Sorry, but her voice is like fingernails on chalkboard for me.
Another shooting at a college campus. Another White Racist Supremist using an AR. NO NO, wait, it was a 42 yr old Black Man using a Handgun. But he is being portrayed as a “Religious” nut. It is a terrible shame that it happened, you should feel safe everywhere but I know that isn’t the case. Calling for more gun control isn’t the answer either. More and better mental health work might help though.
I just do not know the answer, I don’t think anyone has a good answer.
I carry a “camera” with me.
Re: Nina Simone
Her voice is rather buried under the piano and guitar. I wouldn’t have guessed this was Simone. Also surprised by how “Spanish guitar” it sounded rather than the more usual jazz or R&B I associate with her.
I’ve withdrawn from UNM.
The trigger was spending 20 hours on last week’s homework, then losing 80% of my grade because after scanning in all the pages of my homework, collecting them into a PDF and uploading it to the class web server (Covid rules are still in force in this respect), I failed to click the SUBMIT button and didn’t notice until two days later
Oh, for the days when you could just staple your homework pages together and hand them in!
But that wasn’t the real issue. I could have soldiered on and passed the course. However, it made me question, why am I doing this? Why am I jumping through all these crazy, unpleasant hoops?
The idea was I could get my degree and in the process, learn stuff and spend time with intelligent people for social and networking opportunities.
Those opportunities never presented themselves. Everyone — teachers, students and me — is too busy, heads-down, trying to manage the next pedestrian task in the face of all the bureaucratic, woke, covid crap coming at us.
The juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Whatever I want to learn, I can learn on my own, more easily, faster, and with far less aggravation.
Also surprised by how “Spanish guitar” it sounded rather than the more usual jazz or R&B I associate with her. — huxley
Yes, her voice is not recorded well in that video. It sounded like a jazzed up version of Bach or at least baroque music mixed in, to me. Simone was a classically trained pianist in her youth.
Very sorry to hear that.
Seems to me you probably could teach something at UNM, for that matter, cross-cultural, music, or computer-related…call the course “Siddhartha is Not Just a Book”
Well, good luck on the French…
Huxley, it sounds like a good decision considering your objectives and the sad reality. But you did learn something about our present day circumstances and have shared it with us as well. Right now our intended “limited government” is dead in regard to nearly every realm of life. The structured pyramid has been turned upside down and the bureaucracy is crushing every institution it touches. The family will be the final domain and the intentions regarding it are well underway.
St. John’s College is just up the road in Sante Fe. There’s a good chance both learning and learning fellowship can be found there, without the ancillary mickeymouse business.
After Neo’s post on the decline of the Met last night, I saw a thread over at Althouse’s blog– concerning an arts-related incident in Germany in which an enraged ballet director/choreographer confronted a newspaper critic who had panned his new ballet– and smeared her face with dog poop.
Here’s the NY Post‘s account of the fracas: A German ballet director has been suspended for smearing dog feces all over the face of a newspaper critic who had written a scathing review of his recent production. . . . Marco Goecke, the ballet director and head choreographer of the Hannover State Opera, confronted Wiebke Hüster, the dance critic for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper . . . . Goecke threatened to ban her from the Hannover opera house and accused her of being responsible for people canceling season tickets. He then produced a paper bag filled with animal feces and smeared her face . . . . Goecke was apparently upset about Hüster’s unflattering review of his new ballet “In the Dutch Mountains,” which was published in the FAZ on the day of the premiere in Hannover. Hüster wrote that watching the show, which recently opened at Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague, was like being “alternately driven mad and killed by boredom.”
Goecke has been suspended from his position with the opera house, and it would not surprise me if the Hannover Polizei pay him a courtesy call as well. Any of Neo’s readers who wants to see a rehearsal snippet of “In the Dutch Mountains” can view it on the Nederlands Dans Theater YouTube channel:
The clip is only a minute long, but it may be the longest minute of your day. I have no idea what Neo might make of Goecke’s “work”– it’s enough to say that Balanchine, he ain’t.
(Sung to the tune of: Yellow Submarine, by The Beatles):
In a townnn, were things were rad,
The Bidens had millions, and all else were sad!
And Joe lives…a life of glee!
In our BAAAD ECONOMY!
WE all live in a bad economy!,
A BAD ECONOMY!,
a BAD ECONOMY!
WE ALL LIVE in a……
RedState has a post up highlighting a progressive group that has tweeted an attack against Ron DeSantis accusing him of wearing cowboy boots in order to look taller.
Trump to re-tweet and begin using that attack in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
Seriously, now progressive groups are trolling Republicans by digging up troll fodder for Trump.
Huxley, from your postings here, you’re definitely learning a lot outside of class, and you’re strongly motivated to keep learning. In this case, where a degree isn’t going to be a ticket to a job offer (was it?), you’ll learn more and better on your own. I hope you find those intelligent people to talk to outside of the university.
Bauxite, that bit about boots is ridiculous. My husband, 6’3″, wears cowboy boots because he likes them. At 5’11”, DeSantis has no need for elevator shoes. According to some Twitter gossip, Trump is calling DeSantis “meatball” in private conversations, because Ron’s waistline is larger than it used to be. Trump will want to be careful about that one, since his own waist is much too large these days, as can be seen in golf course photos.
Followed link to youtube. Nothing but positive comments.
Anyway, sidebar suggested Bangles “Walk Like an Egyptian”. Years ago after watching that video a few times, grade school daughter says: “Glad I am not Egyptian, it’s real hard to walk like that!”
Naturally, that observation is recalled at all family gatherings.
Well, good luck on the French…
Barry Meislin:
Exactly! More time for French. I’m so excited about that. Don’t know why.
Thanks for the thought.
Huxley, it sounds like a good decision considering your objectives and the sad reality. But you did learn something about our present day circumstances and have shared it with us as well. Right now our intended “limited government” is dead in regard to nearly every realm of life. The structured pyramid has been turned upside down and the bureaucracy is crushing every institution it touches.
Sharon W:
I was surprised how different today’s college experience is from mine in the 70s. It seems entirely oppressive and joyless. I had hoped in part to present my account from the trenches here to flesh out the discussions .
The day I made my decision I spoke to a professor I know at the cafe. He made no reproach. University is not for everybody, he said, and some of the best people he knew couldn’t do it either.
He also said university education is “industrialized.”
That’s the thing. It’s the factory-farming of high school students into a credentialized product. It’s not about education. It’s about surviving a peculiar selection process. Woke has only made that worse, much worse.
With pitchers and catchers due to report tomorrow or the day after (depending on your team), here’s something just for huxley: a French translation of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”: “Emmene-Moi Au Match de Baseball”:
Emmene-moi au match de baseball
Emmene-moi dans la foule
Achete-moi des cacahuètes et Cracker Jack
Ça doit m’être égal si je ne rentre jamais
Tiens-moi, chante, chante, chante bien pour notre équipe
S’ils ne remportent pas, c’est dommage
Ça fait un, deux, trois prises sors-toi
Au grand match de baseball
St. John’s College is just up the road in Sante Fe.
sdferr:
Good old St. John’s! My stepmother worked there until she managed to snag a future mayor of Santa Fe.
As a teen I was enchanted by the Great Books and I thought of St. John’s, but chose instead an experimental college, New College in Florida, now part of the U Florida system.
Strangely New College is currently in the news because De Santis is attempting to turn New College into a classics-based school like Hillsdale … or St. John’s.
So St. John’s is a reasonable recommendation. But the other part of my enlightenment from UNM is that I’m long past sitting in a classroom with twenty year-olds as my peers.
The French may yet come to appreciate the American pastime more fully: France 24 published a web article asking the question “Is French baseball finally coming of age?”
sdferr: How many of the Canadian players are Québécois? There’s more than one way for the frogs to sneak into the WBC.
Huxley, from your postings here, you’re definitely learning a lot outside of class, and you’re strongly motivated to keep learning. In this case, where a degree isn’t going to be a ticket to a job offer (was it?), you’ll learn more and better on your own. I hope you find those intelligent people to talk to outside of the university.
Kate:
Exactly.
I admit I harbored an outside hope that when I reached the upper levels of Computer Science at UNM or graduated, I would find a Second Act in my programming career.
(That’s not entirely out of the question. There are plenty of Open Source projects out there I could put my shoulder to and might lead to work.)
The other enlightenment from UNM was how poor a university education is for proper learning — if one cares about actually remembering anything a year or two later.
I remember almost nothing from my UNM courses except for how unpleasant the process was.
As for talking to intelligent people — that’s a big reason I’m here!
Hmm. Good question.
Someone might want to ask Le Grand Orange…
– – – – – – – – – –
Regarding the song, well, yes, the recording was sub-par but the unusual “cross-over” music—with a sub-text of that absurd, contrived, perjorative term of “cultural appropriation”?—piano playing and singing were fabulous (to this listener’s ears)…
Fascinating stuff.
Thanks!
There are a few, it appears to me. Frenchmen however, I’m told, may deny those FrenchCanadians speak any French at all (ha!).
sdferr–
There are at least six suspiciously Gallic names on the Canadian roster. Russell Martin (now a coach) made history in 2006 when he and Éric Gagné (who didn’t speak English until he went to college in Oklahoma) became the first French Canadian battery in the majors. They both graduated from the same Montreal high school, Polyvalente Édouard-Montpetit. I remember that when Martin played for the Pirates, the Pittsburgh announcers regularly pronounced his name with a French accent; the Yinzers loved it.
You’re right about the Parisian disdain for French as she is spoke in Québec.
…and the quebecois would say that THEIR French is more authentic, as it was not “corrupted” by the French Revolution and later phonetic changes.
(Quebec was conquered by the British in 1759/60…a tragic day for New France and its people…)
Here’s hoping any future properly French baseball team adopts Pantagruel as their mascot-representative. Fingers crossed.
Better a character from Rabelais than a WEF stooge like Macron.
An article with good news. As the saying goes read the whole thing
“ The school-choice movement, riding a wave of parental rights campaigns, is resurgent.
For years, school-choice advocates toted up small victories in their drive to give parents taxpayer money to pay for private school. Now, Republican-led states across the country are leaving the limitations of the past behind them as they consider sweeping new voucher laws that would let every family use public funds to pay for private school.”
There are some setbacks like the stolen election in Arizona but even there the Republican majority in both chambers of the legislature may limit some of the damage that the imposter Hobbs will be able to do.
From the article:
“In January, Iowa and Utah followed suit, creating their own universal programs. GOP governors in Arkansas, South Carolina, Virginia and Oklahoma have listed these programs among their top priorities for 2023. In other states, Republican lawmakers are pushing the same.“
I seem to recall scenes from books and movies where the bored French sophisticate would mutter, “Tant pis,” then lean back and take an elegant drag from a cigarette.
Recently I looked it up and discovered it is like the Mafia “Fuggedaboutit.” “Tant pis” means everything from “oh, well” to “eff off.”
I also looked up “Tant de belle choses,” a Francoise Hardy song title. There it means something wonderful — “So many beautiful things.”
As I make it, the singer has dumped the guy, but she still loves him, she still assures him he will always have a place in her life, and he still has so much to live for because … “tant de belle choses.”
huxley, I have a neighbor, mid-30s, who was frustrated and unhappy as a young lawyer, doing grunt work, mostly destructive, in a law office. He quit, took a digital bootcamp course at UNC, and is now doing contract programming work in the evenings, while taking care of his small children during the day (wife is a pharmacy manager). It’s my understanding that many companies are no longer requiring degrees, just competence in work.
Kate:
Good for your neighbor!
I understand that some companies are no longer requiring degrees. I did pretty well without one in the past.
At UNM I wanted to learn the more cutting-edge AI stuff and show I had kept up with the latest developments. I thought a current UNM CS degree might be an entree for work in AI.
Programmers of my age and background tend to migrate to embedded programming for digital devices using older CPUs and minimal operating systems. The younger programmers have little experience of that.
Hey, I hear the IRS is having trouble finding anyone who can work with some of their systems which date approximately from the dinosaurs.
Huxley: sorry about UNM. Not that you left, but that it didn’t offer the kind of intellectual community and engagement you were looking for. I’m afraid that’s typical of higher ed these days, except for colleges like St. John’s, Hillsdale, and the still-nascent University of Austin. Which is hiring, by the way:
I’m sure they could use some good IT folks. So could the FOLIO Project, an international open-source library platform project with development teams in the U.S., U.K., Europe, and China:
Based in Denmark and Boston, but you can work wherever. I know a few of them–interesting people. One of their senior developers is also a concert pianist:
As George Smiley’s Oxford tutor told him: Give these people [in that case, the British Secret Intelligence Service] a try, you might like them. And you’re more likely to have the kind of conversation you’re looking for with them than at Big Woke U.
Hubert:
Good to hear from you! I intend to look around at current open source projects for a fit. So I’ll put your suggestions on the list.
Though it never happens on campus, I do have conversations with three UNM professors and a graduate student/TA at my cafe, which I’ve enjoyed. It is a somewhat relaxed atmosphere and we interact as equals.
I hadn’t seen the German title to “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” before. Such sublime music.
@ huxley > “trying to manage the next pedestrian task in the face of all the bureaucratic, woke, covid crap coming at us.”
@ sdferr > “without the ancillary mickeymouse business.”
Disney has been giving new life to the old idiom.
Sorry things didn’t work out huxley, but we enjoyed your reports from the front lines.
Hugely important article by “A Midwestern Doctor” (re-posted by Dr. Mercola) on Covid-19, analyzing step-by-step and in great detail and precision the “apologies” (or “pseudo-apologies”) being made for official Covid policies over the past two-and-a-half years, while offering historical background (quotes and videos) to comment on what he perceives to be the evolving admissions of guilt, noting on the other hand that these same admissions of guilt, their phrasing and their obfuscations, are ALSO intended to MITIGATE or whitewash that same criminal responsibility by the powers that be.
I would categorize this as ESSENTIAL reading.
“Reviewing the Most Recent “Apology” for the COVID-19 Response”— https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2023/02/15/recent-apology-covid-response.aspx
Opening grafs (RTWT):
“The catastrophic effects of the COVID-19 vaccines that were forcefully mandated onto the population are causing the general public to lose its trust in the medical establishment and the vaccine industry.
“A variety of limited apologies are being made to regain that trust without fixing the underlying issues that led to the disastrous COVID-19 policies being forced upon the population.
“The recent pseudo-apology in Newsweek has received widespread media exposure and highlights many of the catastrophic mistakes made throughout the pandemic that the medical industry is now trying to pivot away from. Those mistakes must not be forgotten and some will be reviewed here….”
BTW, should mention that the second link, above, especially the first interview with Kevin Bass, is a CLASSIC example of “CHANGER” (no matter what one thinks of the nature of his apology).
See, too, the interview with Tucker Carlson, further down in that same link.
Kevin Bass is a very, very courageous person.
This is astounding…
“Biden” frames half of America while entrapping Jan.6 protesters and illegally abusing many of them by depriving them of the Constitutional rights, locking them up without “habeas corpus” under execrable conditions and driving some of them to suicide:
BUT “Biden” (with McCarthy’s acquiescence—huh??) fires this guy???
“Biden Fires Capitol Architect After Inspection Revealed Abuses”— https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-fires-capitol-architect-after-inspection-revealed-abuses
Opening graf:
“President Joe Biden has removed Capitol architect Brett Blanton from his post in the aftermath of an inspection which revealed Blanton had abused his position….”
You wanna know several other people who’ve been “abusing their positions” in DC?
Many more than several, actually.
And MUCH MORE than merely “abusing”.
And in “Secure Southern Border” news, just another “Biden” “surprise”:
“Officials say Biden manipulating border stats, blinding agents to fleeing aliens;
“Former acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf says border agents being restrained from using surveillance balloons to track illegal migrants.”— https://justthenews.com/government/security/ex-homeland-chief-says-biden-manipulating-border-stats-blinding-agents-fleeing
Opening graf:
“Current and former U.S. officials are warning that the Biden administration has begun manipulating border statistics, incentivizing illegal aliens to shift from illegally crossing the southern border to seeking parole and asylum at ports of entry while blinding border agents by restricting their use of surveillance balloons….”
“Manipulating border statistics”?
Gosh, who would ever have suspected that…?
(Next step is to give ’em all the right to vote…I mean it would be inhumane not to, right? …And totally counter to the American Dream!…The only problem here being that for the Democrats, the “American Dream” is a country transformed into unrecognizability, disfunction and deep despair. Heck, let’s just call it by its name: a country destroyed.)
File under: Manipulation ‘splainin’…
Remember the white house travel office in hillarys term rinse and repeat
And now it’s the FTC:
“I’m leaving the FTC — and Biden’s radical chair is why”— https://hotair.com/headlines/2023/02/14/im-leaving-the-ftc-and-bidens-radical-chair-is-why-n530774
H/T Instapundit.
Opening graf:
“Under President Biden, FTC leadership has abused the merger review process to impose a tax on all mergers, not only those that hinder competition. Progressives tried but failed to enact a legislative moratorium on mergers in early 2020 and to pass other restrictions since. Ms. Khan now does so by fiat. Abuse of regulatory authority now substitutes for unfulfilled legislative desires….”
“Use it and abuse it” seems to be “Biden”‘s credo….
Not sure it’s much of a surprise, actually, as she was pushing the envelope pretty hard…
HOLD ON! How can “not much of a surprise” be a “veritable bombshell”??
(Kinda reminds me of the last time I tried beluga—a definite “What’s all the excitement about” moment it was…but I guess there’s no arguing about taste…)
(Sigh) Hersh revisited:
“The Seymour Hersh situation gives such an interesting insight into confirmation bias.”
Sturgeon was catching a lot of flak for allowing biological males into women’s prisons and other formerly protected spaces– the uproar was a major factor in her decision to resign. Details about the Adam Graham case and recent Scottish legislation about gender identity here: https://quillette.com/2023/02/06/scotlands-gender-meltdown/
Indeed, a true “Go woke, go belly up” moment.
And it is truly extraordinary.
“I do not want this to happen, I will be terribly upset if it does; BUT I WILL DEFEND to my last breath enabling women convicts to be raped!”
Well good for her! Hoist by her own Narrative…
(Though I guess she may have thought she was hearting Voltaire…)
In any event, a victory for decency. A victory for Scotland and the vast majority of its people.
(Time to celebrate with some haggis and oatmeal, I guess. Oh, and some Laphroaig…or a smokey equivalent)…
As a guest on gutfeld notedc goecke chose the worst option,
Sorry, but her voice is like fingernails on chalkboard for me.
Another shooting at a college campus. Another White Racist Supremist using an AR. NO NO, wait, it was a 42 yr old Black Man using a Handgun. But he is being portrayed as a “Religious” nut. It is a terrible shame that it happened, you should feel safe everywhere but I know that isn’t the case. Calling for more gun control isn’t the answer either. More and better mental health work might help though.
I just do not know the answer, I don’t think anyone has a good answer.
I carry a “camera” with me.
Re: Nina Simone
Her voice is rather buried under the piano and guitar. I wouldn’t have guessed this was Simone. Also surprised by how “Spanish guitar” it sounded rather than the more usual jazz or R&B I associate with her.
I’ve withdrawn from UNM.
The trigger was spending 20 hours on last week’s homework, then losing 80% of my grade because after scanning in all the pages of my homework, collecting them into a PDF and uploading it to the class web server (Covid rules are still in force in this respect), I failed to click the SUBMIT button and didn’t notice until two days later
Oh, for the days when you could just staple your homework pages together and hand them in!
But that wasn’t the real issue. I could have soldiered on and passed the course. However, it made me question, why am I doing this? Why am I jumping through all these crazy, unpleasant hoops?
The idea was I could get my degree and in the process, learn stuff and spend time with intelligent people for social and networking opportunities.
Those opportunities never presented themselves. Everyone — teachers, students and me — is too busy, heads-down, trying to manage the next pedestrian task in the face of all the bureaucratic, woke, covid crap coming at us.
The juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Whatever I want to learn, I can learn on my own, more easily, faster, and with far less aggravation.
Also surprised by how “Spanish guitar” it sounded rather than the more usual jazz or R&B I associate with her. — huxley
Yes, her voice is not recorded well in that video. It sounded like a jazzed up version of Bach or at least baroque music mixed in, to me. Simone was a classically trained pianist in her youth.
Very sorry to hear that.
Seems to me you probably could teach something at UNM, for that matter, cross-cultural, music, or computer-related…call the course “Siddhartha is Not Just a Book”
Well, good luck on the French…
Huxley, it sounds like a good decision considering your objectives and the sad reality. But you did learn something about our present day circumstances and have shared it with us as well. Right now our intended “limited government” is dead in regard to nearly every realm of life. The structured pyramid has been turned upside down and the bureaucracy is crushing every institution it touches. The family will be the final domain and the intentions regarding it are well underway.
St. John’s College is just up the road in Sante Fe. There’s a good chance both learning and learning fellowship can be found there, without the ancillary mickeymouse business.
After Neo’s post on the decline of the Met last night, I saw a thread over at Althouse’s blog– concerning an arts-related incident in Germany in which an enraged ballet director/choreographer confronted a newspaper critic who had panned his new ballet– and smeared her face with dog poop.
Here’s the NY Post‘s account of the fracas: A German ballet director has been suspended for smearing dog feces all over the face of a newspaper critic who had written a scathing review of his recent production. . . . Marco Goecke, the ballet director and head choreographer of the Hannover State Opera, confronted Wiebke Hüster, the dance critic for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper . . . . Goecke threatened to ban her from the Hannover opera house and accused her of being responsible for people canceling season tickets. He then produced a paper bag filled with animal feces and smeared her face . . . . Goecke was apparently upset about Hüster’s unflattering review of his new ballet “In the Dutch Mountains,” which was published in the FAZ on the day of the premiere in Hannover. Hüster wrote that watching the show, which recently opened at Nederlands Dans Theater in The Hague, was like being “alternately driven mad and killed by boredom.”
https://nypost.com/2023/02/13/ballet-director-marco-goecke-smears-dog-poop-on-critic/
Goecke has been suspended from his position with the opera house, and it would not surprise me if the Hannover Polizei pay him a courtesy call as well. Any of Neo’s readers who wants to see a rehearsal snippet of “In the Dutch Mountains” can view it on the Nederlands Dans Theater YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfuRviZJKS4&ab_channel=NederlandsDansTheater%28NDT%29
The clip is only a minute long, but it may be the longest minute of your day. I have no idea what Neo might make of Goecke’s “work”– it’s enough to say that Balanchine, he ain’t.
(Sung to the tune of: Yellow Submarine, by The Beatles):
In a townnn, were things were rad,
The Bidens had millions, and all else were sad!
And Joe lives…a life of glee!
In our BAAAD ECONOMY!
WE all live in a bad economy!,
A BAD ECONOMY!,
a BAD ECONOMY!
WE ALL LIVE in a……
RedState has a post up highlighting a progressive group that has tweeted an attack against Ron DeSantis accusing him of wearing cowboy boots in order to look taller.
https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2023/02/14/peak-stupid-is-reached-in-latest-democrat-attack-on-ron-desantis-n703483
Trump to re-tweet and begin using that attack in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
Seriously, now progressive groups are trolling Republicans by digging up troll fodder for Trump.
Huxley, from your postings here, you’re definitely learning a lot outside of class, and you’re strongly motivated to keep learning. In this case, where a degree isn’t going to be a ticket to a job offer (was it?), you’ll learn more and better on your own. I hope you find those intelligent people to talk to outside of the university.
Bauxite, that bit about boots is ridiculous. My husband, 6’3″, wears cowboy boots because he likes them. At 5’11”, DeSantis has no need for elevator shoes. According to some Twitter gossip, Trump is calling DeSantis “meatball” in private conversations, because Ron’s waistline is larger than it used to be. Trump will want to be careful about that one, since his own waist is much too large these days, as can be seen in golf course photos.
Followed link to youtube. Nothing but positive comments.
Anyway, sidebar suggested Bangles “Walk Like an Egyptian”. Years ago after watching that video a few times, grade school daughter says: “Glad I am not Egyptian, it’s real hard to walk like that!”
Naturally, that observation is recalled at all family gatherings.
Well, good luck on the French…
Barry Meislin:
Exactly! More time for French. I’m so excited about that. Don’t know why.
Thanks for the thought.
Huxley, it sounds like a good decision considering your objectives and the sad reality. But you did learn something about our present day circumstances and have shared it with us as well. Right now our intended “limited government” is dead in regard to nearly every realm of life. The structured pyramid has been turned upside down and the bureaucracy is crushing every institution it touches.
Sharon W:
I was surprised how different today’s college experience is from mine in the 70s. It seems entirely oppressive and joyless. I had hoped in part to present my account from the trenches here to flesh out the discussions .
The day I made my decision I spoke to a professor I know at the cafe. He made no reproach. University is not for everybody, he said, and some of the best people he knew couldn’t do it either.
He also said university education is “industrialized.”
That’s the thing. It’s the factory-farming of high school students into a credentialized product. It’s not about education. It’s about surviving a peculiar selection process. Woke has only made that worse, much worse.
With pitchers and catchers due to report tomorrow or the day after (depending on your team), here’s something just for huxley: a French translation of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”: “Emmene-Moi Au Match de Baseball”:
Emmene-moi au match de baseball
Emmene-moi dans la foule
Achete-moi des cacahuètes et Cracker Jack
Ça doit m’être égal si je ne rentre jamais
Tiens-moi, chante, chante, chante bien pour notre équipe
S’ils ne remportent pas, c’est dommage
Ça fait un, deux, trois prises sors-toi
Au grand match de baseball
Full French version (two verses and the chorus) here: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/take-me-out-ball-game-emmene-moi-au-match-de-baseball.html
It loses something in translation.
St. John’s College is just up the road in Sante Fe.
sdferr:
Good old St. John’s! My stepmother worked there until she managed to snag a future mayor of Santa Fe.
As a teen I was enchanted by the Great Books and I thought of St. John’s, but chose instead an experimental college, New College in Florida, now part of the U Florida system.
Strangely New College is currently in the news because De Santis is attempting to turn New College into a classics-based school like Hillsdale … or St. John’s.
So St. John’s is a reasonable recommendation. But the other part of my enlightenment from UNM is that I’m long past sitting in a classroom with twenty year-olds as my peers.
Tants pis, no frogs’ team in the WBC: https://www.mlb.com/world-baseball-classic
Kate–
The French may yet come to appreciate the American pastime more fully: France 24 published a web article asking the question “Is French baseball finally coming of age?”
https://webdoc.france24.com/baseball-in-france/
sdferr: How many of the Canadian players are Québécois? There’s more than one way for the frogs to sneak into the WBC.
Huxley, from your postings here, you’re definitely learning a lot outside of class, and you’re strongly motivated to keep learning. In this case, where a degree isn’t going to be a ticket to a job offer (was it?), you’ll learn more and better on your own. I hope you find those intelligent people to talk to outside of the university.
Kate:
Exactly.
I admit I harbored an outside hope that when I reached the upper levels of Computer Science at UNM or graduated, I would find a Second Act in my programming career.
(That’s not entirely out of the question. There are plenty of Open Source projects out there I could put my shoulder to and might lead to work.)
The other enlightenment from UNM was how poor a university education is for proper learning — if one cares about actually remembering anything a year or two later.
I remember almost nothing from my UNM courses except for how unpleasant the process was.
As for talking to intelligent people — that’s a big reason I’m here!
Hmm. Good question.
Someone might want to ask Le Grand Orange…
– – – – – – – – – –
Regarding the song, well, yes, the recording was sub-par but the unusual “cross-over” music—with a sub-text of that absurd, contrived, perjorative term of “cultural appropriation”?—piano playing and singing were fabulous (to this listener’s ears)…
Fascinating stuff.
Thanks!
Search me on the question of quasi-froggy Canucks, PA+Cat, but we can peruse their roster for suspiciously Gallic names: https://www.mlb.com/world-baseball-classic/roster/canada
There are a few, it appears to me. Frenchmen however, I’m told, may deny those FrenchCanadians speak any French at all (ha!).
sdferr–
There are at least six suspiciously Gallic names on the Canadian roster. Russell Martin (now a coach) made history in 2006 when he and Éric Gagné (who didn’t speak English until he went to college in Oklahoma) became the first French Canadian battery in the majors. They both graduated from the same Montreal high school, Polyvalente Édouard-Montpetit. I remember that when Martin played for the Pirates, the Pittsburgh announcers regularly pronounced his name with a French accent; the Yinzers loved it.
You’re right about the Parisian disdain for French as she is spoke in Québec.
…and the quebecois would say that THEIR French is more authentic, as it was not “corrupted” by the French Revolution and later phonetic changes.
(Quebec was conquered by the British in 1759/60…a tragic day for New France and its people…)
Here’s hoping any future properly French baseball team adopts Pantagruel as their mascot-representative. Fingers crossed.
And the latest Balloongate BS hot off the presses…
“White House: Three downed UFOs likely commercial, ‘benign,’ not part of China spy balloon program”—
https://justthenews.com/government/security/white-house-says-3-downed-objects-likely-commercial-benign-sen-kennedy-says
A ringing “BRAVO”…as “Biden” gets ever more creative!
– – – – – – – –
Meanwhile, Feinstein decides she’s rich enough…
“California Democrat Sen. Feinstein announces won’t seek reelection”—
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/feinstein-announces-wont-seek-reelection
sdferr–
Better a character from Rabelais than a WEF stooge like Macron.
An article with good news. As the saying goes read the whole thing
“ The school-choice movement, riding a wave of parental rights campaigns, is resurgent.
For years, school-choice advocates toted up small victories in their drive to give parents taxpayer money to pay for private school. Now, Republican-led states across the country are leaving the limitations of the past behind them as they consider sweeping new voucher laws that would let every family use public funds to pay for private school.”
There are some setbacks like the stolen election in Arizona but even there the Republican majority in both chambers of the legislature may limit some of the damage that the imposter Hobbs will be able to do.
From the article:
“In January, Iowa and Utah followed suit, creating their own universal programs. GOP governors in Arkansas, South Carolina, Virginia and Oklahoma have listed these programs among their top priorities for 2023. In other states, Republican lawmakers are pushing the same.“
https://jewishworldreview.com/0223/school_choice_resurgent.php3
Tant pis –sdferr
I seem to recall scenes from books and movies where the bored French sophisticate would mutter, “Tant pis,” then lean back and take an elegant drag from a cigarette.
Recently I looked it up and discovered it is like the Mafia “Fuggedaboutit.” “Tant pis” means everything from “oh, well” to “eff off.”
I also looked up “Tant de belle choses,” a Francoise Hardy song title. There it means something wonderful — “So many beautiful things.”
As I make it, the singer has dumped the guy, but she still loves him, she still assures him he will always have a place in her life, and he still has so much to live for because … “tant de belle choses.”
The French kill me.
–“Françoise Hardy – Tant de Belles Choses”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2Ts8Ix1gqA
huxley, I have a neighbor, mid-30s, who was frustrated and unhappy as a young lawyer, doing grunt work, mostly destructive, in a law office. He quit, took a digital bootcamp course at UNC, and is now doing contract programming work in the evenings, while taking care of his small children during the day (wife is a pharmacy manager). It’s my understanding that many companies are no longer requiring degrees, just competence in work.
Kate:
Good for your neighbor!
I understand that some companies are no longer requiring degrees. I did pretty well without one in the past.
At UNM I wanted to learn the more cutting-edge AI stuff and show I had kept up with the latest developments. I thought a current UNM CS degree might be an entree for work in AI.
Programmers of my age and background tend to migrate to embedded programming for digital devices using older CPUs and minimal operating systems. The younger programmers have little experience of that.
Hey, I hear the IRS is having trouble finding anyone who can work with some of their systems which date approximately from the dinosaurs.
Huxley: sorry about UNM. Not that you left, but that it didn’t offer the kind of intellectual community and engagement you were looking for. I’m afraid that’s typical of higher ed these days, except for colleges like St. John’s, Hillsdale, and the still-nascent University of Austin. Which is hiring, by the way:
https://www.uaustin.org/jobs
I’m sure they could use some good IT folks. So could the FOLIO Project, an international open-source library platform project with development teams in the U.S., U.K., Europe, and China:
https://www.folio.org/
One of the companies supporting FOLIO is Index Data:
https://www.indexdata.com/folio/
Based in Denmark and Boston, but you can work wherever. I know a few of them–interesting people. One of their senior developers is also a concert pianist:
https://www.youtube.com/@raro1810
As George Smiley’s Oxford tutor told him: Give these people [in that case, the British Secret Intelligence Service] a try, you might like them. And you’re more likely to have the kind of conversation you’re looking for with them than at Big Woke U.
Hubert:
Good to hear from you! I intend to look around at current open source projects for a fit. So I’ll put your suggestions on the list.
Though it never happens on campus, I do have conversations with three UNM professors and a graduate student/TA at my cafe, which I’ve enjoyed. It is a somewhat relaxed atmosphere and we interact as equals.
I hadn’t seen the German title to “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” before. Such sublime music.
@ huxley > “trying to manage the next pedestrian task in the face of all the bureaucratic, woke, covid crap coming at us.”
@ sdferr > “without the ancillary mickeymouse business.”
Disney has been giving new life to the old idiom.
Sorry things didn’t work out huxley, but we enjoyed your reports from the front lines.
Hugely important article by “A Midwestern Doctor” (re-posted by Dr. Mercola) on Covid-19, analyzing step-by-step and in great detail and precision the “apologies” (or “pseudo-apologies”) being made for official Covid policies over the past two-and-a-half years, while offering historical background (quotes and videos) to comment on what he perceives to be the evolving admissions of guilt, noting on the other hand that these same admissions of guilt, their phrasing and their obfuscations, are ALSO intended to MITIGATE or whitewash that same criminal responsibility by the powers that be.
I would categorize this as ESSENTIAL reading.
“Reviewing the Most Recent “Apology” for the COVID-19 Response”—
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2023/02/15/recent-apology-covid-response.aspx
Opening grafs (RTWT):
“The catastrophic effects of the COVID-19 vaccines that were forcefully mandated onto the population are causing the general public to lose its trust in the medical establishment and the vaccine industry.
“A variety of limited apologies are being made to regain that trust without fixing the underlying issues that led to the disastrous COVID-19 policies being forced upon the population.
“The recent pseudo-apology in Newsweek has received widespread media exposure and highlights many of the catastrophic mistakes made throughout the pandemic that the medical industry is now trying to pivot away from. Those mistakes must not be forgotten and some will be reviewed here….”
+ Related bonus:
“Amnesty for an Apology? COVID Dictators Looking for Way Out”—
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2023/02/15/amnesty-for-an-apology.aspx
BTW, should mention that the second link, above, especially the first interview with Kevin Bass, is a CLASSIC example of “CHANGER” (no matter what one thinks of the nature of his apology).
See, too, the interview with Tucker Carlson, further down in that same link.
Kevin Bass is a very, very courageous person.
This is astounding…
“Biden” frames half of America while entrapping Jan.6 protesters and illegally abusing many of them by depriving them of the Constitutional rights, locking them up without “habeas corpus” under execrable conditions and driving some of them to suicide:
BUT “Biden” (with McCarthy’s acquiescence—huh??) fires this guy???
“Biden Fires Capitol Architect After Inspection Revealed Abuses”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-fires-capitol-architect-after-inspection-revealed-abuses
Opening graf:
“President Joe Biden has removed Capitol architect Brett Blanton from his post in the aftermath of an inspection which revealed Blanton had abused his position….”
You wanna know several other people who’ve been “abusing their positions” in DC?
Many more than several, actually.
And MUCH MORE than merely “abusing”.
And in “Secure Southern Border” news, just another “Biden” “surprise”:
“Officials say Biden manipulating border stats, blinding agents to fleeing aliens;
“Former acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf says border agents being restrained from using surveillance balloons to track illegal migrants.”—
https://justthenews.com/government/security/ex-homeland-chief-says-biden-manipulating-border-stats-blinding-agents-fleeing
Opening graf:
“Current and former U.S. officials are warning that the Biden administration has begun manipulating border statistics, incentivizing illegal aliens to shift from illegally crossing the southern border to seeking parole and asylum at ports of entry while blinding border agents by restricting their use of surveillance balloons….”
“Manipulating border statistics”?
Gosh, who would ever have suspected that…?
(Next step is to give ’em all the right to vote…I mean it would be inhumane not to, right? …And totally counter to the American Dream!…The only problem here being that for the Democrats, the “American Dream” is a country transformed into unrecognizability, disfunction and deep despair. Heck, let’s just call it by its name: a country destroyed.)
File under: Manipulation ‘splainin’…
Remember the white house travel office in hillarys term rinse and repeat
And now it’s the FTC:
“I’m leaving the FTC — and Biden’s radical chair is why”—
https://hotair.com/headlines/2023/02/14/im-leaving-the-ftc-and-bidens-radical-chair-is-why-n530774
H/T Instapundit.
Opening graf:
“Under President Biden, FTC leadership has abused the merger review process to impose a tax on all mergers, not only those that hinder competition. Progressives tried but failed to enact a legislative moratorium on mergers in early 2020 and to pass other restrictions since. Ms. Khan now does so by fiat. Abuse of regulatory authority now substitutes for unfulfilled legislative desires….”
“Use it and abuse it” seems to be “Biden”‘s credo….
And from “across the pond”(TM) a veritable bombshell:
Sturgeon goes belly up:
“Nicola Sturgeon resigns from leading Scotland as first minister”—
https://justthenews.com/world/europe/nicola-sturgeon-resigns-leading-scotland-first-minister
Not sure it’s much of a surprise, actually, as she was pushing the envelope pretty hard…
HOLD ON! How can “not much of a surprise” be a “veritable bombshell”??
(Kinda reminds me of the last time I tried beluga—a definite “What’s all the excitement about” moment it was…but I guess there’s no arguing about taste…)
(Sigh) Hersh revisited:
“The Seymour Hersh situation gives such an interesting insight into confirmation bias.”
‘“I believe him because of all the details”
All the details turn out to verifiably incorrect.
“The details don’t matter, he is still right!” ‘—
https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1625439959854329856?cxt=HHwWgMC9rYLC3I4tAAAA
H/T Lee Smith twitter feed.
Barry Meislin–
Sturgeon was catching a lot of flak for allowing biological males into women’s prisons and other formerly protected spaces– the uproar was a major factor in her decision to resign. Details about the Adam Graham case and recent Scottish legislation about gender identity here: https://quillette.com/2023/02/06/scotlands-gender-meltdown/
Indeed, a true “Go woke, go belly up” moment.
And it is truly extraordinary.
“I do not want this to happen, I will be terribly upset if it does; BUT I WILL DEFEND to my last breath enabling women convicts to be raped!”
Well good for her! Hoist by her own Narrative…
(Though I guess she may have thought she was hearting Voltaire…)
In any event, a victory for decency. A victory for Scotland and the vast majority of its people.
(Time to celebrate with some haggis and oatmeal, I guess. Oh, and some Laphroaig…or a smokey equivalent)…
As a guest on gutfeld notedc goecke chose the worst option,
Are you sure about that
https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=YpBZr9cTlC0&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fsonar21.com%2F&feature=emb_logo
If only
https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/1625628454409453568?cxt=HHwWgIC-neydso8tAAAA