Parks | Chris Aldrich

Listened to Season 2 Episode 1 A Good Walk Spoiled by

Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History

In the middle of Los Angeles — a city with some of the most expensive real estate in the world — there are a half a dozen exclusive golf courses, massive expanses dedicated to the pleasure of a privileged few. How do private country clubs afford the property tax on 300 acres of prime Beverly Hills real estate? RH brings in tax assessors, economists, and philosophers to probe the question of the weird obsession among the wealthy with the game of golf.

References
FORE! AN ANALYSIS OF CEO SHIRKING PDF 2.1MB

I wouldn’t say that I “hate” golf more now, but I do think that the structure holding the system up is way worse than I did before. It’s truly deplorable that the system is propping up courses in Los Angeles like this. The statistics explored here are truly painful. I love that someone has delved into open statistics to come up with the ideas underpinning this episode.

I knew that prop 13 was destroying California slowly but surely, but some of the smaller subsections are even more egregious.

Read In Discarded Women’s March Signs, Professors Saw a Chance to Save History by Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Posters from the rally in Boston will be cataloged and archived.
Dwayne Desaulniers, AP Images
Signs line the fence surrounding Boston Common after the Boston Women's March for America on Saturday. Some of those signs could end up in an archive at Northeastern U.

The signs were pink, blue, black, white. Some were hoisted with wooden sticks, and others were held in protesters’ hands. A few sparkled with glitter, and some had original designs, created on computers with the help of a few internet memes.

Still, at the Boston Women’s March for America on Saturday, hundreds of the signs criticizing President Trump’s campaign promises and administrative agenda ended up wrapped around the fence near Boston Common, laid down like a carpet covering the sidewalk.