Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology
These are posts on culture from the blog Base and Superstructure. Mostly the focus is on American culture. But there might be a few posts on broader, international issues.
As we enter a new baseball season, I’d like to talk about money. Baseball fans always complain about the rich teams spending money and winning all the time. They’ve argued for decades that financial imbalances make the game worse. In the strongest version of these arguments, they claim outright that a team can buy the World Series.
Can they, though? Can a team buy the World Series, or is this just hyperbole? ESPN recently wrote about it with regard to the Mets.
Let’s figure it out.
As I recovered from Covid at the end of last year, I researched what I should watch out for in the coming weeks. After all, Long Covid loomed as a possibility. And I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything important.
As a basic piece of pandemic advice, it’s a good one. You should watch out for ongoing or recurring symptoms like fatigue, shortness of breath, cough, brain fog, GI issues, and so on.
However, I can’t help but notice a disconnect between what I read in the press about Long Covid and what I see in the world around me. The press routinely claims that 10-30% (or 30-50%, or 20-80%) of people infected by Covid go on to develop Long Covid. But when I think about all the people I know who Covid has infected – which is pretty close to everyone I know at this point – waaay less than 10-30% of them have ongoing issues like the ones above.
In short, I do know people who still suffer from Long Covid. And I hope they recover. But they comprise maybe 1-2% (maybe less) of the people I know who have had Covid.
What’s the deal here?
Way back in college I took 7 semesters of Latin courses. I stuck with it from the basics of the language all the way up to Catullus and Tacitus. I was always one of the best students in my classes, and I learned a lot about how the language works. But I never quite felt like I had a full grasp of it. I had a limited vocabulary, and I struggled to translate difficult texts.
More than 20 years later, I decided to learn the language again! I started by busting out my old copy of Wheelock’s – both text and workbook! – and worked through the whole book again.
After that, I decided on a different approach. I picked up a book and workbook series by Hans Ørberg on learning Latin by the natural method. In other words, I decided to learn the language by reading and speaking in Latin without trying to translate it into English.
I found it all…both more and less difficult, in a way. Getting into the first few chapters turned out easy enough, given my significant background in Latin grammar. It got more difficult from there, especially trying to retain long sentences in the original language. But I did find it an intuitive way to learn. I find that I can sight read and pronounce Latin words far better than I could the first time around.
Who knows? Maybe it will help me learn Spanish someday.
The Atlantic recently wrote a profile of Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG). At the beginning, it offered a brief bio.
MTG’s father grew up in a working-class family, born to a factory worker. He got into home construction first as a worker and contractor, and then as the owner of a small construction company. MTG grew up in a more rural part of a red state in an area with a deep history of racism. That history left the area with almost no black population. Her parents raised her Catholic, but she later left the church.
MTG attended the major public university in her state and became the first college graduate in her family. And as she got older, she saw something deeply wrong with the world.
The new TV show Severance drew lots of attention as it finished up its first season. Some of it even from a leftist perspective! Or at least a near left perspective. Even more interestingly, those who view Severance through a leftist lens see it as a show about worker solidarity and workplace organizing.
Can Severance teach us something about workplace organizing? I think it can! In fact, I think it highlights a major gap in the U.S. union movement. A gap that leftists could – and should – fill.
Let’s talk about all this.
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