Five Things For Friday, Sept 27, 2024

Endorsement, Depravity, Boys, Housing, and Two Green Sofas

I’ve been mulling over the next Apt. 11D newsletter all week. I wrote about autism for the other newsletter and my business, and wanted some non-autism content for this newsletter. However, I didn’t have enough time for anything but autism this week. Tons of meetings around all of that. Also, there was the sofa problem, which I’ll discuss in a minute.

The week’s almost done, and I don’t have a full essay in the tank. Instead, I’m going to share some shorter items that caught my eye, which might get developed over the weekend into a longer piece for Monday morning.

The Harris Endorsements Are Coming In

Obviously, I’m going to vote for Harris. I’m a left-tilting centrist, who would rather vote for a bowl of warm pudding over Donald Trump. I wish I could be more excited about Harris, but I find her a big “meh.” Her primary advantage is that she isn’t Donald Trump and, for that reason, I would travel to Pennsylvania to knock on doors to get out the vote. Trump is the accidental rogue actor, who could destroy our country.

I liked Andrew Sullivan’s Harris endorsement today.

His policy of drastic, broad protectionism is certain poison for American prosperity. It is a guarantee of stagflation. His unfunded tax cuts would further destroy American solvency. A simple capitulation to Putin would encourage enemies across the globe. A program of mass deportation, accompanied by the literally Nazi-esque rhetoric Trump is now deploying, would generate massive, violent resistance. And in the depression and chaos that would follow, God knows where Trump’s gut could take him.

He will not become a dictator, constructing a new autocracy. His first term showed that, I think. Our constitution held, even if our culture didn’t. But in a second term, he will still be incapable of being other than himself, which means the rule of law will always be secondary to the rule of Trump, the legitimacy of our entire election system will be fatally broken, the discourse will turn ever-cruder and nastier, and the far left will mobilize. You do not have to destroy the Constitution to end liberal democracy. You just have to make the rule of law irrelevant, disrespected, discounted; you just have to delegitimize every institution. Trump does that every single day. And at some point the system is so discredited and the void so great you don’t need a tyrant to replace it. It’s already gone.

Sullivan says that Trump’s corruption is contagious, which will rot our democracy at its core. And that thought perfectly lines up my next worry.

Depravity Everywhere

A few years ago, I developed insomnia and got hooked on reading gossip blogs at 3am. This week, after I got caught up in all the Hollywood Hates Meghan Markle gossip, I got sucked into the P. Diddy drama.

Diddy is the next Epstein/Weinstein, but with more lube. He’s currently in the Brooklyn prison where they kept Epstein, so good luck keeping him alive until the trial date. They’ve got him on a bunch of charges, including interstate sex trafficking, so he’s going away for a long time. But it’s the details that will pack more punch than the jail time.

Diddy has been accused of hiring male prostitutes to violate drugged up women, while he and his friends watched and then practiced self-love. His Freak-Off parties were multi-day, drug fueled orgies, where participants needed IV of fluids afterward to recover and may not have consented to participation. There’s apparently footage of him doing very wrong things to young proteges. Poor Justin Bieber.

Diddy has always been a shithead. Never forget his role in the City College Stampede. Like Weinstein and Epstein, everybody knew. They went to his creepy white parties in the Hamptons with people like Martha Stewart there to add some respectability. Now, all those guests are in deep shit and are deleting their social media accounts. I hope a lot of people go down for what happened to Justin Bieber.

But Diddy’s garbage isn’t the only pestilence in my social media feed. There’s Mayor Adams getting kick backs from the Turkish government. Even my little world of education journalism and punditry was rocked this week by the double life of a school choice advocate. (That story is pretty harmless. Consenting adults and all that.)

The Trouble With Boys

A few years back, Edutopia asked me to write an article about mental health and boys, so I interviewed a bunch of experts and learned about the sky-high suicide rate for teenage boys and their particular issues. At that time, I was managing two very unhappy teenage boys living under my roof with their own issues, because their school and college closed down for COVID. So, the topic hit home for me.

The problems for men continue to get worse. Richard Reeves is on the Prof G podcast this week talking about the declining mental health and purpose of men in America. I’m a huge fan of his Atlantic article about “redshirting” boys. And check out his substack.

On the podcast, Reeves said that rural guys were dropping out of college in record numbers, because they felt lonely. I asked Jonah about whether guys needed clubs aimed at them. Did they need the equivalent of “Girls Who Code,” but for dudes. Maybe “Guys Who Knit.”

Jonah said, “Hell no. There are plenty of clubs for guys. Those rural guys don’t have friends, because they far-right extremists, and nobody likes their politics.” I asked him if he felt victimized by the woke ideology in his college classes. He said, “Fuck no! I wasn’t a slave owner, so I don’t take any of that personally. That’s crap.”

Jonah has a potty mouth, but we love him anyway.

Housing Meeting

I’m making a butternut/quinoa salad right now to accompany a stack of pizzas for a meeting tonight at my house. Ten local families are coming here to figure out the housing stuff for our kids with high functioning autism. Those guys will all be able to work, but can’t drive and will need some basic supports in a housing arrangement.

Most of them probably won’t be able to find decent jobs, because the world isn’t neurodiverse friendly. Even the guy who is acing his regression analysis class at NJIT will probably be stacking shelves at Best Buy, because the world isn’t set up for the smart weird guys. It’s just not right, but we are practical parents, who know that we have to make decisions based on an imperfect world.

Tonight, we’re focusing on learning how to set up a low-income, cooperative housing arrangement for the guys. But we’re in the midst of a housing crisis, so finding a solution for the guys is going to require some cooperative effort.

The Sofa Situation

If you have one child with ADHD or autism, odds are that you, your spouse, or the grandparents has some issues. Some people say that I have a lot of energy. That’s all I’m saying at this time.

Example. I had one of the busiest weeks ever. I promoted a webinar series; zoomed with clients, a neurologist, a private autism school; watched someone else’s webinars about college; attended a school fair to talk about college stuff; made a birthday dinner for Steve (mushroom risotto and shrimp scampi); and more.

Off the kitchen in our TV room, we have two old Crate and Barrel sofas. They are high-trafficked items with chocolate ice-cream stains, but are still basically solid. And during this crazy, hectic week, my patience for the dirty sofas came to abrupt end. It was of upmost importance to submerge the slipcovers in a massive garbage can of dye and turn them from dirty beige to dark green.

So I did.

Picture Credit: Me in Peniscola, Spain

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