Open thread 3/30/21
For some reason my scheduled open thread for today didn’t post as intended. But better late than never, right?
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
For some reason my scheduled open thread for today didn’t post as intended. But better late than never, right?
You don’t need to feel pushed into posting an open thread every day. The philosophy blog many here are familiar with will offer one every few weeks or months.
As your blog is so much more topical, it might be that your readers would like more. But even once a week seems to me to be a sufficient allowance, albeit with one conditioning thought:
Because of the speed at which you post new entries, you may wish for reasons of your own to keep the open comments entries from being lost and disappearing in your fast moving wake.
I don’t know how you would manage that, because even with dragging the entry forward it would eventually become clogged with divergent and unorganized comments.
Yes. Every day is a little too much, I think. I like the social interaction here, to be sure, but I don’t have that much social energy. Now if we had a live chat room, that would be a different matter – I used to be a real IRC addict in college. Well, I thought so, anyway; maybe not by real die-hards’ standards. I still have thousands of pages of logs from back then. Hard copy, too. I’m just trying to make it easier for the archaeologists. 🙂
I don’t see a problem with daily Open Threads. They provide for off-topic overflow from the regular posts.
Philip Sells:
That’s the nice thing about open threads. Just come in whenever you want, and ignore it whenever you want.
DNW:
I don’t think there’s one best way to do it. But for now I think I’m going to make it every day, and as I said in my above comment, those who want to participate can and those who don’t can easily ignore it. No big deal either way.
@ Neo,
Given the volume and rapidly evolving nature of your blog content, as I acknowledged earlier, you might be right.
You just should not feel compelled as a daily obligation. You have quite a lot on your plate as it is.
Neo, I think your daily Open Threads are fantastic.
If someone doesn’t have time to read it that day, they won’t; however, so far I’ve been fascinated at what has shown up, and I’ll make time to read it. (Actually, I read all your posts and comments, every day. It’s more than worth it.)
Thanks for all your work and choices. In the Masterpiece series a long time ago, “The Ascent of Man” with Jacob Bronowski, a brilliant man, he talked of the way that once the process of printing with a press was invented, it grew exponentially. A great many of the books that were designed and printed by people who had both artistic and intellectual prowess were masterpieces as well as vehicles to get information across. Bronowski said that you could actually feel the passion of the printer on the page. I believe that you, Neo, exhibit your passion for issues, research, and above all, the truth, in every post, and in the commenters your work has encouraged to frequent your pages.
Your blog is wonderful!
Thank you!
Shoulder surgery in the morning.
Forecast calls for pain!
https://youtu.be/1IrdMyQSKr8
jack:
Best of luck!
Good luck Jack. Be very religious about the rehab instructions and you’ll soon be back with an improved golf handicap!
I believe Alaric Naudé has Been referred to before here, on these pages. But perhaps not in the last year, as things in the US and the Anglosphere have gotten dangerously more fascist.
The College Fix did a recent piece on his defiance of Woke, in which he cites Thomas Sowell and similar critical thinkers, to make his case that CRT is a complete failure to improve education and must be abandoned for common sense, such as expanding mentoring programs to help the disadvantaged become successful.
http://www.naude.eu/the-professors-blog/stop-wasting-money-on-diversity-and-spend-it-on-tutoring-and-mentoring-instead
“Higher education must move from squandering money on diversity policies that look good on paper and instead start putting the money into tutoring and mentoring programs that can actually help students. change and assistance for students from disadvantaged backgrounds whether they be black, white, Hispanic or any other group then really depends on the support given by both universities and educators. Defunding of DEI and funding of mentors and tutors is the first step to helping those who need it most.”
Of course, the rot is well past caring about such grubby things as “effective” education, I know. But to normal Americans, and the real people, take back any hint that these evil Neo-racists are anything but destructive and offer constructive choices instead — that is how we win,
Alaric Naudé teaches at a South Korean College, studied social sciences at a university in Nicaragua, is conversant in more than a half dozen languages, and has South African and Australian roots. And he has a YT channel.
He’s a clear thinker and on our side against the madness. Take a peak:
https://www.facebook.com/Dr.Naude/posts/118120423671208
We need to make him more popular.
@Philip Sells:
IRC and Usenet News at 2400 baud. Those were the days!
Still gets used for some enthusiast chats:
https://www.haskell.org/irc/
Have the HexChat client on my Linux desktops ‘just in case’, but guess haven’t gone to trouble of installing clients on Mac or Windows for more than a decade now I guess.
I remember when I discovered talk / ntalk before I knew about IRC — just being able to chat in real time with a single person on another machine on another continent seemed miraculous at first.
huxley at the top — YES.
Here is the College Fix provocation on Naude, “ Intellectual magazine removes professor’s column critiquing critical race theory” – “Scholar republishes it on his personal blog: ‘I offer no apology for stating reality’
A lengthy column by a professor that critiques critical race theory and the concept of “whiteness” and “blackness” was removed by an online intellectual magazine after it generated controversy, it continues.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/intellectual-magazine-removes-professors-column-critiquing-critical-race-theory/
Something new (to me) and detailed and insightful, finds Naude debunking The Times hit piece on Jordan Peterson, where the Left biased interviewer finds him a dangerous gate-way drug towards alt-right fascism, or something else egregious. And don’t we all want to prevent the rubes from going there?
http://www.naude.eu/debunking-the-times-hit-piece-on-jordan-peterson.html?fbclid=IwAR1APRQzHFEBoSiMLYFRLib38OHuGqR-hETEDWBb_6trujsONk-jomqJluU
Interesting and brilliant.
Who remembers places and times like these?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Okq3FNgT6oo
Eva Marie . . . probably most of us here remember. I sure do.
And gotta love those gas prices – .29 and .31. The cheapest I remember since I’ve been driving (1969) was .19/gal when they used to have gas wars in certain areas.
Greetings Fellow Train Fans.
If you’ve been to Kamakura to see the Buddha, you’ve likely also taken a ride on the cute little Enoden. As you can see, Diversity is emphatically not their strength and there is a lamentable absence of loitering Orcs and no colourful trash strewn about.. and yet they manage to get by somehow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Dt3sAdK2s
Bonus view of Mount Fuji at 15:40.
That was a great little train trip.
I took it on New Year’s Day 2002. The train was full of non-Tokyoite and definitely not Kamakura Locals (many of who are discreetly very wealthy — long-time aristocratic seaside resort area) ‘Flyover Japanese’ doing Hatsumo-de shrine visits. Interesting and *freezing* day out.
We went to this Hachiman Shrine:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g303156-d16797121-Kamakura_Tsurugaoka_Hachimangu_Tour_with_Nationally_Licensed_Guide-Kamakura_Kanaga.html
and also this one:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g303156-d1311052-Reviews-Ugafuku_Shrine_Goddess_of_Money_Washing-Kamakura_Kanagawa_Prefecture_Kanto.html
^^^ The idea being that if you wash a specimen of your money here, you’ll get much more in return in the coming year. No surprise that this one is very popular with Chinese tourists — right up their alley, crassness wise.
If you can brave the very well-behaved crowds on trains getting to Kamakura, New Year is good time to visit the Buddha since Buddhist Temples have got precisely zero to do with the whole New Year Shinto Shrine visiting thing that everyone else is busy with.
Neo likes to post from time to time about Old Time New England Candy.
Try this for size:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Thailand/comments/mggvkb/they_finally_made_it/
Cadbury Dairy Milk Durian Flavour is now a thing. Hopefully will show up in Kowloon City where many Thais live so that can give a report on it.
Strangely, a lot of people seem to dislike Durian, but it can make for some delicious, if rather fattening desserts.
Busy Day on Reddit Thailand:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Thailand/comments/mgihdh/old_thai_advert/
Tried using Neo’s link to buy the Durian Cadbury bar. It was a no go. If we’re going to be posting links Neo might like – Here’s the Sultans of Swing https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/lxyupe/bollywood_movie_synchs_perfectly_with_dire/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
^^ You just won the Internet for today although I must protest absence of obligatory wet saris.
Just got around to watching Eva’s dance video, and went looking for the name of the movie.
There appears to be a subreddit dedicated to videos about two or more songs that share the same BPM (beats per minute). Lots of fun mash-ups.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SharedBPM/comments/lx8ltc/154154_malhari_sultans_of_swing_dire_straits/
https://www.reddit.com/r/SharedBPM/comments/mbm82s/130130_jackie_chan_roams_in_bollywood_metallica/
Original of the Jackie Jackie Chan movie clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xp2WW4VPnI
You could get really hooked on this schtick.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SharedBPM/comments/m52we4/108107_sunshine_on_the_ritz_fred_astaire_katrina/
I didn’t care much for the over-laid music track, but it’s worth watching for the Astaire routine – and to be glad he is being seen by a new generation.
Of course, if they watch the original movies, he’s liable to join the Cancel Queue.
https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/03/image040-1.jpg?w=617&ssl=1