Be the boss of me! — or, what should Tod Kelly write about next?
The more I’m writing for publications outside Ordinary Times, the more I find I want to continue writing regularly here. I still have the time, and I still have the desire. What I don’t have so much these days is the bandwidth to sort through the too-many wild hairs I get every day. So I’m going to take a page out of Burt, Mark, and Russell’s playbook — and when I say, “take a page,” I of course mean, “totally steal.” To that end, let me ask the hive mind:
What would you like me to write about in the coming weeks?
You can feel free to ask me to write about anything you like. If you have a question about principled pragmatism, risk management, books, music, food (recipes?), anything I’ve ever written about before, or even something you’ve never seen me comment on before but wonder how I’d respond, now is the time to ask. Your questions or requests can be serious, semi-serious, or bats**t crazy. Whatever, I’m game.
Put your requests or questions below, or, as always, feel free to email me. I’ll try to make sure I get to each one eventually, though I reserve the right to both answer on my own timetable and to take your questions or requests wherever my ever-wandering mind leads me.[1]
One caveat: If you were planning on asking me to write about what it’s like being Mrs. America, the art of Romare Bearden, the USFL-like alternative Republic of the United States looking to challenge the USA for supremacy, what happens in Season Two Episode Two of Babylon Five, or why the Obamacare rollout is the least of our worries with the current healthcare crisis, know that I’m already waaaay ahead of you.
Thanks in advance.
[1] Oh, and by the way and for whatever this is worth — having spent some time these past few months reading other sites’ comment sections, know that I would never dare ask this question to any other site’s commenters. It’s one of those things that doesn’t get said enough because it’s so obvious, but you people rock. Or, I dunno, hip-hop. Or maybe dubstep. Whatever noise you kids listen to these days, that’s what y’all do is what I’m basically saying.
Follow Tod on Twitter, view his archive, or email him. Visit him at TodKelly.com
I have a few things that I would like you to write on, but only if you have the time or desire.
1. More risk management. What I’m especially interested in is principles of risk management in terms that a layperson like myself can understand. Is it only about insurance? (I don’t think so, but I recently bought a used book called “Introduction to Risk Management” or some such, and it was about insurance.
2. Principled pragmatism. I know that I have been one of the people who have insisted that “principled pragmatism” must get its ideas from somewhere, therefore it is not non-ideological. But I really would like more on how you define it, perhaps especially in regard to a) specific regulations or controversies (you already do this, but I really like it when you discuss it) and b) your thoughts on what other pragmatists have said, e.g., William James or George Orwell. I realize that just because James called himself a “pragmatist” doesn’t mean his pragmatism is the same as yours, but I’d be fascinated to hear your insights. I also realize that Orwell might not even be a pragmatist by many definitions of the term–and to my knowledge, he didn’t identify as one, although I could be mistaken–but his approach to things strikes me very much akin to your own.
I’m sorry I don’t have anything more concrete to offer as a suggestion, and again, I understand if you don’t wish to write about these things. (Like you, I generally dislike “philosophy,” although I really like James.) Just some thoughts on my part.Report
I’d second the principled pragmatism one too. What is it? Where does it come from? What makes it principled? What makes it pragmatic?Report
I’m still beating the drum for combining breast feeding rights with MRM. How many dads here would breast feed and of those that would how many would be willing to do so in public. That should bring in some interesting commenters.Report
I do like Tod’s treatment of the men’s rights stuff. He is critical, but he acknowledges the sometimes legitimate points they make. I thing that movement needs to be criticized, but I also think it brings up some things that probably need to be discussed.Report
I was not dissing Tod in the slightest. When have you ever read an article on male breastfeeding?Report
Sorry…I didn’t mean to imply you were dissing him.Report
I’m not sure I want to know about this form of battiness.Report
Video: Batkid to the Rescue – Leukimia kid Dream come true! AMAZING
http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2013/11/video-batkid-to-rescue-leukimia-kid.htmlReport
I want to know about your time in an 80s cover band. I can see you on keyboards.
The cheap-ass gourmet is a wonderful series that should continue.Report
Seconded that re Cheap ass gourmet.Report
Open ended question:
What is to be done?Report
I totally endorse Pierre’s suggestion re: more risk management perspective. I find your thoughts from that angle really captivating.
But then, I would happily read your thoughts about Froot Loops. So you’re guaranteed at least one reader, regardless.Report
If you had to bet the ranch, which fringe political group is most likely to achieve its goals on at least a regional basis over, say, the next 20 years? Regional defined as greater than two adjacent states. Not allowed to say “None of them.” And why. I’m particularly interested in the why, since I see myself as currently being a political fringe group of one. But I have hopes for expansion :^)Report
@michael-cain
That depends….are you referring to the Crawford Ranch, or the LBJ ranch?Report
How can a person who is otherwise principled, intelligent, and good-natured root for the Dodgers?Report
I think you should write about Obama’s lie about folks being able to keep their insurance and how Obamacare has turn into a farce. None of the liberals here will acknowledge the issue or write about.Report
Maybe the essay could be on how Bush lied too and nobody complained about that.Report
(I mean, I’d like to read that essay myself.)Report
So Bush lied about Obmacare? What did he say, I’d really like to know.Report
“My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as innovators.”Report
I believe you should write the sort of thing I would write and then sign my name to it.
Too self-serving?Report
1. (Stolen from an 8th grader) Would you rather find one elephant-sized duck or 100 duck-sized elephants? Show your work.
2. What is the single best decision you’ve ever made? Single worst?
3. (Getting meta) Why should we be interested in Tod Kelly writing about things Tod Kelly has no apparent expertise in?
4. From a risk managemt perspective, are schools right or wrong to curtail the responsibilities of men when working with young children (e.g., rules against men changing diapers/facilitating in bathrooms; avoiding placing two men together in a classroom but having no qualms with two women) (Note: I’ve encountered both these in my career)?Report
3. (Getting meta) Why should we be interested in Tod Kelly writing about things Tod Kelly has no apparent expertise in?
Heh. Going back to the 80’s-cover wedding band, I think all those requestathons terminate when a guy shouts “play something you know!” and everyone nods in agreement.Report
More food stuff.
With an index of previous entries.Report
The index of previous entries is a very good idea.Report
I was hoping for more on health care.Report
Yeah, I’d like that too. And not necessarily the website rollout fiasco, tho that’d be interesting too. I read somewhere (TPM?) that 2-3 people in Cali (I think) spent a day or two writing code for a site to navigate the exchanges and compare prices under the new regulations and their system works perfectly fine. Hmmm. Questions.Report
Really? You’re surprised at the difference between a site to do some simple comparisons and calculations vs. a site that has to comply with a few thousand pages of brand-new (and thus only murkily undrstood) federal regulations?Report
The site I’m referring to isn’t the backbone of the system nor does it pretend to be. But it allows people to actually find out what they want to know: prices and coverage options, and apparently navigates them thru the enrollment process lickitty split.
That’s all anyone on the retail end wants, and it’s where the rollout is failing miserably. From what I’ve heard, anyway.Report
Here’s the TPM article talking about the The Health Sherpa site.Report
Don’t see how it can run them through enrollment, given that it lacks the interfaces to the IRS, DHS, Social Security, and individual states’ Medicaid eligibility/enrollment systems (said state systems also subject to federal requirements). I’ve never had to work on such interfaces myself (thank God!) but have sat through state-level failed-system post-mortems; such interfaces are notoriously difficult to meet. Most of those interfaces are dynamic in the sense that they are changed often, but not on any sort of consistent schedule. And they carry enormous amounts of baggage. For example, if your system is going to interface with a state Medicaid eligibility system, it’s going to take you weeks just to figure out what physical security requirements your servers are going to have to meet.Report
Mike:
The public was promised the website would be ready given the schedule for when folks have to sign up. Of course folks were also promised that they could keep their insurance so what is one more lie?Report
i want to see him write about this
http://nplusonemag.com/socialize-social-media
because i am sending this essay to everyone so that they too can gaze upon its majesty.Report
That’s an interesting article. If you buy those arguments, or at least the principles behind them, there’s no reason to stop at social media.Report
It seems a bit silly in a couple of ways.
First, the author claims that “they attempt to profit from activity that, precisely because it is social, is basically non-economic and non-productive.” That’s a much more radical claim than the author seems to understand.
Second, if it’s such a social good that it needs to be made public, then why not just have government create its own social media service? I’m no Randian, but it is notable that Rand specifically criticized the tendency to take over, on the basis of the public good, innovations that were created privately.
And in the end, who the hell cares if foolish investors lose money?Report
I thought he made a really good point about the established monopolies and the inability of new players to break through due to incompatibility. I was make a similar point on MySpace just the other day.Report
Report
I remember people begging me to be their Frienster friends, not because they liked me, but because they were desperately trying to get a higher number of friends than some person they hated. Good times.Report
This might be the first request I do, since I think it might have a short shelf life.Report
my apologies in advance.Report
The greatest troll the dhex ever pulled, was getting Our Tod to do his trolling for him.Report
“The greatest troll the dhex ever pulled, was getting Our Tod to do his trolling for him.”
i would protest were this not actually true.Report
Plus, think how much more efficient it would be if the government didn’t have to get a subpoena to spot on dissidents’ electronic communications!
This is a bad idea at the best of times. This year, it’s just nuts.Report
Spy on, not spot on.Report
He’s got the right critique, and the wrong solution.Report
What do you think about the longstanding problems between virtue and happiness?Report
There are problems?Report
Multiple people are asking me to talk about risk management.
Where were you people at every cocktail party I’ve ever been to, ever?Report
Underaged
🙂Report
I think you went to the wrong cocktail parties. That’s on you, dude.Report
Speaking of risk management:
Can you write about stability and why some or many people seem to place zero value on it?
I notice this is a lot of debates on the left when talking about economic and urban policy. Bleeding hearts like me tend to place a high-value on stability and think that policies should promote it as much as possible. Reasonable growth that keeps people employed, the environment safe, allows renters to not need to move every year, etc. A world that escapes the boom and bust cycle of economic life. Depressions and recessions should be unnecessary and considered inorganic.
My bete noir Matt Y seems to place stability as having zero value.
http://jacobinmag.com/2012/03/the-rent-is-too-damn-high/Report
oh, good lord. Why not listen to Summers, who says Depression/Recession is the new norm.
What of that sort of stability, good sir? The slow decline…Report
Why the Seahawks won’t win the Superbowl.
Take your time.Report
I’d be interested in an article about the ideal of a “frontier” as it might stand in American politics today. Fifty years after JFK and his new frontier, and 100 years after Teddy Roosevelt rough rode his way into American hearts, I still think a sense of admiration for the rugged individualism of the west and of unfettered possibility on the edge of society simmers in the American mindset. However, this sense has largely subsided in American politics in the last thirty years, or so it feels. Does this tradition of frontierism play a role in America today? How could politicians capture it? What are the new frontiers of the 21st century? How do we inspire America to tackle the challenges of these frontiers? And how do we preserve the tradition of our frontier culture?Report