THE LUXURY OF YEARNING FOR LESS

Rebecca Solnit:

You have to feel securely high to want to go low, urban to yearn for the rural, smooth to desire roughness, anxious about artificiality to seek this version of authenticity. And if you see the countryside as a place of rest and respite you’re probably not a farmworker.

Read more

SUPPLY CHAIN WEIRDNESS

I listen to a variety of podcasts, some of them covering topics I know little about. One that I’ve been following recently is Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast.
Some factoids about the supply chain (or, as they suggest, the supply web) from a recent episode bring out some surprising connections.

Read more

GETTING STARTED

Yes. Pretty bare bones so far. But more to come.

I’ve been saying for years that I really should start blogging again. I say “again” because long ago I managed two different web sites very much like the sites that we’re calling blogs these days (onReligion.com and LTSeek). Some of the onReligion pages can be found in the wayback machine. I stopped publishing onReligion sometime in the mid 2000s — ironically enough, not too long after people started using the term “blog” to describe what I was doing — because I grew weary of reading through two dozen or so newspapers early each morning looking for stories about religion and culture. After all, I also had a full-time job. And I was never all that comfortable being out in the open as I was, though having all those newspaper articles between me and my readers helped me to deal with that.

Read more

POSTS

Getting started {#Getting started}

Yes. Pretty bare bones so far. But more to come.

I’ve been saying for years that I really should start blogging again. I say “again” because long ago I managed two different web sites very much like the sites that we’re calling blogs these days (onReligion.com and LTSeek). Some of the onReligion pages can be found in the wayback machine. I stopped publishing onReligion sometime in the mid 2000s — ironically enough, not too long after people started using the term “blog” to describe what I was doing — because I grew weary of reading through two dozen or so newspapers early each morning looking for stories about religion and culture. After all, I also had a full-time job. And I was never all that comfortable being out in the open as I was, though having all those newspaper articles between me and my readers helped me to deal with that.

I’ve tried other ways of interacting online. I still have a Facebook account, though I’ve not posted anything there since November 2016. (Interesting time to stop, don’t you think? Especially for those of us in the United States.) I still have a few pictures up on Instagram, though I’ve stopped posting there as well. Ditto for twitter. I do like and appreciate the connections (and re-connections) facilitated by social media, but I’ve given up on the notion that a for-profit company built on the premise that they exist to collect data and attention that they can sell to other people is going to satisfy my yearning for authentic connection.

For a much longer take on this, consider stop talking and buying things.

If I had the courage of my convictions, I’d delete my accounts on facebook and instagram. Even though I no longer post anything there, I still reach for connections occasionally, thinking that I might learn something about friends that I simply wouldn’t know otherwise. I go there less and less, and all too often I see many more ads and seemingly random posts than something posted by a person whom I actually remember.

As I said, I’ve been contemplating a move back to blogging for years. The urge to do something has increased as I’ve grown more and more dissatisfied with other ways of being present on the web. And then I read this encouragement to bring back personal blogging. So I’m here. Call it a New Year’s Resolution, though I rarely make such resolutions, and I keep them even more rarely.

I think (I hope) that this sort of public writing — even if very (very!) few people read it — will help me to sort out what I’m thinking about things. (As my teacher says about his own notebooks, I read to discover what others are thinking; I write to discover what I am thinking.)

So, here it is, a first entry. Hoping that others will follow.

Supply chain weirdness economics {#Supply chain weirdness}

I listen to a variety of podcasts, some of them covering topics I know little about. One that I’ve been following recently is Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast.
Some factoids about the supply chain (or, as they suggest, the supply web) from a recent episode bring out some surprising connections.

First, it’s common knowledge that one of the effects of the 2008 meltdown was the collapse of the housing market in the United States. Few houses were being built, which means that there were fewer boards being cut. Fewer cut boards meant that there was less sawdust. A lot of that missing sawdust would have made for better resting places for cows. Dairy cows were less comfortable than they might have been, and uncomfortable cows produce less milk than comfortable cows. Less milk made for higher milk prices. So, the upshot: the housing crisis brought about higher milk prices.

And a second example from more recent times. There was a severe shortage of semiconductors from early on in the covid epidemic. Fewer semiconductors meant fewer cars. Fewer cars meant fewer car seats. And fewer car seats meant less demand for leather and therefore less demand for cow hides. The production of fewer cow hides meant lower productions levels for gelatin, which made for higher gelatin prices. But gelatin is a crucial ingredient in gummy bears. The upshot: higher prices for gummy bears.

As I said, some of these podcasts cover topics I know little about, and surely there are complexities here that the Odd Lots co-hosts glossed over. But, still, I find this rather fascinating.

Writing when empty {#Writing when empty}

One of the big blogging challenges I face is the challenge of settling on a topic to write about. I don’t have to be writing for any sort of public (even the public of the two or three people who might stumble on this blog in a given year) in order to face this challenge.

Read more