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.
What do most administrators actually do? The answer, Ginsberg assures us, is what many senior faculty suspect: almost nothing of any intellectual value. His well-documented catalogue of make-work projects includes endless meetings to fashion long-term “strategic” plans filled with boilerplate and homilies (commonly called “vision statements”) that are quickly forgotten, expensive conferences that are dripping in psychobabble and activities like canoeing to sharpen “decision-making skills,’ and supervising committees to concoct meaningless benchmarks, targets and lists of “best practices.” All the while, the administrators voice the latest managerial buzzwords (e.g., SWOT, ECM, and MBO) to impress gullible outsiders. Further, add expensive image polishing campaigns and energetic fund-raising whose purpose is often to hire yet more administrators.
The unemployment rate in California is 12%. Remember that California is the only state in the last election that sent more Democrats to its legislature. The San Diego Union-Tribuneeditorialized today:
Adding new burdens on private employers when unemployment has been 11 percent or more for more than two years is a really bad idea. Adding new burdens on local governments at a time when the revenue crisis threatens their ability to provide basic services is a really bad idea.
Yet that is just what the Legislature has been doing this year, and at a more rapid pace than ever.
2012 doesn't look any better, indeed worse, due to the gerrymandering that will likely increase the Democrats' count in the legislature to a super-majority, letting them run even more wild.
Even cartoon characters are having a rough time, now trying to rob convenience stores:
According to the report, "The clerk -- who was unfamiliar with the Gumby character -- thought the incident was a prank and did not report it until 6 a.m. when the store manager came in." The online version deleted this description in the print newspaper: "Gumby is tall and green, with a wedge-shaped head." Yeah, that ought to help find him.
"A half-century experiment in draping steamship anchors around the necks of the productive class and expecting them to run a four-minute mile has ended in failure. The confiscation of rights and property, the moral impoverishment of generations caused by the state’s usurpation of parental obligations, the elevation of a credentialed elite that believes academia’s fashions are a worthy substitute for knowledge of history and human nature, and above all the faith in a weightless cipher whose oratorical panache now consists of looking from one teleprompter screen to the other with the enthusiasm of a man watching someone else’s kids play tennis–it’s over, whether you believe in it or not. It cannot be sustained without reducing everyone to penurious equality, crippling the power of the United States, and subsuming the economy to a no-growth future that rations energy.
To which some progressives respond: You say that like it’s a bad thing."
The debate was quite interesting. Everyone turned in an decent performance, with no obvious stumbles or pie-on-the-face moments. For the most part, the questions were fair and reasonable, and the always-smooth Brian Williams did the moderating along with some dweeb from the left-leaning Politico whom I immediately disliked.
Let's start this off with a simple multiple choice question, shall we?
Q: In the great big, beautiful room in which the debate took place, what hangs over the audience's head?
A. A huge glass chandelier B. 9,863 small chandeliers C. An exact replica of the Sistine Chapel D. Air Force One
Answer: D. Admittedly, it's a little disconcerting at first. I mean, Air Force One is a big plane. But there it is, hanging away. Must be friggin' awesome during an earthquake.
Long execrated by most law professors, Lochner is the liberals’ least favorite decision because its premises pose a threat to their aspiration, which is to provide an emancipation proclamation for regulatory government. The rehabilitation of Lochner is another step in the disarmament of such thinking.
The Calm Before the Storm - Cyberwar is already happening -- and it's about to get much, much worse. A veteran intelligence official explains how America can prepare itself.
Ask yourself: when was the last time you freely discussed any conservative or even moderate political view with friends at work, or on campus, or in public, or at a large social gathering — without hedging your every word? When? Can you identify a single recent instance when you felt your conservative or even moderate views would be tolerated without provoking name-calling or public shaming into the nearest corner of societal oblivion?
Good point. I had that experience at a cocktail party last weekend. Me and my big mouth.
Piano Quintet, Op 44, ll. I remember when I used to confuse Shubert and Schumann. Love 'em both, but it doesn't get any better than this. My brain is semi-music retarded, and I have to hear a whole piece many times before I begin to get it. I do like piano quintets, but sometimes feel they need a little drum. (Yes, I know that pianny is a percussion instrument.)
One aspect of being "socialized" humans is the capacity to appraise the people we have any meaningful contact with. Most people get better at this, over time. Older is wiser, usually. We get too soon old, and too late smart.
These appraisals happen automatically. We know that most human "thought" takes place as non-deliberately as our digestion. We call that intuition: "I like the cut of his jib;" "She seems like a superficial ninny;" "There's something off about them but I can't put my finger on it;" "He's crazy;" "She strikes me as a strong, upright person;" "He feels calculating and devious;" "She seems full of fun, sexiness, and vitality;" "A schmoozer-saleman-type who, if you offer them your hand, takes you by the arm;""The guy seems very shrewd and clever;" "He's a gloomy Gus;" "Too needy;" "What a phony;" "She's a flake, but a good kind of flake;" "He's an Old Soul;" "He's got a personal agenda;" "This kid will go far."
We get a quick "feel" for people. Vibes. Our brains have a remarkable ability to form automatic and almost instant impressions of a person, accurately or not, from an abundance of information: social presentation, tone of voice, body language, posture, facial expressions, dress and grooming, use of words, style of interacting, and social signaling of all sorts. It takes around a fifth of a second, after all, to fall in love or in lust, and not much longer to think that you might, or might not, want to consider getting to know somebody. Of course, it pays to be careful, but most people mean well unless they are on the make in some calculating way, and everybody wants some things - but perhaps not from you.
When we have any interest and curiosity in a person beyond the superficial (driven by such things as business dealings, attraction, things in common, etc), we have to move past the intuitive impressions, which are often in error and contaminated by emotional and/or transference reactions, put our thinking cap on, and do a little active thinking about a person. People don't do it in the methodical way that shrinks do as trained observers and inquirers, but cover many of the same bases of human interaction. For some examples:
- intelligence, curiosity, fund and depth of knowledge, abilities, talents, wit, good cheer, interests, goals and dreams - do we get along - are we on the same page with shared assumptions and understandings? Same tribe? Do we speak the same language, so to speak? Or are we different in interesting ways? - quirks, eccentricities, weaknesses, criminality, and obvious flaws - respectfulness, decorum, and self-respect - sociability, manners, openness, depth, relatedness or self-centeredness, self-awareness - integrity, honor, self-control, level of BS, reliability, trustworthiness. Are they givers, takers, or neither; general emotional maturity and judgement - level of energy, vitality, and ambition: Are they fun or stimulating to be with? As Imus would say, "What do they bring to the table?" - level of life functioning (that covers a whole lot of territory)
along with other considerations, and, of course:
- Do they want something from me and, if so, what? (eg sex, money, love, favors, attention, status, casual social acquaintanceship, friendship, close friendship, Christian fellowship, help, companionship, collegiality, conversational amusement, or, as in most cases, little or nothing at all, etc.). If we're in an introspective mood, we might also ask ourselves what we want with them, and where we want to locate our boundaries with them.
Shrinks, when at work, attempt character assessment in a way that is analogous to a physical exam (ie "Come into the consulting room and take your social facade off. Strip to your psychological underwear. The doctor will be with you shortly, and you can let her know who you really are, what you are really made of, and what your private struggles are.). I am not impressed that, in the end, we shrinks make many fewer initial errors than the average thoughtful and perceptive person on the street. We just don't use the same lingo.
I began this post with the intention of writing about different levels of life functioning, with this as an intro, but this is already long enough for now. LOF can wait until later.
It's a better name for this wonderful business. Go onto their site and have them mail you their catalogues. It is a wholesome addiction.
Heather MacDonald has a good piece on the company at City Journal. They are making money. Wow - for-profit education. I actually had the idea of doing that before The Teaching Company existed. There's a big difference between idle dreamers and effective entrepreneurs, ain't there?
We use them often, but tend towards the courses on sale. If you go through ten or so of their courses, randomly-selected, you'll probably know more than the average recent college grad today.
Maggie's Farm pinup girl Marianne sent me this video this morning to WAKE UP my day, and it certainly did. It is from a Japanese movie, school girls doing a rousing version of the classic swing era Sing, Sing, Sing. Unfortunately the embed is disabled at Youtube, but just click this link and get your day jumpin'. Crank up the sound and swing.
Poll illustrates California voters' anger - Nearly 3 in 4 say the country is on the wrong track, and nearly half favor slashing government spending — a potentially dismal finding for President Obama, who will unveil a jobs plan this week.
The distinguished publisher of The Rumford Meteor has gone Hunter Thompson, or Carl Hiassen, or Rupert Murdoch, or The Onion, or something like that.
If Maine is Lake Wobegon on meth and welfare, this online newspaper captures the local ambience with, dare I say it, wit and wisdom.
Not only that, it's all pure fact. No wonder everybody in the Statehouse in Augusta (where's that?) reads it. And if Maine has any remaining local journalists, I'm sure they read it too.
It's a slice of America, and Mr. Sullivan has, I think rightly, recognized that colorful local online news is part of the future of journalism as the dead tree approach dies its slow death. Only problem: do people in Maine have internets?
How does one market a new online local (ie statewide) newspaper? Rent a billboard? Where?
Our lad is now based in Rome for the rest of the summer. He goes everywhere and tries to see everything. He sends these photos of Ostia Antica, aka "The Better Pompeii." It means "The Old Port," just outside of Rome. 100,000 people once lived there.
Whenever I consider the Romans, I realize that, although we tend to think of ourselves as living in a Judeo-Christian culture, we really live in a Roman culture with a little Judeo-Christian icing on top.
Having been to Pompeii, I would say that, judging from the photos, Ostia Antica is the far-superior Roman site. A passer-by was kind enough to take this snap of himself at an old fast-food counter (Pompeii was full of those too):
Academia seems torn between utter decadence and Spanish Inquisition-like puritanism. Peter Wood discusses Higher Sex Ed:
Educate about “sexual harassment and sexual violence” on one hand, and promote sexual license and vulgarity on the other hand? This may not be a complete contradiction, but it is pretty close to one. License and restraint are awkward partners. Campus culture currently decrees that we should want both: It decrees that we should strive to liberate students from conventional morality in favor of free-wheeling sexual expression, while at same time we should instill an ethic of male restraint hedged by severe penalties.
Containing one's sexual and romantic impulses is one of the more difficult things that adult humans are called upon to do in civilized life. Academia reflects that human challenge in warning guys never to touch a girl on their way to their exciting Porn and Perversion Studies class.
Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. . . . Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite.
George Santayana on the modern Liberal, 100 years ago:
“his ultimate satisfaction in his work is not founded on any good done, but on a passionate willfulness. He calls the thing he wants for others good, because he wants to bestow it on them, not because they naturally want it for themselves. Incapable of sympathy, he has a momentary pleasure in policy.”
So reach deep fellow taxpayer. Time to bail out yet another failing agency which apparently never saw this revolution in communication coming, was never able to compete in the market without monopoly powers granted by government and has overspent and overpromised even as it watched it’s market share continually shrink.
Maybe it is time to, horror of horrors, consider privatizing this service? Actually, that’s something that should have been done years ago. But watch … we’ll still have this government run anachronism around our fiscal necks when your grandchildren are adults.
A good word, of course. I see, in our morning links, MoDo used it to describe the O's temperament. What does she mean, exactly? Is "languid" racist? I certainly think so. Or is it a comment on his testosterone level? Like he's not, well, you know. I see he is off to vacation again today. Sheesh. But I understand. Martha's Vineyard is exhausting. Been there a few times. Pleasant and civilized, but certainly exhausting.
I am enjoying a languid final day of a 2-week vacation, watching the tennis this afternoon accompanied by She Who Must Be Obeyed and some chilled adult beverages in full White Privileged American manner. Burgers on the grill in a while. Back to school tomorrow. Non labore, non mangiare, or mangia, or however they say it to the animals - but not to the people - in Italia.
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Academia seems torn between utter decadence and Spanish Inquisition-like puritanism. Peter Wood discusses 