Open thread 4/18/23
I find this series to be well-acted and well-produced. You know at the outset – after all, the title of the show is “I Shouldn’t Be Alive,” and the real person is doing the narrating – that the person (or people) involved didn’t die. And yet at many points along the way you cannot figure out how they survived.
I’ve watched about ten different episodes so far, and could choose almost any of them to show here. They’re all good. For at least half of them, it’s possible to criticize the protagonists for not preparing properly. But still, these true stories are testaments to the human spirit:
The wife and I love this series. Well presented and, if one pays attention, they can see things they can do in their daily lives to be “prepared for the unexpected”. None of these predicaments occur in normal life, until they do.
In the same vein, I would also recommend “Locked up Abroad”. Again, real life events narrated by the person locked up. In many regards it is a testament to the stupidity of people. Again, lots of opportunity for learning; it should be part of a “real life” course required for high school juniors and seniors.
Off posted topic, but a salute to Paul Revere on this 18th of April:
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,–
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Paul Revere’s Ride”
My mother, in her 90’s, memorized and quoted the poem “Barbara Frietchie”:
“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country’s flag,” she said.” (excerpt)
—John Greenleaf Whittier
Not quite related to real life docudramas, but a follow up from awhile back on other TV alternatives.
I have to admit to becoming hooked on Korean series. I still think Attorney Woo is the top of the bunch. Due to Park eun-bin’s performance in Woo, I watched The King’s Affection with her starring. It’s a costumer set in medieval Korea; basically a takeoff on the Prince and the Pauper with a nice twist. Full of court political intrigue and sword fights. Next, at the suggestion of my SiL, I watched Crashed Landing on You, with the apparently very popular Son ye-jin as the star. Gives a soft look at the North-South Korea divide with a love story. Keeping on with Son ye-jin, I next watched Something in the Rain, a nice rom-com.
I guess what I like about all the K-TV is that it seems to be pure entertainment. Good writing, acting with no wokeness and political overtones. There’s a Korean restaurant in Fernandina Beach. We are going to try it just so I can taste the national Korean drink of soju. 🙂
re: Korean entertainment, they have some great singers, a few who often cover American classics (rock and country). Their pronunciation is understandably a little off at times, but the wholehearted singing more than makes up for that. Kang Jimin (last name first) is one who I listen to and she’s quite good on the guitar.
I, too, like the unapologetic non-wokeness there.
Dear Neo:
I too must go off-topic today. I have discovered a serious new threat coming out of our local deeply liberal university. It is something called ethnographic research. You and your readers can search for ethnography online. Read carefully, dear friends. This is usually a project approved for graduate or post graduate studies.
It involves university approval of an older student going into a community and asking questions. Lots and lots of personal questions:
how much income do you earn, your spouse, etc.
how much land do you own
who has financed the purchase of your home or land
how did you inherit your land
who did you vote for
what is your party affiliation
what are your health issues
Every possible question to complete the whole picture of the community. This course of study has evolved from something called “Cultural Anthropology” It was Margaret Mead who first developed this “social” science. In recent years it has become a well-funded “research” project. Who do you think will get this information? How about the local Democratic party–does that ring true for you?
This will make life much easier for your local communist group–don’t you think?
Be very wary of anyone from any university claiming to do an “ethnographic study” of your community. Give them nothing! Now that summer is here they will be out in numbers all moving under the banner of “university research” or “academic research”. Warn everyone you know!
physicguy, my Wife is addicted to the Korean shows too. Yes she has watched Attorney Woo. Just not my thing.
No surprise that a woman so enamored of the Bee Gees and “Stayin’ Alive” would get hooked on this show! 😉
Related:
“Hearse driver saved by dead body after car plunges over a canyon”—
https://nypost.com/2023/04/18/hearse-driver-saved-by-dead-body-as-car-plunges-into-canyon/
Moral of story, and how to prepare for those inevitable surprises (per Another Mike’s excellent—and timely—comment, above): When driving, always make sure to have a corpse in the back, preferably overweight or obese. (Or two light ones….)
The point of the “Open thread” title is that new topics are welcome. Of course, we can comment on Neo’s item too.
I think I saw the sailboat story portrayed in the older series, “I Survived.”
About Barry’s car accident story: Everyone should have a device in their car to break window glass as well as cut seatbelt straps. Plunging into water or burning wreckage requires quick exits.
I saw a show once where they claimed that if your car plunges into water and you are still conscious, open the door immediately and push hard. It should work if you don’t wait too long.
Sorry i have no time to compose..
good luck all… there is no way to get past whats next
🙁
The women are hitting “the wall” hard…
the men have bailed…
patriots are evil
criminals, will soon serve the state (they are prepped)
The brutal class is about to take up their roles.
we, according to biologists, have been exterminated by failing to procreate
unless you can find an example of any population recovering from what we are now at and the critical point we are about to converge to
We are all ready for a revolutionary party to do their revolutionary (civil) war
Revolution sounds romantic, but unless your being taken over by an outside force, Revolution is just a fancy way of saying CIVIL WAR…
It MUST get to that point to unfreeze move and freeze again…
Article:
Society is in danger of demonizing boys and young men. They are lambasted in schools by toxic masculinity crusaders and denigrated in popular culture. This environment is having a crushing impact. According to the Health Department, suicide is the biggest cause of death in men under the age of 50 and around three-quarters of deaths from suicides each year are men. Research from Future Dads last year showed that around a third of young men felt left behind by society.
Commentary routinely seems to present boys as inherently bad. The impression is given that parents cannot be trusted to raise them as good citizens, leading to the worrying conclusion that outside organisations should do the job for them. But some organisations which come into schools and talk to boys have developed a habit of telling them to move away from “toxic” masculinity. That, in my view, feeds into a sense of uneasiness.
its been coordinated across ALL the free countries..
england sounds like the US…
we all took the same poison!!!!!!!
and if someone said it was poison, we were trained to ignore them
==============================
its way too late to recover…
while you been with your contemporaries
you have not noticed to what degree we have bombed and destroyed our children in the name of feminism… even now, the ladies are just figuring it out online… “trad wifes”??
and given the boomers.. and denial of the decline that was hidden in front of them they refused to accept till it was WAY TOO LATE..
will leave us holding the rest of the bag with people who, can not function in any society let alone a modern one.. they cant hold jobs… they wont listen, so wont last on the battle field… while the able and smart leave to die… your all going to be surrounded by the misfits that survive by being too dysfunctional to be useful
been nice while it lasted…
but if you wondered what they meant when they say Nero Fiddled
you guys fiddled too… you will deny it… but once you see whats coming and understand it… you will realize you didnt do all you could…
now comes the fun part!!!!
Elephant walk of 4000 planes to scare China… anyone notice?
China ready to invade Taiwan, we said we would defend – we been stiffing taiwan of the weapons to facilitate this… Obama let them militarize the islands.
Russia and China are now closing the plan they agreed to before Nixon, but none of you cared about to read or know about (among lots of other things) – the hammer and anvil…
Biden is a Chinese asset… obvious… even if its just to keep them from killing his only boy, who now, is so close to him, its obvious he is being protected by being present whether they want to protect him or not.
The Chicoms created police departments here in the US (first one found in nyc)
[dad was always afraid of the Russian versions, which were never detected]
It is as if people are frightened of the topic. Does anyone believe this would be the case were the genders reversed? Why don’t we see more campaigns promoting education careers for boys? Why do we have a “This Girl Can” initiative to get girls involved in sport, but no “This Boy Can” to get boys reading?
THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO WILL GIVE UP RATHER THAN DEFEND YOU
can it be any clearer…
feminists demoralized the boys so much, that given conflict, they will walk to the other side and give up rather than defend you… This on top of their inability to think, repair, etc.. To finish the extirpating… we will have a conflict with women being drafted…
the term for all this, and there IS a term for it
its Democide
if below replacement is extermination..
and now… the men are not interested in relationships… the movement we started by accident at mancoat, called MGTOW, is now really gone its own way from us.
SinaLoa is putting their people into the police stations who are now accepting immigrants because no one here wants to police.
even now… you have the start of killings…
and you have the start of the saboteurs
and you have overflights being kept secret
and you have the start of the people divulging our state secrets
and you have our own politicians in with the enemy, to insure the outcome will favor them when things change as we the people are their enemy
We are now made so dysfunctional by feminism, women and men can’t date, can’t have commonality, their kids hate their own society, single mothers kids are filling up prisons. Only 25% are fit to serve
they are campaigning the next election on Tik Tok!!!
right now… if a benevolent dictator came to power and only did things to reverse or to mitigate what has happened and in final turns, they could not save us from what is coming..
you let me know how many Chinese, Russian, Syrian, Iranian, assets have come over the border, are now in place, and can use those Mitrokhin Lightning caches
how much damage could 10,000 US special forces do to a country?
how much will more than that do to us given we are an open society?
[given they been lying about Ukraine… ]
Open threads are for commenting off topic or on. So no need to apologize about being off-topic.
Hi, Artfldgr.
anonymous on April 18, 2023 at 11:39
it falls on deaf ears… i laid out years ago everyhthing about meade, boas, the taking over the feminist movement, and so on…
wont register an iota till its so evident, its too late..
example:
if you pull on that, it will cut your hand off.
years of discussion over things and how it wont and what doesnt get done is a halt to pulling the cord…
the cord gets pulled..
and the hand falls..
we are now at the cord pulling phase..
there will be way too many things including digital currency and chinese style social scores…
it started over a year ago…
they distract themselves..
but dont worry
they wont miss the show
no one will
TommyJay on April 18, 2023 at 1:31 pm said: Everyone should have a device in their car to break window glass as well as cut seatbelt straps. Plunging into water or burning wreckage requires quick exits.
I have punched more than one car window open…
as has my dad… our latvian namejs rings do great damage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namejs_Ring
Namejs was one of the last warriors to fight against the invasion of the German crusaders into the territory of Latvia. He fled into exile in Lithuania, but as a parting gift, he gave his son a twisted metal ring so that the boy would be recognizable by his father upon return. Namejs’ son was imperiled when the Germans discovered the secret of the ring. The Germans went out in a search of Namejs’ son in order to Christianize him and force him to surrender. It is said that almost all of the Semigallian boys and men made similar rings and wore them in order to protect the boy’s identity.
According to another legend, German crusaders were slowly moving into Latvian territory in the middle ages, taking over tribe after tribe. After a battle lost against German knights, Namejs was forced to retreat to Lithuania together with his family and tribe. There he ordered the rings to be made and gave them to his closest people as a symbol of friendship and trust. The close braids express the solidarity of the Latvian nation
when the latvians made them you could not get one for this reason unless a latvian gave it to you
after the russians, they would sell their grandmothers for profit, so you can find them online now.
TommyJay on April 18, 2023 at 1:31 pm said: I saw a show once where they claimed that if your car plunges into water and you are still conscious, open the door immediately and push hard. It should work if you don’t wait too long.
Yes that works..
ALSO… if you are trapped… cant break window…
go to the back…
its possible to pop out the rear window (the front too but its harder)
and a bonus… for reading me
IF your trapped in a house… you can go through the wall
a house is just sheetrock, frame, airspace, plywood…
people die trapped in rooms they can get out by going through the walls.
even an outside wall…
Dgr, good to see you’re still around.
You’re mostly right. It’s hard to be optimistic, but I put my trust in several things.
!. The Second Amendment. Own a gun(s) and plenty u of ammo.
2. Get to know your local police force. They are mostly people like us. Make sure they know who you are and that you support them.
3. Get to know your neighbors. Find out who you can trust.
4. Remember that at least 50% of the population are not hopeless lefties and most of them own guns.
5. Get to know your local politicians. Find out which ones are bad news and work against them in the next election.
6. Prayer can’t hurt. “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.” Bismark
7. “And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore, be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.” Never give up!
Take care, Dgr.
All very well and good; but can one actually punch through an outer building wall if one doesn’t have a namejs ring?
The NYT really should stick to what it does best:
Trashing Trump and half the country…and trashing the State of Israel.
Would save it a lot of embarrassment…
“NYTimes Bitcoin Hit Piece Backfires As #StopThePresses Movement Erupts On Social Media”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/nytimes-bitcoin-hit-piece-backfires-stopthepresses-movement-erupts-social-media
Opening graf:
‘ What happens when America’s purported “paper of record” promulgates an unabashedly biased hit piece against Bitcoin’s so-called “climate impact”, replete with shoddy reporting, wrong data, logical fallacies and even doctored photographs?….’
Good to hear from you Artfldgr!
Woman? Hey, whas dat?
This guy belongs on the Supreme Court!
“Education Secretary Cardona repeatedly declines to define ‘woman’ “—
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education-secretary-cardona-repeatedly-declines-define-woman
The Cult gets a heady boost…from someone who barely knows what he’s talking about….but THE NARRATIVE(TM)…
“New York Mayor Goes To War Against Meat And Dairy As Climate Agenda Escalates”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/new-york-mayor-goes-war-against-meat-and-dairy-climate-agenda-escalates
(One might wish he’d go to war against crime; but apparently eating meat is worse for you than getting mugged, robbed and/or stabbed or shot, or pushed under a train…)
+ Bonus:
Damar Hamlin, Buffalo Bills football player who collapsed on the field during a game, describes the cause of his ordeal…
https://nypost.com/2023/04/18/damar-hamlin-reveals-cause-of-cardiac-arrest-died-on-national-tv/
– – – – – –
And parking just got that much harder in the Big Apple…
https://nypost.com/2023/04/18/parking-garage-collapses-in-nycs-financial-district-video/
OT and all that… King Charles III seems off to a bad start. The bottom paragraph is well-said and spot-on.
______________________
The problem with apologising for slavery
Earlier this month, King Charles III endorsed a new research project investigating the British royal family’s historical links to slavery. He has even refused to rule out paying reparations for the slave trade.
…
Self-flagellation over slavery has become a kind of status symbol. Most of us will not be touring Caribbean islands owned by our ancestors, making apologies to the descendants of those who toiled there, because most of our ancestors never owned all that much. Apologising for their family’s slave-owning past is a way for wealthy people to remind us all that they are wealthy and important. Paying a young researcher to dig up the stories of your wicked forebears is now a luxury good for the well-to-do.
–“The problem with apologising for slavery”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/04/18/the-problem-with-apologising-for-slavery/
huxley,
I tried to get through the video you shared on language learning. For a guy who claims to be a genius at language acquisition*, I found DFNS to be a poor communicator. I couldn’t get through the video. I fast forwarded, trying to find relevant areas where he actually made comprehensible points, but that also bore no fruit. I apologize. I did try.
I’m still unsure I understand what you and DFNS mean by “input” and “output.” I got through the section where he talks about learning Swedish by focusing on speaking and he progressed very quickly for 18 months then very little over the next 18 months. He was using that as an example of why input isn’t good, but I see it is a fantastic result! Who doesn’t want to progress quickly when learning a language? And, yes, you will stall after that quick progression once you achieve a certain level because you’re able to do what you need to do.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
My wife’s parents immigrated to America shortly before my wife was born and mostly spoke German at home. It was my wife’s first language but she was raised in America with English speaking friends and attended English speaking schools. When my wife speaks German in Germany, Germans assume she was born and raised there. When she speaks English in America, Americans assume she was born and raised here (which she was). She has no accent and speaks very comfortably in both languages. My wife did her senior year of High School in Germany and it was very difficult for her. Folks ask, “Why? German was your first language?” “Yes,” my wife replies, “but my parents never talked about photosynthesis.”
In other words, there is a lot of vocabulary in every language. It’s one thing to know how to book a hotel room, order dinner and tell a taxi driver where you need to go. It’s another thing to discuss politics, or art, or history, or chemistry, or sports…
So, yeah, DFNS is not going to progress past 18 months through speaking if he doesn’t change up whom he is speaking to and what he is speaking about. By the time my wife left her German school she could give a presentation on biology, or chemistry, or mathematics in German.
I think what DFNS may be referring to with the stagnation on “input” may be related to need. Once most of us get to a certain point of comprehension we’re comfortable. My English vocabulary on Civil War weaponry is poor. My English vocabulary on hip hop musicians and their songs is poor. These are not topics I converse in. I am not interested in them. My wife and I speak a fair amount of German with each other but it rarely goes beyond, perhaps 300 words. “What do you want to eat?” “I’m tired.” “Let’s leave.” “Should I ask what the price is?” “This salesperson annoys me, let’s go home.” If we didn’t read or watch German television or movies we would stagnate on those 300, or so words because they are the words that are useful for us. We don’t often talk about photosynthesis.
I also caught a part where he mentioned input does not work well when the foreign language’s grammar and structure differ greatly from one’s native language. I agree there. When working in countries with languages very different than English, especially different alphabetic letter, I found I had to learn some fundamentals before any speaking was possible.
*And I’m sure he is.
huxley,
So I tried to get through another DFNS video. I think I’m using “input” and “output” backwards. “Output” means “speaking?”
Anyway, it seems likely to me that we humans evolved to speak and listen hundreds of thousands of years before ever devising written language, books, tape recorders or video streaming. So, why wouldn’t the method we evolved to acquire language work when attempting to acquire a second language?
And don’t we see this happen around us all day long with children and many immigrants? My in-laws were intelligent people. Spoke German very well and English well. I know they had no idea what the word “adverb” meant in English, but they tended to use adverbs properly when speaking. My father’s parents spoke English well. Born and raised here. I’m pretty sure they also did not know what the word “adverb” meant, but they also used them properly when speaking. My grandchildren can’t yet read (although one is on her way) and don’t know the parts of speech, yet they generally speak with correct grammar.
Why would any of this be different just because a foreign language is not one’s 1st language?
“Beyond The [Great] Reset” is a short, smart, sardonic satire, and a warning, a projection of the Hellscape coming to us if we do not rebel — violently —FINALLY.
Free on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWkepoLUZfs&t=212s
https://www.racket.news/p/lee-fang-vs-mehdi-hasan-round-2/comments
Barry Meislin:
neo suspected that Damar Hamlin’s heart stoppage was the result of comotio cardis. As called out in your link.
But, but, but the vaccination!
Oh wow. The Empire (of election fraud) strikes back. Fox News pays $787M to Dominion Voting Systems in a settlement.
Fox News, Dominion Reach $787 Million Settlement in Defamation Lawsuit
Rufus T. Firefly:
With that video I did drop you into the middle of the language acquisition wars. I’ve been living in that war for three months now, so DFNS was on point for me.
I can see how it could be confusing for you. I had hoped the pro vs. con between DFNS and the opponent he was rebutting might be useful.
However, if you’re not clear on what Krashen means by input and output, it’s hard to have a discussion about “Comprehensible Input.”
I’d say your best bet would be to go right to the source. Here’s one of his shorter interviews (Krashen is an academic) with my language learning role model, Steve Kaufmann:
–Steve Kaufmann, “Stephen Krashen, an Interview.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqVhgSvwWYk
Of course, that’s only if you are interested.
I am currently obsessed and I don’t understand why everybody isn’t learning another language NOW and therefore deeply concerned with these issues. 🙂
I do appreciate your larger, thoughtful comments.
(Probably) Too Much (French) Information…
In my search for Compelling, Comprehensible Input a la Steve Krashen, I’ve been reconnecting to the French poets I once read in English but now want to read in the original French.
Yesterday I received a bilingual volume of Pierre Reverdy, a French poet from the first half of the 20th C. whom I liked, mostly on the recommendation of Frank O’Hara, an American poet I loved.
There wasn’t much Reverdy translated in those days. But now I’ve got a whole book of Reverdy in French and English. Suddenly I realize OMG how much O’Hara modeled himself on Reverdy.
I’m not disillusioned. As the Hollywood proverb goes (I think) “Nobody comes from nowhere.”
_____________________
….My heart is in my
pocket, it is Poems by Pierre Reverdy.
–Frank O’Hara, “A Step Away From Them”
One more (French) thing…
I must say that the first Harry Potter book in French is surprisingly good preparation for reading French poetry circa early 20th C.
Discuss amongst yourselves.