They Say / I Blog

Here’s a tip: Spencer Robins on wages and conditions for restaurant workers

Whether frequently or just once in a while, most of us eat food prepared in restaurants, school dining halls, or fast food places rather than our own kitchens. How much do you know about the work involved in getting your meal into your hands? How are the workers treated and compensated? In this August 2018 Civil Eats essay, graduate student and environmentalist Spencer Robins argues that informed and engaged consumers can help bring about change not only for food workers, but for society at large.

Robins, “Are eaters the key to better restaurant wages and working conditions?”

Not so soft a skill: Matt Reed on career navigation

Smartphones get blamed for a lot of what may be wrong with social interactions these days, including a decline in “soft skills” that some say is the reason why young people are poorly prepared for the labor market. It’s refreshing to read someone who has other ideas about this lack of career readiness and ways to fix it. Community college administrator Matt Reed proposes a change to general education requirements in this October 2018 essay in Inside Higher Education.

Reed, “Career navigation as a Gen Ed”

Who pays the bill: Alia Wong on prestige universities around the world

Prestige universities across the globe share many of the features that account for their excellence—“celebrated faculty, groundbreaking research,” and comfortable, well-maintained facilities. There is a huge difference, however, in the source of funding for these institutions; those in the US are overwhelmingly private schools, while prestige universities in the rest of the world tend to be publicly funded. Alia Wong, education writer for the Atlantic, discusses some of these contrasts in this September 2018 essay.

Wong, “At private colleges, students pay for prestige”

Better blocking: Laura Desmond on the future of advertising

Do you love the ads that pepper your TV shows, online content, walks through your neighborhood, and almost everything else? We didn’t think so. But sometimes ads are clever, interesting, and engaging, right? How can you filter out the annoying ones and keep the entertaining ones? There’s no simple answer, but innovator and technology writer Laura Desmond explores the possibilities of advertising’s future in this May 2018 NewCo Shift essay.

Desmond, “The future of advertising is in the hands of ad blockers”

At the top, heading down: Robert Samuelson on economic mobility

Parents all over the world want good lives for their children. That’s not a controversial statement, nothing to write home about. But what does it mean to have a “good life”? Is it only about economic prosperity? And is prosperity only measured across generations? Washington Post economics columnist Robert J. Samuelson observes what may be a new trend in this August 2018 column.

Samuelson, "The rise of downward mobility”

 

A place at the grill: Emily Dreyfuss on fake meat

“Vegan hot dog” isn’t an oxymoron, and it doesn't attempt to replicate the taste of an all-beef frank. What it does, according to Wired staff writer Emily Dreyfuss, is offer a “comprehensible” product that can participate in protein-centered social events such as backyard barbeques. Dreyfuss explains her ideas in this July 2018 essay.

Dreyfuss, "In defense of the vegan hot dog"

 

A focused, relaxing ride: Arielle Pardes on the “slow web”

Experts, authorities, and ordinary people in all walks of life have observed (and complained) that our gadgets have taken over our lives and attention spans. And, as always, there’s an app for that (dozens of them, actually), and many people offer those tech-based solutions. Others say quitting cold turkey is the only remedy. Arielle Pardes, senior associate editor at Wired, proposes a different approach in her July 2018 essay in the magazine.

Pardes,  “In the age of despair, find comfort on the ‘slow web’”

In the public interest: Jonathan Gottschall on the social benefits of fiction

Who doesn’t love a good story? Nobody, probably. But in addition to their entertainment value, stories serve an important social function. In this April 2012 Boston Globe essay, literary scholar Jonathan Gottschall presents evidence from the emerging science of the story to argue that “most fiction, even the trashy stuff, appears to be in the public interest.”

Gottschall, “Why fiction is good for you”

It does grow on trees: Comfort Azubuko on food forests in public space

“It doesn’t grow on trees, you know!” Many complaints about the use of valuable resources begin with that statement. Some fruits and edible resources, however, do grow on trees. Environmental justice worker and UCLA doctoral student Comfort Azubuko would like to see more fruit trees in public spaces, and she outlines her proposal in this June 2018 essay on the Earth Focus blog of KCET.

Azubuko, “Edible city: Privileging tree aesthetics misses opportunity to feed our urban food supply”

 

The doctor’s empathy: Angira Patel on the humanities in medical training

We want our doctors to be competent scientists, of course; our bodies are complicated instruments, and doctors need to learn a lot. Since medical training can’t cover everything, should it focus only on the hard sciences—the anatomy, the chemistry, the bioengineering? Dr. Angira Patel, professor of pediatrics and medical education in Chicago, argues that medical training should include more than just science in this May 2018 essay from the Pacific Standard.

Patel, “To be a good doctor, study the humanities”