When our son was little, he loved this guy and so did we:
Comments
Open thread 12/10/21 — 48 Comments
The CDC’s national 7 day moving average of daily Covid cases seems to have jumped up dramatically recently, from 80,237 on November 29th to 118,514 on December 8th. But there hasn’t yet been enough genomic sequencing done to indicate whether or not this new surge is due primarily to Omicron or not.
One of my sons is a big fan of Rabbi and comedian, Bob Alper (as am I).
A young, modern audience wouldn’t understand, but his joke about the payphone operator in Israel is one of my favorites!
If you haven’t heard him tell his 3 Gentile jokes, take a minute and twenty seconds out of your day and give him a watch: https://youtu.be/6QjbepOetak
neo on December 8, 2021 at 5:10 pm said:
Rufus T. Firefly:
I disagree.
As I said, I very much disliked school all the way through. I went to a school of about 4,000, and it was not a pleasant place at all. But there was no violence, ever, except a few fistfights. My school serviced a lot of pretty poor people, too – a real demographic and racial mix.
I cannot remember hearing about any school murders at that time, either, around the country.
I don’t want to beat this to death, and it may be that we simply do see it differently, but comparing your High School and my High School to modern, public High Schools is very much an apples to oranges thing. I can’t speak specifically to your experience, but I know New York was/is famous for having some academically selective public schools, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you attended one of those. My High School was not academically selective, but the District had a lot of leeway when it came to culling trouble makers. Several kids were yanked from my grammar school and sent to state facilities for delinquents, and the same was true at all the grammar schools that fed the High School. Those who showed violent tendencies at a young age were removed from the system. I know of at least one boy in my grammar school who had pulled a gun on his own mother as well as committing an armed robbery. He lived a block away. Never saw him or heard about him again.
About 40% of kids dropped out by age 16, and most of those were boys and many were in gangs. There were plenty of gang fights, but because the school district made little attempt to discourage dropping out, the fights didn’t typically happen in the hallways. Also, there was no hesitation to remove kids who perpetrated violence. A lot of the overactive boys were on one sport, or another, and our coaches were very physical with us and didn’t hesitate to use corporal punishment. I knew that if I acted up in a class it would get back to the football coach and he’d knock me on my *ss at practice. The Dean of Students was a former football coach and he didn’t hesitate to use physical force with students. I know of one young man who was briefly lifted off the ground and hung by his winter coat on a coat hook.
And, I think the biggest reason mass shootings didn’t happen back then is they hadn’t happened; the idea wasn’t in the air. That’s why I was frightened after Columbine. I recognized that now that it was in the public consciousness it would happen more often.
Our educational system is broken in myriad ways.
I couldn’t watch this. Seeing someone eating tissue paper or cloth causes as unpleasant reaction in me as hearing fingernails on a chalk board or looking at hole-like patterns. I put the video at double speed and kind of watched it out of the corner of my eye so I could get to the end. Very difficult for me. Did anyone else have the same reaction?
“I’m not a provocateur. I don’t get a rush from making people angry. You don’t have to be a troll to find yourself in the center of controversy. You need only be two things: effective, and unwilling to back down.”
If 10% or more of the students who heard her heed her advice the future is bright.
The CDC’s national 7 day moving average of daily Covid cases seems to have jumped up dramatically recently, from 80,237 on November 29th to 118,514 on December 8th.
You had a jump between Nov. 29th and December 8th last year. It was smaller then (27% v. 40%), but the jump between 30 October and 8 December then was much larger. Alternate hypothesis: it’s seasonal variation because people are indoors, and should hit a peak some time in mid-January.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Your guess about my high school is wrong.
My high school was very non selective. A great many of the students didn’t even get what was then known as an “academic” diploma. Quite a few also came from “the projects” that were nearby. It was a tough place by the standards of the early 60s, which is when I went there. And it was huge and impersonal.
But except for fistfights and some catfights as well, no violence. That was true of schools at that time, in general. It was not the schools; it was the times.
I just saw some news on RUSSIA-
Russia’s Putin is using his army to try to push around NATO, and to try and push around the nations of Ukraine and Georgia.
Did anyone who does not think that, “Biden is the best president”, NOT SEE THIS COMING?
As I see it- Putin sees Biden as emotionally weak, and someone who will NOT use the US military to help the USA’s friends.
Putin is threatening to ATTACK Ukraine, with his army.
Putin has recently said, in essence:
If the USA takes back its offer to let Ukraine and Georgia join NATO, and if NATO promises NEVER to put its militaries on Russia’s border, then Putin WILL NOT attack Ukraine.
[Putin knows that if no-one stands up to his military, then he can bully people, + other nations, to do what Putin wants].
Putin is testing Biden on Ukraine + on NATO. Let’s see if Biden stands up for Ukraine and NATO.
And at the Daily Princetonian, we have this bit of wisdom:
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit an article to the Opinion Section, click here.
Yesterday, a few campus organizations held an event with Abigail Shrier, an ideologue who gained notoriety for a book which, among many things, argues against providing gender-affirming care (primarily puberty blockers) to transgender children. I could spend my time refuting each of the bad-faith points she makes, but that is an intentional trap — to bog down public discourse in absurd culture wars.
We should harbor no delusions about what Shrier and her ilk are actually doing. They are capitalizing on the present stigma against transgender people in order to profit financially and politically. In a world where people are increasingly disillusioned with the way things are, they offer a scapegoat — a vulnerable subject to be blamed and bullied.
Their arguments cannot be reasoned with, because they are not founded on reason. They sidestep legitimate academic methods and instead cherry-pick anecdotal examples or even outright fabrications. They do this to construct a threat where none exists — or rather, to play the victims when they are in fact the abusers. This is a tale as old as human history itself — but one which we can subvert, if we collectively recognize the pattern and choose to break the cycle. A kinder world is possible. Will you join us?
Ariana Natalie Myers is a History Ph.D. Candidate. She can be reached at aamyers@princeton.edu.
I’m willing to wager the history faculty rejected 90% of the applications for admission and fellowships in a certain year in the course of offering a place to this cretinette (who, after seven years enrolled in that department, has yet to finish her dissertation).
Rufus T. Firefly:
I forgot to mention the school was also old and ugly.
Princeton, “We project to protect our positions and pay.”
neo,
I obviously won’t claim to know your High School better than you! Sounds very similar to mine, except I am the only person I have ever met (aside from my father) who had a great time in High School. The place itself was awful, and I had tremendous empathy for my peers, almost all of whom were miserable, and, as I wrote, at least 50% of it was a complete waste of time. But I tend to be an optimistic sort and had a great appreciation for the age I was. I imagine when most of us look back on being 15, 16, 17… we understand what a gift it was to be young. I somehow had a great appreciation for that at the time.
I also won’t claim to know the late ’60s better than you. When I was a teen and heard of teens doing vile acts my thought was always about my family. I couldn’t imagine doing anything that would cause trouble for my parents; get the family name in the papers. I’m not sure if that’s what you mean, but there certainly seemed to be a sense of that with most people. One did not bring shame upon one’s family.
I do think part of it is that it is now out in the public. Just as one’s teen suicide can cause an epidemic in a region, a High School shooting publicized nationally puts the thing out there. I also imagine your school district, like mine, was very prompt and effective in dealing with trouble makers and troubled youth.
Art Deco,
Thanks for posting that rebuttal. To Richard Aubrey’s point on a previous thread, as illogical as that student’s reasoning is, it’s obvious she is bright. Her op-ed is well written and makes a very effective fraud of offering a rebuttal. Her reason, of course, for not debating Ms. Shrier on the points of Shrier’s thesis is Ms. Myers doesn’t want to give credence to Shrier’s thesis. How convenient.
“… a vulnerable subject to be blamed and bullied.”
Do you want to be on the side of the bullies?
Today’s covid data didn’t show any major jump to me. Cases continue to climb nationally at about 30k/day mainly led by NY, IL, and PA. As has been the case since the beginning results vary greatly on the site used and time of week, etc etc.
Best way, I think, is to stick with one data source which is for me worldometers. Why? Just because that’s what I started with. Changing horses in the middle of the stream will mess things up. The daily numbers are never completely accurate for any site. What is important is data trends and from what I’ve seen the trends over a week or so period are close to the same for most of the sources even if the actual numbers are a bit different. One day changes are really meaningless, which is why it’s important to do two week, or at least ten day, rolling averages to get the big picture of trends.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I was in high school in the early 60s, not the late 60s.
I never had the impression that my high school dealt with troublemakers well. There was a class in the “nonacademic” track in a certain classroom before my class got there, and each day it was pretty clear that previous class had been pandemonium. Chairs overturned and that sort of thing. Seemingly every day.
As far as psychological troubles went, there were no services in the school and little or no attention paid unless a nervous breakdown happened on school grounds. I can only recall one of those, with a girl lying on the bathroom floor and screaming and screaming. I don’t know what happened to her, but she certainly wasn’t violent to anyone.
physicsguy:
How close to useless, would you guesstimate, for the vaxxes to prevent infection/transmission?
As a sweet, summer child (to use a Sarah Hoytism), I figured that between natural immunity and all the vaxxed people, we wouldn’t see much of a winter Covid surge.
Re: Myer’s “rebuttal” to Shrier:
“They sidestep legitimate academic methods and instead cherry-pick anecdotal examples or even outright fabrications.”
I’m wondering what she specifically means by “legitimate academic methods”.
At least she didn’t say “scientific methods”, which could imply experiments on vulnerable children. I wonder if that’s what she meant, however.
As long as they test at these insane levels COVID ‘cases’ will always return in the same seasonal waves to various parts of the country/world.
Stop testing healthy non symptomatic people and this ends.
“They sidestep legitimate academic methods and instead cherry-pick anecdotal examples or even outright fabrications.”
She’s going to instruct Paul McHugh on ‘legitimate academic methods’. Dr. McHugh’s work persuaded the administration at Johns Hopkins to shut down John Money’s clinic there. This was a half generation before she was born.
She’s studied classics and history over the last 11 years. It’s a reasonable wager she doesn’t know squat about observational studies, experimental study, or statistics.
these insane levels COVID ‘cases’
They’re running at about half the level they were last year at this time.
Art,
Way to take me out of context. I said the tests were at ‘insane levels’ and they are for this stage of this entire fiasco.
Huxley and Griifin,
For me, once the alpha was gone I see no reason for vaxes as they really haven’t been updated for the delta and other variants. To me that’s why we’re seeing so many breakthroughs.
And I agree with Griffin about testing asymptomatic people. Where my SiL works (Trinity College Hartford) everyone gets tested once per week. And of course, especially now, they find positives for people who are even close to sick. Unless someone presents symptoms to a doctor, no reason to test at all.
Amen, Griffin. Make everyone get tested for rhinovirus or influenza whenever they sneeze or come in contact with someone else who has tested positive, and we’d see the same thing this time of year.
Aaaacchhhh!! Art Deco! What in the name of all that is holy was that?! Whatever ridiculous salary Ed Sullivan was paid, it wasn’t enough to have to sit through that!
The hair, the hats, the outfits! And the part where the drummer sings falsetto, “Baby, you and me.” “‘Neath the shady tree.” Ouch. He reminds me of John Candy in this SCTV parody of punk: https://youtu.be/DJU5x67Sz1o I wonder if that’s where John got his inspiration?
And, except for the drummer and one of the guitarists no one appears to be playing the actual instruments on the recording.
Well, we lost another:
RIP Michael Nesmith
December 10, 2021 (aged 78)
He didn’t ascend to the heights of the Beatles or Stones, but I loved the Monkees as a kid and even these days I still play them occasionally. They had some great hits and their show was far better than might be expected for copycat Beatles.
Here’s a song Nesmith wrote before the Monkees, but didn’t perform. It was an early hit for Linda Ronstadt and most people don’t know it was his:
_______________________________
So, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I knock it
It’s just that I am not in the market
For a boy who wants to love only me
Yes, and I ain’t sayin’ you ain’t pretty
All I’m saying’s I’m not ready for any person
Place or thing to try and pull the reins in on me
Sorry to hear that. Nesmith always seemed like a stand up guy, and he was a great talent. Have you ever seen, “Elephant Parts?” I think Nesmith wrote all or most of it. He stars in much of it. It’s a lot of fun. And, if I remember correctly, it was one of the catalysts for MtV.
If you are a Nesmith fan I can’t imagine you would not enjoy the movie.
This bit of his from the film on gasoline prices will seem very topical. 40 years ago! https://youtu.be/TsxlfgHkF38
Rufus T. Firefly:
I’m not sure I saw “Elephant Parts.” Sadly, it’s unavailable now other than some excerpts on YouTube. I suppose that will change.
Nesmith was a genuine talent, well beyond the Monkee in the knit cap.
neo,
I think I understand your point now; High School students in your generation simply would not have shot up their school. That may very well be. The statistics certainly bear that out.
When I went to school in the late ’70s things were different. I can easily imagine a school shooting happening at my campus. As I wrote, I just don’t think anyone had thought of it. Most of the gang violence was knives, chains, baseball bats… but I know kids who had access to guns. And, fortunately, most of the kids who displayed nascent signs of violence were pulled from the mainstream.
@TR:
If the PRC started a mutual defence treaty organisation and Lobbied Mexico and Canada to join it, what would your reaction be?
The USA has zero business getting involved in states bordering Russia, let alone fomenting colour revolutions in the Ukraine.
Have a look at a globe. Notice something? What divine providence, what radiance from the collective posteriors of your Founding Fathers gives you a say in whatever the @#$% happens on the Dniester?
It is insane, treacherous (understandings were reached with post-Soviet Russia when she was withdrawing troops about respecting buffer states and not expanding NATO up to her her borders), and typical of what the USA foreign policy and military-industrial cabals get up to. Incapable of pursuing a sane and predictable foreign policy. No… you didn’t vote for Victoria Nuland and her buddies. And none you can do about any of it… Sorry… ‘Citizen’ (cue hilarity). Except not to be their dupe.
When I was in middle school in the early 1980s there was a kid a year ahead of me that was trying to build some sort of bomb in his garage and something went wrong and he suffered burns over his hands and arms and upper body and he eventually came back to school the next year and I have no recollection of any talk about what he was planning to do with the bomb or anything and he was sort of an outcast like many of these kids seem to be.
Can only imagine what the reaction to that would be today so I wonder if there was some level of incidents that were never made known to the wider community back then.
I point this out to friends and family who always say how things are so much worse now than in our youth.
My response is usually ‘maybe’ but are you sure or just warped by Facebook.
Zaphod:
Finished 3BP. I’ve got “The Dark Forest” cued up.
I thought the proton supercomputers were brilliant. I don’t believe intelligent life could evolve on a planet with three suns, but Liu handled the what-if well.
Then there’s the message that compared to a three-sunned world, Earth is a paradise and we get to live on it. Reminds me of a favorite Lew Welch poem:
________________________________
Notes From A Pioneer On A Speck In Space
Few things that grow here poison us.
Most of the animals are small.
Those big enough to kill us do it in a way
Easy to understand, easy to defend against.
The air, here, is just what the blood needs.
We don’t use helmets or special suits.
The Star, here, doesn’t burn you if you
Stay outside as much as you should.
The worst of our winters is bearable.
Water, both salt and sweet, is everywhere.
The things that live in it are easily gathered.
Mostly, you can eat them raw with safety and pleasure.
Yesterday my wife and I brought back
Shells, driftwood, stones, and other curiosities
Found on the beach of the immense
Fresh-water sea we live by.
She was all excited by a slender white stone which:
“Exactly fits the hand!”
I couldn’t share her wonder:
Here, almost everything does.
–Lew Welch
@Huxley:
You’ll like the next one, I’m sure. When you get to the Great Ravine in the Dark Forest, see if it rings a bell.
I like that poem.
Still:
“Here, almost everything does.”
I’m somewhat inclined to retort, “Well no shit, Sherlock!” 🙂
Art Deco, “ Shrier, an ideologue who gained notoriety for a book which, among many things, argues against providing gender-affirming care (primarily puberty blockers) to transgender children.”
My older son is still friends with a woman he met in elementary school. When she was young she only played with the boys and refused to play with the other girls. Then, one day, the hormones kicked in and she became a girl. Many years later she’s a woman in all ways. She was a classic tomboy, who in todays world be drugged and mutilated to satisfy the bizarre ideology of the left.
@zaphod
I really don’t know what you’re trying to say,
but I’ll defend your right to say it, the best that I can.
If you do not support my position(s), then let’s please, politely, agree to disagree [about them].
Later on.
@TR:
It’s pretty simple.
It’s not 1985.
YOUR Government is the Evil Empire now. Red or Blue, doesn’t matter. Orange Buffoon re-elected, doesn’t matter… The machine does what it wants.
Don’t take it personally. It’s not you. It’s them. You can still love the flag and get all misty eyed. That’s natural. But it’s not what we’re talking about here.
So don’t be suckered into foreign wars. Ask yourself why your RULERS (deliberate choice of words) are more interested in ‘defending’ Ukraine and Taiwan than in defending your borders from Illegal Immigrants or defending you from your dusky compatriots and AntiFa.
It’s worth firing up the grey matter before regurgitating your un-elected unaccountable masters’ talking points.
Capisce?
@zaphod
I find your tone needlessly aggressive.
There’s not need for that.
Best of luck.
Cheers.
@TR:
Admittedly my tone could have been gentler. Sorry about that. But this topic infuriates me. Anyway I apologise for any offence. Please however, Consider.
TR:
Not just “needlessly aggressive,” although it is that.
It’s also archly, snidely, arrogantly, and groundlessly know-it-all and dripping in a superior knowledge that the writer professes to have but utterly lacks.
That annoys ME, and so I am sometimes uncharacteristically insulting to Zaphod. But he can handle it.
Zaphod does have certain fields of semi-expertise, and is often an entertaining fellow. But an expert on the US he is not, as has been demonstrated quite amply before.
@Zaphod
Not a problem. 🙂
For what it’s worth- I pretty “peeved off” at a number of butthead relatives, as well as being peeved off at some real, butthead drivers, who like to zap me with their highbeam-headlights,…when I decided to write about this immense subject, today. That’s not the brightest move, by me.
Annoying relatives…Iet me tell ya. 🙂
Glad that everything is cool,
Cheers, TR.
Anyway I’m back more obnoxious than ever with a modest proposal that y’all go steal the Chinese IP and build yerselves an unhackable Quantum Satellite or three before starting wars in Asia or the not-so-soft-underbelly of Mother Russia.
Problem is… You’ll need a 20 year Sputnik Program to train up the Black Trannies to develop it.
Haw Haw Haw 😛
Apparently the Chinese were 3 minutes away from shutting down the Queensland power grid when a clued up tech pulled the plug recently. Could be true could be lies.
Half a mind to rename myself Lord Haw Haw here… but I think I’ve kind of grown attached to Zaphod, alas.
@TR: We’re cool. I fully understand the frustration-displacing urge to smite foreigners instead of the local miscreants when the going gets tough locally. Just we probably have different foreigners in mind 🙂 In both cases, it’s a temptation worth resisting.
@Neo:
If I ever spot you in the audience when I’m doing standup in the Catskills, just you watch out!
Not going to comment at length here except to suggest that those interested in strategic tech read this.
All I want to say is that when you @#$% with shit then the shit @#$%s back. Your allies are not always your allies and their interests are not always your interests and sometimes it would make a lot more sense to just figure out how to do it all yourself and leave off poking around in other people’s backyards… or just chill and be happy.
Everything is subject to law of unintended consequences.
How far up does Xi’s hand go? His shill is pretty responsive.
“Your allies” indeed.
Even the dim bulbs here know that nations have interests.
Xi approves.
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The CDC’s national 7 day moving average of daily Covid cases seems to have jumped up dramatically recently, from 80,237 on November 29th to 118,514 on December 8th. But there hasn’t yet been enough genomic sequencing done to indicate whether or not this new surge is due primarily to Omicron or not.
One of my sons is a big fan of Rabbi and comedian, Bob Alper (as am I).
A young, modern audience wouldn’t understand, but his joke about the payphone operator in Israel is one of my favorites!
If you haven’t heard him tell his 3 Gentile jokes, take a minute and twenty seconds out of your day and give him a watch: https://youtu.be/6QjbepOetak
In this post, https://www.thenewneo.com/2021/12/07/just-as-i-expected-ethan-crumbley-fooled-not-only-his-parents-but-the-school-counselors/#comments
Neo wrote:
I don’t want to beat this to death, and it may be that we simply do see it differently, but comparing your High School and my High School to modern, public High Schools is very much an apples to oranges thing. I can’t speak specifically to your experience, but I know New York was/is famous for having some academically selective public schools, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you attended one of those. My High School was not academically selective, but the District had a lot of leeway when it came to culling trouble makers. Several kids were yanked from my grammar school and sent to state facilities for delinquents, and the same was true at all the grammar schools that fed the High School. Those who showed violent tendencies at a young age were removed from the system. I know of at least one boy in my grammar school who had pulled a gun on his own mother as well as committing an armed robbery. He lived a block away. Never saw him or heard about him again.
About 40% of kids dropped out by age 16, and most of those were boys and many were in gangs. There were plenty of gang fights, but because the school district made little attempt to discourage dropping out, the fights didn’t typically happen in the hallways. Also, there was no hesitation to remove kids who perpetrated violence. A lot of the overactive boys were on one sport, or another, and our coaches were very physical with us and didn’t hesitate to use corporal punishment. I knew that if I acted up in a class it would get back to the football coach and he’d knock me on my *ss at practice. The Dean of Students was a former football coach and he didn’t hesitate to use physical force with students. I know of one young man who was briefly lifted off the ground and hung by his winter coat on a coat hook.
And, I think the biggest reason mass shootings didn’t happen back then is they hadn’t happened; the idea wasn’t in the air. That’s why I was frightened after Columbine. I recognized that now that it was in the public consciousness it would happen more often.
Our educational system is broken in myriad ways.
I couldn’t watch this. Seeing someone eating tissue paper or cloth causes as unpleasant reaction in me as hearing fingernails on a chalk board or looking at hole-like patterns. I put the video at double speed and kind of watched it out of the corner of my eye so I could get to the end. Very difficult for me. Did anyone else have the same reaction?
Eva Marie,
YES! Exact same reaction here!
I highly recommend this transcript of Abigal Shrier’s recent speech at Princeton.
https://abigailshrier.substack.com/p/what-i-told-the-students-of-princeton
If 10% or more of the students who heard her heed her advice the future is bright.
The CDC’s national 7 day moving average of daily Covid cases seems to have jumped up dramatically recently, from 80,237 on November 29th to 118,514 on December 8th.
You had a jump between Nov. 29th and December 8th last year. It was smaller then (27% v. 40%), but the jump between 30 October and 8 December then was much larger. Alternate hypothesis: it’s seasonal variation because people are indoors, and should hit a peak some time in mid-January.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Your guess about my high school is wrong.
My high school was very non selective. A great many of the students didn’t even get what was then known as an “academic” diploma. Quite a few also came from “the projects” that were nearby. It was a tough place by the standards of the early 60s, which is when I went there. And it was huge and impersonal.
But except for fistfights and some catfights as well, no violence. That was true of schools at that time, in general. It was not the schools; it was the times.
I just saw some news on RUSSIA-
Russia’s Putin is using his army to try to push around NATO, and to try and push around the nations of Ukraine and Georgia.
Did anyone who does not think that, “Biden is the best president”, NOT SEE THIS COMING?
As I see it- Putin sees Biden as emotionally weak, and someone who will NOT use the US military to help the USA’s friends.
Putin is threatening to ATTACK Ukraine, with his army.
Putin has recently said, in essence:
If the USA takes back its offer to let Ukraine and Georgia join NATO, and if NATO promises NEVER to put its militaries on Russia’s border, then Putin WILL NOT attack Ukraine.
[Putin knows that if no-one stands up to his military, then he can bully people, + other nations, to do what Putin wants].
Putin is testing Biden on Ukraine + on NATO. Let’s see if Biden stands up for Ukraine and NATO.
(It looks like Biden will not).
Here is an article about this:
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-12-10/russia-demands-rescinding-of-nato-promise-to-ukraine-and-georgia
And at the Daily Princetonian, we have this bit of wisdom:
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit an article to the Opinion Section, click here.
Yesterday, a few campus organizations held an event with Abigail Shrier, an ideologue who gained notoriety for a book which, among many things, argues against providing gender-affirming care (primarily puberty blockers) to transgender children. I could spend my time refuting each of the bad-faith points she makes, but that is an intentional trap — to bog down public discourse in absurd culture wars.
We should harbor no delusions about what Shrier and her ilk are actually doing. They are capitalizing on the present stigma against transgender people in order to profit financially and politically. In a world where people are increasingly disillusioned with the way things are, they offer a scapegoat — a vulnerable subject to be blamed and bullied.
Their arguments cannot be reasoned with, because they are not founded on reason. They sidestep legitimate academic methods and instead cherry-pick anecdotal examples or even outright fabrications. They do this to construct a threat where none exists — or rather, to play the victims when they are in fact the abusers. This is a tale as old as human history itself — but one which we can subvert, if we collectively recognize the pattern and choose to break the cycle. A kinder world is possible. Will you join us?
Ariana Natalie Myers is a History Ph.D. Candidate. She can be reached at aamyers@princeton.edu.
I’m willing to wager the history faculty rejected 90% of the applications for admission and fellowships in a certain year in the course of offering a place to this cretinette (who, after seven years enrolled in that department, has yet to finish her dissertation).
Rufus T. Firefly:
I forgot to mention the school was also old and ugly.
Princeton, “We project to protect our positions and pay.”
neo,
I obviously won’t claim to know your High School better than you! Sounds very similar to mine, except I am the only person I have ever met (aside from my father) who had a great time in High School. The place itself was awful, and I had tremendous empathy for my peers, almost all of whom were miserable, and, as I wrote, at least 50% of it was a complete waste of time. But I tend to be an optimistic sort and had a great appreciation for the age I was. I imagine when most of us look back on being 15, 16, 17… we understand what a gift it was to be young. I somehow had a great appreciation for that at the time.
I also won’t claim to know the late ’60s better than you. When I was a teen and heard of teens doing vile acts my thought was always about my family. I couldn’t imagine doing anything that would cause trouble for my parents; get the family name in the papers. I’m not sure if that’s what you mean, but there certainly seemed to be a sense of that with most people. One did not bring shame upon one’s family.
I do think part of it is that it is now out in the public. Just as one’s teen suicide can cause an epidemic in a region, a High School shooting publicized nationally puts the thing out there. I also imagine your school district, like mine, was very prompt and effective in dealing with trouble makers and troubled youth.
Art Deco,
Thanks for posting that rebuttal. To Richard Aubrey’s point on a previous thread, as illogical as that student’s reasoning is, it’s obvious she is bright. Her op-ed is well written and makes a very effective fraud of offering a rebuttal. Her reason, of course, for not debating Ms. Shrier on the points of Shrier’s thesis is Ms. Myers doesn’t want to give credence to Shrier’s thesis. How convenient.
“… a vulnerable subject to be blamed and bullied.”
Do you want to be on the side of the bullies?
Today’s covid data didn’t show any major jump to me. Cases continue to climb nationally at about 30k/day mainly led by NY, IL, and PA. As has been the case since the beginning results vary greatly on the site used and time of week, etc etc.
Best way, I think, is to stick with one data source which is for me worldometers. Why? Just because that’s what I started with. Changing horses in the middle of the stream will mess things up. The daily numbers are never completely accurate for any site. What is important is data trends and from what I’ve seen the trends over a week or so period are close to the same for most of the sources even if the actual numbers are a bit different. One day changes are really meaningless, which is why it’s important to do two week, or at least ten day, rolling averages to get the big picture of trends.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I was in high school in the early 60s, not the late 60s.
I never had the impression that my high school dealt with troublemakers well. There was a class in the “nonacademic” track in a certain classroom before my class got there, and each day it was pretty clear that previous class had been pandemonium. Chairs overturned and that sort of thing. Seemingly every day.
As far as psychological troubles went, there were no services in the school and little or no attention paid unless a nervous breakdown happened on school grounds. I can only recall one of those, with a girl lying on the bathroom floor and screaming and screaming. I don’t know what happened to her, but she certainly wasn’t violent to anyone.
physicsguy:
How close to useless, would you guesstimate, for the vaxxes to prevent infection/transmission?
As a sweet, summer child (to use a Sarah Hoytism), I figured that between natural immunity and all the vaxxed people, we wouldn’t see much of a winter Covid surge.
Re: Myer’s “rebuttal” to Shrier:
“They sidestep legitimate academic methods and instead cherry-pick anecdotal examples or even outright fabrications.”
I’m wondering what she specifically means by “legitimate academic methods”.
At least she didn’t say “scientific methods”, which could imply experiments on vulnerable children. I wonder if that’s what she meant, however.
As long as they test at these insane levels COVID ‘cases’ will always return in the same seasonal waves to various parts of the country/world.
Stop testing healthy non symptomatic people and this ends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNAOLYL4DP4
Neo is indifferent to Spanky McFarlane.
“They sidestep legitimate academic methods and instead cherry-pick anecdotal examples or even outright fabrications.”
She’s going to instruct Paul McHugh on ‘legitimate academic methods’. Dr. McHugh’s work persuaded the administration at Johns Hopkins to shut down John Money’s clinic there. This was a half generation before she was born.
She’s studied classics and history over the last 11 years. It’s a reasonable wager she doesn’t know squat about observational studies, experimental study, or statistics.
these insane levels COVID ‘cases’
They’re running at about half the level they were last year at this time.
Art,
Way to take me out of context. I said the tests were at ‘insane levels’ and they are for this stage of this entire fiasco.
Huxley and Griifin,
For me, once the alpha was gone I see no reason for vaxes as they really haven’t been updated for the delta and other variants. To me that’s why we’re seeing so many breakthroughs.
And I agree with Griffin about testing asymptomatic people. Where my SiL works (Trinity College Hartford) everyone gets tested once per week. And of course, especially now, they find positives for people who are even close to sick. Unless someone presents symptoms to a doctor, no reason to test at all.
Amen, Griffin. Make everyone get tested for rhinovirus or influenza whenever they sneeze or come in contact with someone else who has tested positive, and we’d see the same thing this time of year.
Aaaacchhhh!! Art Deco! What in the name of all that is holy was that?! Whatever ridiculous salary Ed Sullivan was paid, it wasn’t enough to have to sit through that!
The hair, the hats, the outfits! And the part where the drummer sings falsetto, “Baby, you and me.” “‘Neath the shady tree.” Ouch. He reminds me of John Candy in this SCTV parody of punk: https://youtu.be/DJU5x67Sz1o I wonder if that’s where John got his inspiration?
And, except for the drummer and one of the guitarists no one appears to be playing the actual instruments on the recording.
Well, we lost another:
RIP Michael Nesmith
December 10, 2021 (aged 78)
He didn’t ascend to the heights of the Beatles or Stones, but I loved the Monkees as a kid and even these days I still play them occasionally. They had some great hits and their show was far better than might be expected for copycat Beatles.
Here’s a song Nesmith wrote before the Monkees, but didn’t perform. It was an early hit for Linda Ronstadt and most people don’t know it was his:
_______________________________
So, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I knock it
It’s just that I am not in the market
For a boy who wants to love only me
Yes, and I ain’t sayin’ you ain’t pretty
All I’m saying’s I’m not ready for any person
Place or thing to try and pull the reins in on me
–Stone Poneys (Linda Ronstadt), “Different Drum”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9qsDgA1q8Y
_______________________________
Odd sidelight: Nesmith’s mother invented Liquid Paper and built a corporation around the product.
More Spanky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SWDVkvPy4I&list=RDMM&start_radio=1&rv=qNAOLYL4DP4
huxley,
Sorry to hear that. Nesmith always seemed like a stand up guy, and he was a great talent. Have you ever seen, “Elephant Parts?” I think Nesmith wrote all or most of it. He stars in much of it. It’s a lot of fun. And, if I remember correctly, it was one of the catalysts for MtV.
If you are a Nesmith fan I can’t imagine you would not enjoy the movie.
This bit of his from the film on gasoline prices will seem very topical. 40 years ago!
https://youtu.be/TsxlfgHkF38
Rufus T. Firefly:
I’m not sure I saw “Elephant Parts.” Sadly, it’s unavailable now other than some excerpts on YouTube. I suppose that will change.
Nesmith was a genuine talent, well beyond the Monkee in the knit cap.
neo,
I think I understand your point now; High School students in your generation simply would not have shot up their school. That may very well be. The statistics certainly bear that out.
When I went to school in the late ’70s things were different. I can easily imagine a school shooting happening at my campus. As I wrote, I just don’t think anyone had thought of it. Most of the gang violence was knives, chains, baseball bats… but I know kids who had access to guns. And, fortunately, most of the kids who displayed nascent signs of violence were pulled from the mainstream.
@TR:
If the PRC started a mutual defence treaty organisation and Lobbied Mexico and Canada to join it, what would your reaction be?
The USA has zero business getting involved in states bordering Russia, let alone fomenting colour revolutions in the Ukraine.
Have a look at a globe. Notice something? What divine providence, what radiance from the collective posteriors of your Founding Fathers gives you a say in whatever the @#$% happens on the Dniester?
It is insane, treacherous (understandings were reached with post-Soviet Russia when she was withdrawing troops about respecting buffer states and not expanding NATO up to her her borders), and typical of what the USA foreign policy and military-industrial cabals get up to. Incapable of pursuing a sane and predictable foreign policy. No… you didn’t vote for Victoria Nuland and her buddies. And none you can do about any of it… Sorry… ‘Citizen’ (cue hilarity). Except not to be their dupe.
When I was in middle school in the early 1980s there was a kid a year ahead of me that was trying to build some sort of bomb in his garage and something went wrong and he suffered burns over his hands and arms and upper body and he eventually came back to school the next year and I have no recollection of any talk about what he was planning to do with the bomb or anything and he was sort of an outcast like many of these kids seem to be.
Can only imagine what the reaction to that would be today so I wonder if there was some level of incidents that were never made known to the wider community back then.
I point this out to friends and family who always say how things are so much worse now than in our youth.
My response is usually ‘maybe’ but are you sure or just warped by Facebook.
Zaphod:
Finished 3BP. I’ve got “The Dark Forest” cued up.
I thought the proton supercomputers were brilliant. I don’t believe intelligent life could evolve on a planet with three suns, but Liu handled the what-if well.
Then there’s the message that compared to a three-sunned world, Earth is a paradise and we get to live on it. Reminds me of a favorite Lew Welch poem:
________________________________
Notes From A Pioneer On A Speck In Space
Few things that grow here poison us.
Most of the animals are small.
Those big enough to kill us do it in a way
Easy to understand, easy to defend against.
The air, here, is just what the blood needs.
We don’t use helmets or special suits.
The Star, here, doesn’t burn you if you
Stay outside as much as you should.
The worst of our winters is bearable.
Water, both salt and sweet, is everywhere.
The things that live in it are easily gathered.
Mostly, you can eat them raw with safety and pleasure.
Yesterday my wife and I brought back
Shells, driftwood, stones, and other curiosities
Found on the beach of the immense
Fresh-water sea we live by.
She was all excited by a slender white stone which:
“Exactly fits the hand!”
I couldn’t share her wonder:
Here, almost everything does.
–Lew Welch
@Huxley:
You’ll like the next one, I’m sure. When you get to the Great Ravine in the Dark Forest, see if it rings a bell.
I like that poem.
Still:
“Here, almost everything does.”
I’m somewhat inclined to retort, “Well no shit, Sherlock!” 🙂
Art Deco, “ Shrier, an ideologue who gained notoriety for a book which, among many things, argues against providing gender-affirming care (primarily puberty blockers) to transgender children.”
My older son is still friends with a woman he met in elementary school. When she was young she only played with the boys and refused to play with the other girls. Then, one day, the hormones kicked in and she became a girl. Many years later she’s a woman in all ways. She was a classic tomboy, who in todays world be drugged and mutilated to satisfy the bizarre ideology of the left.
@zaphod
I really don’t know what you’re trying to say,
but I’ll defend your right to say it, the best that I can.
If you do not support my position(s), then let’s please, politely, agree to disagree [about them].
Later on.
@TR:
It’s pretty simple.
It’s not 1985.
YOUR Government is the Evil Empire now. Red or Blue, doesn’t matter. Orange Buffoon re-elected, doesn’t matter… The machine does what it wants.
Don’t take it personally. It’s not you. It’s them. You can still love the flag and get all misty eyed. That’s natural. But it’s not what we’re talking about here.
So don’t be suckered into foreign wars. Ask yourself why your RULERS (deliberate choice of words) are more interested in ‘defending’ Ukraine and Taiwan than in defending your borders from Illegal Immigrants or defending you from your dusky compatriots and AntiFa.
It’s worth firing up the grey matter before regurgitating your un-elected unaccountable masters’ talking points.
Capisce?
@zaphod
I find your tone needlessly aggressive.
There’s not need for that.
Best of luck.
Cheers.
@TR:
Admittedly my tone could have been gentler. Sorry about that. But this topic infuriates me. Anyway I apologise for any offence. Please however, Consider.
TR:
Not just “needlessly aggressive,” although it is that.
It’s also archly, snidely, arrogantly, and groundlessly know-it-all and dripping in a superior knowledge that the writer professes to have but utterly lacks.
That annoys ME, and so I am sometimes uncharacteristically insulting to Zaphod. But he can handle it.
Zaphod does have certain fields of semi-expertise, and is often an entertaining fellow. But an expert on the US he is not, as has been demonstrated quite amply before.
@Zaphod
Not a problem. 🙂
For what it’s worth- I pretty “peeved off” at a number of butthead relatives, as well as being peeved off at some real, butthead drivers, who like to zap me with their highbeam-headlights,…when I decided to write about this immense subject, today. That’s not the brightest move, by me.
Annoying relatives…Iet me tell ya. 🙂
Glad that everything is cool,
Cheers, TR.
Anyway I’m back more obnoxious than ever with a modest proposal that y’all go steal the Chinese IP and build yerselves an unhackable Quantum Satellite or three before starting wars in Asia or the not-so-soft-underbelly of Mother Russia.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3159234/china-uses-quantum-satellite-protect-worlds-largest-power-grid
Problem is… You’ll need a 20 year Sputnik Program to train up the Black Trannies to develop it.
Haw Haw Haw 😛
Apparently the Chinese were 3 minutes away from shutting down the Queensland power grid when a clued up tech pulled the plug recently. Could be true could be lies.
Half a mind to rename myself Lord Haw Haw here… but I think I’ve kind of grown attached to Zaphod, alas.
@TR: We’re cool. I fully understand the frustration-displacing urge to smite foreigners instead of the local miscreants when the going gets tough locally. Just we probably have different foreigners in mind 🙂 In both cases, it’s a temptation worth resisting.
@Neo:
If I ever spot you in the audience when I’m doing standup in the Catskills, just you watch out!
https://asiatimes.com/2021/12/taiwan-chipmakers-hint-at-decoupling-from-the-us/
Not going to comment at length here except to suggest that those interested in strategic tech read this.
All I want to say is that when you @#$% with shit then the shit @#$%s back. Your allies are not always your allies and their interests are not always your interests and sometimes it would make a lot more sense to just figure out how to do it all yourself and leave off poking around in other people’s backyards… or just chill and be happy.
Everything is subject to law of unintended consequences.
How far up does Xi’s hand go? His shill is pretty responsive.
“Your allies” indeed.
Even the dim bulbs here know that nations have interests.
Xi approves.