Tony Robinson has some great shows. Very interesting, always entertaining and informative. He has come a long way from “Black Adder”.
Our current supply chain problems and empty shelves are a reminder and warning about just how interconnected and interdependent things are in our current high technology society; about just how fragile such relationships just might be. to fill the shelves in our grocery and other stores. (Check sometime at your supermarket and see just how many items are sourced or produced in some other country and then imported–via sea, land, or even air–into the U.S. to fill our shelves.)
The video episode Neo has highlighted shows the worst jobs in Saxon England and, then, other episodes bring things up to our own era.
However, not that long ago, at the time of our country’s founding, more than 90% of the people in our country were engaged in the arduous tasks of farming, and farming done right—even in today’s more modern and automated times, when the percentage of our population who are farming has been reduced to just around 2 or 3 percent–is still a very tough, 24/7 job.
Settlers back then, at our founding, also had to constantly cut wood for heat and to build whatever buildings they needed, to not only produce but to process raw farm products into food and other essentials like clothing, to hunt and fish for the table, and to guard against against attacks from wild animals, Indians, and outlaws.
Moreover, everyone was in constant danger of possible starvation if crops failed or farm animals died, or of crippling or death from accidents or all too common disease.
It was a hard, brutal, and short life.
If the many ignorant of the past, relatively pampered and spoiled people of today had a real appreciation of just how bad things were–in even the recent past–and of how far we have come, of how good they currently have it as compared to past times, and how bad it could get for us if our current intricate and interconnected society were to any great extent collapse, I’d think that they would fight much harder to keep a tight grip on the progress that we’ve made.
Baldrick does Mike Rowe.
I keep listening to this snippet of the Kreutzer sonata played by Hilary Hahn. The intensity of the music contrasted with the concentration of the performer fascinates me. And I look forward to someday hearing the entire piece played by Hahn.
RE: All of the food we take for granted that has to be imported, here is what the surprising label on a bag of Member’s Mark “Mountain Trek Mix ” containing Cashews, Almonds, Peanuts, and M& Ms says–
“Product of Argentina, Chile, Ghana, India, South Africa, USA, Vietnam.”
FWIW: I grew up on a small farm in South Dakota in the 50’s. It was work, but it was fun, and very rewarding (but not financially).
I notice that they ignore the fact that horses became more useful when they invented a harness which didn’t choke them. That was, though, post-Saxon.
Hey Hey! Ben Crump is back in the Twin Cities! He’s licking his chops at the thought of the upcoming lawsuits!
The gang down at The Mystic Knights of the Sea Lodge Hall is kvelling like crazy!
We have Grapes from Chile and Cherries from Argentina, purchased at King Soopers (Kroger). Do you ever wonder how they can grow and ship stuff so cheaply? In Denver they use to sell long stem roses, 2 or 3 dozen to a bunch on street corners. They were the “seconds” that florist didn’t want. We had a green house up the street that was basically put out of business because of cheap, er inexpensive roses from South America.
I really enjoyed Clarkson’s Farm on amazon prime. I think farming actually gave Jeremy some humility, if possible. Also of interest is a docuseries titled Victorian Farm, also on amazon prime.
My father’s side of my family were farmer’s in Beech Creek, PA, dating back to the late 18th C. and continuing today. I remember visiting the family farms as a child in the early 1960’s. Very rough and tumble farming. I visited again about 15 years ago, and it remained a very tough life. Most farmers held other jobs (in the sawmill) to makes ends meet.
Lastly, All Creatures Great and Small (the original BBC series that ran 1978-1990 gives a good picture of country life and the struggles of the small farmer.
When I first went to western India in the spring of 2005 I saw people plowing fields with oxen and wooden plows.
“Baldrick does Mike Rowe”
Depending on your definition of ‘does’…..
In the wake of such a chaotic year, it’d be easy to blame these disturbing trends on COVID and resultant policies, but that would be only partially accurate. COVID didn’t create these problems, for these problems existed well before last year. The people shortage was already coming. It was almost here. All 2020 did was act as an accelerant. Everything that happened last year, including the radical steps the US took to battle the virus, simply sped up the effects of a more nefarious and long-term problem largely ignored by politicians and media alike:
The US is suffering the beginning phases of a great sansdemic—“without people,” or in our case “without enough people”—a demographic drought that is projected to worsen throughout the century and will impact every business, college, and region.
I kept saying feminism is a anti-population bomb the soviets discovered when they tried to beat us to the end result and the presumed benefits… no one would belief… because no one could understand the math or the issues… or really wanted to..
below replacement is extinction…
and even THAT didnt register…
Now you can see that despite importing a million people a month, we are not fecund enough to survive our own future!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is history catching up with us while we distracted ourselves
The event horizon has been passed…
There really is nothing that can be done…
Nathan Grawe discussed America’s shrinking population and
its impact on higher ed in particular in Demographics and
the Demand for Higher Education (2018)
Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson wrote about the imminent
people shortage in Empty Planet (2019)
Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson wrote about the imminent
people shortage in Empty Planet (2019)
In recent weeks Tyler Cowen touched on the same issues
in Bloomberg, observing that America’s fertility rates have
fallen below replacement rates.
Ross Douthat, a frequent writer on the declining American
birth rate in The New York Times, suggests that, unless
we find a solution, we will soon be living in a world that
resembles nothing more than “just a rich museum.”
The outcome has been known since the 80s as was going to do us in WAY before global warming or pollution would…
Yes Steph. All Creatures Great and Small. Brings me back to fond memories spent on the family farms in Simcoe County, Ontario.
The largest generation in US history remains a powerful cohort of key workers that still hold millions of roles. Their sudden departure from the labor force will gut the economy of crucial positions and decades of experience that will be hard to fill en masse
The children and grandchildren of baby boomers are not replacing the boomers who leave the workforce.
The lowest birth rates in US history (workforce future) – The
national birth rate, already in decline, hit a 35-year low in
2019, and the relative size of the working-age population has
been shrinking since 2008. In fact, the national population is
projected to begin shrinking by 2062. This means that over
the next generation, talent shortages will only compound.
In normal years, 2 million baby boomers retire. But in 2020, over 3 million retired.
COVID and related policies drove an additional 1.1 million people from the labor market
Boomers are an enormous cohort of 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964. They powerfully shaped every institution they touched, but they are leaving the labor market they built and defined in droves
The gap the boomers leave can’t be entirely filled, because around 1970, the total fertility rate dipped below 2.1.
AS i tried to point out and this will probably be the last time… well see… the feminist bomb been exploding since 1970s… NOW the effect is happening… the average was 4 kids per family… now, for each woman that does not have three kids another woman has to have 6 in order for the population to just be stable, let alone grow or replace what its been losing since the 1970s and since the Democrats been hiding the outcome of their actions by opening up the borders…
IF they did not do that, you guys would have noticed our population dropping from 300 million to 200 million… but we imported people by the millions and millions causing disparity in earnings as the warm bodies they were using to hide the decline were not the choice selections of prior years
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- US birthrate swung upwards, and peaked at nearly 27 births per 1,000 people in 1949.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
For the US population to reproduce itself—-meaning,
for current population numbers to stay the same—
the total fertility rate (TFR) needs to equal 2.1 children
per 1 woman. When the TFR stays at or near 2.1, one
child is born to replace every person now living
(with the .1 allowing for cases of early mortality). In
other words, the population doesn’t grow, but it is
at least replaced. Yet, with a few annual exceptions,
America’s TFR has been far below 2.1 since 1971.
We been going extinct and no one cares!!!!!!!!
its the biggest joke of the infinite goof…
literal dinosaur’s pretending they are part of the future they never had kids to have!!!
For the US population to reproduce itself—-meaning, for current population numbers to stay the same—the total fertility rate (TFR) needs to equal 2.1 children per 1 woman. When the TFR stays at or near 2.1, one child is born to replace every person now living (with the .1 allowing for cases of early mortality). In other words, the population doesn’t grow, but it is at least replaced. Yet, with a few annual exceptions, America’s TFR has been far below 2.1 since 1971.
Male workers: AWOL since 1980
A revolving door began spinning on the workforce in the 1980s: women in, men out—especially in the generations following the baby boomers. In 1980, the prime age male workforce (ages 25-54) made up 38% of the workforce. But by the fourth quarter of 2019, nearly 40 years later, that same prime age male workforce had dropped to just 34%
of the workforce.
The dip in male LFPR was already underway in the 1970s. Then between 1980 and 2019, it jumped off a cliff. In 1980, the LFPR for prime-age men was right around 94%. By 2019, it had plummeted to 89%. This drop represents roughly 2.6 million prime-age men no longer actively working or searching for a job.
men naturally made up a shrinking percentage of the total workforce as women flooded the ranks starting in the 1950s, but the trend we’re observing here isn’t a matter of men comprising a smaller slice of the pie. This is a matter of men opting out of the pie. Gen X, millennial, and Gen Z men increasingly don’t work, period.
dey dont do housework
dey dont earn for a family
eby ting dey do is for nuttin
da women will have to do everything for them!!!
the number of prime-age men not in the labor force swelled by an astonishing 70%. What this means is that even though millennials in particular now outnumer living baby boomers, more and more millennial men are, for one reason or another, opting
out of work
Last December, William Frey of
Brookings reported that the US
population growth rate from 2019 to 2020
was a staggeringly low 0.35%—the lowest
recorded growth rate of any year since
1900, and probably the lowest since the
birth of our nation. Even small changes in
growth have big implications. Increasing
the rate of growth by just one-tenth of 1%
(from 0.35% to 0.45%) between 2019 and
2020 would have meant an additional
327,000 people. But the national rate of
growth generally continues to slow. 2010-
2020 represents the lowest decade of
population growth in US history.
Moreover, everyone was in constant danger of possible starvation if crops failed or farm animals died, or of crippling or death from accidents or all too common disease.
It was a hard, brutal, and short life.
I’m not so sure. My great grandparents were farmers in Illinois. They came out from upstate New York about 1865. Their parents had both come from Ireland, where life really was “nasty brutish and short,” and settled in New York near the St Lawrence river about 1810 or so. My great grandfather had a dozen siblings and he and his wife had 12 children, all grew to adulthood. He died at age 75 and his widow lived a few more years. Farmer’s lives were hard work and some risk but they, and their children, were much healthier. Cities, even in the 19th century, were population sinks. They were unhealthy and the population required immigrants to stay steady or grow.
My grandparents were also farmers and had 10 children, all of whom lived full lives. My father, who died of emphysema, may have been the shortest lived at 65.
No wonder Democrats (and their adherents) hated—and hate—MAGA:
they took it—take it—personally.
And saw it—see it—for the tremendous threat to their nefarious “progressive” plans (and to their fortunes) that it indeed was, and still is.
50 years of baby bust
Millions of Americans will be absent first
from the classroom and then from the
labor market because, to put it bluntly,
they were never born.
We briefly discussed total fertility rate
(TFR) in Chapter 1. As a reminder, in order
for the US population to replace itself, the
TFR needs to equal 2.1, or 2.1 children per
1 woman. When the TFR stays at 2.1, one
child is born to replace every person now
living. The population doesn’t grow, but it
is at least replaced.
The problem, as we mentioned earlier, is
that America’s TFR has been far below 2.1
since 1971.
In 2017, the TFR in the US had
fallen to 1.7—down from 3.7 in 1960.
Data compiled from 32 US states indicates
that in 2020 alone, the birth rate fell more
than 4%. This means that fewer and fewer
young people are rising through the ranks
to attend college or enter the workforce.
[and what men we have are slackers who dont want to work and will have to have the women earn enough to fund them— or else]
and as usual, they say the blame is not one thing… but then list out all the things related to feminism
industrialization (changed agrarian)
Secularization (the left and feminism hated the patriarchal jewish “God and son”
Decline and Delay of marraige. (an iconic plank of the feminists)
Womens education and employment (another icon)
Debt and Delayed college enrollment (debt by nationalizing loans and getting all the women in masse to take tons of useless unproductive unpaying courses)
and other things dotted…
its described in negative space…
enjoy…
im too busy working to care..
besides
its done and over..
even if women became sex crazed baby machines, they could not fix the destruction that is done already!!!
hope they can speak spanish… or afrikaans… etc… or can fight on the battle field… the boomers wont.
welcome to the future your NOT paying attention to that is coming regardless of any action you take (as its too late – the car is going to slam into the wall and nothing will stop it!)
The obvious solution, it seems, would be to have
more children. This indeed would have been the
solution 20-40 years ago. But today this would
require a solid two decades before the first of these
new baby boomers would enter the labor force in
the way the US so urgently needs.
Consider the attempts of other countries to
encourage having more children. Global efforts
at raising fertility rates, when they have had any
measurable effect at all, have met with only minor
success. Countries such as Russia, Singapore, and
Italy have tried offering cash to families who have
more children, but these initiatives have done little
to up the birth rate. And consider this: the US, too,
provides incentives in the form of per-child tax
credits, yet we’ve already seen that fertility rates
continue to slide.
“Baldrick does Mike Rowe.” [Schotzberger @ 12:04]
Although I haven’t watched it yet, that was also my first impression; a historical version of Dirty Jobs.
This also brought to mind a 1973 publication Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered by E. F. Schumacher.
Schumacher’s point was to approach economics and industrialization from the user’s point of view; e,g, that developing countries need a technology somewhere in between the digging stick (inefficient) and the thousand horsepower tractor of current Western technology (unaffordable and requiring substantial training).
When I read it years ago, I thought it was very on-point, not only as advice for developing nations, but for entrepreneurs starting out in a business without multi-millions of dollars in capital.
(see above, Kate @ 2:30)
Jonah Goldberg, who resigned from Fox because of ‘muh principles’, has joined the contributors roster at CNN.
Is there anyone associated with NeverTrump who isn’t a shill?
Unfortunately, in searching for the video that this created it seems as if the utopians and Marxists have grabbed onto this concept. Too bad.
For my take, Schumacher’s ideas represent a simple application of common sense problem solving. On one end of the spectrum, inefficiency and labor intensity; on the other end, expensive and elaborate technology not available to everyone.
Why not a middle ground using some technology to create an exponential reduction of cost and labor intensity yet still not reliance of rocket science to create or keep functioning?
Steph, you should watch the redone “All Creatures Great and Small”. It is very well done.
One of our trips to England we stayed just outside Thrisk where Alf Wight, the author of All Creatures practiced.
“Is there anyone associated with NeverTrump who isn’t a shill?” [Art Deco @ 4:33]
Simple answer: “No!” IMO “never” anything usually represents an extreme position based upon extremist emotional responses rather than rational thinking. Like a dishonest salesman, their loyalty is to their product (the idea of “Never _____”) rather than to its practical application and its potential results/risks)
Steve Hayes is now commenting for NBC News. At least that outlet may survive a while, unlike CNN.
Why, exactly why is a slowly declining population a death sentence?
On a covid note – about two weeks ago, OK had the highest 7 day avg of cases so far in their tracking. Today, the drop is 75% from that high. The hospitalization use is still high.
My take – Omicron may be decreasing, but we also had a few days of bad weather (snow, ice, frigid temps) and everything was closed. So, fewer people are going out for anything, or for testing, kids have been at home for 4 days so not spreading germs, and everyone is being tested for C19 when they go into the hospital.
The next couple of days should be interesting to see if the numbers at the local school district level and the local University changes.
SHIREHOME
I am watching the new ACG&S and enjoying it very much.
What fascinates me about the original series is that there’s no CGI there, and very little other special effects, so Robert Hardy and Christopher Timothy actually are standing in a freezing cold stable, naked to their waist, and their arm up to their armpit in a cow’s vagina (and, if the story is true, the actors “missed” the vagina on occasion). Can you imagine an 21st C. American actor doing any such thing?
@Chuck:
Hilary Hahn is just phoning it in there :).
Try a remaster of the Jascha Heifetz / Brooks Smith recording on RCA Victor Living Stereo.
Brooks Smith was born in a small border town in Texas and became one of the greatest accompanists of his time.
@BarryMeislin:
Step 1 in any solution would be to suspend that Currie fellow from GS bloviating about commodity shortages he and his rotten ilk helped bring about from the nearest convenient low emissions outdoor lighting fixture. I’m sure he could do us a good deal on the rope, too.
Surprisingly good vinyl transfer on YouTube:
I actually remember that from my high school days. I thought it was too fast at the time, it just didn’t do it for me. What a disappointment that was. I’m probably a barbarian for doubting Heifetz 🙂
Brooks Smith was born in a small border town
Yeah, the piano was almost missing in that instagram bit. I thought Hilary might be experimenting, her style has changed a lot in the last couple of years. And there were some flaws that even my lousy ear could hear. But I liked the feel of it.
@Chuck:
No accounting for (my) taste here but it just hits the spot. And consistency is not my strong point: I don’t like speed demon Goldbergs and and get very grumpy about tempo experimentations in Pictures at an Exhibition.
I remember about 25 years ago Decca did a re-mastered re-release of the Sultan of Slow’s recordings just after his death. Bought a few and enjoyed them before I stopped buying CDs.
“In the 1980s and into the 1990s, it was common to hear conservatives say that all of the ideas are on the right. By that they meant that debate over public policy was driven by the flow of ideas from conservatism. This was not entirely wrong. By the mid-1980s the American right had abandoned the idea of rolling back the managerial state and instead was focused on making it work more efficiently.
That evolution of the American right into the accounting department of the managerial state is why conservatism failed to conserve anything. It is fair to say that the conservative movement is the biggest failure in political history. Despite tens of billions in financing, they managed to lose every fight. This failure brought the wrecking ball known as Donald Trump and the resulting crack-up on the right.
That crack-up has had some interesting results. The neoconservatives have splintered off into a weird conspiracy cult. They now chant far-left talking points about Trump from the 2016 election. David French is promoting the cult-Marx conspiracy theory that claims American society is a plot against nonwhites. Douglas Murray is pushing a weird new right-wing sexual liberation. The whole scene is a freak show of broken people and discredited ideas…”
He goes on to say in passing something almost nice about Yoram Hazony. So you can all safely read the rest without brains exploding out ears.
“…The best way to describe what is going on within the acceptable conservative circles is a struggle session. Reality has made clear that the conservatism of the last century was a complete failure. The struggle for these people is in acknowledging this fact and then understanding why it happened. Right now, they would rather take another beating than think about the root cause of conservative failure.
This answer will have to wait until the dissident right is included in the discussion, as they are the only ones who accept that the seeds of liberal collapse may lie within the liberal tradition itself. The tyrannical managerial system we see today may be the inevitable result of Western liberalism. That may not be true, but it has to be on the table in order to understand how it is the West has arrived at this crisis and how to proceed through it.
On the other hand, every great revolution in the economic order has been followed by a violent reordering of Western society. Just as the Industrial Revolution brought two centuries of warfare and a new world order, the technological revolution may usher in a new age of violent reordering of our social and political systems. In that case, this debate will only matter to whoever wins the coming global conflict, assuming the West survives it.”
How Slow Can You Go?
That was… interesting. I wonder how much of my taste was formed on first hearing of recordings from the town library? Schnable, Serkin, Milstein, Busch Quartet, all a bit old fashioned even then, and the sound quality wasn’t great. But perhaps their style prejudiced my taste. I recall a NY Philharmonic broadcast with Michelangeli playing Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto and thinking it the most wonderful performance I’d ever heard. But in retrospect, it was more like Serkin than, say, Rubinstein.
@Chuck:
Yup. I think Signor Cobra needs to spend more time sunning himself on a rock before he picks up his baton.
I’m sure you’re right that much musical taste is formed by whatever we heard first — generally at an impressionable age.
And some things are just plain old prejudice. I just cannot make myself love the Fortepiano.
Tempo mostly lurks just this side of full-on lugubriosity without going so far as to evoke Ed Wood Bela Lugosi visions… and so the moral effect of the Dies Irae at standard tempo is magnified.
“I keep listening to this snippet of the Kreutzer sonata played by Hilary Hahn.”
I love, love Hilary Hahn, so will check this out. I’d highly recommend her performance on YouTube of the Brahms concerto. There she has a lot of intensity, as in ferocious. But what always strikes us when she first comes out she looks like she could be the girl working the cash register at Walmart.
I’ve come to love Reinbert de Leeuw’s slow versions of Satie’s sublime “Gymnopedies”:
When I first got the CD, I was taking Tai Chi. My teacher recommended we practice the Long Form slowly to music, so I did so to this Satie. It is slow. It’s like listening to a barely leaking faucet drip.
Later I told my teacher and she used the CD in class. Not everyone liked moving that s-l-o-w-l-y.
“How did you come to know so much classical music?”
Still have some big holes in my knowledge and exposure which I won’t live long enough to fill… but couldn’t think of anything worse than running out of new discoveries.
Misspent Youth. It was harder then because buying recordings was expensive and that really focused the mind… perhaps why it’s stuck. Now we’re half lucky and have an embarrassment of free or nearly free riches. Most other genres are terra incognita to me. Jazz and blues I’m learning more about. I’m still finding classical gems and performers I know nothing about.
Since getting into good DACs and headphones I’ve discovered modern Electronic Music — e.g. Nils Frahm the other day. I’ve also learned that I don’t hate all contemporary classical music — good sound reproduction isn’t necessary to appreciate Mozart. It *is* for (say) Hindemith or Messiaen.
How do you discover new and different things? As you can perhaps deduce, I’m not necessarily the most broadminded of folks and algos will hone in on what I like. I’ve found recently that the best way for me to find new types of music is to read hi-fi reviews and pay some attention to what the reviewers are listening to. Some of these tracks have been revelations.
@Huxley:
Pitch Drop got me thinking about Millikan’s Oil Drop Experiment and turns out that there’s a tenuous Feynman angle:
Perhaps our resident physicists could chime in on any more recent ones that have been missed.
Zaphod:
So you follow your nose. Works for me. One thing leads to another.
The disreputable Rupert Sheldrake wrote a great little book: “Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science.” Chapter 6 is “The Variability of the ‘Fundamental Constants'” which covers much the same ground in more detail than the Feynman wiki tidbit.
Something insectoid and pathological has taken over science, I fear.
For those dying to hear how my disenrollment worked out…
Apparently I was undisenrolled today. I got a notice my vaxx certificate is now on record. My logins have mostly started working properly.
Good thing I rented my textbook. Most students just read the text online as part of a service which includes the online math labs (also required). Since I have a physical textbook I wasn’t locked out of this week’s homework assignment.
Not that it matters, from what I can tell. I get the sense that everyone — teachers, administrators, students — just have their heads down and are trying to get to the next day as best they can and no more than that.
@Huxley:
If Sheldrake had made a career out of positing imaginary genders, he’d be sitting pretty today. Instead he’s increasingly likely to be burned at the stake by the I %^&*ing Love Science crowd. Ironic.
“…That may not be true…”
Which seems to be the size of it.
(On the other hand, IF it IS true that Conservatism HAS “failed” as a “movement”, what does that make Marxism…? Eminently successfully destructive? Again and again and again….?)
– – – – – – –
As for Jonah Goldberg, it seems that he’s become so enamored of his theory of “Liberal Fascism” that he’s decided to try out some of that “stuff” for himself…from the belly of the beast, no less.
(As well as making some big bucks? Maybe put his kids through university?—though I don’t know anything about his personal life—assuming that universities, as we know it, will continue to exist in a few years….)
And now, it’s time for the “joke of the day”….
“The police who are attacking the truckers and seizing their fuel are exempt from the vaccine mandate the truckers are protesting against. Can’t make it up!” https://blazingcatfur.ca/2022/02/07/this-is-not-a-joke/
Those wacky, lovable Canucks…..
Barry. Various reports about fed employees, possibly only of some departments, not being mandated.
What intrigues me is why nobody sees it as a good idea to interview HEALTH CARE workers who refuse. Mayo fired seven hundred. Houston Methodist 150.
My sister lives in the Houston area and saw a handful of the H M staff in their scrubs in a grocery store sans masks.
Like to know what some of these folks are thinking.
Richard Aubrey:
My guess is that a lot of them (although not all) are thinking something like this: “I’ve already had COVID so I’m immune and don’t need a shot.” The rate of COVID in health care workers was high, for obvious reasons.
As for Jonah Goldberg, it seems that he’s become so enamored of his theory of “Liberal Fascism” that he’s decided to try out some of that “stuff” for himself…from the belly of the beast, no less.
I suspect it’s path dependency.
At age 29, he was broke. He landed a position at National Review as the editor of their spanking new website (to be distinguished from their digital edition, which came later). He discovered a flair for producing newspaper columns. If you recall the early days of Townhall, what it revealed was that the number of people who can produce occasional topical commentary is far larger than the number who can produce a regular column that you are pleased to read. He was actually well-adapted to the form. His father was a top executive of a newspaper syndicate. I imagine he used his influence, but Goldberg was getting views from non-traditional channels.
He also had an interest, if not a flair, in intellectual history. I never bothered to read his books, just his occasional glosses on them, and I think he got carried away with what amounts to a clever retort.
The thing is, National Review went all in six years ago on implacable opposition to Trump. In Goldberg’s case, defending what he’d said six months ago trumped any interest in what the administration was doing and what the opposition’s response was. They revealed themselves to have no rapport with ordinary Republican voters. Instead of heading for the off-ramp and devoting his attention to other matters (and instead of casting about for a career change, admitted difficult when you’re 47 years old), he elects to re-invent himself as a professional NeverTrumper. Casinos pay their shills and so does Pierre Omidyar. He does, after all, have a college age daughter, and his wife doesn’t appear to have worked in some time. (Her Linkedin profile is completely blank and she hasn’t written for publication in a decade).
“What intrigues me is why nobody sees it as a good idea to interview HEALTH CARE workers who refuse. Mayo fired seven hundred. Houston Methodist 150.
My sister lives in the Houston area and saw a handful of the H M staff in their scrubs in a grocery store sans masks.
Like to know what some of these folks are thinking.”
What do you want to know? I’ll do an AMA.
To save time, I’ll tell you right now–they are reading and listening to exactly what you are. When the developer of the platform is telling you there are huge risks to this experimental genetic therapy–which it what it is, not a vaccine–and you see these side effects come in to the ER, and you know it neither offers protection from infection nor keeps you from transmitting the virus, and may set you up to be a mutation factory, or kill you, or give you myocarditits, or some bizarre neuropathy–you may well “decline” the offer of getting it. Even at the expense of your job. These nurses aren’t going to need to be injected to work in a dermatologist’s office, will likely have better hours, a less demanding job, and maybe even comparable pay.
Leave a Reply
HTML tags allowed in your
comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>
Interesting article on Ukraine, Putin, Germany, France, joe Bidet, UK.
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/vladimir-putin-is-rolling-over-the-united-states/
Tony Robinson has some great shows. Very interesting, always entertaining and informative. He has come a long way from “Black Adder”.
Our current supply chain problems and empty shelves are a reminder and warning about just how interconnected and interdependent things are in our current high technology society; about just how fragile such relationships just might be. to fill the shelves in our grocery and other stores. (Check sometime at your supermarket and see just how many items are sourced or produced in some other country and then imported–via sea, land, or even air–into the U.S. to fill our shelves.)
The video episode Neo has highlighted shows the worst jobs in Saxon England and, then, other episodes bring things up to our own era.
However, not that long ago, at the time of our country’s founding, more than 90% of the people in our country were engaged in the arduous tasks of farming, and farming done right—even in today’s more modern and automated times, when the percentage of our population who are farming has been reduced to just around 2 or 3 percent–is still a very tough, 24/7 job.
Settlers back then, at our founding, also had to constantly cut wood for heat and to build whatever buildings they needed, to not only produce but to process raw farm products into food and other essentials like clothing, to hunt and fish for the table, and to guard against against attacks from wild animals, Indians, and outlaws.
Moreover, everyone was in constant danger of possible starvation if crops failed or farm animals died, or of crippling or death from accidents or all too common disease.
It was a hard, brutal, and short life.
If the many ignorant of the past, relatively pampered and spoiled people of today had a real appreciation of just how bad things were–in even the recent past–and of how far we have come, of how good they currently have it as compared to past times, and how bad it could get for us if our current intricate and interconnected society were to any great extent collapse, I’d think that they would fight much harder to keep a tight grip on the progress that we’ve made.
Baldrick does Mike Rowe.
I keep listening to this snippet of the Kreutzer sonata played by Hilary Hahn. The intensity of the music contrasted with the concentration of the performer fascinates me. And I look forward to someday hearing the entire piece played by Hahn.
RE: All of the food we take for granted that has to be imported, here is what the surprising label on a bag of Member’s Mark “Mountain Trek Mix ” containing Cashews, Almonds, Peanuts, and M& Ms says–
“Product of Argentina, Chile, Ghana, India, South Africa, USA, Vietnam.”
Then, there is Coffee.
Snow:
Re: “Very tough 24/7 job”.
I don’t see any sweat on that farmer’s brow. .
.
FWIW: I grew up on a small farm in South Dakota in the 50’s. It was work, but it was fun, and very rewarding (but not financially).
I notice that they ignore the fact that horses became more useful when they invented a harness which didn’t choke them. That was, though, post-Saxon.
Hey Hey! Ben Crump is back in the Twin Cities! He’s licking his chops at the thought of the upcoming lawsuits!
The gang down at The Mystic Knights of the Sea Lodge Hall is kvelling like crazy!
We have Grapes from Chile and Cherries from Argentina, purchased at King Soopers (Kroger). Do you ever wonder how they can grow and ship stuff so cheaply? In Denver they use to sell long stem roses, 2 or 3 dozen to a bunch on street corners. They were the “seconds” that florist didn’t want. We had a green house up the street that was basically put out of business because of cheap, er inexpensive roses from South America.
I really enjoyed Clarkson’s Farm on amazon prime. I think farming actually gave Jeremy some humility, if possible. Also of interest is a docuseries titled Victorian Farm, also on amazon prime.
My father’s side of my family were farmer’s in Beech Creek, PA, dating back to the late 18th C. and continuing today. I remember visiting the family farms as a child in the early 1960’s. Very rough and tumble farming. I visited again about 15 years ago, and it remained a very tough life. Most farmers held other jobs (in the sawmill) to makes ends meet.
Lastly, All Creatures Great and Small (the original BBC series that ran 1978-1990 gives a good picture of country life and the struggles of the small farmer.
When I first went to western India in the spring of 2005 I saw people plowing fields with oxen and wooden plows.
“Baldrick does Mike Rowe”
Depending on your definition of ‘does’…..
try
The Demographic Drought
How the Approaching Sansdemic Will Transform the Labor Market for the Rest of Our Lives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w05QgHwq8Ig
I kept saying feminism is a anti-population bomb the soviets discovered when they tried to beat us to the end result and the presumed benefits… no one would belief… because no one could understand the math or the issues… or really wanted to..
below replacement is extinction…
and even THAT didnt register…
Now you can see that despite importing a million people a month, we are not fecund enough to survive our own future!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is history catching up with us while we distracted ourselves
The event horizon has been passed…
There really is nothing that can be done…
The outcome has been known since the 80s as was going to do us in WAY before global warming or pollution would…
Yes Steph. All Creatures Great and Small. Brings me back to fond memories spent on the family farms in Simcoe County, Ontario.
In normal years, 2 million baby boomers retire. But in 2020, over 3 million retired.
COVID and related policies drove an additional 1.1 million people from the labor market
Boomers are an enormous cohort of 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964. They powerfully shaped every institution they touched, but they are leaving the labor market they built and defined in droves
The gap the boomers leave can’t be entirely filled, because around 1970, the total fertility rate dipped below 2.1.
AS i tried to point out and this will probably be the last time… well see… the feminist bomb been exploding since 1970s… NOW the effect is happening… the average was 4 kids per family… now, for each woman that does not have three kids another woman has to have 6 in order for the population to just be stable, let alone grow or replace what its been losing since the 1970s and since the Democrats been hiding the outcome of their actions by opening up the borders…
IF they did not do that, you guys would have noticed our population dropping from 300 million to 200 million… but we imported people by the millions and millions causing disparity in earnings as the warm bodies they were using to hide the decline were not the choice selections of prior years
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
US birthrate swung upwards, and peaked at nearly 27 births per 1,000 people in 1949.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
For the US population to reproduce itself—-meaning,
for current population numbers to stay the same—
the total fertility rate (TFR) needs to equal 2.1 children
per 1 woman. When the TFR stays at or near 2.1, one
child is born to replace every person now living
(with the .1 allowing for cases of early mortality). In
other words, the population doesn’t grow, but it is
at least replaced. Yet, with a few annual exceptions,
America’s TFR has been far below 2.1 since 1971.
We been going extinct and no one cares!!!!!!!!
its the biggest joke of the infinite goof…
literal dinosaur’s pretending they are part of the future they never had kids to have!!!
For the US population to reproduce itself—-meaning, for current population numbers to stay the same—the total fertility rate (TFR) needs to equal 2.1 children per 1 woman. When the TFR stays at or near 2.1, one child is born to replace every person now living (with the .1 allowing for cases of early mortality). In other words, the population doesn’t grow, but it is at least replaced. Yet, with a few annual exceptions, America’s TFR has been far below 2.1 since 1971.
Male workers: AWOL since 1980
A revolving door began spinning on the workforce in the 1980s: women in, men out—especially in the generations following the baby boomers. In 1980, the prime age male workforce (ages 25-54) made up 38% of the workforce. But by the fourth quarter of 2019, nearly 40 years later, that same prime age male workforce had dropped to just 34%
of the workforce.
The dip in male LFPR was already underway in the 1970s. Then between 1980 and 2019, it jumped off a cliff. In 1980, the LFPR for prime-age men was right around 94%. By 2019, it had plummeted to 89%. This drop represents roughly 2.6 million prime-age men no longer actively working or searching for a job.
men naturally made up a shrinking percentage of the total workforce as women flooded the ranks starting in the 1950s, but the trend we’re observing here isn’t a matter of men comprising a smaller slice of the pie. This is a matter of men opting out of the pie. Gen X, millennial, and Gen Z men increasingly don’t work, period.
dey dont do housework
dey dont earn for a family
eby ting dey do is for nuttin
da women will have to do everything for them!!!
the number of prime-age men not in the labor force swelled by an astonishing 70%. What this means is that even though millennials in particular now outnumer living baby boomers, more and more millennial men are, for one reason or another, opting
out of work
Last December, William Frey of
Brookings reported that the US
population growth rate from 2019 to 2020
was a staggeringly low 0.35%—the lowest
recorded growth rate of any year since
1900, and probably the lowest since the
birth of our nation. Even small changes in
growth have big implications. Increasing
the rate of growth by just one-tenth of 1%
(from 0.35% to 0.45%) between 2019 and
2020 would have meant an additional
327,000 people. But the national rate of
growth generally continues to slow. 2010-
2020 represents the lowest decade of
population growth in US history.
Moreover, everyone was in constant danger of possible starvation if crops failed or farm animals died, or of crippling or death from accidents or all too common disease.
It was a hard, brutal, and short life.
I’m not so sure. My great grandparents were farmers in Illinois. They came out from upstate New York about 1865. Their parents had both come from Ireland, where life really was “nasty brutish and short,” and settled in New York near the St Lawrence river about 1810 or so. My great grandfather had a dozen siblings and he and his wife had 12 children, all grew to adulthood. He died at age 75 and his widow lived a few more years. Farmer’s lives were hard work and some risk but they, and their children, were much healthier. Cities, even in the 19th century, were population sinks. They were unhealthy and the population required immigrants to stay steady or grow.
My grandparents were also farmers and had 10 children, all of whom lived full lives. My father, who died of emphysema, may have been the shortest lived at 65.
Snow on Pine (@11:54 a.m.),
EVERYTHING is going to plan:
‘ “I’ve Never Seen A Market Like This”: Goldman Sees Shortages Of Everything, “You Name It, We’re Out Of It” ‘—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ive-never-seen-market-goldman-sees-shortages-everything-you-name-it-were-out-it
No wonder Democrats (and their adherents) hated—and hate—MAGA:
they took it—take it—personally.
And saw it—see it—for the tremendous threat to their nefarious “progressive” plans (and to their fortunes) that it indeed was, and still is.
50 years of baby bust
Millions of Americans will be absent first
from the classroom and then from the
labor market because, to put it bluntly,
they were never born.
We briefly discussed total fertility rate
(TFR) in Chapter 1. As a reminder, in order
for the US population to replace itself, the
TFR needs to equal 2.1, or 2.1 children per
1 woman. When the TFR stays at 2.1, one
child is born to replace every person now
living. The population doesn’t grow, but it
is at least replaced.
The problem, as we mentioned earlier, is
that America’s TFR has been far below 2.1
since 1971.
In 2017, the TFR in the US had
fallen to 1.7—down from 3.7 in 1960.
Data compiled from 32 US states indicates
that in 2020 alone, the birth rate fell more
than 4%. This means that fewer and fewer
young people are rising through the ranks
to attend college or enter the workforce.
[and what men we have are slackers who dont want to work and will have to have the women earn enough to fund them— or else]
and as usual, they say the blame is not one thing… but then list out all the things related to feminism
industrialization (changed agrarian)
Secularization (the left and feminism hated the patriarchal jewish “God and son”
Decline and Delay of marraige. (an iconic plank of the feminists)
Womens education and employment (another icon)
Debt and Delayed college enrollment (debt by nationalizing loans and getting all the women in masse to take tons of useless unproductive unpaying courses)
and other things dotted…
its described in negative space…
enjoy…
im too busy working to care..
besides
its done and over..
even if women became sex crazed baby machines, they could not fix the destruction that is done already!!!
hope they can speak spanish… or afrikaans… etc… or can fight on the battle field… the boomers wont.
welcome to the future your NOT paying attention to that is coming regardless of any action you take (as its too late – the car is going to slam into the wall and nothing will stop it!)
The obvious solution, it seems, would be to have
more children. This indeed would have been the
solution 20-40 years ago. But today this would
require a solid two decades before the first of these
new baby boomers would enter the labor force in
the way the US so urgently needs.
Consider the attempts of other countries to
encourage having more children. Global efforts
at raising fertility rates, when they have had any
measurable effect at all, have met with only minor
success. Countries such as Russia, Singapore, and
Italy have tried offering cash to families who have
more children, but these initiatives have done little
to up the birth rate. And consider this: the US, too,
provides incentives in the form of per-child tax
credits, yet we’ve already seen that fertility rates
continue to slide.
“Baldrick does Mike Rowe.” [Schotzberger @ 12:04]
Although I haven’t watched it yet, that was also my first impression; a historical version of Dirty Jobs.
This also brought to mind a 1973 publication Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered by E. F. Schumacher.
Schumacher’s point was to approach economics and industrialization from the user’s point of view; e,g, that developing countries need a technology somewhere in between the digging stick (inefficient) and the thousand horsepower tractor of current Western technology (unaffordable and requiring substantial training).
When I read it years ago, I thought it was very on-point, not only as advice for developing nations, but for entrepreneurs starting out in a business without multi-millions of dollars in capital.
(see above, Kate @ 2:30)
Jonah Goldberg, who resigned from Fox because of ‘muh principles’, has joined the contributors roster at CNN.
Is there anyone associated with NeverTrump who isn’t a shill?
Unfortunately, in searching for the video that this created it seems as if the utopians and Marxists have grabbed onto this concept. Too bad.
For my take, Schumacher’s ideas represent a simple application of common sense problem solving. On one end of the spectrum, inefficiency and labor intensity; on the other end, expensive and elaborate technology not available to everyone.
Why not a middle ground using some technology to create an exponential reduction of cost and labor intensity yet still not reliance of rocket science to create or keep functioning?
Steph, you should watch the redone “All Creatures Great and Small”. It is very well done.
One of our trips to England we stayed just outside Thrisk where Alf Wight, the author of All Creatures practiced.
“Is there anyone associated with NeverTrump who isn’t a shill?” [Art Deco @ 4:33]
Simple answer: “No!” IMO “never” anything usually represents an extreme position based upon extremist emotional responses rather than rational thinking. Like a dishonest salesman, their loyalty is to their product (the idea of “Never _____”) rather than to its practical application and its potential results/risks)
Steve Hayes is now commenting for NBC News. At least that outlet may survive a while, unlike CNN.
Why, exactly why is a slowly declining population a death sentence?
On a covid note – about two weeks ago, OK had the highest 7 day avg of cases so far in their tracking. Today, the drop is 75% from that high. The hospitalization use is still high.
My take – Omicron may be decreasing, but we also had a few days of bad weather (snow, ice, frigid temps) and everything was closed. So, fewer people are going out for anything, or for testing, kids have been at home for 4 days so not spreading germs, and everyone is being tested for C19 when they go into the hospital.
The next couple of days should be interesting to see if the numbers at the local school district level and the local University changes.
SHIREHOME
I am watching the new ACG&S and enjoying it very much.
What fascinates me about the original series is that there’s no CGI there, and very little other special effects, so Robert Hardy and Christopher Timothy actually are standing in a freezing cold stable, naked to their waist, and their arm up to their armpit in a cow’s vagina (and, if the story is true, the actors “missed” the vagina on occasion). Can you imagine an 21st C. American actor doing any such thing?
@Chuck:
Hilary Hahn is just phoning it in there :).
Try a remaster of the Jascha Heifetz / Brooks Smith recording on RCA Victor Living Stereo.
Surprisingly good vinyl transfer on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX6DLGKaoqc
Brooks Smith was born in a small border town in Texas and became one of the greatest accompanists of his time.
@BarryMeislin:
Step 1 in any solution would be to suspend that Currie fellow from GS bloviating about commodity shortages he and his rotten ilk helped bring about from the nearest convenient low emissions outdoor lighting fixture. I’m sure he could do us a good deal on the rope, too.
I actually remember that from my high school days. I thought it was too fast at the time, it just didn’t do it for me. What a disappointment that was. I’m probably a barbarian for doubting Heifetz 🙂
Yeah, the piano was almost missing in that instagram bit. I thought Hilary might be experimenting, her style has changed a lot in the last couple of years. And there were some flaws that even my lousy ear could hear. But I liked the feel of it.
@Chuck:
No accounting for (my) taste here but it just hits the spot. And consistency is not my strong point: I don’t like speed demon Goldbergs and and get very grumpy about tempo experimentations in Pictures at an Exhibition.
I remember about 25 years ago Decca did a re-mastered re-release of the Sultan of Slow’s recordings just after his death. Bought a few and enjoyed them before I stopped buying CDs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiu_Celibidache
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVQNYgMHC-w
But he was just an amateur. In answer to How Slow Can You Go?
I give you Maximianno Cobra:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdkqhmUmhjU&list=OLAK5uy_n1YRxQZv6W9PR93htFF5ny5P7BEU5c7vc
Grass grows faster.
Weekly Taki Post from the Z-Demon:
“In the 1980s and into the 1990s, it was common to hear conservatives say that all of the ideas are on the right. By that they meant that debate over public policy was driven by the flow of ideas from conservatism. This was not entirely wrong. By the mid-1980s the American right had abandoned the idea of rolling back the managerial state and instead was focused on making it work more efficiently.
That evolution of the American right into the accounting department of the managerial state is why conservatism failed to conserve anything. It is fair to say that the conservative movement is the biggest failure in political history. Despite tens of billions in financing, they managed to lose every fight. This failure brought the wrecking ball known as Donald Trump and the resulting crack-up on the right.
That crack-up has had some interesting results. The neoconservatives have splintered off into a weird conspiracy cult. They now chant far-left talking points about Trump from the 2016 election. David French is promoting the cult-Marx conspiracy theory that claims American society is a plot against nonwhites. Douglas Murray is pushing a weird new right-wing sexual liberation. The whole scene is a freak show of broken people and discredited ideas…”
He goes on to say in passing something almost nice about Yoram Hazony. So you can all safely read the rest without brains exploding out ears.
“…The best way to describe what is going on within the acceptable conservative circles is a struggle session. Reality has made clear that the conservatism of the last century was a complete failure. The struggle for these people is in acknowledging this fact and then understanding why it happened. Right now, they would rather take another beating than think about the root cause of conservative failure.
This answer will have to wait until the dissident right is included in the discussion, as they are the only ones who accept that the seeds of liberal collapse may lie within the liberal tradition itself. The tyrannical managerial system we see today may be the inevitable result of Western liberalism. That may not be true, but it has to be on the table in order to understand how it is the West has arrived at this crisis and how to proceed through it.
On the other hand, every great revolution in the economic order has been followed by a violent reordering of Western society. Just as the Industrial Revolution brought two centuries of warfare and a new world order, the technological revolution may usher in a new age of violent reordering of our social and political systems. In that case, this debate will only matter to whoever wins the coming global conflict, assuming the West survives it.”
That was… interesting. I wonder how much of my taste was formed on first hearing of recordings from the town library? Schnable, Serkin, Milstein, Busch Quartet, all a bit old fashioned even then, and the sound quality wasn’t great. But perhaps their style prejudiced my taste. I recall a NY Philharmonic broadcast with Michelangeli playing Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto and thinking it the most wonderful performance I’d ever heard. But in retrospect, it was more like Serkin than, say, Rubinstein.
@Chuck:
Yup. I think Signor Cobra needs to spend more time sunning himself on a rock before he picks up his baton.
I’m sure you’re right that much musical taste is formed by whatever we heard first — generally at an impressionable age.
And some things are just plain old prejudice. I just cannot make myself love the Fortepiano.
Here’s an example of slowness working well:
Mozart – Requiem – Celibidache, MPO (1995)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Moc4d4hR_uo
Tempo mostly lurks just this side of full-on lugubriosity without going so far as to evoke Ed Wood Bela Lugosi visions… and so the moral effect of the Dies Irae at standard tempo is magnified.
“I keep listening to this snippet of the Kreutzer sonata played by Hilary Hahn.”
I love, love Hilary Hahn, so will check this out. I’d highly recommend her performance on YouTube of the Brahms concerto. There she has a lot of intensity, as in ferocious. But what always strikes us when she first comes out she looks like she could be the girl working the cash register at Walmart.
I’ve come to love Reinbert de Leeuw’s slow versions of Satie’s sublime “Gymnopedies”:
–Eric Satie : Gymnopedies 1 & 3 – Reinbert de Leeuw (piano)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRSBLKVAMi8
When I first got the CD, I was taking Tai Chi. My teacher recommended we practice the Long Form slowly to music, so I did so to this Satie. It is slow. It’s like listening to a barely leaking faucet drip.
Later I told my teacher and she used the CD in class. Not everyone liked moving that s-l-o-w-l-y.
@Jimmy:
Re: Walmart
Beats busking in the Subway
https://youtu.be/hnOPu0_YWhw
@Huxley:
I should suggest that Satie to the desiccated old sticks who do their morning Tai Chi down at the Plaza to the strains of a boring old Erhu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_drop_experiment
Try waiting for this to drip!
Zaphod:
I was afraid your link was that kind of threat!
How did you come to know so much classical music?
@Huxley:
“How did you come to know so much classical music?”
Still have some big holes in my knowledge and exposure which I won’t live long enough to fill… but couldn’t think of anything worse than running out of new discoveries.
Misspent Youth. It was harder then because buying recordings was expensive and that really focused the mind… perhaps why it’s stuck. Now we’re half lucky and have an embarrassment of free or nearly free riches. Most other genres are terra incognita to me. Jazz and blues I’m learning more about. I’m still finding classical gems and performers I know nothing about.
Since getting into good DACs and headphones I’ve discovered modern Electronic Music — e.g. Nils Frahm the other day. I’ve also learned that I don’t hate all contemporary classical music — good sound reproduction isn’t necessary to appreciate Mozart. It *is* for (say) Hindemith or Messiaen.
How do you discover new and different things? As you can perhaps deduce, I’m not necessarily the most broadminded of folks and algos will hone in on what I like. I’ve found recently that the best way for me to find new types of music is to read hi-fi reviews and pay some attention to what the reviewers are listening to. Some of these tracks have been revelations.
@Huxley:
Pitch Drop got me thinking about Millikan’s Oil Drop Experiment and turns out that there’s a tenuous Feynman angle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment#Millikan's_experiment_as_an_example_of_psychological_effects_in_scientific_methodology
Which got me thinking about them not making them like they used to do… So I googled and found this:
https://www.explainthatstuff.com/great-physics-experiments.html
Perhaps our resident physicists could chime in on any more recent ones that have been missed.
Zaphod:
So you follow your nose. Works for me. One thing leads to another.
The disreputable Rupert Sheldrake wrote a great little book: “Seven Experiments That Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science.” Chapter 6 is “The Variability of the ‘Fundamental Constants'” which covers much the same ground in more detail than the Feynman wiki tidbit.
Something insectoid and pathological has taken over science, I fear.
For those dying to hear how my disenrollment worked out…
Apparently I was undisenrolled today. I got a notice my vaxx certificate is now on record. My logins have mostly started working properly.
Good thing I rented my textbook. Most students just read the text online as part of a service which includes the online math labs (also required). Since I have a physical textbook I wasn’t locked out of this week’s homework assignment.
Not that it matters, from what I can tell. I get the sense that everyone — teachers, administrators, students — just have their heads down and are trying to get to the next day as best they can and no more than that.
@Huxley:
If Sheldrake had made a career out of positing imaginary genders, he’d be sitting pretty today. Instead he’s increasingly likely to be burned at the stake by the I %^&*ing Love Science crowd. Ironic.
“…That may not be true…”
Which seems to be the size of it.
(On the other hand, IF it IS true that Conservatism HAS “failed” as a “movement”, what does that make Marxism…? Eminently successfully destructive? Again and again and again….?)
– – – – – – –
As for Jonah Goldberg, it seems that he’s become so enamored of his theory of “Liberal Fascism” that he’s decided to try out some of that “stuff” for himself…from the belly of the beast, no less.
(As well as making some big bucks? Maybe put his kids through university?—though I don’t know anything about his personal life—assuming that universities, as we know it, will continue to exist in a few years….)
And now, it’s time for the “joke of the day”….
“The police who are attacking the truckers and seizing their fuel are exempt from the vaccine mandate the truckers are protesting against. Can’t make it up!”
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2022/02/07/this-is-not-a-joke/
Those wacky, lovable Canucks…..
Barry. Various reports about fed employees, possibly only of some departments, not being mandated.
What intrigues me is why nobody sees it as a good idea to interview HEALTH CARE workers who refuse. Mayo fired seven hundred. Houston Methodist 150.
My sister lives in the Houston area and saw a handful of the H M staff in their scrubs in a grocery store sans masks.
Like to know what some of these folks are thinking.
Richard Aubrey:
My guess is that a lot of them (although not all) are thinking something like this: “I’ve already had COVID so I’m immune and don’t need a shot.” The rate of COVID in health care workers was high, for obvious reasons.
As for Jonah Goldberg, it seems that he’s become so enamored of his theory of “Liberal Fascism” that he’s decided to try out some of that “stuff” for himself…from the belly of the beast, no less.
I suspect it’s path dependency.
At age 29, he was broke. He landed a position at National Review as the editor of their spanking new website (to be distinguished from their digital edition, which came later). He discovered a flair for producing newspaper columns. If you recall the early days of Townhall, what it revealed was that the number of people who can produce occasional topical commentary is far larger than the number who can produce a regular column that you are pleased to read. He was actually well-adapted to the form. His father was a top executive of a newspaper syndicate. I imagine he used his influence, but Goldberg was getting views from non-traditional channels.
He also had an interest, if not a flair, in intellectual history. I never bothered to read his books, just his occasional glosses on them, and I think he got carried away with what amounts to a clever retort.
The thing is, National Review went all in six years ago on implacable opposition to Trump. In Goldberg’s case, defending what he’d said six months ago trumped any interest in what the administration was doing and what the opposition’s response was. They revealed themselves to have no rapport with ordinary Republican voters. Instead of heading for the off-ramp and devoting his attention to other matters (and instead of casting about for a career change, admitted difficult when you’re 47 years old), he elects to re-invent himself as a professional NeverTrumper. Casinos pay their shills and so does Pierre Omidyar. He does, after all, have a college age daughter, and his wife doesn’t appear to have worked in some time. (Her Linkedin profile is completely blank and she hasn’t written for publication in a decade).
“What intrigues me is why nobody sees it as a good idea to interview HEALTH CARE workers who refuse. Mayo fired seven hundred. Houston Methodist 150.
My sister lives in the Houston area and saw a handful of the H M staff in their scrubs in a grocery store sans masks.
Like to know what some of these folks are thinking.”
What do you want to know? I’ll do an AMA.
To save time, I’ll tell you right now–they are reading and listening to exactly what you are. When the developer of the platform is telling you there are huge risks to this experimental genetic therapy–which it what it is, not a vaccine–and you see these side effects come in to the ER, and you know it neither offers protection from infection nor keeps you from transmitting the virus, and may set you up to be a mutation factory, or kill you, or give you myocarditits, or some bizarre neuropathy–you may well “decline” the offer of getting it. Even at the expense of your job. These nurses aren’t going to need to be injected to work in a dermatologist’s office, will likely have better hours, a less demanding job, and maybe even comparable pay.