unexpected confidences

J told me she's unhappy in her marriage -- we were in a noisy bar with a small group, you had to shout into the ear of your interlocutor, and she started saying that it was getting to be too difficult. Ten or fifteen minutes earlier, she'd been telling a funny story about her spouse and their pets, as she so often does. I don't remember what she and I were talking about at that moment but I know I wasn't prepared to veer into a conversation about marital trouble.

I managed to say a few things but mostly I just listened. I sounded like she was having  a hard time with the hours her spouse puts in at work and the way that makes her responsible for everything house-related. Then again, it has always sounded like her spouse simply doesn't do domestic chores, under any circumstances. Some of my feelings at this moment were not the most generous -- part of me was welcoming her to the very large club of people whose longterm relationships have foundered. Part of me was thinking that J doesn't do a lot of listening to or thinking about other people, and what they might be feeling.

But most of me was feeling bad for her, and hoping this is just a difficult moment that will pass. That she'll feel happy and loved again, and soon.

inequality and education

Nikole Hannah-Jones nails it (on Fresh Air): 

The systems that and the actions that created this inequality took a lot of effort and a lot of time. And we want to undo them, you know, with no pain for anyone with a snap of the fingers. On my Twitter account, I say -- I cover race from 1619. And 1619 is the year the first Africans were brought to what would become America as -- to be enslaved. I say that so that we understand there is a very -- before we were even a country, we had created this system that was going to put black people on the bottom, and we created a caste system. 

And to undo that, we feel like no one has to give anything up or there's not going to be any tensions or it's going to be easy, and it simply won't. One of the things that I really try to do with my work is show how racial segregation and racial inequality was intentionally created with a ton of resources. From the federal government, to the state, to city governments, to private citizens, we put so much effort into creating the segregation and inequality, and we're willing to put almost no effort in fixing it. And that's the problem.
. . .

[M]y daughter is not going to get an education that she would get if I paid $40,000 a year in private school tuition, but that's kind of the whole point of public schools. I think she -- I know she's learning a lot. I think it is making her a good citizen. I think it is teaching her that children who have less resources than her are not any less intelligent than her, not any less worthy than her. And I truly -- and I say this -- and it always feels weird when I say it as a parent because a lot of other parents look at you a little, you know, like you're maybe not as good of a parent -- I don't think she's deserving of more than other kids. I just don't.

I think that we can't say this school is not good enough for my child and then sustain that system. I think that that's just morally wrong; if it's not good enough for my child then why are we putting any children in those schools?
. . .

Brown v. Board of Education never talks about test scores. We are hyper focused on test scores now. And the way that we have comforted ourselves with the segregation in schools is to say we're just going to get those schools' test scores up to par. Well, one, we haven't done that. But there are lots of measures of what schools are supposed to do. 

See also this Atlantic article in on the overarching goal of Finnish education reform:

Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity.

Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.
. . .

The problem facing education in America isn't the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society,* and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad.

*Economic inequality and race are inextricable in this highly segregated country, so I don't entirely agree with this assertion. 

sleepless in SF

I could not sleep last night. I ate and drank a little too much and after I did a little cleaning up I lay awake in bed for a long time, feeling overheated. My eyes feel heavy and dry and my head is cloudy.

This is a first-world problem. It's a beautiful day and I will get myself outside, eventually.

Yesterday I walked to the farmers market and then to Lucca in the Mission. I went past what used to be the Cole Hardware store on Mission and wondered how deep the rain pool might be. I made a good basic lasagna -- simmered canned tomatoes, sliced garlic, and salt for half an hour, then mixed in creme fraiche. Waited for the sauce to cool and then spread it in the pyrex along with two cheeses and basil. It was tangy and decadent. I left the apple galette in too long, which was a shame. Also, I put it on a rimless baking sheet, which was a bad idea. I hope I can get the butter off the oven floor. (Another first-world problem.)

pro-business or pro-market

After his election, it was difficult to predict what President Trump would do. In the election campaign he said everything and the opposite of everything: from a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports to the reintroduction of the separation of commercial and investment banks, from an aggressive use of antitrust authority to the total abolishment of Dodd-Frank, the financial regulation that was enacted after the crisis. After two months, it is clear that the Trump industrial policy will be pro-business, not pro-market.

It may seem to be a nuance, but there is a fundamental difference. A pro-business policy favors existing companies at the expense of future generations. A pro-market policy favors conditions that allow all businesses to thrive without any favoritism.

-Luigi ZIngaleshttps://promarket.org/donald-trumps-economic-policy-pro-business-not-pro-market/

no ban, no wall

women's march