Lazy Sunday LXIX: Phone it in Fridays, Part III

We’ve celebrated another with the  posts (here, here, here, and here).  Now we’re on the long march toward the 2020 election, which will hopefully be a triumphant landslide for GEOTUS Donaldus Magnus.

For now, it’s time to continue our month-long review of past Phone it in Friday posts.  This week makes for an odd trio:  the first post, “Phone it in Friday VII: Universal Studios,” looks back to a family trip to the Florida theme park at the end of February, on the eve of The Age of The Virus.  Only dimly did I realize at the time that we were living in the twilight days of The Before Times.

The next two posts both deal with The Virus, which dominated blog discussion in those early, fretful days of The Age of The Virus.  If we’re basing the quality of the posts on the lightheartedness and fun of the posts, then these match up nicely with their counterparts in the new Star Wars trilogy:  one good, fun movie (because it’s basically The New Hope) followed by two dreadful SJW escapades.

You can decide (especially you purple-haired schoolmarm star fleet captains out there):

  • Phone it in Friday VII: Universal Studios” – This post is the ultimate example of a “Phone it in Friday” post, as I slammed it out on my tiny netbook computer while babies were screaming (probably) in the hotel room.  It regales readers with some highlights from my family’s trip to Universal Studios, a rare during-the-school-year vacation.  It was worth burning through my three annual personal days, that’s for sure.  My brothers and our significant others and/or children will be heading back there later in the month, in fact.
  • Phone it in Friday VIII: Coronavirus Conundrum” – I wrote this a week after the Universal Studios post, when everything was still up in the air regarding The Virus, at least here in South Carolina.  We’d had very few cases by that point in SC, but the Pacific Northwest was getting hammered.  Ten days later, we transitioned to distance learning.  At the time, we didn’t know much about The Virus, other than it was China’s fault; as I wrote at the time, “My hope is that after all is done, China will be a pariah, no longer vaunted as a power on the rise, but maligned as a malicious, mendacious regime.”  We’ll see.
  • Phone it in Friday IX: Coronavirus Conundrum, Part II: Attack of The Virus” – The title of this post actually drew from the second episode of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Attack of the Clones.  That afternoon, we had a huge, emergency faculty meeting to figure out distance learning.  Two days later, on Sunday, 15 March 2020, Governor McMaster announced that schools were shutting down through the end of March, and they ended up staying shut for the rest of the year (with distance learning, of course).  I also filed that day to run in Lamar’s Town Council election, which was supposed to be 12 May 2020, but will now be this Tuesday, 14 July 2020.  Wish me luck!

That’s it!  I would like to note that today’s post marks eighty weeks of consecutive posts, and the sixty-ninth edition of Lazy Sunday.  Wooooot!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday LXVIII: Phone it in Fridays, Part II

A quick note:  tomorrow marks the beginning of , a week-long celebration of people, places, concepts, innovations, etc., that MADE AMERICA GREAT (AGAIN) posts are SubscribeStar exclusives, so you need a subscription of $1 or higher to gain full access to these extended posts.  You can check out #MAGAWeek2018 and #MAGAWeek2019 Lazy Sunday posts to get a better idea of the kind of content you’ll see this week.  God Bless America!

We’re continuing our review of Phone it in Friday posts with editions IV, V, and VI.  Hopefully they’re as good as the original Star Wars trilogy.  At the very least, they can’t be as bad as the prequels, or as woke as the new trilogy.  ¡Dios Mio!

  • Phone it in Friday IV: Conferencing” – I hate meetings.  I’ve been in enough of them to know that they are typically a soul-sucking waste of time, and their agendas are often way overstuffed, usually with information that could be explained easily enough in an e-mail.  That said, I love conferences.  This post was a review of a private school association’s annual teachers’ conference, which our faculty had not attended in some years due to various conflicts.  I find that, unlike meetings, conferences are full of opportunities to learn and to network.  There’s an air of sociable conviviality at a good conference—and cheese Danishes.
  • Phone it in Friday V: Ode to Friday Evenings (and Weekends)” – This post was truly a phoned-in edition of Phone it in Friday—it was late, I’d had a long week, and I needed to slam out some content to appease the WordPress Daily Post counter.  I explain that magical period “from about 3:30 in the afternoon until around about bedtime Friday night” when everything is alive with possibilities for the weekend ahead, and when you’re at the furthest possible point from official responsibilities.  Now that I’m on summer vacation and was doing distance teaching for two months prior to that, everyday is Friday, essentially (except for Wednesdays, when History of Conservative Thought meets).  I’m trying to enjoy unlimited Fridays while I can!
  • Phone it in Friday VI: Valentine’s Day” – This post wasn’t really about Valentine’s Day, per se, but it did include Z Man‘s excellent “The Lovecast” episode of his weekly podcast, as well as photog’s post about bringing back matchmakers.  I also reflected on some positive signs during a trip to a rural Hardee’s, which was remodeling:  “It was also heartening to see a Hardee’s in rural Lugoff, South Carolina spending the money to remodel.  Times are good.”

Well, that’s it for this classic trilogy of Phone it in Friday posts.  The fun continues next Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: The Portly Politico Summer Reading List 2020

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.  NEW TIER: $3 a month gets one edition of Sunday Doodles every month!

It’s that time of year again:  summer!  That means we’re due for The Portly Politico Summer Reading List 2020!

I’m actually a bit overdue for this list.  I typically publish it in early June, to give those of you blessed to enjoy summer vacation a chance to look them up.  But my long illness for the first couple of weeks of the month waylaid a number of plans, and last weekend I was occupied with family festivities, so the list is a few weeks later than I like.

But, like Sunday Doodles—a perk for $5 a month subscribers—my philosophy is “better late than never!”  And with the Independence Day holiday approaching, it’s a great time to do some reading.

For new readers, my criteria is pretty straightforward.  To quote myself from the 2016 list:

The books listed here are among some of my favorites.  I’m not necessarily reading them at the moment, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t!

Pretty vague, I know.  Additionally, I usually feature three books, plus an “Honorable Mention” that’s usually worth a read, too.

For those interested, here are the prior two installments:

But that’s enough yackin’.  Here’s The Portly Politico Summer Reading List 2020:

1.) Richard Weaver, edited by George M. Curtis, III and James J. Thompson, Jr., The Southern Essays of Richard M. Weaver (1999) – Regular readers know I love Richard Weaver, and I featured his masterpiece Ideas Have Consequences on the 2016 list.  The Southern Essays feature a collection of Weaver’s writings on the South.

Weaver was a literary critic and English professor at the University of Chicago, but his roots were in Asheville, North Carolina.  He possessed a deep and abiding love of and respect for Dixie, particularly its writers.  Weaver’s background in literature and poetry is evident in these essays, in which he ruminates on the abundance of prolific Southern literary types.  He also brings some nuance to the question of the American Civil War and the South’s role therein.  I believe it was in this collection that I first learned of John Randolph of Roanoke, the great, ornery Virginian who resisted federal overreach in the early nineteenth century.

Weaver’s writing can be a bit dense, but once you get used to his mid-century style, his ideas are easy enough to absorb.  I highly, highly recommend you pick up this collection.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

(Belated) SubscribeStar Saturday: Universal Studios Trip

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Today is Super Tuesday, and the Democrats are circling the wagons around Biden in an attempt to stymie Sanders.  Tonight will tell us a great deal:  will Bernie prevail, as polling suggests, over Biden?  Will—as I predict—Biden hang tough, scooping up the black vote and, by extension, the Southern States?  Will Bloomberg’s untested strategy of just focusing on these fifteen jurisdictions pay off, or (as I also predict) he flame out spectacularly, effectively blowing those ad dollars (a la my good friend Tom Steyer)?

We’ll know more tonight.  In the meantime, here is my account of my recent trip to the happiest place on Earth, Universal Studios.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Phone it in Friday VII: Universal Studios

As I wrote yesterday, I’m out on a rare vacation (other than Christmas, Spring Break, all summer, and every second- and third-tier holiday that falls on a Monday in the winter).  I’m down in Florida visiting Universal Studios Orlando with my family, and it’s been an amazing, tiring trip.  I tried filing away blog posts for while I was away, but couldn’t get enough done to have every day of my trip covered.

That said, we got back from Day 2 in the park a little while ago, and I’m slamming something out while playing with Mario Kart Hot Wheels with my almost-three-year old nephew.  Here are just some observations from my vacation.

Read More »

TBT: Brack Friday Bunduru: Workers Need a Break

I’m on vacation this week, burning through my precious personal days in order to spend some time in Florida with the family.  Normally, I wouldn’t feature such a recent post for TBT (I try to do posts that are at least six months old), but when going through my archives for vacation-themed posts, this was the closest fit I could find… even if it’s not Thanksgiving.

Regardless, I increasingly believe that workers need time off.  I understand the economics of time off—it’s only possible with a great degree of efficiency and wealth—so I’m not unrealistic about it.  It just seems that people should be able to take off Christmas and a few other key days.  Just as folks will “unplug” from social media for twenty-four hours, shouldn’t we be able to escape work, even for a day?

Speaking of social media, it does seem that cell phones and e-mail have made it impossible to escape work.  I have never worked a job that truly stopped at 5 PM.  That’s likely true for most Americans.  The ability to be connected constantly means that people expect you to be available constantly—there’s never truly a moment that I feel at rest.

Perhaps that’s a person problem, and my pathetic generation is particularly anxious and afraid of a ringing phone, but Lord knows I hate getting a call during my free time, limited as it is.  There’s always the fear that it’s going to be some tedious, work-related issue.  Such issues always seem to pop up right before, or even during, a break.

Oh, well.  I can’t complain—or, at least, I shouldn’t.  Work is a blessing.  But like all good things, you can have too much of it.

With that, here’s “Brack Friday Bunduru: Workers Need a Break“:

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and Christmas‘s time—an ever-expanding season that stretches into September—has finally arrived.  Today is Black Friday, the consumerist threshold that formally inaugurates the Christmas (shopping) season.

Black Friday, much like the holiday season it ushers in, has slowly stretched beyond its one-day window.  First, the expansion went into Small Business Saturday, then Cyber Monday.  Next came Giving Tuesday—a bit of charitable giving to close out the mad dash for savings.  Once you’ve spent all of your money in big box stores on Friday, at the dying mom and pop joint in your town, and everything else on Amazon on Monday, whatever is left goes to the United Way.

Now Black Friday even bleeds into Thanksgiving Day itself.  Doorbuster sales with lines forming up at 2 AM on Black Friday is spectacle enough; now, stores opening Thanksgiving afternoon or evening try to squeeze more revenue from zealous shoppers.

As a schoolteacher, I’m spoiled:  with the exception of two years of my life, I’ve been involved in education in some way, which means I’ve always gotten a glorious Thanksgiving holiday.  It rankles me, though, when service folks are denied even one day to relax and spend with their families (until I need to buy something at 8 PM on a Thursday, and that Thursday turns out to be Thanksgiving).

“They should get a better job, Portly.”  Okay, sure, a perk of teaching, for example, is all the crazy days off; a perk of a professional job is to vacation or flex-time.  Federal employees have to work on Black Friday, but they get every second- and third-tier holiday on the calendar as a paid vacation day, so I don’t feel much sympathy for them (plus, they work for the federal government).

But even taco jockeys and the weird, pushy old gay sales clerk at Macy’s need a day off to spend with their families (or, in the case of the weird old gay guy at Macy’s—an actual person I have in mind—his little lapdog, Snickers—that part is pure speculation on my part).  There will always be those who want to work on Thanksgiving for that sweet golden time, of course, but wouldn’t it be worth it to shut everything down for a day or two?

Yes, if you work in retail, you’re going to work Black Friday.  All the more reason—before clocking in for a twelve-plus-hour shift—to have the day of Thanksgiving completely off.  Gotta have time to sleep off that turkey and dressing, at the very least.

Christmas is another one where I often forget—cozy in my cosseted bubble of quasi-academia—that most people work the day before and/or after Christmas.  The idea of working the day after Christmas seems like a death sentence, but that’s not as bad as working on Christmas itself.  Whatever Ebeneezer Scrooge is forcing his employees to work on Christmas Day should probably be imprisoned.

The folks in Medieval Europe had the right idea—dozens of feast days to celebrate this or that minor saint or hero.  They probably went too far in the other direction, going overboard with merriment.  I’m sure there’s a happy medium.

Today, we modern Americans work our fingers to the bone.  That’s one reason we’re great, and I’m a firm believer in hard work.  All the more reason, then, to take a day or two during this time of year to slow down and relax a bit.  We hustle and bustle through the Christmas season with such rapidity and motion, we don’t take the time to savor it.

Shutting down everything but essential services—God Bless police officers and emergency medical personnel for being there on Christmas and Thanksgiving—would be an admirable goal for at least Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, as well as Thanksgiving.  Open your store up at 12:00 AM on Black Friday if you want, but don’t make your employees come in until right at that moment.

These are just some stream-of-consciousness thoughts I’ve had as I’m wrestling with questions about the proper balance between work and life.  But hard workers could use a little downtime with their families during the Christmas season.

Vacation Reading: Quintus Curtius’s “Digest”

I’m hitting the road with my family for a fun-filled trip to Florida.  As such, posts will be a bit shorter through the weekend.

That said, it’s also the perfect time to catch up on some reading.  Classicist and antiquarian Quintus Curtius just released a massive collection of his blog essaysDigest, which I am excited to, um, digest.

Readers may recall a post I wrote last summer about an essay from Curtius about the ocean.  That essay is indicative of Curtius’s depth of thought and erudition; his mind is keenly analytical, and he writes with the perspective of someone who has lived and learned much.

Read More »