Open thread 3/18/22
This is a good story, but really the most amazing thing about it is how young this woman looks at 50:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
This is a good story, but really the most amazing thing about it is how young this woman looks at 50:
People who keep their weight down and keep their hair often look astonishingly young these days.
I guess you could call him her sire. Since he never invested in her, you really cannot call him her father.
The video is an example of a positive outcome to searching for a biological parent, but there are also downsides, some of them very painful. In some cases, the searcher finds out that he or she was conceived by fertility fraud– the term now used to refer to physicians who used their own sperm to impregnate patients instead of sperm obtained from anonymous donors. The case of Norman Barwin, a Canadian physician who fathered at least 17 children during the years that he operated a fertility clinic in Ottawa, is one of the better-known examples of fertility fraud, but there are at least six others reported in the Netherlands and the United States.
But there are other complications: in addition to using his own sperm to impregnate patients, Barwin also sometimes used sperm donated from someone other than the (then-anonymous) donor whose profile was selected by the patient from a file that Barwin kept in his office. In February, Toronto Life published an article by a woman whose mother had sought out Barwin in 1989 because he was one of a few physicians then willing to provide fertility services to single women. Years later, the daughter heard about lawsuits involving Barwin, culminating in a class action lawsuit in 2016 against the doctor for using either his own sperm to inseminate patients or using sperm from a donor other than the one the patient had selected.
The author of the Toronto Life article sent off for a DNA testing kit and found out that her biological father is a man who had stored sperm with Barwin prior to a vasectomy but had never agreed to allow his sperm to be used to inseminate Barwin’s patients. The core of the author’s story is the rejection she received from her biological father: It became clear that within months of Sean’s [a pseudonym] initial visit, Barwin had taken his sperm and used it to impregnate my mom. Before I wrote to him, Sean had no idea about my existence, and the revelation was clearly a shock. Beyond the betrayal of his stolen sperm, it must have been heartbreaking for him to learn that a complete stranger bore and raised his biological child . . . The scenario I had imagined was that one donor’s sperm had been exchanged for another’s, but this was so much worse. Sean was an unwilling donor. He’d never wanted to create me, never consented to do so. His reaction made things even harder. He said he did not want to have contact with me, and in the three years since I first wrote to him, we’ve only communicated through the lawyers. He has shared some family medical information, but has made it clear we won’t have any kind of relationship. Sometimes I understand where Sean is coming from, while at other moments I’m deeply hurt by his response. I don’t think I could ever embrace him as a dad. I’m not the kind of person who thinks that blood is the only thing that makes a family. And I don’t think he owes me anything. . . . My greatest fear during the donor search was rejection. It was why I kept myself emotionally detached for so long. And sure enough, this person who doesn’t even know me has said that he wants nothing to do with me, and that’s devastating.
https://torontolife.com/memoir/the-horrifying-truth-about-my-biological-father/
So– there are all kinds of possible outcomes to using DNA test kits to look for one’s biological relatives, not all of them as heartwarming as the Vietnam veteran’s example.
Staged and/or coercion?? Actual support from the people? Something in between? I wish I had a definitive answer.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10627555/Vladimir-Putin-holds-huge-rally-thousands-Z-flag-waving-Russians.html
A similarly moving story from 4 years ago. A little Chinese baby left in a marketplace [ parents feared what would happen to their second child because of China’s 1 birth policy ] adopted by Americans meets her birth parents in China 20 years later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru_NI0yTEH8 4 min version
Via Rod Dreher here is a piece from a changer, although only partially so:
Escaping American tribalism
Only personal bravery can end polarisation
BY William Deresiewicz
He starts by writing about his discovery and later disillusionment with NPR. Here are a couple relevant paragraphs from later in the piece:
So why do people leave? How do they change their minds? Different ways, I think. There is the lightning conversion, the stunning realisation that everything you’d previously thought is wrong, and everything you’d thought is wrong is right. Today that sometimes seems to happen to individuals who are raised in restrictive religious environments and who find themselves exposed, accidentally or otherwise, to the scepticism and relativism of the secular world — though obviously the road to Damascus can lead in the other direction, the direction of faith.
There is the opposite experience: the feeling not that you have changed but that your tribe has — something that many are feeling with respect to one or other of the major political formations. There is the slow accretion of countervailing information that eventually leads (gradually, then suddenly, like Hemingway’s bankrupt) to a change in one’s view of reality, the way a scientist changes their mind.
But for me the most important way, and not just because it is the one I find most salient for me, is this. You change your mind when you consent to stop ignoring things you know full well but do not want to think about — things that you push to the edges of consciousness, or all the way out.
Few of us are scientists. We do not gather facts through careful, ordered processes; we aren’t compelled to make our arguments in formal terms in front of expert referees. Our thinking is less about finding the truth than about making ourselves feel good. And so when we encounter a countervailing piece of information, an uncomfortable truth, we dismiss it as an anomaly, or as not undermining the general point, forgetting the previous “anomalies” and not regarding how they might together utterly destroy the point.
More: https://unherd.com/2022/03/escaping-american-tribalism/
Speaking of “fathers” versus “sires”, it seems the attorney representing the mother of the child sired by Hunter Biden fully expects Hunter to be indicted for tax fraud based on what he saw in his financial records. Of course, an attorney representing the mother of a child going after such a wealthy sire would say that. I’m so jaded I seriously doubt it, but it’s interesting I suppose.
She sought him out, looking for her father, and he’s willing to be her father, so that’s the end of that analysis.
I may be spoiled, but I wasn’t impressed with her youthfulness.
My wife will be 58 in a few weeks. She has lots of friends in their 50s. Some look like they are retired. Others look 5-10 years younger than their age. It’s about weight and skin (a lot of the youthful skin is likely genetics).
She looks like she’s in her early 40s (and has been assumed to be so by other women on quite a number of occasions). She weighs 15-20 lbs less than our wedding day and has been consistent with her weight workouts twice a week for years. Not at all bulky, but clearly leaner and firmer. And she’s a food quality fascist. I think weight training is critical.
The DNA revolution has benefits and victims. A man in Texas a few years ago found that his “children” were fathered by another man who was having an affair with his wife. He is still obliged to pay child support.
My daughter was contacted by a man who traced his DNA to our family tree. He had been adopted and it turns out that a relative had given him up for adoption as a teenager. We put him in touch with his biological mother, all he wanted, and they have corresponded a few times. She is in a nursing home with a progressive neurological disease. He is a successful man who just wanted to know who his birth mother was.
stan, I am, alas, heavier than I was on my wedding day, but in those days I was little more than skin and bones. I do weight training routines twice weekly and agree that this is very important for feeling and looking good as we age.
The mother of the 50-year-old lady, in this video, was a Filipina.
People from the Philippines are famous for looking much younger than their years.
When I watched the video the pop-up ad youtube fed me was, “Meet single Filipino women seeking a relationship!”
Gary Barnes’ story was heartwarming, but not THAT heartwarming.
SenecaGriggs,
The movie, “Lion,” about the story of how Saroo Brierley was abandoned as a very young boy and later uncovered his past is a good watch: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3741834/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
stan,
I agree that taking care of oneself can make one appear youthful, but I’m not sure I agree with weight being a big factor. I have a close relative who is quite heavy and has been quite heavy most her life, yet people regularly mistake her for someone 10 to 15 years younger than her actual age. Her skin is very wrinkle free, which has a lot to do with people’s perception of age.
I have also seen plenty of very thin people who look very old. I think sun exposure likely has a lot to do with it.
Also, regarding age and appearance, DNA seems to be a big factor.
I don’t understand how this happened, but when I was in my teens folks always assumed I was older and when I hit 30 and beyond folks assume I’m younger. My mother looks young for her age (and acts young also!).
I think hair and skin quality, especially lack of wrinkles, has a lot to do with people’s assumptions of one’s age and those things differ between people. Some folks have thin hair, some thick, some prematurely gray, some have baldness…
Speaking of age…
Has anyone noticed EVERYONE seems to have aged 5 or more years during the two years of lockdowns? I first started noticing this in myself, prior to the lockdowns most folks would guess my age 10 – 15 years younger than I am and think I was joking when I told them my actual age. Now, no one bats an eyelash when they hear my age. I, of course, noticed it myself. I see myself in the mirror every day. My appearance has changed more in the past two years than any other time in my life, except in infancy. But I started to notice the same thing with everyone I interact with. Even people I know who always looked very youthful… Everyone looks 5 – 10 years older.
Anyone else see this? Is it COVID? The vaccines? The stress of lockdowns? Many people gained a lot of weight, is that it? Is it the lack of social interaction?
Another open-thread comment about something I read.
Two days ago, at her Substack site “Common Sense,” Bari Weiss published an essay entitled “Things Worth Fighting For: What we can learn from President Zelensky” (https://tinyurl.com/2p98xjt3).
Bari Weiss was, for a long time, a comfortable member of the Left. Since her very public bolting from “The New York Times,” her outlook has clearly changed. Setting aside the suspicions people have for the suddenly pro-war Left, Weiss’s essay is worth reading for its defense of Western civilization and American political traditions, and for its rejection of current American political cowardice.
For an example, please read the following paragraph:
“Western civilization is an enormous achievement—the gradual development of thousands of years of human will and wisdom, of political, economic and cultural capital. We should treat it with the preciousness it deserves. Pretending as if what we have is bad or ill-gotten is beyond ignorant, and the ideologues trying to drag us back into pre-Enlightenment tribalism should be seen for what they are: useful idiots doing the bidding of Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang and Tehran. We should never indulge them. We should say their ideas are wrong plainly and without apology.
It’s time to set that kind of relativism aside. Time to judge and discern again. Time to choose.”
P.S. I try to read some things that don’t always confirm my own political biases, but it’s become very hard to do. The Left has so poisoned discourse, that looking for anything sane to the left of Victor Davis Hanson has become an exercise in futility. Maybe there’s some hope for Bari Weiss’s “Common Sense.” Not a terribly strong endorsement, but it’s a start.
Changing topics;
Looks like a biological male is the new NCAA WOMENS swim champ.
So, where is NOW – Natl. Organization of Women?
Where are the other women’s right’s organizations?
And the useful idiots at ESPN actually interviewed this guy – a “non bleeder” – as if his victory was legitimate.
What’s next;
A biological 21 year old male identifying as a 15 year old girl; will he be allowed to compete in high school sports events for girls?
Why not?
Gender is a social construct and has no biological basis, right? If gender is not biological then why is someone’s age?
The folks who actually run and control the news media – let me guess, mostly all liberal progressive heterosexual men (e.g. Zucker) – are promoting this insanity as if it’s entirely normal.
One can only hope that their children and other’s near and dear to them suffer the consequences of the policies they promote.
Then let’s see if they have a problem accepting that a “non bleeder” is a female and promoting this insanity.
Un F’n believable.
Unless ALL women athletes at the college and olympic level refuse to compete against biological males, this crap will continue.
Women should form a new collegiate organization – Women’s Natl. Collegiate Athletic Assoc – the WNCAA, and tell the NCAA and olympic committees to go to hell.
John Tyler:
I don’t know about official feminist groups, but I do know that some feminists have long been in the forefront of the fight against male-to-female trans people insisting on entering all-female “spaces.” This fight has been going on for a long time, and the feminists involved are called “TERFS” by many trans activists.
You can find a lot of articles about it by doing a search for something like “TERFS versus trans.”
John Tyler, I have a little granddaughter. Should her parents even consider encouraging her to play any sports, if championships are closed to her no matter how talented and committed she might be? Given the education establishment’s pushing of “trans” ideology at a very early age, my granddaughter might not even be allowed to compete on all-female teams in middle school, much less high school and college.
Cornflour on March 18, 2022 at 2:21 pm
Thank you for the link to Weiss’s recent posting on Western Civilization. This needs to be repeated in many many places/ venues:
“Western civilization is an enormous achievement— … We should treat it with the preciousness it deserves.”
And recognize more often than we do just how fragile our liberties and highly interconnected commercial world really are.
Sowell’s Conflict of Visions captures so well the dichotomy in human psychology causing so much of the social and political turmoil we see today. Perhaps it is a Darwinian evolutionary contributor to our growth as a species, to have competition between these two visions? It clearly syncs up with the discussion on nihilism from the previous thread. The changers we hear about seem to have transitioned from one vision to the other.
This book by Ian Morris also compares and contrasts “the West” with the rest, to good effect: Why the West Rules — For Now [2010]. There have been ups and downs for all “civilizations” over the millennia, but our concept of American exceptionalism is not based on our superior nature as American citizens, but on our appreciation of the exceptional achievement of the founders — in instituting a government among men that has led to astounding individual and national liberty and prosperity — even to the point that 600 million Chinese under the CCP were brought into higher standards of material well being by following the trust model of “capitalism” and globally the fraction of people in dire poverty has declined drastically. Precious indeed!