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.
I have no idea what Alt-Right refers to. It's a new term but I do not know who it describes. I can't even tell whether it is derogatory or not. Z-man discussed Science and the Alt-Right.
"Science" is an odd word. I guess it applies to knowledge obtained through the scientific method. I do not fetishize it because I am a natural skeptic - and because I know that science is done by human beings with egos and a need for income. Hence Most Scientific Findings Are Wrong or Useless.
If you were to add up the number of killings by people in pursuit of what they think are moral aims, whether it’s personal vengeance, implementing justice, or hastening a utopia or messianic age, the body count would surely be higher than the victims of amoral predation and exploitation.
That’s why pure moralism does more harm than good, and why a legitimate moral concern with human welfare must work together with a scientific drive to understand the causes of wrongdoing. If, as moralists, our responsibility is to reduce suffering and enhance flourishing, then the most powerful way to do that is through analytic engagement: moral philosophy, reasoned jurisprudence, legal scholarship, and the sciences of human nature. When we can say what makes us tick, we can rearrange our environments in ways that inhibit aggression and enhance empathy, compassion and reason.
Busted pipe, flooded basement last May. We have three 1/2 rooms down there: a bedroom with good windows and bath, a pantry, and two storage rooms (one for tools and hunting and boating stuff, and one for general saved stuff). Mostly finished rooms. Allstate sent their teams over for a couple of months and it's all better than it was before. We never had to lift a finger. Now we have a water-warning system. Thanks, Allstate.
The new pantry (minus the old second fridge which had to be cut up to get out of there. Can't live without a Sawzall.):
Of course they are. They might be bad literature, but lyrics are lyrics, and lyrics are poetry. Probably music lyrics came first, though, like chants with drumming or something. The Iliad was music lyrics, or at least a story set to music. The Psalms are songs for which the music has been lost. "Psalm" = Song.
The Prof is hopelessly naive about human nature. In looking at human behavior, one must always be alert to the aggression and power-seeking. There is no sensitivity or hypersensitivity in these kids. They are manipulative bullies, "crybullies" as they are called. It has been stunning for me to watch real educated adults take these infantile tactics seriously or to be intimidated by them
Or perhaps they don't take them seriously, but are happy to find an excuse to do what they themselves wanted to do anyway. In any event, there is no innocence in the PC circus.
My response to that is that, if infantile or regressive behavior is rewarded, you will get more of it. That is regardless of age. If adult behavior is rewarded, you will get more of that. And as the man said, higher ed is not day-care.
Nikil Saval at the NYT thinks it is. Like, I think, most people, I find it dehumanizing, cold, ugly, and intimidating just as its nickname implies. It says to me "You are entering Franz Kafka's nightmare."
That old Whitney Museum in NYC is just as hideous under its new name. It is unpleasant inside, too. I just figure that Bauhaus wasn't ugly or inhuman enough, so, to make a name for themselves, architects had to take ugly to its endpoint.
Philipp Meyer grew up in a working class neighborhood in Baltimore, where he dropped out of high school and got a GED. After five years working as a bike mechanic and an orderly in a trauma center, he decided to attend college, getting into Cornell University at the age of 22. He graduated with a degree in English and he got a job on Wall Street as a derivatives trader. After paying off his student loans, he left Wall Street hoping write full time, but after several years of failure moved back to Baltimore and took jobs as an EMT and construction worker. In 2005 he received a fellowship from the University of Texas’s Michener Center for Writers. In 2009 he published his first novel American Rust, which won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was an Economist Book of the Year, a New York Times Notable Book, a Washington Post Book of the Year, and made numerous other “best-of” list. Meyer is a Guggenheim Fellow and one of the second generation of the New Yorker’s 20 best writers under 40. His second novel, The Son, is being published in fifteen languages. He lives mostly in Austin, Texas.
One of my Vietnam veteran buddies in North Carolina just sent me this email. It's worth sharing, to help recall what is important, and who. The charity which is linked is very well worth your attention, please.
"Once a year the charity for the crippled old ARVN vets still suffering in Viet Nam holds a dinner concert and fundraiser. (www.thevhf.org ) It was scheduled for this past Saturday evening and the MC and singers flew in from California on Friday for it. But then came the hurricane, which was supposed to mostly miss Raleigh..... but that forecast was just a bit off, and we got 9 inches of rain, very high winds, all kinds of flooding, trees down across roads, power outages all over. Including the rental hall for the party. And the official recommendations from the authorities were for people to stay home until it blew over.
"As I got ready to go in the early evening, my wife asked me why I would go, when it should be cancelled and there was no power at the hall. I told her that 1- the organizers had gotten a 10KW generator to run power as needed, and 2- these are people who went to sea in small leaky boats at great risk, or walked across Cambodia to get to camps in Thailand, or survived "re-education", and spent years in refugee camps to get here with nothing to start all over again in a strange new country. There was no way that rain and slick roads would mean anything worth stopping for to them!
"And sure enough, we had 90% attendance, even with people who had to drive long distances to get there. They had bought dozens of candles to light every table, the caterer (also Vietnamese) had brought sterno warming pans for all the hot food, ice for the drinks, etc. The power wasn't level enough in voltage for the sound equipment, but they brought in a piano and someone to play it for music, and the singers worked through all that.
"Starting first, with the star male singer, a superb baritone, singing the Star Spangled Banner a cappella. And there was NO ONE in this crowd sitting down, everyone was standing, hand over heart, and many sang along. In the flickering candlelight of the tables with the wind and rain drumming outside, it was something special. And OK, call me a sentimental, silly, old American.... but my eyes..... my eyes let me down, they spilled water down my cheeks as I tried to sing along through a throat tightened with emotion. And then they sang the old national anthem of South Viet Nam, and the whole crowd sang with strength and clarity. It was all something to experience.
"After which the show went on and everyone had a great, great time. I was very happy and proud to be there."
James Miller interviews Gregory Cochran, MIT Physicist, anthropologist, and geneticist. Polymath Cochran discusses everything from politics to racial genetics to medieval Chinese war strategy and pretty much any random topic.
It is a delight to be in on a chat with a true Smart Guy. A long Podcast, Meaty.
The relentlessly arrogant and condescending Noam Chomsky is wrong about most things. The fame which gave him a voice in politics was, of course, his linguistic theory on which, as it turns out, a generation of Linguists have wasted their careers.
I tend to dislike zoning and urban planning in general. I prefer organically-grown spaces. I like commercial spaces embedded in residential spaces, and even in suburbia candy shops, corner drug stores, and pubs would appear as gathering places in residential areas if they were allowed. That big divide makes no sense.
Urban planners are central planners, meaning that they usually are arrogant and get things wrong. Nowadays, few people wish to live full-time in the countryside or in the woods except for misanthropes. People like a vibrant, human-scale community whether in New York City or in Rumford, Maine.
We feel like the decision rule ought to be the one articulated by now retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, which is: “If something does not improve the battlefield lethality of our military, we ought to be very hesitant to undertake it.”
If you dressed that way in college today, people would assume that you were as gay as Milo. However, kids in fine private schools still dress in ties for class, and those youths in the photo were probably just wearing something similar to what they had always worn to school. People used to dress for church too. I still do. It shows respect for the occasion. Please do not wear cut-off jeans to church. I am sure God doesn't care, but I do. (And you gals, please do not dress too sexy. It is a terrible distraction for us guys.)
It seems to me that part of the post-war cultural change in the US, and in the West generally, contained a degree of psychological regression, a clinging to childhood or adolescence. I do not know why that happened (decadence from prosperity and comfort?), but there was a time when people aged 18 were adults, viewed themselves as adults, comported themselves as adults, dressed like adults and, in short, aspired to be dignified grown-ups. I know this from my parents, but I grew up after that. Adulthood was difficult for them (military service, war, money, etc) but adulthood is always a deadly serious matter for which children are not equipped.
Dress expectations are superficial for sure, but they still mean something. So do all other cultural expectations. I am most comfortable associating with those who share my cultural expectations. Generally, know what to expect. Birds of a feather...
Solway discusses The Infantilizing of the Academy. I will not blame anybody or anything for the cultural regressions, but it is an interesting question.
A friend returned from a bachelor party weekend in the US heartland. His report:
Fri nite: Cookout at his friend's parents' house, with kegs, a bonfire, and fireworks of course in the back field. Sat: 6 hours at the shooting range, with unlimited shotgun, handgun, and rifle sports. Sat nite: They drove a few hrs from Ohio to Pittsburgh for a nice big dinner event, had to wear neat, clean clothes. Sun: They went to a dirt track race after early church. Box seats! Then everybody drove home to wherever they came from. Nobody flew, cuz firearms are not carry-on.
I have never attended a bachelor party as good as that. This was outside the Beltway for sure. Flyover Country where people change their own oil in their cars and trucks.
Once or twice a year we organize artsy-fartsy outings for our artsy art-loving friends. On Saturday, the most beautiful day of the year up here, we all got up to Storm King Art Center to spend four hours hiking around the lovely park-like grounds in the Hudson Highlands.
Wonderful outing. I determined that one of the potties in the woods was a Richard Serra, but it was just a potty. Saw a fox and a few migrating raptors. Plus lots of Calders, Serras, Di Suveros, Goldsworthys, etc. These large constructions look their best in large spaces with plenty of 360 degree perspective. Good fun. Tired legs.
The place is growing. It's a destination for worldwide art-lovers, and you will hear all sorts of languages spoken as you hike the 500+ acres. Photo is a Goldsworthy stone wall, diving into the lake. I do not know whether it's art, but it is fun to see a finely-constructed wall and that is good enough for me.
Thanks to wealthy people with good taste, America became the fine arts center of the world. For now, anyway.
Check out Storm King sometime. You can bring a picnic or have a sammich at their little outdoor cafe. In 3 1/2 hours of walking outdoors you can not see it all. Our next expedition will be in winter, to DIA Beacon. That's another famous worldwide art destination.
Off topic, but for Northeast hiking, google Hudson Highlands hiking. Great stuff with countless trails of all lengths, and excellent for the fall migration.
Had occasion to cross the Tappan Zee Bridge yesterday. Seeing the progress of the new bridge, adjacent to the old, is a thrill. Once in a while a government does something worthy. My only regret is that the bridge does not have rail. It should. I think there is not a single rail bridge over the southern Hudson River, which is odd and unfortunate.
Travelogue: The Imperial Capital. It's a part of the world where there is never a recession, pay and benefits are generous, and where few can feel good about their job. Managers and paper-pushers by the tens of thousands, and a large load of talented schmoozers. A modern Ancient Rome.
What kind of people are these administrators? Surely Yale Univ. has thousands of smart, normal students even if the admin consists of castrati. Are they all intimidated into silence while these circuses occur? Or too busy studying to have time for nonsense?
A friend is in the wedding party at a Dominican wedding this weekend. He's been brushing up on his Salsa and Merengue. He lived in Costa Rica for two years so he had plenty of experience in Latin dance clubs. He says, "With Latin Americans, you can't get chicks if you can't dance." I said I thought Merengue had a bit of happy grinding. It does.
You can learn those dance rhythms and moves on Youtube.
