On November 19th, I brought Robinson to The Bark Park in White Plains, New York for a monthly dachshund-only meet-up organized by dachshund lovers Nick and Kenny. Despite my protests, Robinson insisted on narrating…
As he cozies up by the fireplace this Christmas Eve-Eve, it saddens Robinson to think of America’s homeless dachshunds. If you think you could fit in an extra wiener this Holiday Season, click here.
Amanpour introduces what turns into yet another anti-Trump pontification by acknowledging Jason Rezaian and his wife Yeganeh Salehi, two Washington Post journalists in the audience, who were imprisoned in Iran for espionage and promoting “anti-government propaganda” against the establishment. I understand the parallel Amanpour is attempting to draw between the Iranian government and president-elect Donald Trump, who speaks out against establishment media with vehemence people fear will evolve into active journalistic oppression as America moves forward under his leadership. Although I will defend Amanpour’s right to assess and explain the political climate as she understands it, I respectfully disagree with her classification of Trump as inevitably presenting a challenge for honest journalism. Criticizing establishment media as being one-sided and aggressively-left leaning is very different from putting journalists thought to be one-sided and aggressively left-leaning in prison. (Let’s not forget that whistleblower Edward Snowden was tried for espionage under President Obama). Placing “Freedom of Speech and the Press” as the first and most crucial amendment was no arbitrary move on part of our founding fathers. When this is compromised, everything else is compromised. I agree with Amanpour on this matter wholeheartedly, and it is not in spite of this, but because of it, that I find so many elements of her speech problematic and self-refuting.
My dad rarely talks about coming here from Hungary, so when he does, I try to hear him out…even when he gets carried away and exceeds my two minute limit. Please listen patiently…(wink, wink).
“I’d rather disappear than feel my pants be tight.” – Marc Maron
The ABCs of the eating disorder world– anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive overeating– are difficult to openly talk about because of how uncomfortable they make people, including (maybe especially) people who suffer from them. This is especially true for Marc Maron, who as a 50 year old man deals with the body-image issues, obsessions, and self-destructive tendencies stereotypically assumed to afflict insecure teenage girls and no one else. It is extremely refreshing to hear him talk about his struggles openly with comedian Nikki Glaser, his guest on this episode of WTF who also deals with her eating disorder every day and at every meal. It is even more refreshing to hear them laugh about it together.
When I searched for “eating disorder podcast”, a lot of options came up. As expected, most of them were motivational. When I searched for “eating disorder podcast funny“, there were fewer options. People think that because it is a serious and deadly disease that you can’t or shouldn’t joke about it. I wish these people luck in their humorless recovery.
I was so thrilled when my good friend shared this podcast with me, in which Marc Maron showcases his remarkable ability to extract deeply personal information from his guests with the ease of a professional therapist. Unlike a therapist, he spends a good deal of the episode talking about himself, but I think his self-absorption is actually what makes him such a good interviewer. He spends so much time introspecting, and asking himself questions that he knows what kind of questions/conversational openers work and which ones flop.
“Stop-and-frisk isn’t just a form of policing for Trump; it’s a whole way of life.” -p. 3
American writer and essayist Adam Gopnik wrote this semi-satirical article, titled “The Problem with Trump isn’t his Debating Skills” for the Daily Comment Section of The New Yorker following Monday night’s first presidential debate. It is comprised of three pages of text, one still image of Trump speaking at a podium (see above), and various links to related articles.
The piece is thorough, comprehensive, and assumes a decisive stance against the pervasive post-debate claim that Trump’s downfall was “lack of preparation”. He criticizes this argument on the basis that it is too normalizing, that you cannot simply chalk up a presidential candidate’s casual racism to “Oh, he just didn’t prepare!” Because even the most well-articulated racist is still a racist! The issue, then, runs much deeper. Through striking comparisons and injections of basic common sense, Gopnik supports his thesis: that (p. 4) “This wasn’t a question of preparation. It was that the things he actually believes are themselves repellent even when coherently presented.”
One of the most disturbing moments during the debate was when Trump began defending the constitutionality and effectiveness of “stop-and-frisk”. Another was, when confronted with the whole making-Obama-show-his-birth-certificate incident, Trump’s claim that this was “good for him (Obama).” Gopnik extracts the common truth from these two statements when he says, “He (Trump) believes that as a rich white man, he had a right to stop and frisk the president of the United States and demand that the uppity black man show his papers.”
The analogy is extremely resonant, as it “snaps” its readers out of their nit-picky obsession with who studied harder , and back into the reality that preparation is besides the point, because it cannot change somebody’s core beliefs.
My paternal half-brother Quinn Hargitai is 26 years old. I want to tell the story of his time in Albania, where he spent two years working with the Peace Corp, superintending and basically creating administrational organization in a school district where there was very little. Teachers left in the middle of class to go talk on their phones, and following their lead, students did the same. To address this, he had to be strict, but he also had to get creative and a little musical:
He just got home this past June, left somewhat impulsively to go teach English in Thailand in the end of August, and after about two weeks, returned home abruptly. The family conversation has been so centered around this 2-week fiasco abroad that everyone seems to have forgotten about how my brother like, made a school.
He is in the other room right now, teaching himself Hungarian, our father’s native language, with an application on his phone. There is so much I want to ask him about, well, everything, but for the purpose of this interview, about his time in Albania. This is the first time in years we’ve gotten to talk, really talk. I’m very excited. I missed him so much.
Emily Hargitai
Prof. Eric Luther
COMM 106
15 September 2016
http://chappaqua.dailyvoice.com/news/first-federal-lawsuit-over-sex-abuse-case-filed-against-chappaqua-csd/681318/
Christopher Schraufnagel, the former drama teacher and department chair at Horace Greeley High School, resigned from his post back in July of this year following accusations of sexual misconduct. He was subsequently tried and charged with one felony count of third-degree criminal sex act and six misdemeanor counts pertaining to child endangerment and sexual abuse. In the article I selected, reporter Tom Auchterlonie summarizes this scandal before providing the most recent and critical update: that a coalition of victims and their lawyers have officially filed another lawsuit, not against the abuser himself but against the entire Chappaqua Central School District. The current and former superintendents, current and former principals, former compliance officers as well as Christopher Schraufnagel himself have all been named as defendants.
In my Internet perusing I found many articles covering this local story. I chose Tom Auchterlonie’s report because it is thorough and detailed, if highly disturbing. One challenge I imagine he encountered was that of detail-filtration, in other words, which details are necessary for the story and which can be omitted?
On page 2 he includes this detail: “Schraufnagel is also alleged to have kept voodoo dolls and puppets with pubic-hair wigs in his office.” Initially I questioned the relevance of this fact, but after some thought, decided it was a brilliant decision on the reporter’s part to include it. He effectively characterizes the abuser for the demented, power-addicted monster he is without ever calling him a demented, power-addicted monster, which as a journalist you are not allowed to do.
But this particular article is not about Christopher Schraufnagel, the abuser. It is about how high-ranking officials of the Chappaqua Central School District allowed his autonomy and freedom to go completely unchecked for the twelve years he spent under their jurisdiction. It is about how “willful indifference”, a phrase that appears many times throughout the 37-page lawsuit, is equally criminal.
To supplement his story, Tom Auchterlonie includes a photograph of Christopher Schraufnagel outside of New Castle Justice Court in Chappaqua, links to previous coverage, and most notably, a complete downloadable PDF of the lawsuit in its 37-page entirety.
