Ignorance — Blog — Jamie Aroosi

The National Parks: Americans’ Worst Idea (Lately)

With everything that's been going on these days, you wouldn't think that the National Parks’ Facebook page would be among the most depressing, but it is. I usually love seeing posts of peoples’ National Park vacation pictures and hearing about their trip plans - they're gorgeous pictures and the trip plans give me inspiration for future trips. But these days, it's served as an almost constant reminder of how this country is failing to take this pandemic seriously.

Trips to National Parks are hardly the idyllic vacations you might imagine, as many of our National Parks are extremely crowded, as are the bordering towns. And this is to say nothing of the human contact people have at busy park locations, ranger stations, gift shops, restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, campgrounds, and so forth. Moreover, people travel from far and wide to visit the parks, either via long road trips or by airplane, so that seeing these Facebook posts is like watching the virus spread in real time.

Jamie AroosiJuly 30, 2020COVID-19, National Parks, Ignorance, Socrates, Søren KierkegaardComment

You're not Ignorant, You're a Liar

I just finished reading the pages and pages of letters published by the NYRB regarding their recent piece by Jian Ghomeshi. And while it was refreshing to read many of these letters, because the vast majority of them were both powerful and deeply critical, I find myself somehow being angrier with the NYRB than I was beforehand.

While most of these letters were critical of the Ghomeshi piece and the NYRB's decision to run it, and often quite appropriately scathing in their condemnation, the NYRB peppered in supportive letters among the critical ones. And I found this in almost worse taste than I did the original publication of the Ghomeshi article, because it indicates that the NYRB still fails to understand the problem.

Jamie AroosiOctober 23, 2018Ian Buruma, New York Review of Books, Jian Ghomeshi, Lying, IgnoranceComment