The Best Paragraph I've Read...

Zac & Don
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The Best Paragraph I've Read...

A podcast that discusses an interesting article or concept.

  1. 6 DAYS AGO

    All the Stuff We'll Never Do In Our Lives! Time to Write Off Lakehouse Ownership? Reading Complete Shakespeare? Learning to Sculpt Marble? Owning Nice Cars? Hiking Appalachian Trail? Any Goals Left?

    The Best Paragraph I've Read: "All you need to know is that when my travel plans to Machu Picchu fell through, I had a revelation: I might die without seeing the place that everyone says you have to see before you die and that I only recently learned was in Peru. In my happy-go-lucky days, when my deadline was Never, I took it for granted that sooner or later I’d travel everywhere (even Liechtenstein and North Platte, Nebraska), watch every movie and TV series (except “Game of Thrones”) and read every book worth reading. So what if it took me 100 years to trudge through “One Hundred Years of Solitude?”  Since my Machu Picchu moment, I’ve been mourning the experiences I may never get around to. Here are a few selections from what I call my Rhymes-with-Bucket List. I might never learn to play bridge, speak Mandarin, drive cross-country, acquire a taste for opera, join the Peace Corps, get rich, get divorced (I’m not married), meet someone who’s worthy of opening my long-cherished bottle of Champagne for, live somewhere with an exposed brick wall, see Halley’s comet again, use up my ridiculously ample stock of Swiffer Wet Jet pads, solve a murder, read “The Gulag Archipelago,” reread “The Gulag Archipelago,” parkour across building rooftops, clean out the kitchen closet or the storage unit, find out what dark matter is made of, who killed JFK and what all the screws and thingamajigs I’m saving in a container are for." This paragraph comes from an essay in the Wall Street Journal. The essay is titled: "That Whole 'Life is Short' Thing? It's True!" The essay is written by Patricia Marx. You can read the full essay here: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/relationships/that-whole-life-is-short-thing-its-true-d0734c9c Zac & Don discuss what goals and aspects of life they have written off and will never do or accomplish. They also discuss the goals they still have. Finally they reflect upon the unexpected things that have happened during their lives.

    52 min

  2. NOV 6

    Cheerleading!!! Monopoly Business? Increasing Popularity? High Injury Rates? Is It A Sport? Private Equity? Olympics? Rival of Dance & Gymnastics? WWE Comparison? Laurie Hogan Joins to Discuss!

    The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Nationwide, just over a million children, mostly girls, participate in cheer each year (some estimates are even higher), more than the number who play softball or lacrosse. And almost every part of that world is dominated by a single company: Varsity Spirit. It’s hard to cheer at the youth, high school or collegiate level without putting money in the company’s pocket. Varsity operates summer camps where children learn to do stunts and perform; it hosts events where they compete; it sells pom-poms they shake and uniforms they wear on the sidelines of high school and college football games. Each year, Varsity ships 4.6 million pieces of apparel, from $80 leopard-print “Cheer Mom” fleeces to custom uniforms covered in Swarovski crystals.   Critics like Matt Stoller, an antitrust expert and the research director of the American Economic Liberties Project, claim that the cheer giant is a monopolist whose dominance in its area rivals that of Google in tech and has had negative impacts for participants and their families. Varsity, based in Memphis, generates hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, with gross profit margins at times topping 40 percent, making the company a cash cow for a series of private-equity owners. Parents have reported spending upward of $10,000 a year per child in competitive cheer, with Varsity controlling, by some estimates, more than 80 percent of that market." This paragraph comes from the New York Times. The article is titled: "How Cheerleading Became So Acrobatic, Dangerous, and Popular." The author is David Gauvey Herbert. You can read the full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/magazine/cheerleading-jeff-webb.html Laurie Hogan joins Zac & Don to discuss the business and growing popularity of cheerleading across America.

    1h 8m

  3. OCT 24

    Is It Ok to Give Up? Why Is Being A Quitter A Bad Thing? Do Words Like GRIT Promote Tragic Hero Choice Making? Should We Focus on Life Tasks Instead? Are We Driving the Yacht or Riding in a Kayak?

    The Best Paragraph I've Read "When should you give up? You certainly don’t want to give up too soon on finding your way out of the woods, and call the ski patrol unnecessarily. Similarly, you don’t want to give up on your dreams before they’re realized, or on your relationships because they’re sometimes troublesome; you want to be a reliable, determined, heroic individual—someone with grit, who follows through. But, also, persevering can be a grave mistake: sometimes, either actually or metaphorically, you need to admit that you’re lost and call for rescue. How much effort is enough? And when does continued effort become unwise?" This paragraph comes from an essay in the New Yorker. The essay is titled: "Should You Just Give Up?" The article is written by Joshua Rothman. You can read the full essay here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/should-you-just-give-up Zac & Don discuss if its ever ok to give up on something. They wonder if being a quitter bad? They also talk about the idea of changing goals to life tasks.

    36 min

  4. OCT 18

    The Great Stuff Transfer!!! What If the Kids Don't Want the Vase or Grandma's Xmas Tree Stand? Are Boomers & Their Children Talking Enough About All the Stuff That's Been Acquired Over Decades?

    The Best Paragraph I've Read: Sperling's conundrum is familiar to many people with parents facing down their golden years: After they've acquired things for decades, eventually, those things have to go. As the saying goes, you can't take it with you. Many millennials, Gen Xers, and Gen Zers are now facing the question of what to do with their parents' and grandparents' possessions as their loved ones downsize or die. Some boomers are even still managing the process with their parents. The process can be arduous, overwhelming, and painful. It's tough to look your mom in the eye and tell her that you don't want her prized wedding china or that giant brown hutch she keeps it in. For that matter, nobody else wants it, either. "The reality is that we live in a world that is over inundated with stuff, and the value of things that people hold dear and that they paid a lot of money for and they think retained value is not so much, which is unfortunate," Sarah Hersh, a co-owner of Ben Hersh Estate Sales in New Jersey, said. "We have more stuff than we need, and less of it is desirable to other people than we think it's going to be." This paragraph comes from Business Insider. The article is titled: "The Boomer Stuff Avalanche." The author is Emily Stewart. You can read the full article here: https://www.businessinsider.com/millennial-gen-x-boomer-inheritance-stuff-house-collectibles-2024-10#:~:text=%22We%20have%20more%20stuff%20than,in%20wealth%20to%20younger%20generations. Zac & Don talk about the stuff that baby boomers own and are now trying to manage. They reflect upon some of the items their parents own while also wondering if the coming "great stuff transfer" is an underreported issue in America.

    38 min

  5. OCT 10

    A Woman Had 50 Random People Give Her 25 Million Euro Fortune Away? Should We Look to Citizen Councils to Make Decisions for Society? Is there a "Best" Way for Deciding On How to Help Others?

    The Best Paragraph I've Read: The concept of a citizen council—a democratic forum with roots in ancient Greece—is straightforward: a selected group of people come together to discuss a matter of public policy, with the goal of making proposals or clarifying public attitudes. Hélène Landemore, a professor at Yale and the author of “Open Democracy,” which argues for a more inclusive system of participatory governance, told me, “Parliaments are now largely defined by partisanship and the logic of power. You’re there to win, not to learn or change your mind.” The members of a citizen council, on the other hand, come without partisan allegiances and are typically more familiar with the realities of daily life. “It’s a very small subset of the population that enters traditional politics, and, once they do, they tend to stay there too long,” Landemore said. “They don’t know the price of a pain au chocolat or a metro ticket. They’re disconnected.” This paragraph comes from the New Yorker. The article is titled: "How to Give Away a Fortune." The article is written by Joshua Yaffa. You can read the whole article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/09/09/how-to-give-away-a-fortune Zac & Don discuss the idea of citizen councils and whether having 50 random people give away money and make decisions is a good idea. They also talk discuss if there is a best way to give money away.

    32 min

  6. OCT 3

    Teens Can't Type & Don't Want A Drivers License! What's the Bigger Concern? Are Either of These Issues Actual Problems? Are the Trends Just Milestones Showing Historic Inflection Points for Humans?

    The Best Paragraph I've Read: "Educators sometimes assume Gen Z digital natives already know how to type because they’re so familiar with tech. After all, nearly half of teens say they are online “almost constantly,” according to a survey from Pew Research Center. But while today’s students have greater access to laptops, tablets and smartphones, that access doesn’t automatically translate into typing skills." This paragraph comes from an article in the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled: "Gen Z-ers Are Computer Whizzes. Just Don't Ask Them to Type." The author is Georgia Wells. You can read the full article here: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/gen-z-typing-computers-keyboards-c83d15f0 Zac & Don discuss why young people struggle with typing. They wonder what school computer classes are doing in place of teaching typing. They also wonder if this is actually a problem. In addition they discuss the rising number of young people who do not have drivers license and wonder if this is a good or bad trend. You can read the driver license article here:

    31 min

  7. SEP 26

    Surgeon General Warning!!! Modern Parenting Is Too Hard & Stressful? Should We Take the Warning Seriously? Is Parenting Too Time Intensive? Or Are We Just Over Thinking It & Making Things Harder?

    The Best Paragraph I've Read: In his recent advisory on parents’ mental health, the United States surgeon general, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, said out loud what many parents might have only furtively admitted: Parenting today is too hard and stressful. Of course, there have always been concerns about families’ well-being. And while some of today’s parents’ fears are newer — cellphones, school shootings, fentanyl — parents have always worried about their children. So why has parental stress risen to the level of a rare surgeon general’s warning about an urgent public health issue — putting it in the same category as cigarettes and AIDS? It’s because today’s parents face something different and more demanding: the expectation that they spend ever more time and money educating and enriching their children. These pressures, researchers say, are driven in part by fears about the modern-day economy — that if parents don’t equip their children with every possible advantage, their children could fail to achieve a secure, middle-class life. This paragraph comes from The New York Times. The article was titled: "Today's Parents: 'Exhausted, Burned Out and Perpetually Behind'" The author is Claire Cain Miller. You can read the full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/14/upshot/parents-stress-murthy-warning.html Zac & Don discuss whether parenting today is too hard and stressful. They wonder if there is any truth to the notion that parents feel they have to spend more time parenting their children. Zac & Don also reference the following article and documentary. How School Drop-Off Became a Nightmare https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2024/09/school-drop-off-cars-chaos/679869/ Babies the Documentary https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1020938/

    40 min

  8. SEP 19

    Do Schools Give Out Too Many A's? Is The Letter Grade Too Easy To Earn? Should Schools Use Ironic Grades? Go To A Pass/Fail System? Is This Just a College Problem?

    The Best Paragraph I've Read: If everyone outside hard-core engineering, math or pre-med courses can easily get an A, the whole system loses meaning. It fails to make distinctions between different levels of achievement or to motivate students to work hard on their academic pursuits. All the while, it allows students to pretend—to themselves and to others—that they are performing exceptionally well. Worse, this system creates perverse incentives. To name but one, it actively punishes those who take risks by enrolling in truly challenging courses. This paragraph comes from an essay in the Wall Street Journal. The essay is titled: "College Grades Have Become a Charade. It's Time to Abolish Them." The essay is written by Yascha Mounk. You can read the full essay here: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/college-grades-have-become-acharade-its-time-to-abolish-them-ee4eb3fe Zac & Don discuss whether there are too many A's being given in College and K-12 Public Schools. They discuss reasons why A's have become the most common grade and whether there are any solutions to this issue.

    38 min
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4.9
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A podcast that discusses an interesting article or concept.

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