We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
At least 50% of American medical students are women. That has been a dramatic cultural change in the profession, at least in the US. When I was in medical school we were around 20%.
At the obvious risk of being assaulted for stereotyping and demeaning females in my profession, I will share some of my observations (with countless exceptions, of course):
- Women in medicine are very smart and detail-oriented. Excellent students without much rebellion or cantankerousness. However, they are often too much "by the book" and rule-oriented to adjust to specific situations. I have fought this in myself. The men tend to be willing to take more risks, less rule-bound, more blunt, and willing or eager to work ungodly hours. Definitely more defiant and skeptical of authority.
- Women in medicine tend to view it more as a career than as an identity. Men in medicine have traditionally seen it as their raison d'etre, members of an ancient priestly caste. Men in medicine feel heroic and manly about responding to that 3 AM phone call, women generally not so much.
- As a career rather than as a 24 hr/day identity, women in medicine tend to be more comfortable with a regular paycheck, defined hours of responsibility or even part-time hours of duty, and good job benefits. That often means working for somebody else.
For better or worse, the coming dominance of American medicine by women will be changing the culture of the profession. Other influences, like the emergence of large group practices, and of hospital-owned practices, are changing the character of American medicine too.
From the beginning of the 1800s until WW1 (and the income tax), wealthy New Yorkers liked to build getaway estates overlooking the Hudson River. Wave Hill is one of many, including Washington Irving's charming Sunnyside (in Irvington), the Rockefeller estate, and of course the Roosevelt's Hyde Park.
Wave Hill is in Riverdale, Bronx, NYC. Rus in urba. People who rented Wave Hill to live in included Teddy Roosevelt and Mark Twain. Now it is a public garden and event site. We took my in-laws to look around last week.
I'm not saying we shouldn't help Puerto Rico. We must and should. The situation is dreadful. But this is a learning opportunity for the islanders. They should take it. Blaming Donald Trump is the most reactionary and self-destructive thing they can do. It's victimhood redux. Leave that to the rapacious ideologues at CNN, the New York Times, etc. They'd blame the eruption of the Indonesian volcanoes on Trump, if that were possible -- and even it it weren't.
Despite what global warming fanatics might say, hurricanes are nothing new in Puerto Rico.
.. the (other) major story is the hideous behavior of the hack mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz. First she praises FEMA for their response then, I guess after receiving her talking points from the Media Complex, blasts away at President Trump for letting people die in the streets; kind of an ironic statement from Cruz considering when she gave it, she was standing in front of a warehouse full of foodstuffs and supplies just brought in from the mainland. In fact, she was so utterly full of shit that even the grand wizard of being full of shit, Geraldo Rivera, called her on it. But unlike Dubya, who just silently sat by and allowed assholes like Spike Lee and Kanye West to accuse him of committing genocide against Chocolate City, the President and his team are having none of it. And the collective head of the Left is exploding because neither is a large majority of Americans having any of it either.
Mrs. BD and I are back in weekend hiking mode. I really do not like vigorous hikes when it's above 75 degrees F.
Let's talk about non-winter hiking pants for men and women. Water-repellent, not waterproof. (For waterproof, you can roll up those light-weight REI waterproof overpants in your daypack. With a good long zipper, they are easy to pull over your hiking boots if you are a cat and hate getting wet.)
Hiking and trekking pants are for long hikes with serious terrain, not for two-hour walks in the woods in nice weather when cut-off blue jean are perfect if there are no bugs. I've tested out several pairs of hiking pants. To be comfortable on hills, they have to have a little stretch to them. They also have to resist tears from brush and to be rugged enough to hold up to rock scrapes and random falls. Plus it is nice if they are light-weight, not baggy, and comfortable.
The baggy ones are not pleasant to wear, and flap like crazy in wind. Most of the ones that are convertible to shorts are baggy. I like my Prana hiking pants, which are also great for weekend chores.
Many regular mountain hikers like Montane (example in photo). I guess REI has most of the ordinary things that outdoor active people might need.
What sorts of things do you use for rugged hiking?
Hayward: "The only surprising thing about the total catastrophe in Puerto Rico is that it took so long for the “Trump-Is-A-Bigot-Who-Hates-Brown-People” refrain to get cranked up to eleven..."
The idea that Trump hates brown people is totally nuts. It's meant to scare brown people. Does it work?
Most of those seeking teaching careers end up as adjuncts, making peanuts and struggling to survive. One wonders why they do not simply apply for high school jobs where they could get steady, well-paid useful work with benefits and can never be fired.
Today, getting tenure as a full professor is like making it to the NBA.
One also wonders why our lefty universities treat these devoted slaves so poorly while hiring diversity administrators for $350,000/year.
Puerto Rico is basically a poor third-world country with a fragile infrastructure, dysfunctional and corrupt governments, and a long experience with bad weather. We had to send in the Marines to clear their roads. Why? Are there no chain saws in Puerto Rico?
The CEO linked above says:
I have a message for the U.S. Congress: Watch out what relief funds you approve and let our local government handle. Don’t let the Puerto Rican government play the victim and fool you. They have no clue what they are doing, and I worry that they will mishandle anything that comes their way.
“It’s a lack of drivers for the transport trucks, the 18 wheelers. Supplies we have. Trucks we have. There are ships full of supplies, backed up in the ports, waiting to have a vehicle to unload into. However, only 20% of the truck drivers show up to work. These are private citizens in Puerto Rico, paid by companies that are contracted by the government,” says Col. Valle.
“The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help.”
Mr. Trump said the people of Puerto Rico should not depend entirely on the federal government. “They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort,” he wrote. “10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job. The military and first responders, despite no electric, roads, phones etc., have done an amazing job. Puerto Rico was totally destroyed.
Trump is probably correct to imagine that some are attempting to stage another Katrina scenario:
2:1 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy,
2:2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
2:3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.
2:4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
2:5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
2:6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
2:7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,
2:8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross.
2:9 Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,
2:10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
2:11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
2:12 Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;
2:13 for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
I've been meaning to write this post for a long time. I'd grant that there exists something akin to "white privilege" in the USA, as in all of the western world. It happens to be more like "cultural privilege" than anything to do with skin tone. I am talking about individual qualities which are most in demand and most effective in western cultures.
The markings of cultural privilege are most easily internalized by upbringing, and secondarily by good examples (eg coaches, relatives) and formal education. Good socialization. Wealth is only incidentally associated, not causal, because lots of rich kids are complete a-holes. The western world (except for England) has no caste system, but it has an informal cultural caste system and everybody is aware of it. It has nothing to do with IQ or where you grew up or went to college, but it has to do with how you comport yourself, how properly and grammatically you speak and write, manners and grace, dress, good humor, level of sophistication, being a good dinner companion, playing sports, staying out of trouble with the law, being able to discuss books, and other sorts of things that some people sum up as "presentable."
As a reader notes, other less superficial traits often come under the "whiteness" umbrella:
Privilege aka the work ethic. It incorporates concepts like self actualization, self discipline, persistence, impulse control, fairness, loyalty (though not blind loyalty), integrity, politeness, civic mindedness, punctuality, reliability and accountability, courage, autonomy, problem solving, saving and postponement of gratification, being productive and contributing to the community...
I think "whiteness" is a shorthand for those who are culturally advantaged, adapted to a dominant if not elite culture, because in my life experience you can easily find people of all colors, ethnicities, and wealth who lack those qualities, and those who possess those qualities. It is indeed a handicap in life to lack them.
Obama got to where he got by the combination of skin tone, a natural grace, and his cultural privilege. It can be a winning combination.
Interestingly, Pres. Trump is culturally disadvantaged, or so it seems, and has a strange, alien, orange skin tone. He must be from some alien planet like Queens, NY, who landed in Washington like Mr. Bean.
At the bottom of this, I think the "whiteness" thing is an attempted slo-mo imitation of Mao's cultural revolution with little to do with race or ethnicity.
The people in the media face in toward their masters, rather than looking out over the wall at the rest of us. For those involved in dissident politics, this is useful as it makes it more difficult for the people in charge to respond to the threat.
On my fifth day, I find that they are getting harder to do, not easier. I think that is the necessary stress. My first set of 15 is difficult, second set of 15 easier, and the remaining sets of ten become more challenging. I am only up to 80/day, will get to 100 on Monday. My sets are spread out over hours.
If over age 20, I wonder whether it might make more sense to put in a day of push-up rest every few days for recovery. My goal of course is 100/day, but more specifically 50 in a row. I don't need to do 100 in a row.
A central theme in this Day Of Judgment, which begins tonight, is the importance of seeking out forgiveness from those who we've harmed, and determining to set a better new course in our behavior. The flip side of this is whether the one who is harmed will be forgiving. If not, after several sincere attempts to obtain forgiveness, the duty is satisfied. Yet, the one harmed will bear the burden of bitterness. This video explains how to overcome that.
What is the source of Bastiat’s genius? Arguably it is that he analyzes all things economic through the eyes of the individual. Economies aren’t living, breathing blobs; they’re just collections of individuals. And for an individual, “It is only too obvious that abundance would be advantageous to him.” As individuals, we’re all too aware of how few of life’s necessities or luxuries we could produce on our own. And if imports are wondrous for the individual (whether from across the street, or the other side of the world), which they are, they’re wondrous for an economy that is merely a collection of individuals.
Most yawn that Mark Zuckerberg and Pope Francis have given one too many sanctimonious rants that project their own hypocrisies. And one too many sober and judicious ex-diplomats (of the sort whose mellifluous prior appeasement led to a thermonuclear North Korea) bores us with warnings about Trump’s “incendiary rhetoric.” Apparently in 2016, the deplorables and irredeemables struck back. Donald J. Trump symbolically served as a radiologically hot CAT scan that revealed long-festering inner metastases. Next, as deadly chemotherapy, he unpleasantly saturated the patient until the cancers within slowly began to fester and shrink — even as the convalescent resented the harsh therapy as much as he did the symptoms of the disease.
Here is a sure fire test for a progressive. If given a choice between two worlds:
A capitalist society where the overall levels of wealth and technology continue to increase, though in a pattern that is dynamic, chaotic, generally unpredictable, and whose rewards are unevenly distributed, or...
A "progressive" society where everyone is poorer, but income is generally more evenly distributed. In this society, jobs and pay and industries change only very slowly, and people have good assurances that they will continue to have what they have today, with little downside but also with very little upside.
It is a general term for all of these things: being pleased with the way you look naked, feeling energetic, and having well-developed strength/musculature, cardiovascular endurance, and athleticism (agility+speed+power).
I pretty much follow something like the Maggie's program of a combination of weight-lifting, calisthenics, and endurance cardio. About 5 hours weekly but I also play sports one night/week and on weekends. I watch my nutrition carefully because many middle-aged women have a tendency to get sloppy regardless of their exercise program. (No rational amount of exertion can produce fat loss, unfortunately, but physical exertion does reduce subjective hunger and "false hunger" - the hunger that overweight people experience.)
Regarding muscle maintenance and strength-building in middle age (40+), I want to highlight a paragraph from yesterday's post:
Research has demonstrated that low load high intensity lifting at 30% of the one repetition max (1RM) to failure can elicit similar rates of muscle protein synthesis as traditional, high load low intensity lifting at 90% of 1RM. Data suggests that low and high load lifting performed to failure yield equivalent hypertrophy over time. So exercise volume (repetitions x sets x load) can achieve maximal muscle fiber activation, including the important larger type II fibers. This is also much less likely to cause injury, an important consideration at any age.
Note that it says "to failure." That is the key, and that is the tricky part because the mental "I give up" almost always precedes the muscles giving up. Fighting that mental part is the discipline of exertion, and why trainers know they can almost always say "C'mon, give me one or two more." Women have no need to fear developing the hard or bulging muscles of their fit and athletic menfolk. That can't happen naturally with females.
To hedge your bets on the current consensus, I suggest going heavy with the weights on power lifts occasionally. You might even see your 1RM increase if you dare to check it (with a spotter) every few months.
I didn't have to get too far into this to begin to see where it was going. Claims the Constitution is outdated, not suited for this era, etc.
The premise is that being shouted down or using troll-bots to humiliate or drown out 'undesirable' voices - using free speech to stop free speech - is, itself, based on an additional premise that is unstated. That premise is people are incapable of thinking for themselves and that it is impossible to discern the truth in the midst of mis- and dis-information.
It also presumes these things didn't exist prior to the internet era.
These tactics are not new. They are old. Kennedy put them to great use against Nixon, although his methods were not high-tech. These methods were used against van Buren, and even Grover Cleveland.
People tend to think technology changes the reasons for certain laws. In rare cases, it may. In the case of the Constitution, I have yet to see a decent example of a need for changes based on changing technology...but the Left will keep trying to make that case.
What They Promised: Smoking Gun Proof of Trump-Russia Collusion What They Walked That Back To: Russia Bought Some FaceBook Ads What It Is Now: Russian Ads Promoted Black Lives Matter
I don't think it'll work out well. TV watching is an indulgence, maybe even a vice if indulged excessively, and people do it partly because they justify it as imparting some secondary benefits -- having a shared social vocabulary, feeling united with other fans, feeling that watching football on Sunday is a shared civic ritual celebrating some worthwhile aspects of the American secular religion.
Take away that goodwill, and rely only on the eleven total minutes of actual football action during a four or four and a half hour game -- and, well.
Sad about Tom Petty. classic rocker, classic rock. 66. Carpe diem.
Roger Simon, 
Photo: Granny Smiths from a reader's garden this week
Ikea’s stuff is tough to assemble,
Indeed, Frederic Bastiat was
Toon via