Author: Crowhill Report

There are a few iconic dreams that most people have — being naked in public, being back at school on the last day of classses and realizing you’ve been enrolled in a class all semester and haven’t attended a single one, being chased by an unstoppable foe, etc.

A recurring dream I have is trying to get somewhere and being stymied at every turn by some dumb thing. The first time I can remember having this dream was in 9th grade when I had to get on a plane the next morning to go to the Bermuda Band Festival. It was the first time I ever went on a big trip without my parents.

One morning this week felt a little like that dream.

I was slow getting up because I was still shaking off a cold, so I was going to be late to the office. Then there was a heavy frost, and my ice scraper wasn’t in my car. I went to the garage to get one, and the garage door wouldn’t close. It would go down about a foot and then go back up, as if it hit something. I knew I could fix that by pulling down on the door, but the switch was at the other end of the garage, so I’d hit the switch, run to grab the door, and … too late.

That happened several times, but I finally got it.

I got on the road and a neighbor flagged me down. My right front tire was flat. It’s been suffering from a slow leak for a while, but this time it was genuinely flat. I went back to the house and got the “fix a flat,” hoping the magic goo would find the leak and plug it.

Best practices with that fix a flat stuff is to deflate the tire completely, inject the goo into the tire (which partially inflates it), then drive a couple miles to spread the stuff around evenly. I did that, drove to the drug store to get some tissues and some OTC cold medicine, then inflated it the rest of the way. (I have a portable air compressor that I keep in the back of the car.)

Finally, I was ready to go to work.

But no. I had forgotten to take my antibiotic. So I had to go back to the house.  Ugh!

The comments are set so that anyone’s first comment is held in moderation, and once you have a comment approved, the rest should be fine.

If I happen to miss that your comment is held in moderation, please drop me a line and I’ll fix it.

In this interview with People‘s British editor in chief, a couple interesting points come out. The first is that print is still very much alive, if you have a product that people want. But perhaps more relevant to this blog is the discussion of “diversity” on magazine covers.

Magazines are under a lot of pressure to have “diverse” covers. “Diverse” here being judged only by the categories that please the woke: sex/gender, skin color, and maybe sexual orientation and that sort of thing. Diversity never means anything that I would care about, like political differences, or different opinions, for example. I find the color of someone’s skin, or who they get naked with, far less interesting than their ideas. (If they have any.)

To me, the woke version of “diversity” is superficial diversity for superficial thinkers, and leads in exactly the wrong direction. It makes it seem that judging people by superficial characteristics is some moral virtue, rather than what it really is.

In the context of magazine covers, it reminds me of the saying, “get woke, go broke,” because the purpose of a magazine cover is to sell the magazine. When you stray from something that simple and essential to your purpose, you’re likely to lose money.

Of course it’s possible that more diverse cover photos (more diverse in woke terms, that is) are more effective at selling magazines, but that isn’t very likely. If you’re picking an image to serve a purpose — e.g., “buy this magazine,” or “click on this buy button” — and then you add another factor to your analysis (but it has to be “diverse!”), you’re almost certainly going to detract from the original purpose. That’s just the way things work. Consider, for example, “I want the sharpest knife, but it has to pink” against “I want the sharpest knife.”

Having said that, a business can (and I would say should) have a social conscience and try to do what’s right, even if that detracts a little from the bottom line. If you consider the woke version of diversity some sort of social good (I do not), then … what’s the best way to navigate this?

A sensible magazine editor would get the numbers. Run the “best cover” against the “best woke cover” and see how much it’s costing you (it’s almost certainly costing you), then decide if it’s worth the alleged social benefit.

The worst thing to do is simply to allow the woke crowd to force you into an ideological approach to a business issue without any idea of how much it’s hurting your business. 

Crowhill’s kids are a little too old for him to have to worry about this, but Pigweed has a teenager, so the boys struggle with the question, “How cool should dad be?”

Not very, they think.

Dads who try to be their kids’ friend are taking the wrong approach. Dad has a far more important role than just being a friend. In any event, here’s a somewhat rambling reflection on cool dads.

And speaking of completely uncool dads, you might want to give this a listen: The objectification of women. In which we show how incredibly uncool we really are.

Some of you might know the complicated and disappointing reasons this blog had to take a temporary hiatus, but … be that as it may, it’s back. To the disappointment of many, I’m sure.

Today I’m on the tail end of a cold. It started a couple weeks ago, with mild symptoms. Aches and pains. Feeling tired. Slight congestion. But nothing to worry about.

Generally speaking, I don’t get sick, and when I do, I’m over it quickly. This has been quite the exception. It’s been one of those lingering maladies I couldn’t shake.

When it got to the point that I had uncontrollable shivers walking the 50 feet from the office to my car, I decided I needed to see the doc. That was yesterday. I was hoping for something bacterial — which can be treated with antibiotics. If it was the flu, I was going to be stuck with waiting it out.

Fortunately, no pneumonia or flu. Just a bad sinus infection and bronchitis, so I’m on the magical drugs that make life in the 21st century so wonderful.

Yesterday was a turning point. I fell asleep under a blanket watching TV, and woke up 2 hours later soaked from head to foot. I think I sweated the bloody thing out, because I felt a definite change.

Today I’m in that weird state where two arguments are warring in my mind. The one says, “You’re better. Get back to work. Quit being a lazy bum.” The other says, “You need one more day to take it easy and get well.”

The typical Crowhill approach to life is to be hard on myself and not accept any lame excuses, but I’m 56 now, and I think I need to start erring on the other side. At least some of the time. So I’m home, taking it easy, listening to podcasts and basically doing nothing.

Here are a few things I’ve noticed today, which I bring to your attention.

Pigweed and I did an interesting podcast on whether churches should be plain or ornate. Please check it out, share it on Facebook, etc.

Thanks to Doug Wilson, my Eggs are Expensive, Sperm is Cheap book is seeing a bit of a bump in sales. I’m also up to 23 reviews now, which is encouraging.

The version that’s online now is slightly revised. It’s not substantively different, but a couple 30-something women told me they felt they were unfairly treated by some of the language in the first edition, so I tried to clear that up.

On the one hand, I absolutely don’t want to tell anybody what to do. People are free to make their own choices. And what do I know, after all?

On the other hand, some choices really are stupid.

Okay, another couple quick things. Crowhill doesn’t tweet any more, but he does share an account with Pigweed here — https://twitter.com/pigweedcrowhill Please follow, if you have a twitter account.

I don’t do Facebook because of my own psychological faults. I simply can’t do it without losing my temper. I wish that weren’t the case, but … it is. But I know that Facebook is a very important way to share messages.

If you find something on this blog that you think is valuable, please share it on Facebook. Because I won’t. Because I can’t.