Quiz #87. Coming Attraction?
Why am I seeing Cap'n Crunch in my internet feed? Plus my thoughts for what to do next here on Substack in Steve's Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz for October 13, 2020.
3:51 AM on a stay-cation Wednesday, October, 14, 2020.
So much for sleeping in this week. I just can’t seem to do it. Sara has recommended that I try some pre-bedtime relaxation exercises that she read about in the Sunday New York Times, “Rest Better with Light Exercises.” I’ll let you know how that goes. The mid-day naps help me get through the day--though, sadly, they might be contributing to the problem.
Wednesday morning did bring me good news. Lewis Oil, my fantasy football team, won Week 5 in the DFS style league that I’m running. In part, a Covid scare “helped” me to victory. I was originally going to play the Arizona Cardinals defense because they were set to play the lowly New York Jets, but late last week, there was a Covid scare with what turned out to be a false positive for the Jets. I switched my defense to the Los Angeles Rams who were playing the Washington Football Team. (What a ridiculous name.) The Rams D scored 12 points while the Cardinals D only scored 7 points. Lewis Oil won the week by 2 points so, if I’d gone with the Cardinals, I would have lost by 3 points.
As mentioned in Quiz #64. My Data Does Matta, I believe that you should try to throw off the algorithms that track your every move, search and purchase on the internet. Every now and then, search for something completely random and totally out of character. I call it, “My Data Don’t Matta.’” Wednesday morning, proof of that concept at work. As I looked at my morning email, right there on my Yahoo account was an ad for Cap’n Crunch.
Cap’n Crunch is one of my least favorite cereals because it’s, well, too crunchy. Still, I ordered a few boxes for my boss after she chided me about my love for Lucky Charms and told me Cap’n Crunch was her favorite cereal. And so it is that the ad turned up on my feed though never in my breakfast bowl. It’s important to throw them off--even if “them” is a computer program, created to give you more and more of what you want.
As part of my morning reading diet on this Wednesday, I checked my email for my morning newsletters. I’ve mentioned that Bill Murphy Junior’s Understandably was the first newsletter I started subscribing to regularly. The second is Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson. (Indeed, the Cap’n Crunch ad seen above showed up when I went to read Letters from an American.) Cox Richardson is American historian and no matter how much news I devour, I always learn something new from her concise, well-written and well-researched look at the day’s events that always puts things in a wider perspective.
On Tuesday, October 12 in Letters from an American, Cox Richardson observed that the history of honoring Christpher Columbus in this country actually dates back to the 1920’s--and was the Knights of Columbus attempt to stave off the rise of the Ku Klux Klan by highlighting the importance and value of immigrants.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt officially instituted Columbus Day in 1934, but the idea for the holiday rose in the 1920s, when the Knights of Columbus tried to undercut the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan by emphasizing the role minorities had played in America. In the early 1920s, the organization published three books in a “Knights of Columbus Racial Contributions” series, including The Gift of Black Folk, by W. E. B. Du Bois. They celebrated the contributions of immigrants, especially Catholic immigrants, to America with parades honoring Christopher Columbus. The Knights of Columbus were determined to reinforce the idea that America must not be a land of white Protestant supremacy.
The essay was a defense of history--and taking a hard look at the past.
Here's the story: historians are not denigrating the nation when they uncover sordid parts of our past. Historians study how and why societies change. As we dig into the past we see patterns that never entirely foreshadow the present, but that give us ideas about how people have dealt with circumstances in the past that look similar to circumstances today. With luck, seeing those patterns will help us make better decisions about our own lives, our communities, and our nation in the present. As they say, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
Both Murphy and Cox Richardson are available through Substack, the newsletter service that I use to send you this coronavirus quiz. Substack’s been getting a lot of good press lately and Sara recommended this recent article from the New York Times, “Journalists Are Leaving the Noisy Internet for Your Email Inbox.” The article chronicled how journalists and other writers are turning to Substack which offers any writer an easy model for paid subscriptions of emailed newsletters as a way to make a living in this new media world.
Trust me, I have no illusions that I will be able to make a living--let alone even some spare change--by writing this coronavirus quiz. Subscribing to this quiz is free--and I owe you a debt of gratitude for reading. Still, you should know that with Substack, I can track if--and even when--you open this quiz. Even as I have slacked off and stopped writing the quiz on a daily basis, we seem to have settled on about 70 people who read--or at least open--each quiz. (If you enjoy reading the quiz, feel free to share. It is, I know, an acquired taste.)
As indicated in Quiz #23. Poor Planning, part of my inspiration for writing my coronavirus journal in quiz form came from my experience in recovering from brain surgery in 2017. Following surgery, I was off from work for 12 weeks. Midway through that recovery, I started writing “Steve’s Accidental Brain Surgery Quiz.” It was truly a form of physical therapy for my brain. Writing that quiz helped to refresh my brain on how to use a computer as I learned to take notes and search through email, beginning to write again.
My last day of work in February, 2017 when workers sang “Happy Brain Surgery to You” and presented me with a life-like brain surgery cake.
“Steve’s Accidental Brain Surgery Quiz” is 102 “What did not happen?” questions, more than 75,000 words. I’ve printed up a few copies but have never really known what to do with the BSQ (Brain Surgery Quiz). My bright idea on a sleepless coronavirus morning? I’m thinking of publishing the BSQ here on Substack.
When Sara woke up, we discussed the idea. She and a few others are the only ones who have actually read the BSQ. Her suggestion: before sharing it, I should sit down and read it straight through. Written question by question over the course of recovery from brain surgery, she gently observed that there’s a lot of repetition. The same points get made several times which, even without brain surgery, remains one of my many fatal flaws. So, in the days ahead, I will read and edit the whole thing. If it doesn’t seem too ridiculous, I’ll start posting it one question at a time here on Substack. To ask anyone to read it all at once is too much to ask. A little bit at a time will solve that problem. Your feedback is always welcome in the comments.
Don’t worry. I will continue to write and post installments of the coronavirus quiz. I like keeping track of my thoughts and observations even as the election approaches and we get ready to hunker down for the second wave that’s begun to take hold in this country and across the globe.
Who knows? Maybe finally “publishing” the BSQ will help me to rest a little easier. I just want to sleep until 6 AM. Come to think of it, deep sleep was one of the best parts of recovering from brain surgery. If Covid has taught us anything, it’s to look for those silver linings.
What did not happen?
A. During our week off from work, Sara and I are taking drives to local places we’ve never been before, Tuesday’s trip was to the Palisades, the cliff-centered park on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River;
B. I ordered 20 bags of gravel from Home Depot that will be used to fill in the 6-foot circle in our backyard for our socially distanced, outdoor fire table. The gravel’s available for contactless pick-up;
C. I ordered 2 20-pound bags of pebbles from Amazon for use with the fire table;
D. When my brother Richard heard about our purchase of the fire table, he told me I needed a fire extinguisher for the backyard and surprised us by ordering it for us on a pre-PrimeDay sale from Amazon;
E. Sara and I continue to binge “Schitt’$ Creek.” We now get it. “Happy Anniversary,” the season finale of Season 2, is one of my favorite best things I’ve seen on TV in 2020.
Want the answer?
Answer #87. Coming Attraction?
If you’re a subscriber, the answer will be sent to you as a separate email when the question is published.
Want more?
Here’s the next quiz in the series: Quiz #88. The Tip.
Here’s the previous quiz in the series: Quiz #86. Awake Too Early
Here’s the first quiz in the series: Quiz #1. Stella and Social Distancing, March 13, 2020
Here is an archive of all the quizzes.
The quiz is explained here: Steve’s Stay-at-Home Coronavirus Quiz.
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