Bob Goff and the Goff Family

so I went to catholic high school, right. and they had a tradition of starting classes with prayers, if the teacher wanted to. and they had a sub-tradition of "special intentions" - before they do the prayer, the teacher would ask, "any special intentions?" and you could ask for a prayer for someone if you want. like, you could raise your hand and say "my aunt Suzy" or "my neighbor, who has cancer" or whatever. or you could just say "special intention" if you want to keep it private. then we'd all say a Hail Mary or something, and then we'd get on with class.

 

junior year theology class, my teacher was, uh, brusque. you could say "a hardass", and you'd be only slightly unkind. I kinda liked him, because he was also pretty sharp and funny. plus, the class was "world religions", which was by far the most interesting of the theology classes. I sat near these kids Joe and Dan and Rich, who were into, like, Radiohead, and therefore really cool. (look, this was right after Amnesiac. this was the era of AIM away messages, and I could never decipher Dan's or Rich's, but I knew they must be cool. Dan also got me into the Dismemberment Plan, which actually did indirectly change my life, but that's another story.)

almost every day, we'd have 3 or 4 intentions for the prayer, and every couple days one of them would be Joe or Rich asking for an intention for "Bob Goff". After a couple months, sometimes they'd ask for one for "Bob Goff and the Goff Family", or sometimes "Brendan Goff and the Goff Family."

these were supposed to be semi private, but after months of prayers, I couldn't help but ask Joe, "hey, who are Bob and Brendan Goff?" and Joe, deadpan: "I don't know, I just saw "Bob Goff" on a truck once. Brendan I just made up."

somehow that's always stuck with me. what legends! it's like, it's not really a heartfelt prayer; but it's also not mocking the prayer; it's not like they particularly cared to pray, or had anything against it. it's walking that beautiful line between "laughing at" and "laughing with." so hats off to you, Joe and Rich and Dan. and of course, the Goff family.

A few short links, mostly about feelings

Imagined Vastness: yes this! I love when I see this in movies/books/etc, and it's cool that the dependably-solid blogger Matt Webb has also tried to put a name on the same feeling. See: The Cleaners in Labyrinth, the room above the convenience store in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (and, really, most of season 3), the space jockey in Alien.

Excerpt from Perfume: the Alchemy of Scent: I love this kind of thing. It's like, ways to sharpen your senses almost give you more life; you get the same amount of time but you feel things more during it. See also: coffee tasting wheel.

Speaking of, Modeling psychedelic tracers: (First, don't do drugs, kids, but:) when I have talked to people who have used certain drugs, their vocabulary about their experience is often pretty fuzzy. Now, they're talking about big super-complex experiences, so on the one hand, of course it is. But on the other hand, it'd be neat if we could understand these a little better. FMRIs are one, but if we could say "this experience is kind of strobey, that one is kind of color-pulsey", that might help distinguish a little bit.

As someone who once thought emotion detection was a cool idea, everyone who thinks emotion detection is a cool idea should read this: "Emotion detection doesn't work, but it will try to change your behavior anyway."

Edit: a couple podcast episodes, both from planet money, that I feel like sharing, or at least linking for my future self:

1. REDMAP - a good explanation of how the Republicans won the game so damn hard (and if Trump weren't such a weirdo, they would probably still be winning)

2. Waste Land - how we got lied to about plastic recycling and how we're still getting lied to

warning: both are hard listens if you're prone to hopelessness! but the Planet Money folks are pretty upbeat so maybe not so bad?

san francisco: how to vote 2020

I want to get this out early this year so that, as soon as you get your ballot, you can fill it in and send it back or deposit it, help the post office, etc. I tried to get an opinion on everything and mostly succeeded. (it's a long ballot!) I may update this as I learn more.

People

President: lol

House: lol again, nothing matters, Pelosi will never lose; Buttar is uh probably not the opponent we've been waiting for, vote for whoever you want, I don't care

State Senate: I'm a Scott Wiener stan, dude has been correct so many times and really merges my two ethoses: "be real lefty" and "do what will actually help the cause you want to advance."

Assembly: David Chiu has been real solid too (so has Phil Ting, depending on which half of SF); besides, your only other choice is Starchild the libertarian (and I am sneering more at the "libertarian" than the "Starchild", to be clear)

BART board of directors: looks like Bevan Dufty's got it in the bag and he's been good I think

School Board and Community College Board: I said I wanted to have Opinions on everything but I have no idea. A friend of a friend said "they're all good!" so, :shrug:

D9 Supervisor: mine's Ronen; she's bad at housing but good at bikes; housing is more important; but she doesn't have a challenger so it doesn't even matter. But check the Yimby endorsements: vote Philhour, Sauter, Brown, Melga, or Safai if they're on your ballot.

SF propositions

Shorthand: yes on all but B and I

A (mental health/homelessness/parks/infrastructure bond): Yes

B (new dept of sanitation): No; splitting one department doesn't make it work better, and does increase admin costs

C (remove citizenship requirements for city bodies): Yes

D (sheriff oversight): Yes

E (remove mandatory minimum number of police): Hell Yes

F (business tax simplification): Yes

G (let 16 year olds vote in SF): Yes

H (speed up review of small businesses): Hell Yes

I (real estate transfer tax): No - this sounds good, but will mostly hit apartment buildings, I guess

J (tax for schools): Yes

K (let SF build 10k units of affordable housing): Yes

L (more tax if CEO makes more than 100x median employee): Slight Yes; probably irrelevant

RR (Caltrain): Hell Yes. if we don't pass this, Caltrain shuts down.

CA propositions

Shorthand: Yes on 14-18, No on 19-24, Yes on 25

14 (bonds for stem cell research): Slight Yes but it's complicated? maybe this isn't the right way to fund science? this was once a band-aid because Bush Jr banned stem cell research; now stem cell research is unbanned; what's the end result of this? who knows man

15 (School and community funding): Hell Yes

16 (unban affirmative action): Yes

17 (restores right to vote for parolees): Yes

18 (17-year-olds voting in primaries if they'll be 18 by the general): Yes; I also support the much stronger form of this bill in Prop G

19 (Let people transfer property tax assessments, slightly limit transfers to kids): Slight no; Main thing is limiting transfers to kids, that's cool (aka the "Lebowski loophole"; if 19 passes, parents can only transfer property tax assessment to their kids if it's their primary home). But also lets people transfer assessments 3x instead of 1x; I was convinced because Fred thinks that downside is greater than the upside. I could be wrong.

20 (be tougher on crime): Hell No; are we in 1990? haven't we learned what "tough on crime" does?

21 (allow cities to expand rent control): uhhh man what a mixed bag, very slight No, rent control is ok in some limited cases and generally bad but maybe good given where we're at now but maybe will make the whole thing worse longer

22 (let Uber/Lyft/Doordash keep exploiting workers): Hell No; don't let corporations write laws. (especially awful corps like Uber.)

23 (dialysis something someting): No; handle it, y'all

24 (data privacy): No (uh... it's complicated; this is weirdly written; yes more privacy is good but as written it's not clear what it will do, and will just make it impossible to write better laws)

25 (End cash bail): Yes because cash bail sucks, though I'm concerned about turning it over to a "bail algorithm"; someone please pre-write the "turns out, algorithm is racist" article so we can publish it in 2021

Other voter guides for more info

SPUR

Yimby Action

someone from the internet who seems smart?

League of Women Voters

SF Bike Coalition

A friend of a friend named Fred who seems smart