Trivia, of all things, is a ray of hope in our moment of national crisis. Somehow, it’s still an arena where ideological projects are completely ignored and the thing that matters — the only thing that matters — is the right answer. On “Jeopardy!” the clues are novel and varied and created every night by gifted human writers, never spun or fact-checked by A.I. The canon from which the questions are drawn is unapologetically evidence-based, the product of scholarly and scientific consensus. And yet the show is, I’m told, one of the last great media monoliths, regular viewing for millions of faithful viewers in red and blue states alike.
“Who is Dave Barry?” young readers may ask, alas. Let me take you back to the early 1980s, the twilight of the era of the great syndicated columnists, those ink-stained champions whose work was published in hundreds of newspapers. Art Buchwald, Erma Bombeck and Russell Baker were among them, and they were by and large terrific, but they were generally wry rather than laugh-out-loud funny.
Barry brought the laugh-out-loud funny. Here, for example, is his advice in a piece on wilderness survival, written before he was syndicated:
If you or your companions gets bit by a snake, don’t panic. Take a razor blade and make a cut shaped like an “X,” then suck out all the blood. Snakes just hate this, and after you’ve done it to them one or two times they stop biting people altogether.
Dave Barry was hugely influential on me comedically. I had a bunch of his books and always read his column — I’ve even saved some years-in-review to this day. Wacky and eye-opening to a little country kid like me.
Here’s what I’ve learned: it’s better to have a mediocre idea executed with strong craft than a brilliant idea executed poorly. When craft is solid, you know the idea can be refined — the execution capability exists, so iteration is possible. But when a promising idea is rendered poorly, it will miss its mark entirely, not because the thinking was wrong, but because no one possessed the skills to bring it to life effectively.
“I voted for Donald Trump, and so did practically everyone here,” said Vanessa Cowart, a friend of Ms. Hui from church. “But no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves.”
Apple, as embodied by its leadership’s decisions over the past decade or more, no longer seems primarily motivated by the creation of great products. Time and time again, its policies have made its products worse for customers in exchange for more power, control, and, yes, money for Apple.
Wilson reflected on his first voluntary camping experience.
“It was better than I expected. It was good,” he said. “Just waking up, hearing the sound of nature, the birds in the morning. I definitely think I’m going to do this again. Definitely.”