{"id":3195,"date":"2021-03-12T19:44:54","date_gmt":"2021-03-13T00:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/?p=3195"},"modified":"2021-03-12T19:44:54","modified_gmt":"2021-03-13T00:44:54","slug":"third-rail-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/third-rail-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Third rail blues"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3197\" style=\"width: 731px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3197\" data-attachment-id=\"3197\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/third-rail-blues\/wmata_third_rail_at_west_falls_church-small\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/WMATA_third_rail_at_West_Falls_Church-small.jpg?fit=721%2C541&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"721,541\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;KODAK DX6440 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1119680987&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;5.5&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;140&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.016666666666667&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"WMATA_third_rail_at_West_Falls_Church small\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;The original uploader was Ancheta Wis at English Wikipedia. &amp;#8211; Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by SchuminWeb using CommonsHelper., CC BY 2.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=15595569&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/WMATA_third_rail_at_West_Falls_Church-small.jpg?fit=584%2C438&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3197\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/WMATA_third_rail_at_West_Falls_Church-small.jpg?resize=584%2C438\" alt=\"Third Rail\" width=\"584\" height=\"438\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/WMATA_third_rail_at_West_Falls_Church-small.jpg?w=721&amp;ssl=1 721w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/WMATA_third_rail_at_West_Falls_Church-small.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/WMATA_third_rail_at_West_Falls_Church-small.jpg?resize=400%2C300&amp;ssl=1 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3197\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The original uploader was Ancheta Wis at English Wikipedia. &#8211; Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by SchuminWeb using CommonsHelper., CC BY 2.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=15595569<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As I&#8217;ve continued my Lenten discipline of giving up silence here on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\">Gardner Writes<\/a>, I&#8217;ve realized all along that I&#8217;d need to tell some stories, somehow, about my encounters with third rails. They include, but are not limited to, the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>scolding adults for playing with matches in a dormitory during a summer program<\/li>\n<li>expressing my serious doubts about whether there should include an entry for &#8220;God&#8221; in <em>The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy\u00a0<\/em>(to be sure, a microcosm of many other concerns I had during that project)<\/li>\n<li>trying to fix an Apple Talk network in a writing center computer lab (no, I wasn&#8217;t electrocuted&#8211;these are figurative third rails)<\/li>\n<li>accepting a promotion<\/li>\n<li>trying to figure out if a non-profit organization was actually chartered or not (multiple times) and trying to figure out why it was hard to get that information from the staff (multiple times)<\/li>\n<li>trying to encourage a &#8220;well-oiled machine&#8221; to become more of a site for innovation and program development<\/li>\n<li>getting a leadership certificate from a program designed for chairs of boards of directors for non-profit organizations<\/li>\n<li>leading an effort to revise a general education curriculum<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are others.<\/p>\n<p>The point here is not that I&#8217;ve been unlucky. I&#8217;ve been very lucky, and very unlucky; on balance, the lucky breaks have been far more numerous. But touching the third rail is always a shock, and I seem to have an instinct for it (if &#8220;instinct&#8221; is defined as &#8220;moth-to-flame&#8221;). I know better now, but that&#8217;s not much use really, though I do try to forgive myself for all my blunders, and above all, for not knowing better at the time. All of that said, the things I tried to do, I believe I tried to do in good faith, and I believe they are things well worth trying to do. If I have grown skeptical about whether, finally, there is anything to be done &#8230; well, some days I&#8217;m more hopeful than others.<\/p>\n<p>Milton once wrote that not everyone is fit to be a champion for the truth, and Johnny boy, I feel that, yes I do, and I&#8217;m not even sure it <em>was<\/em> the truth, though I tried to be discerning. On the other hand, as Jerry Garcia said, &#8220;Somebody has to do something, and it&#8217;s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.&#8221; So there&#8217;s that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I&#8217;ve continued my Lenten discipline of giving up silence here on Gardner Writes, I&#8217;ve realized all along that I&#8217;d need to tell some stories, somehow, about my encounters with third rails. They include, but are not limited to, the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/third-rail-blues\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/WMATA_third_rail_at_West_Falls_Church-small.jpg?fit=721%2C541&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4bHwM-Px","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3198,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3195\/revisions\/3198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardnercampbell.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}