strachan. You can read the article here: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7d7x3/tech-startup-wants-to-gamify-the-us-court-system-using-crypto-tokens Zac and Don discuss whether crypto crowdfunded lawsuits are a win for the average person or just an excuse to increase frivolous lawsuits. They also talk about the increasing use of crypto currencies in developing nations and the people who are earning a minimum wage by playing crypto video games. Finally, they wonder if crypto could have a role in education and student achievement. The following articles are also referenced in the discussion: Wired.com: We All Need to Stop Only Seeing the Dark Side of Crypto https://www.wired.com/story/crypto-remittances-cuba/ Wired.com: The Escapist Fantasy of NFT Games Is Capitalism https://www.wired.com/story/escapist-fantasy-of-nft-games-is-capitalism/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Our bedtimes were filled with stories: “Guess How Much I Love You.” “The Day the Crayons Quit.” “Ramona Quimby, Age 8.” “Madeline.” Now she is 11 and more interested in TikTok than in 12 little girls in two straight lines who lived in a house that was covered in vines. And while she certainly can read, she really doesn’t like to. As someone who comes from a family of educators and writers, this is painful for me. To my regret, reading has become one of our most reliable points of friction. (The other two: sugar consumption and screen time.) “Just read for 20 minutes a day,” I plead. “I don’t want to,” she replies. “You have to,” I say. “Or what?” she asks. What I want to say: “Or you will never make it in school! You will never go to college! You will work a minimum-wage job your whole life!” What I actually say: “Or I will take your iPad away.” “Well, then,” she replies, “how about if I read on my iPad?” Touché. This exchange comes from an editorial in the Los Angeles Times. The editorial is titled: "Does it really matter if our kids refuse to pick up a book?" The author is Robin Abcarian. You can read the full editorial here: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-01-02/kids-who-will-not-read Zac and Don talk about whether it is important for kids to read. They reflect upon the reading habits of their children. They also reflect on how technology has changed their own reading habits. They wonder if maybe reading for pleasure is overrated? Or is it just nice to hear someone else say reading is overrated? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Michigan was part of a wave of states that implemented teacher accountability measures, based on the studies that showed students learned more when they were in classrooms with highly effective teachers. Before the reforms, determining which teachers were superstars was nearly impossible, because virtually all teachers were rated as effective. Having a four-category rating system was seen as a way to allow schools — and families — to distinguish the great teachers from the average ones. “It was seen as a potential reform that could make a big difference and improve equitable outcomes,” said Lenhoff, the Wayne State professor. “It was bipartisan, and had broad support from the education advocacy community.” A December Brown University study, though, found the reform didn’t work, either in Michigan or most other states that implemented similar laws. That study found that, while there were exceptions, on average, teacher evaluations tied to student test scores did not increase learning. This paragraph comes from an article on the website www.bridgemi.com. The article is titled: "10 years of strict teacher evaluations haven't boosted learning in Michigan." The article is written by Ron French. You can read the article here: https://www.bridgemi.com/talent-education/10-years-strict-teacher-evaluations-havent-boosted-learning-michigan Zac and Don are joined by Dr. Amanda Mckay, education administrator, and member of the Creative Design Education Group. The three discuss the effectiveness of the teacher evaluation system used in schools. They talk about why the system may not be working and if there are better models that schools could be using. They discuss whether teachers are more magicians than technology. They also wonder if the right incentives are in place for both teachers and students. You can connect with Dr. Mckay and the Creative Design Education Group Here: https://www.designeducationgroup.net/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Bitcoin is also easy to lose. Conventional money comes full of safeguards: paper currency is distinctively colored and has a unique feel; centuries of design have gone into folding wallets and zippered purses. And once your money is deposited in a bank you have a record of what you own. If you lose your statement, the bank will send you another. Forget your online password and you can reset it. The sixty-four-character private key for your bitcoin looks like any other computer rune and is nearly impossible to memorize. It can also be difficult to remember where you have stored the key. On Reddit, one user, writing in 2019, complained that he had lost ten thousand bitcoins because his mother had thrown out his old laptop. Another early crypto user was irritated by a clicking sound on his hard drive and unthinkingly tossed it out. It contained a file with access to fourteen hundred bitcoins, which he had bought for twenty-five dollars. From the start, users debated whether it was a feature or a bug of the system that bitcoin was so easy to lose. In a 2010 post to an online forum, a newbie named virtualcoin complained that bitcoin seemed risky. “If somebody’s losing his wallet (e.g. due to disk crash) he’s not able to get back his coins, is he?” the poster wrote. “They’re lost forever?” A more experienced owner named Laszlo Hanyecz, a Web developer in Florida, asked what the big deal was—people lose their wallets in the ocean, and “it’s really not that significant.” Nakamoto weighed in a few hours later, and he was unapologetic: “Lost coins only make everyone else’s coins worth slightly more.” This paragraph comes from the New Yorker in an article titled: "Half A Billion In Bitcoin, Lost In The Dump." The article is written by D. T. Max. You can read the article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/13/half-a-billion-in-bitcoin-lost-in-the-dump Zac and Don discuss the question of "Which treasure will we see first?" Will it be the bitcoin password buried in a garbage dump? JP Morgan's Pocket watch? Gold from the San Jose Shipwreck? Zac and Don also discuss these articles and video clip: JP Morgan Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi1hp3vKkMo San Jose Shipwreck https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20190908-a-shipwreck-worth-billions-off-the-coast-of-cartagena https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/545416/take-closer-look-cargo-billion-dollar-san-jose-shipwreck --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Satire is "the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues." This paragraph is the result of a Google Search for the definition of the word "Satire." Zac and Don discuss satire in our society. They do this by discussing the role of phones and social media in our lives. They also discuss the truth behind the Hansel and Gretel Fairy Tale. The following article and podcast are discussed: New Yorker Daily Shout: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/ah-another-beautiful-morning-time-to-ruin-it-by-immediately-opening-my-phone Tim Harford Podcast: The Truth About Hansel and Gretel https://timharford.com/2021/10/the-truth-about-the-truth-about-hansel-and-gretel/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: For brand-building, it makes sense that TIME has steered away from bad guys; “Person of the Year” today sounds a lot like an endorsement, in part because TIME’s original idea has proven so catchy and reproducible. But it also leaves Americans the poorer for it: The point is to identify people who matter and let readers — and citizens — process that how they will. Given how messy our democracy has become, it’s long past time to reembrace the original conception of the cover and, occasionally, highlight the people doing it harm. This paragraph comes from a Politico essay titled: "The Right Choice for TIME's Person of the Year is Ruining America." The essay is written by Jeff Greenfield. You can read the essay here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/02/time-person-of-the-year-rupert-murdoch-523624 Zac and Don talk about the TIME person of the year. They wonder what the qualifications are. They wonder who should be the person of the half century from 1950-2000, and first quarter century 2000-2025. They also consider the author's selection of Rupert Murdoch. Finally, they discuss the actual winner - Elon Musk. You can read the official TIME Person of the Year article on Elon Musk Here: https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Some states have eliminated language requirements for high school students: In Oklahoma and Texas they can opt instead for computer coding, while in California they can choose visual and performing arts classes or technical education. One in five Americans speaks a language other than English at home, yet we have abandoned building our foreign language skills and ceded the advantages of being a multilingual country. The idea that this is not a problem because “everyone speaks English” is far from the truth. Only a quarter of the world’s population is minimally competent in English, and even those who claim to have conversational skills often don’t operate at a very high level of proficiency. Monolingual English-speakers can’t effectively communicate with three-quarters of the world. That means they can’t tap into knowledge created in those languages or take advantage of business opportunities. This paragraph comes from an essay written in the Wall Street Journal. The essay is titled: "The Downside of English's Dominance." The essay is written by Rosemary Salomone. You can read the article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-downside-of-englishs-dominance-11637989261 Zac and Don discuss this article and three others while pondering the theme of: "What is the biggest concern for the world?" The other three articles considered are: The Decline of Roquefort Cheese https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-much-longer-roquefort-reign-king-cheese-180978999/ Whose Job Is It to Prevent Armageddon? https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/20/global-planetary-defense-earth-asteroids-523072 Elon Musk thinks Declining Population is the Biggest Problem for Human Civilization https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/07/elon-musk-civilization-will-crumble-if-we-dont-have-more-children.html --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraphs I've Read: Abstraction: There are scales of explanation. A human can be considered a person, mammal, collection of cells, collection of stardust. Sometimes the reason people can’t see eye to eye is that they’re unwittingly considering things at different levels of abstraction. Scope Neglect: We evolved for the small scale of tribal life, so we can’t comprehend the big numbers that recently entered human life. We can appreciate the difference between 50 and 100, but not a million and a billion. It’s why we often treat geopolitics like family politics. The Law of Very Large Numbers: Given a wide enough dataset, any pattern can be observed. A million to one odds happen 8 times a day in NYC (population 8 million). The world hasn’t become crazier, we’re just seeing more of everything. Benford’s Law: Numbers in natural sets of data are not uniformly distributed (e.g. 30% of numbers have 1 as their first digit). Used by the IRS and other tax agencies to determine if you’ve lied about your finances. Brandolini’s Law (aka the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle): It takes a lot more energy to refute bullshit than to produce it. Hence, the world is full of unrefuted bullshit. The Toxoplasma of Rage: The ideas that spread most are not those everyone agrees with, but those that divide people most, because people see them as causes to attack or defend in order to signal their commitment to a tribe. h/t: @slatestarcodex Network Effect: The more people using a network, the more useful it becomes. A phone gains utility as more people use phones because more people can be called with it. It’s why Twitter & Facebook are so dominant; we’re stuck on these platforms because everyone else is. Paradox of Abundance: Easy availability of food led to obesity for the masses but good health for the few who used the increased choe to avoid the mass-produced junk. Equally, you can avoid intellectual diabetes by ignoring junk info like gossip & clickbait. h/t: @david_perell Parkinson’s Law: Work expands to fill the time allotted for it. No matter the size of the task, it will often take precisely the amount of time you set aside to do it, because more time means more deliberation & procrastination. Flow States: You’re in flow when you’re so engrossed in a task that the world vanishes and the work seems to do itself. Flow is automatic, and it makes work much easier than you imagined. All you have to do is overcome the initial hurdle of beginning a task; flow does the rest. The Curse of Knowledge: The more familiar you become with an idea the worse you become at explaining it to others, because you forget what it’s like to not know it, and therefore what needs to be explained to understand it. Makes it hard to write threads like this! Status Quo Bias: Those who were unfazed by Covid because it had a ~1% fatality rate were suddenly concerned about vaccines when they yielded a 1 in a ~million fatality rate. People see the risks of doing something but not the risks of doing nothing. These concepts comes from the website www.nextbigwhat.com. The article is titled: "40 Concepts that you will enrich your knowledge." The article is written by Gurwinder Bhogal. You can read the article here: https://nextbigwhat.com/40-concepts-that-you-will-enrich-your-knowledge/ Zac and Don discuss each of the concepts, the meaning, and connect them to current events and their own lives. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Some proponents of National Divorce say not to worry — it can all be worked out amicably without any unpleasantness, like, you know, the war that killed roughly 700,000 people the last time a region of the U.S. tried to secede. But if we are going to split up because we are irreparably divided and can’t even agree on bathroom policies or pronouns, how are we going to agree to divvy up our territory and resources — the kind of things real wars are fought over all the time? This paragraph comes from Politico.com. The article is titled: "A Surprising Share of Americans Wants to Break up the Country. Here's Why They're Wrong." The article is written by Rich Lowry. You can read the article here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/06/americans-national-divorse-theyre-wrong-515443 Zac and Don discuss the idea of national divorce for America. They talk about the downside of the nation breaking apart. They wonder why so many Americans have reached a point where they want to break away from each other. In addition, Zac and Don talk about the concept of Texit. Finally, Zac and Don talk about the map which shows every state's least favorite state. You can view the map here: https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1412764555630026754?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1412764555630026754%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.audacy.com%2Fkluv%2Flatest%2Ffunny-map-shows-which-states-hate-each-other --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/six-flags-dining-pass Dylan’s first bite into a turkey hotdog called the “Thanksgiving Dog” felt nothing short of life-changing. “It was amazing,” he says. “It’s a turkey dog topped with cranberry sauce, stuffing and a slathering of mayonnaise, which I know sounds awful, but it was so good. I ended up eating way too many of them, and now I can’t even smell turkey dogs without gagging.” This paragraph comes from an article on www.melmagazine.com. The article is titled: "Meet the guy who spends just $150 a year to eat all his meals at Six Flags." The article is written by Quinn Myers. You can read the article here: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/six-flags-dining-pass Zac and Don discuss the question: "What is the better financial move?" They talk about the guy who ate a year's worth of lunch and dinners at Six Flags amusement park for $150 dollars. They also talk about the guy who bought $8,000 of crypto currency and saw it grow into 5.7 billion dollars. Towards the end of their discussion they wonder if maybe they have stumbled upon their own billion dollar idea! Zac and Don also reference the following articles during their discussion: Shiba Inu Cryptocurrency Investor Turns $8,000 into $5.7 Billion. https://www.complex.com/life/shiba-inu-cryptocurrency-investor-turns-8000-dollars-into-5-billion/ Tyler Cowen on Crypto Currency Trading https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/11/tyrone-on-crypto-assets.html --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: This week Zac and Don discuss their favorite exchanges from a recent Conversations with Tyler podcast. During the podcast Professor Tyler Cowen interviewed General Stanley McChrystal. You can listen to the podcast episode here: https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/stanley-mcchrystal/ Zac and Don use Professor Cowen's podcast to talk about different aspects of the military including: recruitment, training, discipline, understanding history, leadership, and the potential of future war. The following book is mentioned in the podcast: 2034: A Novel of the Next World War https://www.amazon.com/2034-Novel-Next-World-War/dp/0593298683/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1637200150&sr=8-1 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Work isn’t just our livelihood. It can be a source of structure, belonging and meaning in our lives. But that doesn’t mean our jobs should dictate how we spend most of our waking hours. For several generations, we’ve organized our lives around our work. Our jobs have determined where we make our homes, when we see our families and what we can squeeze in during our downtime. It might be time to start planning our work around our lives. This paragraph comes from an essay in the Wall Street Journal. The essay is titled: "The Real Meaning of Freedom at Work." The essay is written by Adam Grant. You can read the article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-real-meaning-of-freedom-at-work-11633704877 Organizational Strategist Beth Stiner joins Zac and Don to discuss workplace culture in America. They talk about the changing demands that people have for their workplace. They also talk about the challenges that managers face in meeting worker demands. They also talk about an equation that can help people decide if they need to change jobs. In addition, the discussion of bringing about change in a large organization is discussed. Ms. Stiner discusses an equation that can help decide if you need to leave your job. You can read more about the equation here: Change Formula: DxVxF>R. This afternoon, I was speaking with a… | by Ted Riter | Medium --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: A school board in northern Michigan plans to send a protest over sportsmanship following a soccer player's 16-goal record-setting game against a winless team. The backlash over Kevin Hubbell's performance continued Monday night at a meeting of the Kingsley board. Members didn't take a formal vote, but there was clear support for sending a letter to the Benzie Central district, the superintendent said. Hubbell, one of the best players in Michigan, scored 16 goals in a 17-0 victory by Benzie Central on Sept. 29, setting state and national records for most goals in a high school game. "He was firing them off like a rocket," said Heather Bartelmay, a Kingsley school board member whose son was goalkeeper for part of the game. "We went over and hugged our boys. That's what was needed. Their hearts were bleeding." This paragraph comes from an article written by the Associated Press on the UpNorthLive.com website. The title of the article is: "School concerned about sportsmanship after new soccer record." You can read the article here: https://upnorthlive.com/news/local/school-concerned-about-sportsmanship-after-new-soccer-record Zac and Don talk about youth sport blowouts. Is it ever ok to run up the score? Is there a certain point when a coach needs to try and slow their team down? Are fans, players, and their communities allowed to be angry about losing games in a big way? Does the age of the players matter in this discussion? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: In my experience, if you see a CEO chasing press, that person’s company is probably headed for trouble. The energy spent burnish­ing your image could almost always be better spent managing your people, ferreting out problems, clearing obstacles, honing processes, talking to customers, selecting vendors, recruiting team members and working on new initiatives. With Manhattan Prep, the most important thing was to do a good job for each student. The most powerful growth driver would be a satisfied student telling his or her friend, “Hey, this company did a great job, you should give them a try.” That is the way most businesses operate: If you do a good job and make people happy, then the business grows. In the context of presidential politics it was the opposite. The job was simply the seeking of attention. You would seek press vir­tually all of the time. Interviews and press — or an in-person event that hopefully would attract press — were the job. When I wasn’t on the road, I would wake up on a typical day and head to a television studio first thing in the morning, go to the office to film some digital ads, do several interviews and then head to a grassroots fundraising event that night. This paragraph comes from a Politico.com essay written by Andrew Yang. The essay is titled: "When I Ran for President, It Messed With My Head." You can read the essay here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/03/andrew-yang-book-excerpt-campaigning-514967 Zac and Don discuss Mr. Yang's essay. They wonder how authentic any presidential candidate is. They talk about Mr. Yang's description of a candidate being a "product." They also wonder if there are actual qualifications that a presidential candidate should have. Finally, they discuss Mr. Yang's statements about how a campaign can really change a candidate's ability to have empathy. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The most elementary tenet of economics is the relationship between supply, demand, and prices. If there's suddenly less of something that a lot of people want, it's going to get more expensive. At the same time, having competition in the marketplace encourages suppliers to increase supply and lower prices in order to win a larger share of buyers in the market. Indeed, that is the game that Ford, General Motors, and the predecessors of Stellantis have been locked in for decades, with each making as many cars as they could hope to sell and cutting prices with incentives and deals to attract customers. This year's shortage of semiconductor chips turned all of that on its head. Faced with real constraints on this necessary component, automakers were forced to make fewer vehicles with the chips they did have. Naturally, they chose to prioritize those models that had the highest demand and made them the most money. At the same time, the reduction in the supply from all brands meant that dealers could make a sale without the traditional haggling over the vehicle's sticker price. The result has been a boon for automakers. This paragraph comes from the Business Insider. The article is titled: "The chip crisis is helping automakers and dealers do something they've wanted to do for decades: quit offering incentives and deals." The article is written by Dominick Reuter. You can read the article here: https://www.businessinsider.com/chip-crisis-lets-car-companies-dealers-offer-fewer-incentives-deals-2021-10 Mechanical engineer Dan Snyder joins Zac and Don to discuss the auto industry, the chip shortage, and whether the industry may emerge stronger and with a different business model. They also talk about hiring engineering talent and wonder whether the auto industry will remain strong in Michigan. The following articles are also referenced during the discussion: Bloomberg: "Ford Gives Michigan a 'Wake-Up Call' With Out of State EV Expansion." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-07/ford-electric-car-investment-creates-jobs-in-tennessee-kentucky-not-michigan Fast Company: "Electric Vehicles Have a Weight Problem." https://www.fastcompany.com/90686171/electric-vehicles-have-a-weight-problem --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: For Benjamin, the very possession of these books formed his identity as a reader, writer, and human being — even if he hadn’t read all of them. They sat proudly on his shelves as symbols, representing the knowledge that he still aspired to gain or the cities he had traveled, where he encountered a book in a previously unknown shop. Collecting books was his way of interacting with the world, of building a worldview. This paragraph is from a Substack essay written by Kyle Chayka. The essay is titled: "The Digital Death of the Collector." You can read the essay here: https://kylechayka.substack.com/p/essay-the-digital-death-of-collecting Zac and Don discuss the role of collecting things in our lives. They talk about some of their collections. They also wonder how technology has impacted humans as collectors. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: In Phoenix, where a drought has lasted for 27 years so far, one source of water—the Colorado River—may soon dry up. The city is also getting hotter, with a record number of days over 110 degrees Fahrenheit in 2020. At the same time, the population continues to expand. Over the last decade, Phoenix grew faster than any other American city, and Arizona was one of the fastest-growing states. In Michigan, on the other hand, a state that’s likely to be relatively less likely to be impacted by climate change, the population grew slowly. A recent Census Bureau map shows the overall trend: Many Americans have been moving to areas that are likely going to be harder hit by climate impacts. This paragraph comes from Fast Company in an article titled: "People keep moving to the worst places for climate risk." The article is written by Adele Peters. You can read the article here: https://www.fastcompany.com/90668484/people-keep-moving-to-the-worst-places-for-climate-risk Zac and Don discuss why people keep moving to places that will be most impacted by climate change. They wonder why a place like Michigan is not seeing high population growth rates. They wonder if America should consider piping more water to the west. The following article on increasing borrowing costs for cities is also referenced and discussed: Bloomberg: Another Climate Risk for Cities: Higher Borrowing Costs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-23/another-climate-risk-for-cities-higher-borrowing-costs --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The chief executive of Domino's Pizza has complained that the company can’t hire enough drivers. Lyft and Uber claim to have a similar problem. A McDonald's franchise in Florida offered $50 to anybody willing to show up for an interview. And some fast-food outlets have hung signs in their windows saying, "No one wants to work anymore." The idea that the United States suffers from a labor shortage is fast becoming conventional wisdom. This paragraph comes from the Morning Newsletter that is published by the New York Times. The article is titled: "The Myth of Labor Shortages." It is written by David Leonhardt. You can read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/briefing/labor-shortages-covid-wages.html Actalent strategic account manager, Jeff Hogan, joins Zac and Don to discuss America's current labor situation. Is the narrative that "nobody wants to work anymore" true? The three discuss some of the causes of the current situation. Jeff provides some insight into the challenges of hiring skilled labor in a Covid world. The three also discuss some potential future impacts that today's hiring shortages could cause. The three also reference the following article from the Wall Street Journal: "Companies Need More Workers. Why Do They Reject Millions of Resumes?" https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-need-more-workers-why-do-they-reject-millions-of-resumes-11630728008 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Men are abandoning higher education in such numbers that they now trail female college students by record levels. At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. U.S. colleges and universities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men accounted for 71% of the decline. This education gap, which holds at both two- and four-year colleges, has been slowly widening for 40 years. The divergence increases at graduation: After six years of college, 65% of women in the U.S. who started a four-year university in 2012 received diplomas by 2018 compared with 59% of men during the same period, according to the U.S. Department of Education. This paragraph comes from an article in the Wall Street Journal titled: "A Generation of American Men Give Up On College: 'I Just Feel Lost.'" The article is written by Douglas Belkin. You can read the article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-university-fall-higher-education-men-women-enrollment-admissions-back-to-school-11630948233 Zac and Don discuss possible reasons why men are not attending college at the same rate as women. They wonder if this data is a concern or a market correction for society. They also wonder if America will be able to have a sensible conversation about this issue. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: It’s not just individual patients who are in the dark,” said Martin Gaynor, a Carnegie Mellon economist who studies health pricing. “Employers are in the dark. Governments are in the dark. It’s just astonishing how deeply ignorant we are about these prices.” This paragraph comes from the New York Times in an article titled: "Hospitals and Insurers Didn't Want You to See These Prices. Here's Why." The article is written by Sarah Kliff and Josh Katz. You can read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/22/upshot/hospital-prices.html Zac and Don talk about how hospitals arrive at their final price. They share their personal experiences with hospital bills and wonder why America's health care system is set up the current way it is. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: If the U.S. government was caught up short by the dramatic denouement of its 20-year war in Afghanistan, viewers of the three major networks must have been taken entirely by surprise. Out of a combined 14,000-plus minutes of the national evening news broadcast on CBS, ABC, and NBC last year, a grand total of five minutes were devoted to Afghanistan, according to Andrew Tyndall, editor of the authoritative Tyndall Report, which has monitored and coded the networks’ nightly news each weekday since 1988. Those five minutes, which covered the February 2020 Doha agreement between the United States and the Taliban, marked a 19-year low for Afghanistan coverage on the three networks’ newscasts. They compared to a high of 940 minutes the networks devoted to Afghanistan in 2001, all of it following 9/11 and the subsequent U.S. intervention, as shown below. This paragraph comes from the website Responsible Statecraft. The article is titled: "Three major networks devoted a full five minutes to Afghanistan in 2020." The article is written by Jim Lobe. You can read the article here: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/08/20/three-major-networks-devoted-a-full-five-minutes-to-afghanistan-in-2020/ Zac and Don discuss the article's findings about Afghanistan news coverage. They also discuss the war in general and how long America has continued to be involved with it. Zac and Don also talk about three other summer revelations. Here are the links to read the articles that are discussed: Increasing probability that Bennu Asteroid could hit in the next 300 years. https://www.ign.com/articles/nasa-mission-probability-hazardous-asteroid-bennu-earth-tech Eating out for big occasions is correlated with lower food quality https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/08/eating-out-for-big-occasions-is-correlated-with-a-lower-quality-of-food.html Only 2% of people use the stairs when they are next to an escalator https://apple.news/ATvhebXYnQy229Urx76ig7A --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: It sucks that college sports over the past decade-plus has chosen to give up what makes it special. I’m not talking about amateurism — the fact that players can now make money is long overdue. I’m talking about the regional flair, the communities, the charm and the history. There’s a connection with alumni and your opponent. The vast majority of us care more about our rivals and goofy trophies than we do who wins the national title. It’s not pro sports. It’s supposed to mean something more. There aren’t 30 “teams” we care about. There are a hundred unique communities. But pettiness and greed have won the decade, and this move by Texas, Oklahoma and the SEC could cement this path toward ending that forever. This paragraph comes from an essay in The Athletic titled: "Conference realignment sucks and it's taking away what we love about college football." The essay is written by Chris Vannini. You can read the article here: https://theathletic.com/2729122/2021/07/26/conference-realignment-sucks-and-its-taking-away-what-we-love-about-college-football-vannini/ Former Detroit Free Press college football beat reporter, Mark Synder, joins Zac and Don to discuss the article and the future of college football. They talk about whether whether college football will be ruined due to conference realignment. They talk about how and why these decisions are being made. They also talk about potential impacts on players being able to make money from their name, image, and likeness. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Almost every teacher I know has noticed the same sinister reality this summer: Kids have come back to the classroom. But the classroom hasn’t come back to the kids. Far from it. More to the point, they are back, they are sitting at their desks, but in many ways they now embody the detached, lifeless malaise of a hipster zombie incapable of showing the slightest patina of zest or zeal. This isn’t their fault, mind you. They have spent the last year in a learning ecosystem that was decidedly not of their choosing — watching Zoom classes, learning through omnipresent pixilated screens that demanded little from them and, in too many instances, taught them even less. And now? Now, they are perpetually chilled out, difficult to intellectually prod or verbally poke. They resist verbal engagement with me — or with each other. At the end of the day, we usually have a few minutes to spare before the bell rings. But nowadays there’s little talking. No socializing. No teenage gossiping or flirting. Instead, they silently self-medicate on their devices. For decades the bell would ring and students would fly out of the classroom like it was on fire. Now, their departure is, at best, a leisurely gait. This paragraph comes from an opinion essay in the Los Angeles Times. The essay is written by Jeremy S. Adams and is titled: "The rise of the Zoombies: Lifeless, detached students have returned to my classroom." You can read the essay here: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-07-24/zoom-classroom-detached-students Zac and Don are joined by school administrator David McKay. They discuss the essay's ideas and whether they agree. They discuss some of the challenges of educating students during the pandemic and what this school year may be like. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Survivalist school instructors across the country say there has been an increasing interest in their wilderness and urban-disaster preparedness courses from Americans worried about climate change. As rising temperatures bring more wildfires, droughts and destructive storms, those types of courses are no longer the domain of campers and hunters. One of these schools' fastest-growing demographics is now young families.

“It was never like that before,” said Shane Hobel, founder of the Mountain Scout Survival School. While the costs of survival school training vary across the country depending on levels and duration, Hobel charges $125 per person, $230 per couple and $460 per family for his Wilderness 1 class.

It's hard to measure the depth of the trend as there's no industry trade association tabulating statistics across the country. But Hobel estimated that increased interest in his courses is fueled by "50 percent climate change and 50 percent the 'political stuff.'" Whichever their particular nightmare scenario, there is a shared concern among some of his clientele that the foundation on which modern society rests is increasingly fragile.

This paragraph comes from an NBC News article titled: "Climate change fears spurs more Americans to join survivalist schools."  The article is written by Ethan Sacks.  You can read it here:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/climate-change-fears-spur-more-americans-join-survivalist-schools-n1275474

Zac and Don talk about disaster preparedness and the families training for it.  They wonder if the training is appropriate for kids and if maybe people should consider preparing for a climate disaster in other ways.  

Zac and Don also reference ideas from the following National Geographic Article: 

"Disaster 'prepping' was once an American pastime.  Today, it's mainstream again."

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/disaster-prepping-was-once-an-american-pastime-today-its-mainstream-again

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "There seems to be an urge to do things differently, to rear young men without the same certainties and biases that previously we absorbed by rote. Mine’s not the first generation of parents to be thinking about all this, and fretfully. In the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 00s, there were many mothers and some fathers who looked at each other and asked: what ought we be doing differently with boys? Perhaps what’s new is the urgency, a sense of enough-being-enough. Perhaps what’s new is that men, in greater numbers, are acknowledging the need for a rethink. Parents and those caring for sons have been wondering (and wondering, and wondering again): if change is to begin with us, how should a boy be raised now?" This paragraph comes from an essay in The Guardian titled: "How to raise a boy: my mission to bring up a son fit for the 21st century." The essay is written by Tom Lamont. You can read the essay here: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/aug/01/how-to-raise-a-boy-my-mission-to-bring-up-a-son-fit-for-the-21st-century Zac and Don are joined by their wives Lynn and Michelle. The four discuss boys and if they need to be raised differently. They talk about some of the proposed strategies. They talk about some of the current critiques that are brought up when it comes to raising boys. The follow article and book are also discussed during the podcast. New York Times: "What We Are Not Teaching Boys About Being Human" (Ruth Whippman) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/06/opinion/boys-gender-books-culture.html Book: Boys Adrift (Leonard Sax) https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Adrift-Epidemic-Unmotivated-Underachieving/dp/0465072100 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "This school would probably not attract many of today’s Ivy League elite. But they are not the ones who require better and cheaper alternatives. It is striking how most major institutions of higher learning are many decades or centuries old, and how reluctant they are to change their models or to become significantly more inclusive. Am I sure that my “fantasy university,” if it ever became reality, would work? Of course not. So I encourage you to come up with your own proposal. Because I am sure of this: Higher education is in desperate need of more innovation, and there’s room for more than one idea." This paragraph comes from a Bloomberg Business opinion article titled: "At Tyler Cowen University No One Would Have Tenure." The opinion comes from Tyler Cowen. You can read the article here: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-07-05/what-would-your-fantasy-university-look-like Zac and Don discuss some of Professor Cowens ideas on what an ideal university would look like. They also wonder if some of these ideas could work in K-12 public schools. Another Best Paragraph I've Read: Al Lord, the former chief executive of student-loan giant Sallie Mae, has a complaint about higher education: The price of college is too damn high. Paying for his grandchildren’s education in recent years, he said, left him appalled at the tuition bills that land on his desk every semester. For those who know (or in some cases, revile) Mr. Lord, that is quite the twist. He led Sallie Mae through a time of wild success and near-collapse, a period when the company put in place new practices that drove a massive increase in student loan debt starting in the early 2000s. The sting of high tuition hit him several years back when a grandson enrolled at the University of Miami, which currently charges $75,230 a year for tuition and room and board. That is a far cry from the $175 a semester Mr. Lord recalls paying for his own education at Penn State University in the 1960s. He has also paid for the education of three other grandchildren, to attend Villanova University, University of Miami and Davidson College. The bills have approached $200,000 a head. “It’s criminal,” he said of what schools are charging these days. He has gained sympathy for families of lesser means. “Boy, am I sure glad we saved for my grandkids. If the average income is $40,000 or $50,000 or $60,000, I just don’t know how you do it.” This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal in an article titled: "Al Lord Profited When College Tuition Rose. He Is Paying For It." The article is written by Josh Mitchell. You can read the article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/al-lord-profited-when-college-tuition-rose-he-is-paying-for-it-11627048831 Zac and Don discuss Mr. Lord's revelation that "the price of college is too damn high." They wonder if there is anything that can bend the college cost curve. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I’ve Read:

Worsley, in trying to cross Antarctica on his own, had embarked on a mission that exceeded his body’s capacity, and no amount of mental strength and tenacity could change that calculation.

But if that’s true, then why is death by endurance so rare?  Why don’t Olympic marathoners and Channel swimmers and Appalachian Trail hikers keel over on a regular basis?  That’s the riddle of a young South African doctor named Tim Noakes posed to himself as he was preparing to deliver the most important talk of his life, a prestigious honorary lecture at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine, in 1996: “I said, now hold on.  What is really interesting about exercise is not that people die of, say, heatstroke; or when people are climbing Everest, it’s not that one or two die, “he later recalled.  “The fact is, the majority don’t die – and that is much more interesting.”

This paragraph comes from the book: Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance.  The book is written by Alex Hutchinson.  You can find the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Endure-Curiously-Elastic-Limits-Performance/dp/0062499866

Zac and Don discuss the concept of human endurance and some of the key ideas from the book.  They talk about whether it’s the human mind that is the most important aspect to increasing endurance.  In addition, they talk about whether conventional wisdom has been wrong about hydration, using ice after competition, and consuming diets high in carbohydrates.

Zac and Don also talk about Henry Worsley, the man who attempted to ski across Antarctica.  You can read the New Yorker article here:

https://www.amazon.com/Endure-Curiously-Elastic-Limits-Performance/dp/0062499866

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"We estimate that a typical classroom in the PPSD is interrupted more than 2,000 times per year and that these interruptions and the disruptions they cause result in the loss of between 10 and 20 days of instructional time. Several findings suggest that there exists substantial scope for reducing interruptions. Administrators appear to systematically underestimate the frequency and negative consequences of interruptions. Furthermore, interruptions vary widely across schools and are largely caused by school staff. Schools might reduce disruptions to the learning environment by creating a culture that prioritizes instructional time, instituting better communication protocols, and addressing the challenges posed by student tardiness."

This paragraph comes from two educational researchers: Matthew A. Kraft and Manuel Monti-Nussbaum who wrote a research article titled: "The Big Problem With Little Interruptions to Classroom Learning."  The article can be found here at Sage Journals:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584211028856

Zac and Don discuss the article's findings on classroom interruptions.  They discuss whether student learning is impacted by interruptions.  They share some of their own experiences with classroom interruptions.  They also wonder if interruptions are just a fact of life.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Four waffles down. Been here for 1.5 hours, so that means I have 18.5 to go. I am already in immense discomfort. Please, somebody, launch me into the sun." This paragraph comes from the Twitter Feed of Lee Sanderlin. Mr. Sanderlin spent twenty-four hours in a Waffle House after losing his Fantasy Football League. You can read about Mr. Sanderlin's experience through his Twitter Feed here: https://twitter.com/leeosanderlin/status/1405633271552253954?lang=en Zac and Dons' friend Kevin Kopec, who has spent many mornings in Waffle Houses across the country, joins the podcast to discuss Mr. Sanderlin's Twitter Feed and his experience. This episode also wonders if spending twenty-four hours in a Waffle House is the perfect consequence? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

A truly consequential innovation is one that makes possible entirely new business models that touch the lives of millions. The car enabled motels and shopping malls, the internet enabled e-commerce, and smartphones and GPS enabled ride-sharing.

What business model that touches the lives of millions have cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin made possible? American motorists now know: ransomware. In such attacks, hackers encrypt and sometimes steal the victim’s data, demanding a ransom to decrypt and not release the data. Crypto is how Colonial Pipeline Ltd. paid hackers who earlier this month forced offline a conduit that supplies 45% of the East Coast’s fuel.

A few days after the Colonial attack, Tesla Inc. announced it would no longer accept bitcoin as payment for cars because of the carbon emissions generated by the computer processing necessary to mint new coins.

The two events underline how an innovation that was supposed to displace the dollar as a medium of exchange has proved largely useless for buying legal things yet frighteningly effective at facilitating extortion.

This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal in an article titled: "Cryptocurrency Has Yet to Make the World a Better Place."  The article is written by Greg IP.  You can read the article here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cryptocurrency-has-yet-to-make-the-world-a-better-place-11621519381

Zac and Don discuss whether cryptocurrencies have brought an overall negative net value to society.  

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

In June, 2014, a man began digging into the soft red earth in the back yard of his house, on the outskirts of Kolwezi, a city in the southern Democratic Republic of the Congo. As the man later told neighbors, he had intended to create a pit for a new toilet. About eight feet into the soil, his shovel hit a slab of gray rock that was streaked with black and punctuated with what looked like blobs of bright-turquoise mold. He had struck a seam of heterogenite, an ore that can be refined into cobalt, one of the elements used in lithium-ion batteries. Among other things, cobalt keeps the batteries, which power everything from cell phones to electric cars, from catching fire. As global demand for lithium-ion batteries has grown, so has the price of cobalt. The man suspected that his discovery would make him wealthy—if he could get it out of the ground before others did.

This article comes from the New Yorker and is written by Nicolas Niarchos.  The article is titled: "The Dark Side of Congo's Cobalt Rush."  You can read the article here:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/the-dark-side-of-congos-cobalt-rush

Zac and Don continue to talk about the idea of net value while looking at the example of cobalt and how it is produced in the Congo.  

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Some tourists say their visits are less pleasant because of the crowd of Disneyland caliber crowds at popular attractions… But the surge in tourism is now reaching new heights. Dead Horse Point State Park, near Arches and Canyonlands, saw twice as many visitors in March 2021 as in March 2019. Buffalo Bill State Park in Wyoming saw a 37% increase in visitors last year compared to 2019, according to the official Details of the percentage of people stopping by on the way to Yellowstone National Park, which is about 40 miles away. Yellowstone saw vehicle arrivals on Memorial Day weekend this year, up 50% compared to the same weekend in 2019. The jump will boost economies in places like Moab, where surrounding Grand Counties recently had the highest sales and use tax revenues for the third and fourth quarters of each year, said Chris Baird, district administrator. Companies are so desperate for workers that a McDonald’s in Moab has a $ 18 an hour sign, more than double the state minimum wage. A McDonald’s spokesman declined to comment. Many local residents say they are becoming increasingly frustrated as graffiti and piles of human waste are popping up where people camp away from toilets, trash cans, and any law enforcement agency. In addition, more visitors are parking illegally, walking on non-pedestrian streets, spilling designated paths and damaging the fragile soil crust, park officials said. This paragraph comes from a Wall Street Journal Article by Allison Pohle. The article is titled: "National Parks Are Overcrowded and Closing Their Gates." You can read the article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/national-parks-are-overcrowded-and-closing-their-gates-11623582002 Zac and Don discuss America's National Parks and whether they are too crowded. They also talk about their favorite parks and wonder if the parks should think about operating differently in order to manage the crowds. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: 'I can see vast changes coming over a now peaceful world,' Churchill predicted to his friend Murland Evans; 'great upheavals, terrible struggles, wars such as one cannot imagine; and I tell you London will be in danger - London will be attacked and I shall be very prominent in the defence of London... I see into the future. This country will be subjected, somehow, to a tremendous invasion, by what means I do not know, but I tell you I shall be in command of the defences of London and I shall save London and England from disaster... I repeat - London will be in danger and in the high position I shall occupy, it will fall to me to save the capital and save the Empire. Churchill said those words not in 1931, 1921, 1911, or even 1901, but in 1891, when he was only sixteen years old. He had seen his destiny as a teenager, and achieved it. Aged sixty-five and considered by many - including Hitler - to be a hopeless has-been, he came to power and did exactly what he had prescribed for himself half a century earlier. This paragraph comes from the conclusion in the book Churchill: Walking with Destiny. The book is written by Andrew Roberts. You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Andrew-Roberts-audiobook/dp/B07K4DL8QP/ref=sr_1_1?crid=982ZL8JXP2YM&dchild=1&keywords=churchill+walking+with+destiny&qid=1623414016&sprefix=churchill+wal%2Caps%2C170&sr=8-1 Zac and Don discuss the second half of the epic biography on one of history's most famous people. They discuss whether Churchill has become a myth. They discuss his relationships with America, Russia, and France during World War II. They wonder if Churchill would have been successful if he was a leader during the era of social media. There's also the fall of France and Churchill's estimated 160,000 cigars that he smoked over the course of his life! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

To celebrate Father's Day, Zac and Don ask their dads to share their own life advice. In addition each father is asked about how America has changed, and who they looked up to when they were young. There is a lot of wisdom shared in this episode! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Welcome to the curious case of Hobbs Kessler. As the school days wind down to a precious few, this is not how Kessler imagined his senior year would have gone. “I thought I would be rock climbing a lot more and spending time doing that,” he said. “Just running cross-country just for fun, as a social outlet.” A social outlet? Then why is the Ann Arbor Skyline sensation scheduled to be in Portland, Oregon, this weekend to run in a 1,500-meter race, attempting to reach the qualifying standard for the upcoming Olympic Trials? And how did he anchor the winning leg of last week’s Division 1 regional 3,200-meter relay and also leave with first-place finishes in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 races? This paragraph comes from an article in the Detroit Free Press. The article is titled: The best high school distance runner ever is from Michigan. You'll never guess his first love." The article is written by Mick McCabe. You can read the article here: https://www.freep.com/story/sports/high-school/2021/05/28/ann-arbor-skyline-hobbs-kessler-national-high-school-record-mile-run/7449607002/?gnt-cfr=1 Zac and Don talk about the great high school runner Hobbs Kessler. They also talk about elite running and what allows some runners to be better than others. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "I have a routine, just like nature. That extends to what I eat. I’ve had the same supper for 10 years, even on Christmas Day: two pieces of fish, one big onion, an egg, baked beans and a few biscuits at the end. For lunch I have a pear, an orange and four sandwiches with paste. But I allow myself a bit more variety; I’ll sometimes have soup if it’s cold. When I go to the supermarket, I know exactly what I want. I’m not interested in other food. I’ve never had Chinese, Indian, French food. Why change? I’ve already found the food I love. It would be a job to alter me. My uncle, a bachelor and farmer like me, had the same food for every meal. He had bread, butter, cheese and tea for breakfast, lunch and dinner (although he would bring out the jam for visitors). Whether it’s Easter Day or Christmas Day, being a farmer means every day is the same. The animals still need to be fed. Feeding the sheep and seeing how happy they are makes me happy, too. They never ask for anything different for supper. People might think I’m not experiencing new things, but I think the secret to a good life is to enjoy your work. I could never stay indoors and watch TV. I hear London is a place best avoided. I think living in a city would be terrible – people living on top of one another in great tower blocks. I could never do it. Walking around the farm fills me with wonder. What makes my life is working outside, only going in if the weather is very bad." This paragraph comes from an essay by Wilf Davies in The Guardian. You can read the essay here: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/apr/16/experience-ive-had-the-same-supper-for-10-years Zac and Don discuss the essay and the life philosophy of Mr. Davies. They wonder if this is life advice that others should follow. Zac and Don then talk about America's love of life advice and examine the advice that has been shared by Tyler Cowen and Jordan Peterson. You can read each respective list of advice here: Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/jordan-petersons-12-rules-life.html Tyler Cowen's 12 Rules for Life https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/tyler-cowens-12-rules-life.html Zac and Don then share and analyze their own 12 rules for life. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "There is a summit. And then there is everything below it. Can close ever be good enough? Revelations from a team of respected researchers have thrust that question into the open like never before, putting special attention on the world’s highest mountains and most acclaimed climbers. By asking a simple-sounding question — What is the summit? — the researchers are raising doubts about past accomplishments and raising standards for future ones. Maybe they are making us all reconsider just what it means to reach the top." This paragraph comes from the New York Times in an article titled: "Has Anyone Really Summited the World's 14 Highest..." The article is written by John Branch. You can read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/sports/tallest-mountain-summit.html#:~:text=Only%2044%20people%20have%20reached,people%20who%20chronicle%20such%20things. Another Best Paragraph I've Read: LTU has built an Esports arena, a former meeting room that now boasts custom-built gaming computers with high-end monitors, a coach’s station, and a 4K big-screen TV for players to go over game film after a competition. The equipment also includes special video gaming chairs and headsets. This paragraph comes from an article in The Oakland Press. The title is: "Lawrence Tech Recruiting up to 50 varsity Esports athletes." The article is written by Staff Reports. You can read the article here: https://www.theoaklandpress.com/sports/lawrence-tech-recruiting-up-to-50-varsity-esports-athletes/article_00d59976-b270-11eb-9488-f7e991573379.html A Final Best Paragraph I've Read: For Republicans, the question is whether they are willing to break with their own party, or at least criticize it honestly, to speak up for democracy. That’s not an easy thing to do. There are many Americans who believe in both democracy and a conservative agenda — less regulation, strict abortion laws, few gun restrictions, tight border security, strong support for police departments and churches. These Americans no longer have a comfortable partisan home… ... ... Cheney’s stance matters because she is a pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-regulation, deeply conservative Republican. “The Republican Party is sliding into authoritarianism at a terrifyingly rapid clip,” Jonathan Chait has written in New York magazine. “That fate of American democracy is the biggest issue in American politics.” This paragraph comes from the New York Times in an article titled: "Why Liz Cheney Matters." The article is written by David Leonhardt. You can here the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/briefing/liz-cheney-ouster-gop-democracy.html --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: As the global population approaches eight billion, and science discovers increasingly promising ways to slow or reverse aging in the lab, the question of human longevity's potential limits is more urgent than ever. When their work is examined closely, it's clear that longevity scientists hold a wide range of nuanced perspectives on the future of humanity. Historically, however - and somewhat flippantly, according to many researchers - their outlooks have been divided into two broad camps, which some journalists and researchers call the pessimists and the optimists. Those in the first group view life span as a candle wick that can burn for only so long. They generally think that we are rapidly approaching, or have already reached, a ceiling on life span, and that we will not witness anyone older than Calment anytime soon. In contrast, the optimists see life span as a supremely, maybe even infinitely elastic band. They anticipate considerable gains in life expectancy around the world, increasing numbers of extraordinarily long-lived people - and eventually, supercentenarians who outlive Calment, pushing the record to 125, 150, 200 and beyond. Though unresolved, the long-running debate has already inspired a much deeper understanding of what defines and constrains life span - and of the interventions that may one day significantly extend it. This paragraph comes from the New York Times Magazine in an article titled: "How Long Can We Live?" The article is written by Ferris Jabr. You can read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/magazine/human-lifespan.html Zac and Don discuss the implications for having humans living until the age of 150 and beyond. They talk about some of the methods scientists are researching. They also talk about the possible consequences if humans begin to live this long. In addition, Zac and Don talk about whether humans have already solved the aging question by increasing average life expectancy over the last century. Zac and Don reference the following article on increasing life expectancy. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/magazine/global-life-span.html Zac and Don reference the following article in Newsweek on using young blood to fight aging. https://www.newsweek.com/2021/04/16/can-blood-young-people-slow-aging-silicon-valley-has-bet-billions-it-will-1581447.html Zac and Don also mentioned the book Fall; or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Dodge-Hell-Neal-Stephenson/dp/006245871X --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "If there’s an “It” breed of the 21st century so far, it’s these dogs, with their squat figures, flat faces, and outsize bat ears. American Kennel Club registrations for the breed have risen steadily for over a decade, growing by 830 percent since 2009. At around 20 pounds and perfectly sized for carry-on luggage, Frenchies have been marketed as the dog best suited to the lifestyles of the rich and quite possibly lazy. They don’t even need much exercise, for the simple reason that their numerous health problems can make too much exercise dangerous." This paragraph comes from a www.vox.com article titled: "The very cute, totally disturbing tale of the America "it" dog." The article is written by Tove K. Danovich. You can read the article here: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22369273/frenchie-doodle-designer-dogs-problems-breeder-shelter Zac and Don talk about the rising popularity of French Bulldogs. They also talk about Americas love of specific dog breeds and whether it is ok to own a pure bred instead of a mutt. Don mentions the following New Yorker article on Serval Cats: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/06/living-room-leopards --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

To fully understand progress, we must contrast it with non-progress. Of particular interest are the technologies that have failed to live up to the promise they seemed to have decades ago. And few technologies have failed more to live up to a greater promise than nuclear power.

In the 1950s, nuclear was the energy of the future. Two generations later, it provides only about 10% of world electricity, and reactor design hasn‘t fundamentally changed in decades. (Even “advanced reactor designs” are based on concepts first tested in the 1960s.)

This paragraph comes from a blog post on the website The Roots of Progress.  The post is titled: "Why has nuclear power been a flop?"  The post is written by Jason Crawford.  You can read the article here:

https://rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-flop  

Zac and Don are joined by Duane DeMore who is a Health Physicist with Chesapeake Nuclear Services.  The discussion centers around why nuclear power has never taken a large share of the energy market in America and in the world.  Mr. DeMore shares his expertise on radiation and helps Zac and Don think about the data when it comes to nuclear power and society.       

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"The one case in which I think I can see the finger of God in contemporary history is Churchill's arrival at the premiership at that precise moment in 1940.  Churchill put his remarks... far more poetically three years later in the final lines of his book The Gathering Storm, the first volume of his war memoirs.  Recalling the evening of Friday, 10 May 1940, when he had become prime minister only hours after Adolf Hitler had unleashed his Blitzkrieg on the West, Churchill wrote, 'I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial."

This paragraph comes from the book Churchill: Walking with Destiny.  The book is written by Andrew Roberts.  You an find the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Walking-Destiny-Andrew-Roberts/dp/1101980990

Zac and Don have been listening to the audio version of this book.  They breakdown the first twenty hours and discuss Churchills early life while connecting it to our times in the present.  They wonder if history books should have more Churchill coverage and if he would be canceled in today's culture.  

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

Th Best Paragraph I've Read: "To Ms. Hostetter's backers, the entire affair is being overblown by an intolerant mob of woke liberals who have no respect for the privacy of someone's personal politics. Yet Ms. Hostetter's politics, while personal, are hardly private..." This article comes from the New York Times. The article is titled: "A Teacher Marched to the Capitol. When she Got Home, the Fight Began." The article is written by Matthew Rosenberg. You can read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/us/politics/kristine-hostetter-capitol.html Zac and Don discuss whether the private life and political beliefs of teachers should have any impact on their professional lives in the classroom. In addition, Zac and Don discuss the current teacher shortage. They talk about possible reasons why fewer people are going into the profession. The following Axios article is referenced when talking about the teacher shortage. https://www.axios.com/teacher-shortages-pandemic-jobs-169c8518-d9a9-4b75-8e1d-26609dc3261d.html --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Bruce Sacerdote, an economics professor at Dartmouth College, noticed something last year about the Covid-19 television coverage that he was watching on CNN and PBS. It almost always seemed negative, regardless of what was he seeing in the data or hearing from scientists he knew. When Covid cases were rising in the U.S., the news coverage emphasized the increase. When cases were falling, the coverage instead focused on those places where cases were rising. And when vaccine research began showing positive results, the coverage downplayed it, as far as Sacerdote could tell. But he was not sure whether his perception was correct. To check, he began working with two other researchers, building a database of Covid coverage from every major network, CNN, Fox News, Politico, The New York Times and hundreds of other sources, in the U.S. and overseas. The researchers then analyzed it with a social-science technique that classifies language as positive, neutral or negative. The results showed that Sacerdote’s instinct had been right — and not just because the pandemic has been mostly a grim story. The coverage by U.S. publications with a national audience has been much more negative than coverage by any other source that the researchers analyzed, including scientific journals, major international publications and regional U.S. media. “The most well-read U.S. media are outliers in terms of their negativity,” Molly Cook, a co-author of the study, told me. About 87 percent of Covid coverage in national U.S. media last year was negative. The share was 51 percent in international media, 53 percent in U.S. regional media and 64 percent in scientific journals. Notably, the coverage was negative in both U.S. media outlets with liberal audiences (like MSNBC) and those with conservative audiences (like Fox News). This paragraph comes from the New York Times in an article written by David Leonhardt. The article is titled: ""Bad New Bias." You can read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/briefing/boulder-shooting-george-segal-astrazeneca.html Zac and Don are joined by former Detroit Free Press Journalist Mark Snyder. They talk about America's media coverage of Covid19. They talk about the process of how news stories are developed and what can influence them. They also talk about the future of regional newspapers. The following story from Politico.com is also referenced: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/11/andrew-cuomo-likable-politicians-475284 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"We have become a country with vanishingly few paths out of poverty, or even out of the working class. We’ve allowed the majority of our public schools to founder, while expensive private schools play an outsize role in determining who gets to claim a coveted spot in the winners’ circle. Many schools for the richest American kids have gates and security guards; the message is you are precious to us. Many schools for the poorest kids have metal detectors and police officers; the message is you are a threat to us."

This paragraph comes from an article in the Atlantic titled: "Private Schools Have Become Truly Obscene."  The article is written by Caitlin Flanagan.  You can read the article here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/private-schools-are-indefensible/618078/

Zac and Don discuss private schools and how they may compare to public schools.

 The following books are mentioned:

David and Goliath

The Meritocracy Trap

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: On April 12, 2117, the field-modulator brake-valve in the Door belonging to Mrs. Richard Hanshaw depolarized for reasons unknown. As a result, Mrs. Hanshaw's day was completely upset and her son, Richard, Jr., first developed his strange neurosis. It was not the type of thing you would find listed as a neurosis in the usual textbooks and certainly young Richard behaved, in most respects, just as a well-brought-up twelve-year-old in prosperous circumstances ought to behave. And yet from April 12 on, Richard Hanshaw, Jr., could only with regret ever persuade himself to go through a Door. This paragraph comes from the short story "It's Such a Beautiful Day." The story was written by Isaac Asimov. You can read the story here: https://novels80.com/the-complete-stories/its-such-a-beautiful-day-993235.html You can also find the short story in collections written by Isaac Asimov here: https://www.amazon.com/Isaac-Asimov-Complete-Stories-Vol/dp/038541627X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=MY5JC35HUZ8L&dchild=1&keywords=isaac+asimov+short+stories&qid=1616527980&s=books&sprefix=short+stories+isaac+as%2Cstripbooks%2C162&sr=1-1 Zac and Don discuss the short story and whether humans should care if they don't go outside anymore. Zac and Don also discuss Plato's allegory of The Cave. You can read more about the allegory here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Each year, March Madness opens a fire hose of cash, as gamblers, advertisers and television networks try to get in on the action. Americans wagered an estimated $8.5 billion in 2019 on the NCAA’s Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, as March Madness is formally known. Television networks paid $1.1 billion to broadcast the games. And businesses spent an estimated $898 million to advertise during the tournament, according to Kantar Group. But fewer than 10% of Division I athletic departments—the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association—generated enough revenue to cover the expenses of their sports programs. This article comes from the Wall Street Journal titled: "March Madness Is a Moneymaker. Most Schools Still Operate in Red." The article is written by Jo Craven McGinty. You can read the article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/march-madness-is-a-moneymaker-most-schools-still-operate-in-red-11615545002 Zac and Don discuss and wonder why college athletics departments continue to operate if most of them consistently lose money. Another Best Paragraph I've Read: The odds of it happening are one in 9.2 quintillion: you’re more likely to die an excruciating death by vending machine, become president, win the Mega Millions jackpot or die from incorrectly using products made for right-handed people (if you're a lefty) than fill out a perfect NCAA basketball bracket in 2014. The odds are definitely never in our favor—but that isn’t enough to quell America’s fascination with the tournament bracket. Over 60 million Americans fill out a bracket each year, with 1 billion dollars potentially spent on off-book gambling. This paragraph comes from Smithsonian Magazine in an article titled: "When Did Filling Put A March Madness Bracket Become Popular." The article is written by Natasha Geiling. You can read the article here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-did-filling-out-march-madness-bracket-become-popular-180950162/ Zac and Don talk about whether America still enjoys completing NCAA brackets. Zac and Don also discuss this match from the tournament that happened at Wrestlemania IV. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3es9ki --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The time parents spend in the presence of their children has not changed much, but parents today spend more of it doing hands-on child care. Time spent on activities like reading to children; doing crafts; taking them to lessons; attending recitals and games; and helping with homework has increased the most. Today, mothers spend nearly five hours a week on that, compared with 1 hour 45 minutes hours in 1975 — and they worry it’s not enough. Parents’ leisure time, like exercising or socializing, is much more likely to be spent with their children than it used to be. While fathers have recently increasedtheir time spent with children, mothers still spend significantly more. This paragraph comes from the New York Times. The article is titled: "The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting." The story is written by Claire Cain Miller. You can read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/25/upshot/the-relentlessness-of-modern-parenting.html Zac and Don are joined by their wives to discuss parenting and how it may or may not be different from the past. Are parents today working harder and feeling more stressed out? The group also references the following articles and books: The Atlantic: There's a Better Way to Parent: Less Yelling, Less Praise https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/03/hunt-gather-parent-timeless-advice-for-modern-parents/618172/ Book: iGen https://www.amazon.com/iGen-Super-Connected-Rebellious-Happy-Adulthood/dp/1501151983 Book: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Hymn-Tiger-Mother-Chua/dp/0143120581 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Big League Advance uses a proprietary algorithm to project the performance and earning potential of players, in order to establish the set amount it would be willing to pay a player in exchange for each percentage point of future major league earnings that player is willing to give up. For instance, if Big League Advance offers a minor leaguer 100,000 up front for 1% of his earnings, that player can then decide to accept 500,000 in exchange for 5% or 1 million for 10%. A player valued as highly as Mr. Tatis could receive a couple million dollars from Big League Advance. This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "An Investment Fund Mines the Diamond." The article is written by Jared Diamond. You can read the article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fernando-tatis-jr-340-million-investment-fund-padres-11613732572 Zac and Don talk about who is getting the best deal. Besides talking about baseball players signing away part of their big league contract they also talk about the following ideas from the following articles: Bloomberg Sneakerheads Have Turned Jordans and Yeezys Into a Bona Fide Asset Class https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2021-sneaker-investment/ The Athletic NBA Top Shot is no joke. Could it become a crucial part of the league’s future? https://theathletic.com/2429403/2021/03/05/nba-top-shot-digital-revenue-explained/ The Digital Art of Beeple https://www.instagram.com/beeple_crap/ https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a35500985/who-is-beeple-mike-winkelmann-nft-interview/ Picture of Man Binge Watching https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/binge-watching-healthy-diversion-or-waste-time New York Times Lost Passwords Lock Millionaires Out of Their Bitcoin Fortunes https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/technology/bitcoin-passwords-wallets-fortunes.html --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The size of the problem is difficult to measure, says Penn State professor Linda Treviño, coauthor of the 2012 book Cheating in College. Part of the challenge is defining what constitutes cheating. Is it getting an answer to a homework problem from a friend, peeking at a classmate’s paper during an exam, paying someone to take a test for you, plugging in answers from Chegg? It’s also tough to get reliable information. “You’re depending on people who cheat to be honest with you about whether they cheated,” Treviño says. Her book pegs the share of college students who cheat at roughly two-thirds. Students cheat for several reasons. To get better grades so they can get into an elite law or medical school. To pass required distribution courses (engineers forced to study Shakespeare and vice-versa) that they don’t care about. To save time so they can play varsity football or work a job that pays for school and supports loved ones. And because they feel that everyone else does it, and they don’t want to be at a disadvantage if they don’t cheat too. They don’t worry about getting caught. Even more troubling, they either don’t think they’re doing anything wrong or they don’t care. This paragraph comes from Forbes. The article is titled: "This $12 Billion Company Is Getting Rich Off Students Cheating Their Way Through Covid." The article is written by Susan Adams. You can read the article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2021/01/28/this-12-billion-company-is-getting-rich-off-students-cheating-their-way-through-covid/?sh=17ea5baa363f Zac and Don talk about cheating in college and in public school. They discuss whether cheating is an indication of bad test design and instruction. They also wonder if cheating is a big deal anymore in society. Zac and Don also mention the following books in the podcast: The Case Against Education https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/dp/0691196451/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1614555061&sr=8-1 Race Against the Machine https://www.amazon.com/Race-Against-Machine-Accelerating-Productivity-ebook/dp/B005WTR4ZI --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: For our first case, the moderator projected a picture of a smiling girl in a yearbook photo, with a cartoon thought bubble that read “Kill All Men.” Facebook had removed the post for violating its hate-speech rules, which ban attacks based on “sex, gender identity.” To many, this seemed simplistic. “It’s a joke,” one woman said. “There has to be an exception for humor.” Facebook’s rules did include a humor exception, for instances in which the user’s intent was clear, but it was difficult to discern this person’s motivation, and attendees worried that a broad carve-out for jokes could easily provide cover for hate speech. Carmen Scurato, who works at Free Press, an Internet-advocacy organization, pointed out the historical disadvantage of women, and argued that hate-speech policies ought to take power dynamics into account. In the end, the group voted to restore the photo, though no one knew exactly how to write that into a rule. This kind of muddy uncertainty seemed inevitable. The board has jurisdiction over every Facebook user in the world, but intuitions about freedom of speech vary dramatically across political and cultural divides. In Hong Kong, where the pro-democracy movement has used social media to organize protests, activists rely on Facebook’s free-expression principles for protection against the state. In Myanmar, where hate speech has contributed to a genocide against the Rohingya, advocates have begged for stricter enforcement. Facebook had hoped, through the workshops, to crowdsource beliefs about speech, but the results were more contradictory than anticipated. In New York, for example, sixty per cent of people voted to reinstate the “Kill All Men” post, but only forty per cent did so in Nairobi. Amid other theories,... “Where countries are perhaps more concerned about safety, because they live in an area with less rule of law—and therefore there’s a chance of a group actually maybe trying to kill all men—there’s less concern about free speech.” The full explanation is likely more complex; regardless, the divergent results underscored the difficulty of creating a global court for the Internet. This paragraph comes from the New Yorker. The article is titled: "Inside the Making of Facebook's Supreme Court." The article is written by Kate Klonick. You can read the article here: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/inside-the-making-of-facebooks-supreme-court Zac and Don discuss if there is merit in having a company appointed court that decides issues of speech on Facebook. They discuss the difficult questions that the court will have to rule on. They also talk about the best way to decide who is on the court. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

The International Olympic Committee's pursuit of urban events to lure a younger audience saw street dance battles officially added to the medal events program at the 2024 Paris Games.  Also confirmed for Paris by the IOC executive board were skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing.

Those three sports will make their Olympic debuts at the Tokyo Games which were postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic by one year to open on July 23, 2021.  Alongside the additions, the IOC made subtractions: The slate of 329 medal events in Paris is 10 fewer than in Tokyo, including four lost from weightlifting, and the athlete quota in 2024 of 10,500 is around 600 less than next year.

Two sports with troubled governing bodies -- boxing and weightlifting -- saw the biggest cuts to the number of athletes they can have in Paris.

This paragraph comes from ESPN.  The article is written by the Associated Press.  You can read the article here:

https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/30470282/breakdancing-gets-olympic-status-debut-paris-games-2024

Zac and Don discuss the new Olympic Sports and whether it is a good idea to add them.  They also discuss the Olympics and how the event is seen today.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

Tug of War was an Olympic sport from 1900-1920. Check it out. How have they NOT brought this back? The strategic considerations are endless — and probably meaningless. I’m pretty convinced that virtually no insight or understanding is even remotely necessary to form an opinion about Tug of War. In other words: this is perfect for sports/entertainment media. Threshold decision — do you form a national team from scratch or draw from your country’s Olympic delegation, with Tug of War held just before the closing ceremonies?

Finally, I would like to see a throwback USA-USSR match. For whatever reason, the IOC decided to dump Tug of War in 1920, just as the Bolsheviks were consolidating their grip on power in Russia, depriving the world of decades of American-Soviet matches that would have made the Cuban missile crisis look like an episode of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. At the very least, there wouldn’t be any boycotting. The 1980 hockey team is a footnote if, also that year, the Americans had gone to Moscow and beat the Soviets at Tug of War — on their own commie soil. There’s just no way you boycott when Tug of War is on the program. Put simply — the absence of Tug of War for the past century might very well be one of the greatest travesties in Olympic history. Easy as it may be to hang your national pride on the performance of a bunch of pre-teen gymnasts once every four years, there is nothing more fundamental to national identity as Tug of War.

This paragraph comes from a Mailbag Question on the Bill Simmons blog.  You can read the question and response here:

https://havechanged.blogspot.com/2012/08/bring-back-tug-of-war.html

Zac and Don discuss whether it is a good idea to bring Tug of War back to the Olympics.  

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: In the past decade or so, genetic engineering has undergone its own transformation, thanks to CRISPR—shorthand for a suite of techniques, mostly borrowed from bacteria, that make it vastly easier for biohackers and researchers to manipulate DNA. Crispr allows its users to snip a stretch of DNA and then either disable the affected sequence or replace it with a new one. The possibilities that follow are pretty much endless. Jennifer Doudna, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the developers of crispr, has put it like this: we now have “a way to rewrite the very molecules of life any way we wish.” With crispr, biologists have already created—among many, many other living things—ants that can’t smell, beagles that put on superhero-like brawn, pigs that resist swine fever, macaques that suffer from sleep disorders, coffee beans that contain no caffeine, salmon that don’t lay eggs, mice that don’t get fat... ... ... This paragraph comes from The New Yorker in an article titled: "CRISPR And The Splice To Survive." The article is written by Elizabeth Kolbert. You can read the article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/18/crispr-and-the-splice-to-survive Zac and Don talk about CRISPR technology and whether humans should consider using it more or less. Another Best Paragraph I've Read: Around the world, climate change is becoming an epochal crisis, a nightmare of drought, desertification, flooding and unbearable heat, threatening to make vast regions less habitable and drive the greatest migration of refugees in history. But for a few nations, climate change will present an unparalleled opportunity, as the planet’s coldest regions become more temperate... ... ... And no country may be better positioned to capitalize on climate change than Russia... ... ... This paragraph comes from an article at ProPublica titled: "The Big Thaw: How Russia Could Dominate A Warming World." The article is written by Abrahm Lustgarten. You can read the article here: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-big-thaw-how-russia-could-dominate-a-warming-world Zac and Don discuss whether America should be concerned with Russia benefiting from global climate change. Another Best Paragraph I've Read: The tragedy of the time horizon. Meaning we can't imagine the suffering of the people of the future, so nothing much gets done on their behalf. What we do now creates damage that hits decades later, so we don't charge ourselves for it, and the standard approach has been that future generations will be richer and stronger than us, and they'll find solutions to their problems. But by the time they get here, these problems will have become too big to solve. That's the tragedy of the time horizon, that we don't look more than a few years ahead... ... ... This paragraph comes from the book: "The Ministry For The Future." The book is written by Kim Stanley Robinson. You can buy the book here: Zac and Don discuss the merits of a carbon coin and if the idea can help solve climate change. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Meaningful work” is an expression that had barely appeared in the English language before the early nineteen-seventies... “Once upon a time, it was assumed, to put it bluntly, that work sucked...” That started to change in the nineteen-seventies, both McCallum and Jaffe argue, when managers began informing workers that they should expect to discover life’s purpose in work. “With dollar-compensation no longer the overwhelmingly most important factor in job motivation,” the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange wrote, “management must develop a better understanding of the more elusive, less tangible factors that add up to ‘job satisfaction.’ ” After a while, everyone was supposed to love work. “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” popped up all over the place in the nineteen-eighties and nineties, along with the unpaid internship, the busting of unions, and campaigns to cut taxes on capital gains. It soon became, in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, a catechism. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do,” Steve Jobs told a graduating class at Stanford in 2005. “If you love what you’re doing, it’s not ‘work,’ ” David M. Rubenstein, a C.E.O. of the Carlyle Group, said on CNBC in 2014. “Everywhere you look you hear people talking about meaning,” a disillusioned Google engineer told McCallum. “They aren’t philosophers. They aren’t psychologists. They sell banner ads.” It’s not pointless. But it’s not poetry. Still, does it have to be? This paragraph comes from the New Yorker. The article is written by Jill Lepore and is titled: "What Wrong With the Way We Work." You can read the article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/18/whats-wrong-with-the-way-we-work Zac and Don talk about work. Should we have to love our jobs? is it true that if you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life? The following book are mentioned during the podcast: Drive https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594488843/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1612312910&sr=8-2 The Last Train to Zona Verde https://www.amazon.com/Last-Train-Zona-Verde-Ultimate-ebook/dp/B008P94QDA/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+last+train+to+zona+verde&qid=1612312940&sr=8-1 My Losing Season https://www.amazon.com/Pat-Conroy-Losing-Season-Hardcover/dp/B01FMW1XRY/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=my+losing+season&qid=1612312954&sr=8-2 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: The day after New Year’s, John Reichert of Boulder, Colo., had a heated argument with his 14-year-old son, James. “I’ve failed you as a father,” he told the boy despairingly. During the long months of lockdowns and shuttered schools, Mr. Reichert, like many parents, overlooked the vastly increasing time that his son was spending on video games and social media. Now, James, who used to focus his free time on mountain biking and playing basketball, devotes nearly all of his leisure hours — about 40 a week — to Xbox and his phone. During their argument, he pleaded with his father not to restrict access, calling his phone his “whole life.” “That was the tipping point. His whole life?” said Mr. Reichert, a technical administrator in the local sheriff’s office. “I’m not losing my son to this.” This paragraph comes from the New York Times. The article is titled: "Children's Screen Time Has Soared in the Pandemic, Alarming Parents and Researchers." The article is written by Matt Richtel. You can read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/16/health/covid-kids-tech-use.html Zac and Don talk about the rise of screen time that they have seen in their own lives and in their classrooms. They talk about whether too much screen time is a bad thing. Zac and Don also reference the following article and books: The Guardian: "Video games have replaced music as the most important aspect of youth culture" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/11/video-games-music-youth-culture Book: Ready Player One https://www.amazon.com/Ready-Player-One-Ernest-Cline/dp/0307887448/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=ready+player+one&qid=1611706186&sr=8-4 Book: What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. https://www.amazon.com/Video-Games-Learning-Literacy-Second/dp/1403984530/ref=sr_1_1?crid=12WUGT86BXOBC&dchild=1&keywords=what+video+games+have+to+teach+us+about+learning+and+literacy&qid=1611706424&sprefix=what+video+%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-1 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Last week, many asked whether the assault on the Capitol, fueled by Trump and his many political and media enablers, was the start of something or an end. It is neither, of course. It is a moment when we each get to decide how we want to proceed." This paragraph comes from Ken Burns who made a guest appearance on Politico's Playbook. The paragraph and more can be read here: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2021/01/12/americas-fourth-great-crisis-491367 To discuss America's current political issues Zac and Don have reformed the Government Teacher Roundtable. They are joined by their Government Teacher friends Kevin and Tom. The four educators share thoughts on the recent capital riots, the presidential transition, social media bans, the world's opinion of America, and what we may see with the new administration. The following are other articles and books that are quoted during the discussion: "The decision Friday night by Twitter to permanently ban Trump from its platform is a signal moment — a historic move, even before we know the consequences that will flow from it." https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/09/trump-twitter-are-you-sure-456794 "The problem is that something is too obviously wrong. Too many diplomats and politicians on this side of the Atlantic now believe that the U.S. is simply too divided to stand alone in the world for much longer. It is too riven and aggrieved, shorn of a unifying cause. Oddly, the weirdness of the moment normalizes America. It is becoming just another country, richer and more powerful than the rest, but less so than it was. So is this how greatness ends—not with a bang, but by being sullied and made normal?" https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/01/donald-trump-us-capitol-europe/617584/ "Political donations, especially the $5 or $10 hits on ActBlue or WinRed, make “you feel good about yourself. It takes five seconds. And you feel like your identity is that you’re the good guys, you’re smart, and the other side is evil and stupid,” Eitan Hersh, a political scientist at Tufts University, told me. This is what politics has become in America: not a means to implement policy goals or improve people’s lives, but an expression of hatred for the other side." https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/money-spent-georgia-senate-runoffs/617545/ Book: Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity: Mason, Lilliana: 9780226524542: Amazon.com: Books --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "People in many countries are longing for the good old days. When asked if life in their country is better or worse today than 50 years ago, 31% of Britons, 41% of Americans and 46% of the French say it’s worse. Psychologists say that this kind of nostalgia is natural and sometimes even useful: Anchoring our identity in the past helps give us a sense of stability and predictability. For individuals, nostalgia is especially common when we experience rapid transitions like puberty, retirement or moving to a new country. Similarly, collective nostalgia—a longing for the good old days when life was simpler and people behaved better—can also be a source of communal strength in difficult times. But when exactly were the good old days?" This paragraph comes from an article in the Wall Street Journal titled: "Why We Can't Stop Longing for the Good Old Days." The article is written by Johan Norberg. The article can be read here: https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-cant-stop-longing-for-good-old-days Zac and Don discuss if there ever was a better time to be alive. They also discuss the power that nostalgia has on our lives. Zac and Don mention the following: Thomas Cole's Voyage of Life Paintings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_Life Voltaire's book Candide: https://www.amazon.com/Candide-Voltaire/dp/1087113490/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=candide&qid=1610451442&sr=8-1 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Experimental studies support the idea of a ‘successful’ dark personality, but only up to a point. One study found that people with psychopathic personality traits win more points on a negotiation task where they are required to compete with a partner, but fewer points on a task that involves cooperation. Those with dark traits are more likely to ‘defect’ in the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma task – an approach that means maximising your own outcome while duping the other participant. But their success in the real world is questionable. In corporate settings, those with dark personality traits are slightly more likely to emerge as leaders and are seen as charismatic but, when it comes to getting the job done, they tend to achieve less and are considered poor team players. Our recent study also found that political figures with dark personality traits are more likely to get elected and hold their positions, but other studies show that they are much poorer at getting legislation passed. Hedge fund managers with these traits generally obtain significantly lower financial returns on the investment funds they manage. Overall, individuals with dark traits engage in more counterproductive work behaviour, such as theft and abusive supervision. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they don’t end up with higher average incomes than their peers with light personalities." This paragraph comes from an article on the website Psyche. The article is titled: "Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed." The article is written by Craig Neumann and Scott Barry Kaufman. The article can be read here: https://psyche.co/ideas/are-people-with-dark-personality-traits-more-likely-to-succeed Zac and Don discuss how light and dark personalities impact people. They talk about whether people with dark personalities can get ahead in life. They talk about whether schools should test students for the color of their personality. They also discuss the results that they each received after taking the personality quiz. You can take the Light and Dark Personality Quiz Here: https://scottbarrykaufman.com/lighttriadscale/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Cities on fire, elected leaders endorsing violence, homicides surging—­­to a normal American, these are apocalyptic signs. To Peter Turchin, they indicate that his models, which incorporate thousands of years of data about human history, are working. He has been warning for a decade that a few key social and political trends portend an “age of discord,” civil unrest and carnage worse than most Americans have experienced. In 2010, he predicted that the unrest would get serious around 2020, and that it wouldn’t let up until those social and political trends reversed. Havoc at the level of the late 1960s and early ’70s is the best-case scenario; all-out civil war is the worst... ... ... The fundamental problems, he says, are a dark triad of social maladies: a bloated elite class, with too few elite jobs to go around; declining living standards among the general population; and a government that can’t cover its financial positions. This paragraphs comes from an article in The Atlantic titled: "The Next Decade Could Be Even Worse." The Article is written by Graeme Wood. You can read the article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/can-history-predict-future/616993/ Zac and Don discuss the potential fall of America and the merit of the ideas presented in the article. Zac would like to state for the record that it was his mother who brought this article to his attention. Another Best Paragraph I've Read: Demographers have estimated the total number of people who ever lived at about 100 billion. That means that about 100 billion people were born before me. Currently, about 130 million people are born each year. At that rate, it would take only about 760 years for another 100 billion more people to be born. That’s the basis of the claim that there’s a 50 percent chance that humans will become extinct within about 760 years. The flip side of the claim is there’s also a 50 percent chance we’ll survive past 760 years, possibly long past that. This paragraph comes from an article on www.vox.com. The article is titled: "A math equation that predicts the end of humanity." The article is written by William Poundstone. You can read the article here: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/28/18760585/doomsday-argument-calculation-prediction-j-richard-gott Zac and Don discuss whether humanity will end in 760 years. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Kirkland also has a passionate and loyal fan base — not something you typically find with a private label brand. One guy even got a Kirkland Signature tattoo on his left arm and held his 27th birthday party at the Costco food court. Kirkland’s success defies our intuition and experience. Shouldn’t lower prices lead to lower quality products? How can they offer rock-bottom prices but still have some of the best products around? The answer is this: they get the best manufacturers in the world — who already have products on Costco shelves — to make Kirkland products. Yeah, you read that right. While customers might not know it, Kirkland products are often made by the same manufacturers who make the branded products that sit next to them on the shelves. And not only that, but according to a Reddit user who worked at a Costco supplier, Kirkland products have to be at least 1% better than the equivalent branded products (on some metric of their choosing). Costco forces manufacturers to compete with a better version of themselves." This paragraph comes from the Blog Napkin Math. https://napkinmath.substack.com/p/how-costco-convinces-brands-to-cannibalize Zac and Don talk about the stocks and future prospects of four different investment ideas: Costco, Netflix, Tesla, and Bitcoin. Zac and Don would like to remind their listeners that they are NOT investment professionals. They are only talking about these companies and investment ideas for entertainment purposes only. A person should never invest in anything based ONLY on what they hear. The following are other paragraphs and books that are referenced during the podcast: Netflix: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/style/reed-hastings-netflix-interview.html Tesla: https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-crashes-the-s-p-500-heres-the-bull-case-51606515931 Bitcoin: https://www.barrons.com/articles/why-bitcoin-is-the-best-investment-opportunity-post-pandemic-heres-what-will-drive-the-price-higher-51607134443 Book: One Up on Wall Street https://www.amazon.com/One-Up-Wall-Street-Already/dp/0743200403/ref=sr_1_1?crid=H593BBY94BHG&dchild=1&keywords=one+up+on+wall+street&qid=1608567670&sprefix=one+up+on%2Caps%2C190&sr=8-1 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Is it still cool to memorize a lot of stuff? Is there even a reason to memorize anything? Having a lot of information in your head was maybe never cool in the sexy-cool sense, more in the geeky-cool or class-brainiac sense. But people respected the ability to rattle off the names of all the state capitals, or to recite the periodic table. It was like the ability to dunk, or to play the piano by ear—something the average person can’t do. It was a harmless show of superiority, and it gave people a kind of species pride."

This paragraph comes from a New Yorker article titled: "Wikipedia, "Jeopardy!," and the Fate Of The Fact."  The article is written by Louis Menand.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/23/wikipedia-jeopardy-and-the-fate-of-the-fact

Zac and Don discuss whether it is important to know any facts anymore.  They talk about from the perspectives of Wikipedia, Jeopardy, and their own experiences as educators.  

Zac and Don also reference the following quotes and books during their discussion.

Book: The Dumbest Generation

The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future(Or, Don 't Trust Anyone Under 30): Bauerlein, Mark: 9781585427123: Amazon.com: Books

Book: Amusing Ourselves to Death

Amazon.com: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (Audible Audio Edition): Neil Postman, Jeff Riggenbach, Blackstone Audio, Inc.: Audible Audiobooks

Socrates Quote About Writing

Socrates on the Forgetfulness that Comes with Writing - New Learning Online

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Pandemic school is clearly not working well, especially for younger children—and it’s all but impossible for the 20 percent of American students who lack access to the technology needed for remote learning. But what parents are coming to understand about their kids’ education—glimpsed through Zoom windows and “asynchronous” classwork—is that school was not always working so great before COVID-19 either. Like a tsunami that pulls away from the coast, leaving an exposed stretch of land, the pandemic has revealed long-standing inattention to children’s developmental needs—needs as basic as exercise, outdoor time, conversation, play, even sleep. All of the challenges of educating young children that we have minimized for years have suddenly appeared like flotsam on a beach at low tide, reeking and impossible to ignore. Parents are not only seeing how flawed and glitch-riddled remote teaching is—they’re discovering that many of the problems of remote schooling are merely exacerbations of problems with in-person schooling." This paragraph come from an article in the Atlantic titled: "School Wasn't So Great Before Covid, Either." The story is written by Erika Christakis. The story can be read here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/school-wasnt-so-great-before-covid-either/616923/ Zac and Don talk about whether this article is accurate. Were schools working before the pandemic? What is wrong with schools? What is Right? During their discussion Zac and Don also reference the following articles and books. Washington Post Article: "Failing grades spike in Virginia's largest school system as online learning gap emerges nationwide" https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-schools-more-failing-grades/2020/11/24/1ac2412e-2e34-11eb-96c2-aac3f162215d_story.html Wall Street Journal Article: "Why Boys Are More at Risk of Falling Behind During Remote School" https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-boys-are-more-at-risk-of-falling-behind-during-remote-school-11606222801 Book: "In Search of Deeper Learning" https://www.amazon.com/Search-Deeper-Learning-Remake-American/dp/0674988396 Documentary Film: "Most Likely to Succeed" https://teddintersmith.com/mltsfilm/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"When Justin Posey was 11, he became obsessed with the Victorio Peak treasure, a hoard of perhaps thousands of gold bars supposedly found by a hunter named Milton Noss in a hilltop cavern in New Mexico in 1937. Before Noss was able to recover most of the gold he had seen, the shaft leading to it caved in; after World War II, the U.S. government seized the whole area, adding it to the White Sands Missile Range. “This concept that there could be, around the corner, a vast fortune with an unimaginable historical context was just enthralling,” Posey says. He learned everything he could about it, even attending a summit held by descendants of Noss. He joined tours of the missile range, cooking up schemes to peel off from the group and sneak away to the treasure site. “That was the agonizing part,” he recalls. “I felt I could do this, but the physical barriers made it all the worse. It consumed the majority of my childhood.”

Years later, in 2012, when Posey was 29, his wife, Jennie, emailed him a Newsweekarticle about a different treasure. Hidden in “the mountains north of Santa Fe,” the treasure sounded almost fantastical — diamonds, rubies, and sapphires; gold coins, gold nuggets, a 17th-century Spanish ring. The key to finding the treasure lay in a 24-line poem in a self-published memoir, The Thrill of the Chase, by Forrest Fenn, the wealthy 82-year-old eccentric who had hidden it. Fenn, who estimated the treasure to be worth more than $1 million, said he hid it to motivate people to put down their digital devices and get out into nature. He was still alive and willing to engage with searchers. The hunt was free; the purse was big. The poem’s puzzle could theoretically be solved by anyone."

This paragraph comes from an article in New York Magazine titled: "The Great 21st Century Treasure Hunt."  The article is written by Benjamin Wallace.  The article can be read here:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/the-great-hunt-for-forrest-fenns-hidden-treasure.html

Zac and Don talk about the great modern treasure hunt.  They talk about whether this is a good or bad idea.  They also talk about why people have a fascination with treasure hunts.

Zac and Don also reference an article in the New Yorker titled: "The Curse of the Buried Treasure."  The article is written by Rebecca Mead.  You can read the article here:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/16/the-curse-of-the-buried-treasure?source=search_google_dsa_paid&gclid=CjwKCAiA8Jf-BRB-EiwAWDtEGr70H-SZrrhWt2ZMoNeshhlKwkXVIaowni7LJwsyDCqVZQoUEmvMMxoCSawQAvD_BwE

Zac and Don also talk about the following book:

The Lost City of Z

https://www.amazon.com/Lost-City-Deadly-Obsession-Amazon/dp/1400078458/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=lost+city+of+z&qid=1606836184&sr=8-3

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"WASHINGTON, D.C., United States—On Wednesday morning, this normally bustling capital city became a ghost town as most of its residents embarked on the long journey to their home villages for an annual festival of family, food, and questionable historical facts. Experts say the day is vital for understanding American society and economists are increasingly taking note of its impact on the world economy.

The annual holiday, known as Thanksgiving, celebrates a mythologized moment of peace between America’s early foreign settlers and its native groups—a day that by Americans’ own admission preceded a near genocide of those groups. Despite its murky origins, the holiday remains a rare institution celebrated almost universally in this ethnically diverse society."

This paragraph comes from a 2013 Slate.com article titled: "If It Happened There... America's Annual Festival Pilgrimage Begins"  The article is written by Joshua Keating.  

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/11/if-it-happened-there-how-the-u-s-media-would-cover-thanksgiving-if-it-were-in-another-country.html

Zac and Don talk about the Thanksgiving Holiday and all of its traditions.  

Another Paragraph I've Read:

"Well yes and no.  So first of all, I'm at least semi-serious about it and let me explain what I mean.  The question is, are we in the US getting $70 billion worth of satisfaction out of the items that we're choosing for others?  My answer is no."

This paragraph comes from a PBS.org interview with economist Joel Waldfogel.  The interview centers around whether Christmas is an event with too much deadweight loss.  You can read the full interview here:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/the-economics-of-wasteful-spending-the-dead-weight-loss-of-christmas

Zac and Don discuss the thinking about Christmas being one big deadweight loss.  

Here is a link to Dr. Waldfogel's full economics article on the deadweight loss of Christmas:

https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/104699/original/christmas.pdf

   

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Politicians lie to get us into wars; generals lie about how well things are going; soldiers lie about what they did during their service. In 1782, when George Washington awarded ribbons and badges to valorous Revolutionary War troops, he was already worrying about pretenders. “Should any who are not entitled to these honors have the insolence to assume the badges of them they shall be severely punished,” he wrote. When Walter Washington Williams, thought to be the last surviving veteran of the Confederate Army, died, in 1959, President Eisenhower called for a national day of mourning. It turned out that Williams had fabricated his service, and that the second-longest-surviving Confederate soldier probably had, too. In fact, according to the Civil War historian William Marvel, “every one of the last dozen recognized Confederates was bogus.” But it’s only recently that lying about military service has been considered a particularly heinous form of lying, one with its own name: stolen valor.

This paragraph is from an article in the New Yorker titled: "How to Spot A Military Imposter."  The article is written by Rachel Monroe.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/26/how-to-spot-a-military-impostor

Zac and Don discuss the topic of people who lie about their military service.  Zac and Don also discuss lying in society and how it impacts us.

Zac and Don also discuss the following books:

Everybody Life: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are

https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Lies-Internet-About-Really/dp/0062390856  

Catch Me If You Can

https://www.amazon.com/Catch-Me-If-You-Can/dp/0767905385/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1605738687&sr=1-2

1984

https://www.amazon.com/Nineteen-Eighty-Four-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/0198829191/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1605738746&sr=1-2

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read: "American democracy: Maybe this one is premature, but so far the U.S. has held a closely contested election under pandemic conditions. Turnout was much higher than usual, and so far there hasn’t been much election-related violence. Could it be that the system really works?" This paragraph comes from a blog post by Tyler Cowen at www.marginalrevolution.com. The blog post is titled: The Elections winners and losers. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/11/this-elections-winners-and-losers.html Zac and Don are joined by two government teachers - Tom Romito and Kevin Kopec. They discuss the results of the 2020 election. They discuss elements of the election that they found interesting including whether the Electoral College system needs to be replaced and whether America is fundamentally a conservative nation. Another Best Paragraph I've Read: "In fact, the election may force a broader realignment within the Republican Party that could lead to another unexpected outcome—targeted tax hikes. Trump’s populist message and expansion of his base to include more Latino voters could lead to Republicans appealing to a broader array of voters, Jon Lieber, managing director of Eurasia Group and a former McConnell staff member, told Barron’s. “Can the Republican Party move from being the party of country clubs and the Chamber of Commerce to being a multiethnic, working-class coalition?” he asked. “And, if they do, does that mean you see them embrace, in certain cases, high-income tax increases” as well as the more restrictive immigration and trade policies that Trump embraced? “That would be a really interesting realignment if it happens, and it means there’s potentially more overlap for policy agreement with Democrats.” This paragraph comes from Barron's in an article titled: "Biden Wins the Most Extraordinary Election of Our Time. What Comes Next." The article is written by Avi Salzman. https://www.barrons.com/articles/biden-leads-in-the-most-extraordinary-election-of-our-time-what-could-come-next-51604712838?mod=past_editions This episode also discusses the concept of federalism and wonders what the The Founding Fathers would think of the American government if they could come back and visit. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"The worlds of both economics and business have adopted the view that without a simplifying, unitary objective, an organization will be unable to make robust, consistent, and societally optimal decisions. Luminaries such as economics Nobel laureate Milton Friedman and superstar finance professor Michael Jensen have made the argument so convincingly that it has effectively become embedded doctrine: There should be a unitary objective whereby more is always better.

This is why the implicit rule in most incentive systems is that selling more is better—always. At Sears Auto Centers in the 1990s, more repairs per customer was better, with no upper bound. At Wells Fargo in the 2000s, more accounts opened was better, with no upper bound. With no balance consideration evident, employees followed the rule to such extremes that they created existential reputational threats for their organizations. Both companies apologized and agreed to settlements.

In energy, more proven and probable reserves is always better, so we get dangerous drilling and relatively unlimited hydraulic fracturing. In managing labor costs, greater “labor-cost efficiency” is always better, so there is limitless outsourcing of jobs to low-cost jurisdictions. In antitrust policy, more short-term efficiency is always better, so mergers are now enabled by the efficiency defense. As part of the Washington Consensus, more deregulation and fiscal austerity is always better, so countries engage in deregulation and austerity to comply. In the health-care system, more efficient use of working capital is always better, so minimizing buffer stocks of personal protective equipment made all sorts of sense—until a pandemic hit."

This paragraph comes from an essay in Barron's titled: "How Endless Maximization Is Ruining Business."  The essay is written by Roger L. Martin.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/roger-l-martin-the-idea-that-more-is-always-better-is-ruining-business-51602261886

Zac and Don discuss whether it is good for businesses, organizations, and governments to operate with a single minded pursuit.  Is it possible that they miss nuance and ignore complexity at their own peril?  Zac and Don also talk about how this mentality impacts education and other aspects of life.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

On paper, sloane, a buoyant, chatty, stay-at-home mom from Fairfield County, Connecticut, seems almost unbelievably well prepared to shepherd her three daughters through the roiling world of competitive youth sports. She played tennis and ran track in high school and has an advanced degree in behavioral medicine. She wrote her master’s thesis on the connection between increased aerobic activity and attention span. She is also versed in statistics, which comes in handy when she’s analyzing her eldest daughter’s junior-squash rating—and whiteboarding the consequences if she doesn’t step up her game. “She needs at least a 5.0 rating, or she’s going to Ohio State,” Sloane told me.

She laughed: “I don’t mean to throw Ohio State under the bus. It’s an amazing school with amazing school spirit.”
But a little over a year ago, during the Fourth of July weekend, Sloane began to think that maybe it was time to call it quits. She was crouched in the vestibule of the Bay Club in Redwood City, strategizing on the phone with her husband about a “malicious refereeing” dispute that had victimized her daughter at the California Summer Gold tournament. He had his own problem. In Columbus, Ohio, at the junior-fencing nationals with the couple’s two younger girls and son, he reported that their middle daughter, a 12-year-old saber fencer, had been stabbed in the jugular during her first bout. The wound was right next to the carotid artery, and he was withdrawing her from the tournament and flying home.

She’d been hurt before while fencing—on one occasion gashed so deeply in the thigh that blood seeped through her pants—but this was the first time a blade had jabbed her in the throat. It was a Fourth of July massacre.
“I thought, What are we doing? ” said Sloane, who asked to be identified by her middle name to protect her daughters’ privacy and college-recruitment chances. “It’s the Fourth of July. You’re in Ohio; I’m in California. What are we doing to our family? We’re torturing our kids ridiculously. They’re not succeeding. We’re using all our resources and emotional bandwidth for a fool’s folly.”

These paragraphs come from an article in the Atlantic.  The article is titled: "The Mad, Mad World of Niche Sports Among Ivy League Obsessed Parents."  The article is written by Ruth S. Barrett.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/squash-lacrosse-niche-sports-ivy-league-admissions/616474/

Zac and Don offer their opinion of niche sports and Ivy League admissions.  They also relate the issue to the world of youth sports, travel teams, and their own experiences as athletes, coaches, and parents.

Zac and Don also talk about the following book:

Range by David Epstein 

Zac and Don discuss the Tiger vs Roger debate that David Epstein write about.  You can read about Tiger vs Roger here.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

The 50 richest Americans now hold almost as much wealth as half of the U.S., as Covid-19 transforms the economy in ways that have disproportionately rewarded a small class of billionaires.

New data from the U.S. Federal Reserve, a comprehensive look at U.S. wealth through the first half of 2020, show stark disparities by race, age and class. While the top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion, the poorest 50% — about 165 million people — hold just $2.08 trillion, or 1.9% of all household wealth.

The 50 richest people in the country, meanwhile, are worth almost $2 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, up $339 billion from the beginning of 2020.

This paragraph comes from Bloomberg.  The article is titled: "Top 50 Richest Americans Are Worth As Much As the Poorest 165 Million."  The article is written by Ben Steverman and Alexandre Tanzi.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-08/top-50-richest-people-in-the-us-are-worth-as-much-as-poorest-165-million

Zac and Don discuss income inequality, potential solutions, and wonder if the issue is more of a common theme in American history than we want to believe.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

• US Open (golf) final round: down 56%
• US Open (tennis) was down 45% and the French open is down 57% so far
• Kentucky Derby: down 43%
• Indy 500: down 32%
• Through four weeks, NFL viewership is down approximately 10%
• NHL Playoffs were down 39% (Pre Stanley Cup playoffs was down 28% while the Stanley Cup was down 61%).
• NBA finals are down 45% (so far). Conference finals were down 35%, while the first round was 27% down. To match the viewership, activity on the NBA reddit fan community is also down 45% from the NBA finals last year (per Owen Phillips).
• MLB viewership is also down but I’m having a difficult time finding good data.
• It is unclear if this is just an American phenomena. Tour de France was up 73% in Europe. Toronto Raptors playoff viewership (compared to 2019 when they won a championship) was up 26% in Canada. It appears as if European football is also up across the board. Indian Cricket was up 15% in its first week.

This paragraph comes from the blog Frankly Speaking.  The post it titled: "The Decline in Pandemic Sports Viewership."  The author is Daniel Frank. 

https://danfrank.ca/the-decline-in-pandemic-sport-viewership/ 

Zac and Don discuss if we should be concerned about the current decline in sports viewership.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

Since 1957, humanity has placed nearly ten thousand satellites into the sky. All but twenty-seven hundred are now defunct or destroyed. Collectively, they cost billions of dollars, but they were launched with the understanding that they were cheaper to abandon than to sustain. Some, like Sputnik, have burned up. Thousands, like Vanguard, will stay in orbit for decades or centuries, careering around the planet as ballistic garbage: a hazard to astronauts and unmanned spacecraft alike... ... ...

This article comes from the New Yorker in an article titled: "The Elusive Peril of Space Junk."  The author is Raffi Khatchadourian.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/28/the-elusive-peril-of-space-junk

Zac and Don wonder how concerned we should be on junk in space.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Since we are on Zoom for at least five hours a day... I am able to listen to the class. The teacher treats the class like they are middle school–aged kids. She is very strict in correcting what I see as normal 6-year-old behavior. "

"We’re three weeks into school, and my daughter (who loves school and does not typically complain) is miserable and bored in her English language arts learning block. The teacher clearly hasn’t divided kids up into groups yet, and the kids are all going through shared lessons together that definitely seem a grade level or even two below what my daughter is used to. "

"My son is getting is in trouble. He gets very bored and frustrated and is then scolded by the teacher for not watching the screen. He is listening, but he will color or read a book when he gets bored. I don’t think he should be called out for it because he’s not disrupting anyone else by doing it, but she’s insistent. Do I make him stare at the screen?"

These comments come from an advice column on Slate.com.  The column is called Care and Feeding.  It is written by Matthew Dicks, Katie Holbrook, Cassy Sarnell, and Amy Scott.  

https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/10/teacher-too-strict-zoom-parenting-advice.html

Zac and Don discuss the merits of these parent complaints about virtual learning.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

The current fashion is for teachers to be a “guide on the side, instead of a sage on the stage,” he says, quoting the latest pedagogical slogan, which means that teachers aren’t supposed to lecture students but to “facilitate” learning by nudging students to follow their own curiosity. Everything Mr. Hirsch knows about how children learn tells him that’s the wrong approach. “If you want equity in education, as well as excellence, you have to have whole-class instruction,” in which a teacher directly communicates information using a prescribed sequential curriculum.
 

This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal.  The article is titled: "Bad Teaching Is Tearing America Apart."  The article is written by Naomi Schaefer Riley. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bad-teaching-is-tearing-america-apart-11599857351

Zac and Don discuss the merit of having teachers lecture more and making students memorize more facts.

Politico article on Patriotic Education

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/31/trump-patriotic-education-406521

Book: Amusing Ourselves to Death 

https://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X

Book: In Search of Deeper Learning

https://www.amazon.com/Search-Deeper-Learning-Remake-American/dp/0674988396

Better: A Surgeons Notes on Performance

https://www.amazon.com/Better-Surgeons-Performance-Atul-Gawande/dp/0312427654

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

If you're worried about the short-term economic outlook, I have bad news: The long-term outlook is worse.  That's what emerges from the latest long-term budget outlook released by the Congressional Budget Office last week.  It contained this sobering number: The agency expects annual economic growth to average just 1.6% over the next three decades - down by about a quarter of a point from its forecast a year ago - and just 1.5% by the 2040s.  The US hasn't had trend growth that slow since the 1930's.  Only a bit of this is because of the pandemic.  Most reflects longer-lasting forces, namely demographics and productivity.  

This paragraph comes from an editorial in the Wall Street Journal titled: "Demographics, Debt Hang Over US Growth."  The author is Greg IP.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/demographics-and-debt-hang-over-long-term-u-s-growth-11601467381

Zac and Don discuss this bleak long term economic outlook.  They talk about America's declining population - is this a problem?  If it is a problem can it be solved?  They also talk about the national debt and if this is actually a problem.

In the podcast Zac and Don also discuss ideas from the following books:

Day of Empire by Amy Chua

https://www.amazon.com/Day-Empire-Hyperpowers-Global-Dominance/dp/1400077419

The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton

https://www.amazon.com/Deficit-Myth-Monetary-Peoples-Economy/dp/1541736184 

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Warren went to talk to Susie's father to get his blessing.  This, he already knew, would be easily had.  But Doc Thompson took a while - quite a while - to get to the point.  He started by explaining that Harry Truman and the Democrats were sending the country straight to hell.  Pouring money into Europe after the war through the Marshall Plan and Berlin airlift was just proof that the policies of that devil Roosevelt were still in place, and that Truman was sending the country straight into bankruptcy.  Look at how the Soviets got hold of the atomic bomb right after Truman had dismantled part of the military.  Senator Joe McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee was proving what Doc Thompson had known all along, that the government was riddled with Communists.  HUAC was finding Commies everywhere.  The government was downright ineffectual - or worse - when it came to dealing with Communism.  Truman had lost China for democracy.  He would never be forgiven for firing the heroic General Douglas MacArthur for insubordination after he made repeated efforts to go around Truman and get approval to attach the Chinese Commies in Manchuria.  But it was probably too late for even MacArthur to save the country now.  The Communists were taking over the world, and stocks were going to be nothing but valueless bits of paper.  So Warren's plan to work in the stock market was going to fail.  But Doc Thompson would never blame Warren when his daughter starved... ... ... 

This paragraph comes from the book "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life."  The book is written by Alice Schroeder.

https://www.amazon.com/Snowball-Warren-Buffett-Business-Life/dp/0553805096/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1601602036&sr=1-2

Zac and Don discuss the day after the election.  They discuss whether today's feeling about the election is any different than how people have felt in the past.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

"The win-over-reasonable-Republicans-with-reason strategy is weak sauce. That leaves the Democrats with one other choice: total political warfare. The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer—with the backing of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi—needs to threaten massive retaliation. Should McConnell try to ram a Trump nominee through, Schumer ought to vow that the Democrats, if they win back the Senate and Biden is elected president, will demolish the filibuster, which will allow the Senate to proceed to make Washington, DC, a state (two more senators, who are likely to be Democrats!) and that they will move to add two or four more seats to the Supreme Court. (There is nothing in the Constitution that limits the court’s size to the current nine justices.) In other words: They will implement a Republican nightmare (which, as it happens, can be justified on arguments of equity and fairness)."

This paragraph comes from Mother Jones.  The article is titled: "To Honor Ginsburg, Democrats Have One Choice: Go Nuclear."  The article is written by David Corn.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/09/ruth-bader-ginsburg-death-democrats-whats-next-mcconnell-trump/

Zac and Don wonder if our current leaders are pushing too hard to change the traditional rules of government.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"America’s fractious and tragic response to the COVID-19 pandemic has made the nation look more like a failed state than like the richest country in world history. Doom-scrolling through morbid headlines in 2020, one could easily believe that we have lost our capacity for effective crisis response. And maybe we have. But a major crisis has a way of exposing what is broken and giving a new generation of leaders a chance to build something better. Sometimes the ramifications of their choices are wider than one might think."

This paragraph is from an article in the Atlantic titled: "Get Ready for the Great Urban Comeback."  The article is written by Derek Thompson.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/how-disaster-shaped-the-modern-city/615484/ 

Zac and Don talk about how and if cities will change from Covid-19.  They also discuss whether Americans should move back to rural areas and If there is anything we can learn about Walt Disney's dream of building EPCOT.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

During the public comment period of the Lincoln City Council meeting on Aug. 31, Ander Christensen stood at the lectern and dared to speak truth to power... ... ... “We have been casually ignoring a problem that has gotten so out of control that our children are throwing around names and words without even understanding their true meaning, treating things as though they’re normal... ... ...  I go into nice family restaurants and I see people throwing this name around and pretending as though everything is just fine. I’m talking about boneless chicken wings. I propose that we as a city remove the the name ‘boneless wings’ from our menus and from our hearts.”

This paragraph comes from the Washington Post.  The article is titled: "Nebraska man says ‘boneless wings’ are blasphemy and the time for change is now."  The article is written by Tim Carman.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2020/09/04/nebraska-man-says-boneless-wings-are-blasphemy-and-the-time-for-change-is-now/

Zac and Don discuss if boneless wings should be called something different.  They also discuss whether making such a change would give American society a win that they could build on.  

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

When I was a child, doctors giving vaccine shots used to hand out candy or a little toy to take the sting and fear out of the shot. A similar idea could rescue the U.S. economy when one or more COVID vaccines are approved by the FDA and widely available for mass uptake... … ...

The “adult” version of the doctor handing out candy to children, fortunately, points toward a solution: pay people who get the shot....

How much? I know of no hard science that can answer that question, but my strong hunch is that anything less than $1,000 per person won’t do the trick. At that level, a family of four would get $4,000 (ideally not subject to income tax) – a lot of money to a lot of families in these difficult times, and thus enough to assure that the country crosses the 80 percent vaccination threshold.

This paragraph comes from The Brookings Institute.  The article is titled: "Want Herd Immunity?  Pay people to take the vaccine."  The article is written by Robert E. Litan.  https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/want-herd-immunity-pay-people-to-take-the-vaccine/

 Zac and Don discuss whether paying people to get the Covid-19 vaccine is a good idea.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

We used to have a lot of ticker-tape parades. The most famous was perhaps the Victory Parade of World War II but we used to have many parades to celebrate technological and cultural milestones. There were huge celebrations, for example, when the final spike of the transcontinental railroad was nailed, when the Brooklyn Bridge was completed, and the Statute of Liberty dedicated. In the 1920s and 1930s there were big celebrations for aviation pioneers including for Charles Lindburgh, Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes and that tradition continued in the 1960s and 1970s with multiple parades for the astronauts:

During the early space program, there were also several NYC ticker-tape parades for astronauts—not just the Apollo 11 heroes, who went on a world tour after the Moon landing, but missions before and after as well... … …

One of the last big ticker tape parades was in November of 1998 for John Glenn and the astronauts of Space Shuttle Discovery but since then the number of such parades has declined.   Why? Has the number of accomplishments worthy of a parade declined? Or have we become complacent or even cynical about progress?  When the time comes, I hope that we will enthusiastically celebrate science and the success of a COVID vaccine.

This paragraph comes from MarginalRevolution.com in a blog post titled: "What has Become of the Ticker-tape Parade?."  The blog post was written by Alex Tabarrok.   https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/08/where-has-the-ticker-tape-parade-gone.html

Zac and Don discuss whether America is too cynical and should have more parades to celebrate accomplishments.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

Great powers generally avoid war when they clearly recognize each other’s red lines and convey the determination to enforce their own. But today’s great-power clashes are unfolding in places—from the South China Sea and Ukraine to cyberspace—where borders are blurry and the potential for miscalculation is inherent. The danger is compounded by the technological upheaval that is simultaneously occurring, with innovations in fields like artificial intelligence, robotics and space flight sparking unpredictable new arms races.... … ...

This paragraph comes from an editorial in the WallStreet Journal titled: "Plagues Are Back.  Will Wars Follow?"  The editorial is written by Vance Serchuk.  https://www.wsj.com/articles/plagues-are-back-will-wars-follow-11598915607 

Zac and Don Discuss if America is thinking enough about war.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Honestly, I don't envy students entering college.  Course work without campus life sounds efficient, but unexciting.  It also seems like something that should be cheap - basic calculus hasn't changed since the 17th century, and course materials and lectures are widely available online for free.  But another 17th-century creation, Harvard University, says it won't discount its $49,653 yearly tuition.  Freshmen have the option of living on campus, but must take classes online, and be tested for Covid-19 every three days.  Room, board, and the rest bring the bill to $72,391 a year.

... ... ... for the first time the inertia might be getting shaken because parents are seeing their kids at home and recognizing how little substance there is behind so many university classes...  "Students are looking at what they're missing about universities, and classes are not even making the top 10 list."

This paragraph comes from Barrons in an article titled: "Why It Could Be Time for a Crash in College Tuition."  The article is written by Jack Hough. 

https://www.barrons.com/articles/time-for-a-crash-in-college-tuition-51598047615

Zac and Don discuss if paying for college is worth it during Covid-19.  They discuss if the college business model should be reconsidered.  

Zac and Don mention the Bryan Caplan Book: "The Case Against Education."

https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/dp/0691174652/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1599189657&sr=8-1

Don mentions the Revisionist History Podcast:

Episode 5: Food Fight

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/05-food-fight

Episode 6: My Little Hundred Million

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/06-my-little-hundred-million

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraphs I've Read:

"It is puzzling that Aaron Burr is sometimes classified among the founding fathers.  Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin, and Hamilton all left behind papers that run to dozens of thick volumes, packed with profound ruminations.  They fought for high ideals.  By contrast Burr’s editors have been able to eke out just two volumes of his letters, many full of gossip, tittle-tattle, hilarious anecdotes, and racy asides about his sexual escapades.  He produced no major papers on policy matters,constitutional issues, or government institutions.  Where Hamilton was often more interested in policy than politics, Burr seemed interested only in politics.  At a time of tremendous ideological cleavages, Burr was an agile opportunist who maneuvered for advantage among colleagues of fixed political views."

"Duels were also elaborate forms of conflict resolution, which is why duelists did not automatically try to kill their opponents.  The mere threat of gunplay concentrated the minds of antagonists, forcing them and their seconds into extensive negotiations that often ended with apologies instead of bullets.  Experience had taught Hamilton that if he was tough and agile in negotiations he could settle disputes without resort to weapons.  In the unlikely event that a duel occurred, the antagonists frequently tried only to wound each other, clipping an arm or a leg.  If both parties survived the first round of a duel, they still had a chance to pause and settle their dispute before a second round.  The point was not to exhibit deadly marksmanship; it was to demonstrate courage by submitting to the duel."

"With the population widely dispersed, newspapers were unabashedly partisan organs that supplied much of the adhesive power binding the incipient parities together.  Americans were a literate people, and dozens of newspapers flourished.  The country probably had more newspapers per capita than any other.  A typical issue had four long sheets, crammed with essays and small advertisements but no drawings or illustrations.  These papers tended to be short on facts – there was little “spot news” reporting – and long on opinion.  They more closely resembled journals of opinion than daily newspapers."

These paragraphs come from the biography, "Hamilton" by Ron Chernow.  This biography was the basis for the hit musical - Hamilton.    

https://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Hamilton-Ron-Chernow/dp/0143034758/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3VXURRPD3ZWVM&dchild=1&keywords=hamilton+book&qid=1598617246&sprefix=hamilton%2Caps%2C203&sr=8-1

Zac and Don discuss their impressions of the musical and biography.  They also talk about America's Founding Fathers and ways that people can think about them today.  In addition, Zac and Don talk about the concept of Dueling and their impressions of Mt. Rushmore. 

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"I love football. Love it. Love it. I think it’s the last bastion of hope for toughness in America in men, in males."

This quote comes from Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh.  The quote was said in 2015 during an interview with HBO Real Sports.

https://footballscoop.com/news/six-things-we-learned-about-jim-harbaugh-on-hbos-real-sports/

Zac and Don discuss whether this quote can actually be applied to football and America.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

“Life is about tradeoffs,” wrote Sasse, the former president of Midland University, in a letter to Big Ten presidents and chancellors published on Tuesday. “But the structure and discipline of football programs is very likely safer than what the lived experience of 18-to-22-year-olds will be if there isn't a season.”

Pundits all over right-wing media did the same. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk called the Big Ten’s decision “disgusting and pathetic,” and college football figures appearing on Fox News urged universities not to cave to Covid-driven cowardice. “When they stormed Normandy, they knew there were going to be casualties,” Hall of Fame coach Lou Holtz said Tuesday.

This paragraph comes from Politico in an article titled: "College Football is Disappearing.  MAGA World is blaming the left." The article is written by Tina Nguyen.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/college-football-coronavirus-maga-394505

Zac and Don discuss whether canceled football seasons could be a winning political issue this fall.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

“Whether he was going to be exposed to it on the football field versus the classroom or going to a restaurant or going to Walmart or anything like that, that’s obviously a risk we’re willing to accept,” Mike Kuczynski said of his son moving to Florida. “I think, overall, the country is in a better situation to fight through it as a country instead of hiding from it.”

This paragraph comes from the Washington Post in an article titled: "As high school football seasons are canceled, players are moving to states that plan to play."  The article is written by Roman Stubbs.  

Zac and Don discuss whether players moving states to play football is an example of the kind of toughness that Harbaugh talks about.

Here is the link to the George Carlin comedy bit on the words of Baseball vs Football:

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

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"So I can understand that teachers are nervous about returning to school. But they should take a cue from their fellow essential workers and do their job. Even people who think there’s a fundamental difference between a nurse and a teacher in a pandemic must realize that there isn’t one between a grocery-store worker and a teacher, in terms of obligation. People who work at grocery stores in no way signed up to expose themselves to disease, but we expected them to go to work, and they did. If they had not, society would have collapsed. What do teachers think will happen if working parents cannot send their children to school? Life as we know it simply will not go on."

This paragraph comes from an essay in the Atlantic titled: "I'm a Nurse.  Teachers Should Do Their Jobs, Just Like I Did."  It is written by Kristen McConnell.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/im-nurse-teachers-should-do-their-jobs-like-i-did/614902/

Zac and Don discuss if teachers should be considered essential workers like nurses.  They discuss if the hospital and school comparison is a fair one.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

"As the plot line advances, so do expectations: If people can muddle through a few more months, the vaccine will land, the pandemic will end and everyone can throw their masks away. But best-case scenarios have failed to materialize throughout the pandemic, and experts — who believe wholeheartedly in the power of vaccines — foresee a long path ahead.

“It seems, to me, unlikely that a vaccine is an off-switch or a reset button where we will go back to pre-pandemic times,” said Yonatan Grad, an assistant professor of infectious diseases and immunology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Or, as Columbia University virologist Angela Rasmussen puts it, “It’s not like we’re going to land in Oz.”

This paragraph comes from a Washington Post Article titled: "A Coronavirus vaccine won't change the world right away."  The article is written by Carolyn Y. Johnson.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/08/02/covid-vaccine/

Zac and Don discuss whether America has unrealistic expectations surrounding a Covid-19 vaccine.  

Here is a link to the Bill Gates interview that Zac and Don refereced.

https://www.wired.com/story/bill-gates-on-covid-most-us-tests-are-completely-garbage/

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

“But they don’t have ‘F-you money’ anymore,” a former reporter said of the Bancrofts. “They’re nice and rich, but not ungodly so. It matters to the younger generation.”

This paragraph comes from a 2007 New Yorker article titled "Paper Chase."  It was written by Ben Mcgrath.  

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/05/14/paper-chase-3-2

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

“The people who love him and the people who hate him are equally irrational,” said Ashlee Vance, Mr. Musk’s biographer. “It reminds me of Steve Jobs. It’s way beyond business or celebrity. It strikes me as religious, more than anything. His fans are acolytes.”

This paragraph come from the New York Times.  The article is titled "Elon Musk, Blasting Off in Domestic Bliss."  The article is written by Maureen Dowd.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/25/style/elon-musk-maureen-dowd.html

Zac and Don discuss how our society views billionaires.  They discuss whether we should admire or be annoyed by them.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

“The things he’s done on the business side I would tell you have all been positive. Does that offset all the harm he’s done? Economically, yes, for me, that’s been beneficial. Socially, how it hurts people, how I view the world, no, I would rather have less money to have a better world. But, OK, my punishment is I have more money to have a more f---ed world.”

I asked whether he thought it was fair for the richest to keep getting richer.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Is war fair? Do people die in a war? Yes. You’ve got a virus that is affecting people. It’s pretty clear who it affects.” He meant people who were old and sick. “So nature is saying, ‘I’m going to pick on you.’ Is it fair? Is it right? No.” His voice was as steady and calm as ever. “But that’s life.”

This paragraph comes from Bloomberg Businessweek.  The article is titled "Covid Conversations With One of America's Richest Men."  The article is written by Max Abelson.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-14/coronavirus-conversations-with-one-of-america-s-richest-men

Zac and Don discuss how Billionaires may view the world.  Both Zac and Don recognize that they are not billionaires and are not speaking from experience.     

Here is a link to Jeff Bezos July 29th, 2020 testimony to congress.  

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"We’re standing at a climate crossroads: the world has already warmed 1.1°C since the Industrial Revolution. If we pass 2°C, we risk hitting one or more major tipping points, where the effects of climate change go from advancing gradually to changing dramatically overnight, reshaping the planet. To ensure that we don’t pass that threshold, we need to cut emissions in half by 2030. Climate change has understandably fallen out of the public eye this year as the coronavirus pandemic rages. Nevertheless, this year, or perhaps this year and next, is likely to be the most pivotal yet in the fight against climate change. “We’ve run out of time to build new things in old ways,” says Rob Jackson, an earth system science professor at Stanford University and the chair of the Global Carbon Project. What we do now will define the fate of the planet–and human life on it–for decades."

This paragraph comes from Time Magazine and author Justin Worland.  The article is titled: "2020 Is Our Last, Best Chance to Save the Planet."

https://time.com/5864692/climate-change-defining-moment/ 

Zac and Don discuss how they see humans thinking about and acting towards the science of climate change.  

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Throughout the nineteen-eighties and nineties, the evidence of climate change—and its potential hazards—continued to grow. Hansen kept expecting the political system to respond. This, after all, was what had happened with the ozone problem. Proof that chlorofluorocarbons were destroying the ozone layer came in 1985, when British scientists discovered that an ozone “hole” had opened up over Antarctica. The crisis was resolved—or, at least, prevented from growing worse—by an international treaty phasing out chlorofluorocarbons which was ratified in 1987."

This paragraph comes from The New Yorker and author Elizabeth Kolbert.  The article is titled "The Climate Expert Who Delivered News No One Wanted To Hear."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/06/29/the-catastrophist

Zac and Don discuss whether climate change can be solved like the Ozone Layer was in the 1980's.

Here are two science fiction books that are mentioned in the podcast:

"2312" by Kim Stanley Robinson

https://www.amazon.com/2312-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0316098116

"New York 2140" by Kim Stanley Robinson

https://www.amazon.com/New-York-2140-Stanley-Robinson/dp/031626234X  

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"There are other ideas, like declaring “platform bankruptcy.” This would involve platforms resetting all of their user and group follower counts to zero and rebuilding communities from the ground up, with the platforms’ current rules in place."

This paragraph comes from an editorial in the New York Times by Charlie Warzel.  The editorial is titled: "Facebook Can't be Reformed."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/opinion/facebook-zuckerberg.html 

Zac and Don discuss the merit of forcing Facebook to reset all of its social connections.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Don’t use a hammer if you don’t need to pound a nail. Road safety does not require a hammer. The responsibility for handing out speeding tickets and citations should be handled by a unarmed agency. Put the safety patrol in bright yellow cars and have them carry a bit of extra gasoline and jumper cables to help stranded motorists as part of their job–make road safety nice."

This paragraph comes from a blog post on Marginal Revolution.  The post was written by Alex Tabarrok with the following title: "Why are the Police in Charge of Road Safety?"  

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/06/why-are-the-police-in-charge-of-road-safety.html

Zac and Don discuss whether it is a good idea to have a different government agency regulate road safety.  

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

Like a mutual fund, the Universal Fund would be a pooled investment vehicle. But unlike a typical mutual fund, Americans 18 or older could sign up for free to receive a share. They would receive a proportionate share of any returns generated by the fund and corresponding shareholder voting rights. The Universal Fund would be funded by private donations of stocks, bonds, and other assets from corporations and individuals who have the capacity, as well as financial and moral incentives, to donate. The fund would periodically pass through net returns directly to its underlying participating shareholders in equal proportion and would be designed to grow in perpetuity. Fund shareholders would not be allowed to buy, sell, or bequeath their universal shares; after death, their interest would revert to the fund. Thus, the fund would continue to grow as donations are made. Returns from the fund may be modest at first but would be expected to increase over time.

This paragraph comes from an article in Barrons titled: "How to Tackle Income Inequality Without Raising Anyone's Taxes."  The article was written by Tamara Belinfanti.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/a-universal-fund-could-work-like-a-voluntary-ubi-to-fix-income-inequality-51592486260

Zac and Don discuss whether a Universal Fund is the best way to help society solve inequality.  

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Members of Heaven’s Gate, a religious cult, believed that as the Hale-Bopp comet passed by Earth in 1997, a spaceship would be traveling in its wake—ready to take true believers aboard. Several members of the group bought an expensive, high-powered telescope so that they might get a clearer view of the comet. They quickly brought it back and asked for a refund. When the manager asked why, they complained that the telescope was defective, that it didn’t show the spaceship following the comet. A short time later, believing that they would be rescued once they had shed their “earthly containers” (their bodies), all 39 members killed themselves.

Heaven’s Gate followers had a tragically misguided conviction, but it is an example, albeit extreme, of cognitive dissonance, the motivational mechanism that underlies the reluctance to admit mistakes or accept scientific findings—even when those findings can save our lives. This dynamic is playing out during the pandemic among the many people who refuse to wear masks or practice social distancing. Human beings are deeply unwilling to change their minds. And when the facts clash with their preexisting convictions, some people would sooner jeopardize their health and everyone else’s than accept new information or admit to being wrong."

This paragraph comes from an article in The Atlantic by Elliot Aronson and Carol Tavris.  The article is titled: "The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in the Pandemic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/role-cognitive-dissonance-pandemic/614074/

Zac and Don discuss the idea of cognitive dissonance and it role during the Covid-19 pandemic and in general American life.  They discuss how cognitive dissonance impacts mask wearing, American history, pro wrestling, Michigan football, and America's attempt at returning to school this fall.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

"As school districts across the United States consider whether and how to restart in-person classes, their challenge is complicated by a pair of fundamental uncertainties: No nation has tried to send children back to school with the virus raging at levels like America’s, and the scientific research about transmission in classrooms is limited.

The World Health Organization has now concluded that the virus is airborne in crowded, indoor spaces with poor ventilation, a description that fits many American schools. But there is enormous pressure to bring students back — from parents, from pediatricians and child development specialists, and from President Trump.

“I’m just going to say it: It feels like we’re playing Russian roulette with our kids and our staff,” said Robin Cogan, a nurse at the Yorkship School in Camden, N.J., who serves on the state’s committee on reopening schools."  

This paragraph comes from the New York Times in an article titled: "How to Reopen Schools: What Science and Other Countries Teach Us."  The authors are: Pam Belluck, Apoorva Mandavilli, and Benedict Carey.  

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/11/health/coronavirus-schools-reopen.html

Zac and Don finish the podcast by talking about schools attempting to open this fall and whether this is an example of cognitive dissonance.   

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Disney has long been an outfit fueled by nostalgia. That would seem to offer an advantage during a pause; there are, after all, many old movies to re-watch.

But Disney’s little secret is that such nostalgia cannot stand on its own — it needs to be continually fed and reinforced. A new set of Star Wars drives longing for the ′70s, a “Beauty and the Beast” remake powers nostalgia for the 1990s, Marvel movies draft off pleasant feelings of a childhood of comic books (and, 12 years into their run, of themselves). Disney is a constant interplay between past and present, a continuous bicycle chain between the pieces we once loved and the current releases we run out to see to remind us of them.

And that chain has now been severed."

This paragraph comes from a Washington Post article by Steven Zeitchik.  The article is titled: "How Disney could be facing a lot more than a lost summer."  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/07/04/disney-july4-future-hamilton/

Zac and Don discuss if Disney and its movies and theme parks are still relevant in the age of Covid-19.  They discuss whether Disney's entertainment reflects the era that America is currently living in.  They discuss whether American entertainment habits have changed and if these new habits may seek out other forms of entertainment.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Whitmer was prepared to govern her state, but the pandemic required something of a different order: minute-by-minute, seat-of-the-pants, lives-in-the-balance decision-making for which there was no model or precedent. She soon realized that the only people who could relate to what she was going through were her fellow governors. In March, she created a group text chain with a few of them. They were all Democrats, but with different political profiles and instincts. As they started comparing notes, Whitmer was simultaneously dismayed and relieved to see that their notes were the same: Here they all were, in charge of getting millions of people through this crisis without much more information than your average, cable-TV-watching citizen."

This paragraph comes from a New York Times article by Jonathan Mahler.  The article is titled: "A Governor on Her Own, With Everything at Stake."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/magazine/gretchen-whitmer-coronavirus-michigan.html

Zac and Don discuss the job that Governor Whitmer has done leading Michigan through the Covid-19 Crisis.  They also talk about whether Americans can be rational when talking about and evaluating the job performance of their political leaders.  They discuss the topic of Cancel Culture.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

"The people of “Today’s cancel culture — erasing history, ending careers — is inflicted by people experiencing an orgy of positive feelings about themselves as they negate others.

Instead of elevating, their education produces only expensively schooled versions of what José Ortega  called the “mass man.”

In 1932’s “The Revolt of the Masses,” the Spanish philosopher said this creature does not “appeal from his own to any authority outside him. He is satisfied with himself exactly as he is. . . . He will tend to consider and affirm as good everything he finds within himself: opinions, appetites, preferences, tastes.”

Much education now spreads the disease that education should cure, the disease of repudiating, without understanding, the national principles that could pull the nation toward its noble aspirations. The result is barbarism, as Ortega defined it, “the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.” A barbarian is someone whose ideas are “nothing more than appetites in words,” someone exercising “the right not to be reasonable,” who “does not want to give reasons” but simply “to impose his opinions.”

The barbarians are not at America’s gate. There is no gate."

This paragraph comes from an editorial in the Washington Post by George Will.  The editorial is titled: "Must of Today's Intelligentsia cannot think."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/most-of-todays-intelligentsia-cannot-think/2020/06/25/987cf0c4-b714-11ea-a8da-693df3d7674a_story.html

Zac and Don connect Mr. Will's ideas to evaluating our political leaders and to the concept of Cancel Culture.  They discuss whether Cancel Culture is a good or bad thing for society.  They finishing their discussion talking about whether limiting speech on the platforms of social media companies is a good idea for the short and long term.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"There’s certainly nothing wrong with expecting that all students who graduate from a given school, system, or state have somewhat equivalent academic abilities. So what’s the problem? To put it simply, students are not standardized. Their minds are not standardized. Their abilities are not standardized. Their ambitions are not standardized. Expecting to take the vast diversity of human academic experience and force it into a Procrustean box is a recipe for unhappiness. Education reformers love to talk about dynamism and innovation, yet they frequently push for standards that ensure education will involve anything but. And the consequences are clear."

This paragraph comes from an article on Medium.com by Freddie deBoer titled: "The Educational Standardization Trap"

https://medium.com/@freddiedeboer/the-educational-standardization-trap-25aca6c0121

Zac and Don discuss whether school's, in the age of having so many academic standards, make it too difficult for students to pass required classes and graduate.  They discuss whether American society can handle school failure when it happens to them.  They also discuss what the ultimate purpose of school is and whether the current educational model works well enough.

Zac and Don also reference ideas from the following books:

The Case Against Education 

https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/dp/0691196451/ref=sr_1_1?crid=S49QW1A7H4S2&dchild=1&keywords=the+case+against+education&qid=1593142811&sprefix=the+case+against+ed%2Caps%2C169&sr=8-1 

The Meritocracy Trap

https://www.amazon.com/Meritocracy-Trap-Foundational-Inequality-Dismantles/dp/0735221995/ref=sr_1_1?crid=M10VJA2ZX9I3&dchild=1&keywords=the+meritocracy+trap&qid=1593142862&sprefix=the+merit%2Caps%2C178&sr=8-1

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

The childhood mental-health crisis risks becoming self-perpetuating: “The worse that the numbers get about our kids’ mental health—the more anxiety, depression, and suicide increase—the more fearful parents become. The more fearful parents become, the more they continue to do the things that are inadvertently contributing to these problems.”

This paragraph comes from an article in the Atlantic by Kate Julian titled: "What Happened to American Childhood?"

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/childhood-in-an-anxious-age/609079/

Zac and Don discuss the topic of rising child/teen anxiety in America.  They share their experiences as both parents and educator.  They comment on the wealth of examples, causes, and solutions that this extraordinary article provides.

Anyone who is a parent, educator, or has a relationship with young people should read this article!  Then you should of course listen to the podcast!   

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"This spring, America took an involuntary crash course in remote learning. With the school year now winding down, the grades from students, teachers, parents and administrators is already in: It was a failure."

This paragraph comes from the Wall Street Journal in an article titled: The Results Are in for Remote Learning: It Didn't Work.  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-results-are-in-for-remote-learning-it-didnt-work/ar-BB155PAl?ocid=se2

Zac and Don discuss whether schools failed during the opening months of the Covid-19 pandemic.  They discuss how remote learning impacted students,  teachers, and parents.  They also discuss another way to evaluate school performance during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

The whole nature of crises is that they’re new and shocking.  And inevitably, as soon as you’ve thought about and lived with the crisis for a while, it becomes the new normal... ... ...  And what I think is interesting is that, particularly among the younger generations, the existence of some form of existential crisis—be it fiscal, environmental, democratic, medical—is the new normal. In many ways, the respite that you get now, between the next crisis crashing down on you, is increasingly small...  …  …  We live in a media-saturated context, where catastrophizing is the common denominator. If there's a molehill, it will become a mountain. And this degree of social amplification, driven by 24/7 social media, driven by the fact that now everybody can be an expert, the low cost of access to mass global platforms—it means that the noise level is constantly at a very high volume. So I think there is a big issue out there around almost the layering, or sedimentation, of crises upon crises upon crises, that risks eroding our sense of social achievement, actually, and resilience.

This paragraph comes from an interview with Matthew Flinders in Wired Magazine:  https://www.wired.com/story/covid-crisis-modern-paradox/

Zac and Don discuss the idea of Crisis Fatigue and whether it is impacting us today.    

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"The cost of keeping children out of classrooms is high, educationally and socially. Lost instructional time is hard to recapture; some high-school students may drop out. Schools provide meals, social services, and, for many students, a safe haven, and they allow parents to go to work."

This paragraph comes from the New Yorker in an essay titled: The Complex Question of Reopening Schools.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/01/the-complex-question-of-reopening-schools

Zac and Don discuss many of the issues surrounding whether schools can safely reopen in fall.  Their discussion includes the challenges of teaching children at home, the multiple roles that schools serve for their communities, and the growing desire for people to get back to a sense of normal - which means sending their kids back to school.

Another Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Teachers ask kids to do a lot to build this environment. Teachers ask kids to pick up the new handout on the way in, get the old handout from yesterday, get an extra if you lost it or if you were absent, get out your pencil, get an extra pencil off my desk if you need one, find your seat, and sit down on your seat that several other students have already sat on. We ask them to find a partner, find a new partner, go to the corner of the room that corresponds with the character you most agree with, film a video outside, form a circle, two circles, now switch. We ask them to get a Chromebook from the class’s Chromecart that four classes have already touched that day. They’ll need to line up to put away the Chromebooks and make sure to plug them in. Sometimes they need to go to the back and get the markers, crayons, paintbrushes, tissues, paper towels, bandages (so many bandages), and textbooks, and they’ll do this a dozen times in a class period. As they weave in between the desks, they nudge and bump their peers and step on their backpacks, breathing one another’s air and smelling one another’s stink."

This paragraph comes from an essay by Harley Litzelman titled:  We Cannot Return to Campus this Fall.

https://thebolditalic.com/we-cannot-return-to-campus-this-fall-1ad91b8a65e0

Zac and Don then incorporate Mr. Litzelman's ideas into the second half of their conversation.  This part of the discussion includes the practices of the modern day teacher and how they could be impacted with social distancing, school budgets, different models that schools could follow in the fall, and whether students themselves should have a say in whether they have to return to the classroom.   

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

“Via the Artemis Accords, we hope that the future will look a lot more like “Star Trek,” and a lot less like “Star Wars” by getting ahead of these issues.”

This paragraph comes from a Reuters article.  The article discusses the recent Artemis Accords that America has proposed concerning who gets to use the Moon and low earth orbit.  You can read the full article here:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-exploration-artemis/star-trek-not-star-wars-nasa-releases-basic-principles-for-moon-exploration-pact-idUSKBN22R2Z9

Zac and Don discuss whether the proposed rules of the accords are fair for all people on earth.  They wonder whether the accords will allow individual rights to transcend the rights of a nation.  They also discuss whether the future of space can be different than the current human reality on earth.  Finally, there is discussion on whether thinking about future issues in space is just a waste of time.   

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

Epidemiology is a science of possibilities and persuasion, not of certainties or hard proof. “Being approximately right most of the time is better than being precisely right occasionally,” the Scottish epidemiologist John Cowden wrote, in 2010. “You can only be sure when to act in retrospect.” Epidemiologists must persuade people to upend their lives—to forgo travel and socializing, to submit themselves to blood draws and immunization shots—even when there’s scant evidence that they’re directly at risk.

Epidemiologists also must learn how to maintain their persuasiveness even as their advice shifts. The recommendations that public-health professionals make at the beginning of an emergency—there’s no need to wear masks; children can’t become seriously ill—often change as hypotheses are disproved, new experiments occur, and a virus mutates.

This paragraph comes from the New Yorker.  The article is titled: Seattle's Leaders Let Scientists Take the Lead.  New York's Did Not.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/seattles-leaders-let-scientists-take-the-lead-new-yorks-did-not

Zac and Don discuss whether America could have taken a different path in fighting Covid-19.  They discuss the challenges of persuading a skeptical population to take precautions against an enemy they cannot see.  They wonder whether the rest of America could have followed the Seattle model of fighting the virus.     

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

"Our situation in this pandemic is analogous to war, in which there is a long tradition of volunteers risking their health and lives on dangerous missions for which they understand the risks and are willing to do so in order to help save the lives of others."

This paragraph comes from a letter written by thirty-five members of congress.  The representatives are urging the US government to allow challenge trials, which in theory, could speed up the development of a Covid vaccine.  But allowing these sorts of trials bring up many ethical concerns.  

Here is the full letter:  https://foster.house.gov/sites/foster.house.gov/files/2020.04.20_Ltr%20to%20HHS%20%20FDA%20on%20Rapid%20Vaccine%20Deployment%20for%20COVID-19%20-%20Signed.pdf

Don and I discuss the individual and societal opportunity costs behind using Challenge Trials.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've Read:

We came to believe that our recent history is the range of what is possible, and now we are watching charts where the y axis can't keep up with events. For its part, the future is not awaiting our wise counsel. That is the wealthy man's folly, to believe that people want your wisdom. The future is concerned with itself. The people in that time will abide your wisdom in exchange for safety. They will be amused by our clocks and space cars, but what they will want to know is, how high did the water get, please? They will want data—markers, points in space, warnings. Mind me, say the stones. Stand here when the water comes. And maybe: We are going to be OK. But only for a much larger value of we. And: I hope you leave stones of your own.

The paragraph comes from an essay written by Paul Ford in Wired Magazine.  

https://www.wired.com/story/stones-clocks-what-we-should-actually-leave-behind/

Zac and Don talk about the essay within the context of whether America will be ok.  What lesson we have learned from history.  What lessons will the future take from us.  

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message

The Best Paragraph I've read:

Every step of the way, to everyone around us, we should be asking the question, what are you building? What are you building directly, or helping other people to build, or teaching other people to build, or taking care of people who are building? If the work you’re doing isn’t either leading to something being built or taking care of people directly, we’ve failed you, and we need to get you into a position, an occupation, a career where you can contribute to building. There are always outstanding people in even the most broken systems — we need to get all the talent we can on the biggest problems we have, and on building the answers to those problems.

This paragraph comes from Marc Andreessen's recent essay (https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/) on what America should do now.  His answer - Build!  

Don and I talk about this essay and how its ideas fit within America's current times of coronavirus and political gridlock.  We also reference a response from Ezra Klein (https://www.vox.com/2020/4/22/21228469/marc-andreessen-build-government-coronavirus) in our discussion.     

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bestparagraph/message