Sometimes you just know it will be a hit: Stayin’ Alive

The New Neo Posted on by

Instant hit:

…[The Bee Gees’ tech guy Karl Richardson] also has a clear recollection of how he first came to hear ‘Stayin’ Alive’: “I distinctly remember Barry saying ‘Boy, Karl, have I got a song for you,’ and sitting down to play ‘Stayin’ Alive’ on an acoustic guitar. It was like a chant and it was unbelievable. I said ‘Barry, don’t forget that rhythm. That’s a number one record.’ I knew, five bars in, no questions asked. You couldn’t get past the intro without knowing it was a smash.”

I’ve watched a lot of people react to the song on YouTube. Usually within about 5 seconds their faces light up with a big big smile. I played it recently for some jaded forty-somethings who were asking for a song to dance to, and although when I said “Stayin’ Alive, of course” they protested that it was hopelessly cheesy, within those same five seconds of hearing the first few notes they were smiling and laughing and enjoying themselves.

More:

One thing that distinguished the Bee Gees from traditional R&B was their characteristic rhythms. “A lot of that was Barry’s right hand,” Richardson says. “I mean, every one of those records has some form of acoustic guitar with Barry going ching-ching-ching. Whether it’s hidden or not, it’s there, driving the track along.”

The Bee Gees’ father was a professional drummer and bandleader.

Think the song is simple? Think again. Here’s what I consider a fascinating video that breaks it down by separating out the tracks. One of the things it demonstrates very clearly is Barry’s right hand going “ching-ching-ching” to drive the rhythm (as well as Mo’s bass line). It also shows the brothers recording on one mic, which often puzzles analysts who aren’t aware that they did it not “to save space on tracks” (as this reactor speculates) but for the simple reason that it was the way they learned to sing and to “sense” each other. Most groups record their parts on separate tracks and then assemble them, and although the Bee Gees did that for the musical portions they did not do it for the singing. Of course, if one of them made a mistake they had to all start over again. But they were known to be pretty much error-free when they sang. After all, they’d been professional singers as a trio since early childhood.

This is a slightly different version than the one that was released (you can find the more familiar version here), but not all that different. He starts by playing the song, but if you just want to listen to the separate tracks you can skip to 7:40, and I think it really starts getting especially interesting at 13:40 and just keeps building after that.

And by the way, the drum track that sounds simple (labeled “drums left drums right”) is the first drum loop ever created. Their drummer had to go deal with a sick relative, and so they proceeded without him by coming up with the idea of taking a short drum part from another of their songs and looping it.

That was done in 1977, and it wasn’t unusual for Bee Gees’ songs to have that sort of complexity of instrumentation and voices, even quite a while prior to that. And yet their songs often sound simple and inevitable, which I think is part of their genius.

Yep, I wrote “genius.”

Can you be too cynical?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve long been pretty cynical about politics and politicians, and I’ve gotten much more so over the years. Unfortunately, I think that increasing cynicism is justified.

But despite that, I’m not the most cynical person in the world about politics. I’m not even the most cynical person about politics among the commenters on this blog. I try to be cynical in a way that’s justified by events as I see them, but not automatically cynical about everything and everyone in politics, a field about which a great deal of cynicism is, regrettably, justified.

For an example of cynicism, see this comment:

[quoting a question from baltimoron]:how did Sinema end up being THE senator holding up the federal elections bill?

[answer] Same way McCain did for repealing Obamacare, fix was in and someone needs to take the heat for the others, someone who can survive it with their own voters.

To me, “fix was in” usually means something illegal or shady or corrupt. With Sinema, “fix was in” doesn’t necessarily mean that – and I wouldn’t use that phrase. I believe that it may be the case that there are other Democrats in more vulnerable positions in the Senate who agree with Sinema that it’s not a good idea to eliminate the filibuster in an evenly-divided Senate (VP as tiebreaker) in order to pass a bill as divisive and extreme and partisan as HR1, and that they prefer to keep their mouths shut and let Sinema be their mouthpiece. To me, that’s not a “fix,” that’s just normal politics.

However, I think the situation with McCain and the Obamacare “skinny repeal” actually did blindside the Republican leadership (see this on the subject). I followed the proceedings pretty closely at the time, and my evaluation was that McCain’s vote seemed to come as a surprise. Plus McCain was already suffering from the brain cancer which killed him a year later, and I wonder how that affected the whole thing. He was not the only Republican who voted against the bill, either, but he was the surprise because the others were known to be against it (Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski), and he was the deciding vote.

One important distinction between Obamacare and HR1 was that, prior to that vote of McCain’s in the case of the Obamacare “repeal and replace,” the GOP was very much divided on what the solution might be. Over the years, I had read many articles and wrote many posts analyzing the various proposals for health care insurance, and what their pros and cons were. The problem was an inherently difficult one as well as being quite technical, and there were arguments within the party that were real and fact-based.

That is not the case with HR1 for the Republicans. They seem quite united against it, and they know it’s of the utmost importance (even for their own re-election chances).

But a point of view I’ve seen time and again over the years is the idea that it’s all political theater and that no one in politics is sincere when stating his or her supposed principles. No one even has any principles except self-interest, and self-interest often involves money. I agree that there are very prominent aspects of that sort of thing in politics (and always will be, by the way). But I don’t think it’s as completely universal as that, and I have to trust my gut when I evaluate politicians’ sincerity. “Politicians’ sincerity” sounds like an oxymoron, and it very often is. But not all the time.

On the question “how did Sinema end up being THE senator holding up the federal elections bill?” I will add that, if you read her recent speech explaining her refusal to eliminate the filibuster, you’ll see that the principles she’s stating there are the very same principles about which she wrote a book.

A book? Sinema wrote (or perhaps had a ghostwriter write, with her approval) a book?

Sinema is young; she’s 45. She’s only been a senator since January of 2019, but prior to that she was a member of the US House of Representatives (January 2013 – January 2019), the Arizona Senate (January 2011 to January 2012) and a member of the Arizona House of Representatives (January 2005- January 2011). In other words, she’s been a politician almost continually since she was 28 years old.

Sinema’s book was written in June of 2009, so that’s when was still in the Arizona House, which was her first elected position. It’s called Unite and Conquer: How to Build Coalitions That Win#and Last. Reading the description, there is no doubt that Sinema was on the left, and I believe she remains firmly in that camp. However, here’s something to ponder in the book’s description:

Old-school divide-and-conquer tactics—demonizing opponents, frightening voters, refusing to compromise—may make us feel good about the purity of our ideals, but it’s no way to get anything done. Worse, this approach betrays some of the most cherished ideals of the progressive movement: inclusion, reason, justice, and hope. Illuminated by examples from her own work and a host of campaigns across the country, Kyrsten Sinema shows how to forge connections—both personal and political—with seemingly unlikely allies and define our values, interests, and objectives in ways that broaden our range of potential partners and expand our tactical options. With irreverent humor, enthralling campaign stories, and solid, practical advice, Sinema enables us to move past “politics as war” and build support for progressive causes on the foundation of our common humanity.

The cynical among you may say that’s a bunch of horse manure, and her goals are evil leftist goals (the term “progressive” is a smokescreen). But when I read that book description, I see parallels to the gist of her speech on the filibuster. She supports the abominable “progressive” HR1, but does not support ending the filibuster to pass it narrowly. Here are some quotes from the speech, and you’ll see that it matches the book description pretty well:

Consider this: in recent years, nearly every party-line response to the problems we face in this body, every partisan action taken to protect a cherished value, has led us to more division, not less.

The impact is clear for all to see – the steady escalation of tit-for-tat, in which each new majority weakens the guardrails of the Senate and excludes input from the other party, furthering resentment and anger amongst this body and our constituents at home…

…[E]liminating the 60-vote threshold will simply guarantee that we lose a critical tool that we need to safeguard our democracy from threats in the years to come.

It is clear that the two parties’ strategies are not working – not for either side, and especially not for the country…

The past years have shown: when a party in control pushes party-line changes exceeding their electoral mandate, the bitterness within our politics is exacerbated, tensions are raised within the country, and traditionally non-partisan issues are transformed into partisan wedges.

We must address the disease itself – the disease of division – to protect our democracy.

It cannot be achieved by one party alone. It cannot be achieved solely by the federal government…

We must commit to a long-term approach as serious as the problems we seek to solve – one that prioritizes listening and understanding. One that embraces making progress on shared priorities, and finding common ground on issues where we hold differing and diverse views…

This work is our shared responsibility as Americans…

Congress was designed to bring together Americans of diverse views, representing different interests and – as a collective – to find compromise and common ground to serve our country as a whole.

We face serious challenges, and meeting them must start with a willingness to be honest, to listen to one another, to lower the political temperature, and to seek lasting solutions.

That’s a long quote, but I offer it as an indication – along with the book description – that Sinema has been consistent over the years and that she currently means what she says. Sinema herself is dedicated to leftist policies. But despite her leftism, she appears to me at least to be one of the few who sincerely believe that unless the majority agrees, it’s just not worth passing some transformative legislation that will only cause the country to tear itself apart – although the cynic in me thinks she believes that because, without stronger and broader support, the leftist policies that are muscled through won’t have staying power.

Quebec descends deeper and deeper into COVID tyranny

The New Neo Posted on by

No vaccine? Then no booze and no pot, says Quebec’s government.

You think that sounds like the Babylon Bee? Nope, they’re kidding you not:

From now on, liquor and cannabis stores are only accessible to people who are vaccinated against COVID-19.

Health officials say they hope the order will encourage more people to get vaccinated, but Montreal residents seem to be divided over the decision.

“I understand that the government wants to encourage people to get vaccinated, so it’s great if it works and there are fewer people in hospitals,” said Kilian Belisle, a cinema student.

It’s great if it works, says a young “cinema student” who perhaps has never heard a lesson on the perils of “the ends justify the means.”

The article goes on to say that Quebec has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. Eighty-five percent of its residents have received two shots. And yet they’re still having problems with high caseloads in hospitals.

Liberty? What’s that?:

Health Minister Christian Dubé warned that customers will have to display proof of vaccination to enter the government-run Société des Alcools du Québec and Société québécoise du cannabis stores.

“I’m just saying that if you don’t want to get vaccinated, stay home,” he said.

“If unvaccinated people are unhappy about it,” Dubé added, “there’s a very simple solution: getting vaccinated.”

Proof of vaccination is already required in health facilities, theatres, bars, and indoor sport and performance venues.

So unvaccinated people are basically under house arrest, and they can’t even console themselves with liquor and cannabis unless they can get them through mail order or through non-government sources (I don’t know if that’s possible in Canada). The health minister, whom I assume is unelected, warns that more restrictions will be coming. Are internment camps being contemplated?

That’s not all:

Despite some previous restrictions being lifted, others remain in force, with restaurants, bars, and other public places still currently closed, and a curfew in place, running from 10 pm to 5 am each day.

Additionally, the unvaccinated will soon no longer have access to many other non-essential shops and stores of more than 1,500 m2.

A tax imposed on those who refuse the vaccine will also soon be the subject of a bill debated in the National Assembly, as the number of hospital patients could rise from 2,000 to 3,000 by mid-January, overwhelming the hospital system which is currently lacking approximately 20,000 workers.

Note that last sentence. The hospital system will be “overwhelmed,” they predict, which indicates to me that it’s not overwhelmed right now. But it’s that last bit – that the hospitals are “currently lacking approximately 20,000 workers” – that really caught my attention. So are we to understand that if those workers weren’t “lacking,” the hospitals would be able to handle the rise in patients? And why are those workers “lacking”? Could it be because they were fired because they weren’t vaccinated, even if they’ve already had COVID and are immune?

Well, we have articles like this from this past October:

Canada’s health and long-term care industries are bracing for staff shortages and layoffs, as deadlines for vaccine mandates loom across the country, with unions pushing federal and provincial governments to soften hard-line stances.

For hospitals and nursing homes, a shortage of workers would strain the already overburdened workforce dealing with nearly two years of the pandemic.

For Quebec’s draconian restrictions to be logically related to lightening the burden on hospitals (although even logic wouldn’t necessarily justify them, which is a separate issue), it would be instructive to see whether the COVID cases supposedly filling the hospitals are disproportionately people who are unvaccinated. Quebec keeps relatively good statistics on COVID, but there’s the usual difficulty in sorting them out.

Here’s a Twitter thread that attempts to do so, based on Quebec hospital COVID statistics. It seems to indicate an awful lot of elderly vaccinated people hospitalized with COVID in Quebec. But it leaves out some details that would tell us what that actually means. The first is how many people in each age group are vaccinated, and whether the percentage of COVID-hospitalized in Quebec in each age group is greater or less than that number. Same with the unvaccinated. The second detail is why these people were hospitalized. Does one group have more people “with COVID” and another “for COVID”? In other words, if a large percentage of people in the vaccinated group, for example, would be sick and in the hospital anyway, even without COVID (everyone who is admitted to a hospital is tested), and the opposite is true for the unvaccinated, then lack of vaccination could be putting the hospitals over the line into problems of overcrowding.

Lastly, being hospitalized for COVID can mean a couple of days, maybe two, with the patient not all that seriously ill and not in the ICU. Does the overcrowding – or threatened overcrowding – primarily involve the ICU or not? Numbers of ICU beds in a hospital are usually rather small, and they often are close to being full even without COVID, so it wouldn’t take much to strain the number.

Does this statement answer the question?:

“The unvaccinated represent about half of those currently in intensive care,” according to Mr Dubé.

Not really. Are they are intensive care because of COVID, or because of something else? If the former, that would give the statistic far more meaning. But we don’t know, although one would think the hospitals and health care bureaucrats should have access to the information. Perhaps it’s out there, but if so I haven’t seen it.

If authorities are trying to encourage vaccination, why punish people? Wouldn’t it be a strong enough argument to make it crystal clear that if you’re unvaccinated you’re more likely to have a very serious case of COVID itself and/or to die of COVID itself – rather than restricting their liberty, punishing them, and making their lives miserable? It seems quite obvious, though, that the authorities want to punish them instead.

One of the many reasons some people aren’t getting vaccinated is that they don’t trust the government or the health authorities. And why should they? Those entities have squandered their trust. I am vaccinated, and I have read enough statistics that I believe that – on average, all else being equal – people who are vaccinated and catch COVID stand a better chance of having a case without serious complications. But I believe I understand why a lot of people wouldn’t see it that way at this point.

There have been so many problems with government and health care authorities from the start: lying, reversals, errors, and lack of clarity in their statements. This hardly engenders trust. And these punishments – because that’s what they are, punishments designed to induce compliance – are especially troubling.

The overbearing majority: why did Schumer force a vote on ending the filibuster?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m confess I’m a bit stumped about the motive for this series of votes on Wednesday night. First, there was consideration of HR1 itself, and Republicans blocked taking up the bill. Then Schumer asked for a vote “to change the Senate rules to allow for a talking filibuster on this legislation…That would allow opponents to delay a bill by holding the Senate floor, but the legislation would be able to pass the Senate by a simple majority.”

It was known beforehand that his ploy would fail. And fail it did:

Highly foreseeable. Exactly what one would expect. Not to mention the additional fact that it’s not at all clear that HR1 itself would get Joe Manchin’s vote even if the other hurdles were cleared.

So, what was the point of forcing the vote? One possibility is that Schumer thought Manchin and Sinema were bluffing and that, when push came to shove, they’d cave. Ordinarily that’s not a bad bet, but the way they’ve been talking in recent months it didn’t seem at all likely this time, and Schumer must have known that.

Another theory being tossed around is that because Schumer is up for re-election this year and is afraid he’ll be primaried from the left, he’s protecting himself by holding this vote. Seems to me that trying this ploy and failing won’t hold him in good stead with the left, but perhaps their ire will be directed squarely at Manchin and Sinema. So far I think that’s the way it’s been, because looking at some random Twitter responses, I see that most of them appear to be saying the equivalent of “Keep fighting, Chuck.” But do Democrats on Twitter represent the Democratic Party as a whole?

A third possibility is some extremely Byzantine and Machiavellian machinations by Schumer that can’t be discerned from the outside.

This vote occurred despite the fairly obvious fact that forcing Democratic Senate members from more moderate states to take a leftist stand on the issue by voting with the party seems to me to make them more vulnerable to a defeat in 2022 if they’re up for re-election. Then again, most voters probably have no idea what’s actually in the voting act and how dangerous it is. The MSM certainly isn’t telling them. And rhetoric like this from Schumer makes it sound so fabulous and so vitally important: “We are going to vote — especially when the issue relates to the beating heart of our democracy as voting rights does.”

They don’t plan to give up, either. If you look at Twitter, you can see the underpinnings of the argument. Here’s an example of what I mean, and it’s not the only one:

The vote was a lot more than “41 Republicans,” of course, but Reich is saying that it could have been blocked by a mere 41. It wouldn’t have to be members of one party, of course, and he’s also conveniently ignoring the fact that Democrats have used the same ploy when they are in the minority in the Senate.

Reich’s tweet advances more or less the same type of argument that Democrats use when campaigning for the abolition of the Electoral College, when they think that would benefit them – the idea that a simple majority based on a popular vote alone would be more “fair.” I doubt that Robert Reich is so ignorant that he’s unaware of why we have a bicameral legislature with a Senate in which each state has two votes, in addition to a House that’s run along quite different and much more population-centered lines. The Founders were aware of the perils of “overbearing majorities” [emphasis mine]:

Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority…

…[There is a] prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

That’s why we have a representative government, and it’s also why the House and Senate are structured as they are, in order to pay attention to the relative size of the population of various areas (the House) and to states as equal entities (the Senate). They act as checks on each other.

Meanwhile, “a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.” It’s grown to monstrous proportions now, greater than I can recall at any point in my lifetime.

The battle for GOP nominee in 2024 may not be between Trump and DeSantis after all…

The New Neo Posted on by

…it may be between DeSantis and Youngkin.

I know it’s way early to even talk about it. And I also know that Trump may end up dominating again. But it’s a pleasant prospect to contemplate – in the middle of winter, 2022 – the fact that two personable, smart, constructively combative, youngish GOP governors have emerged lately. And by “youngish” I mean that, by the standards of today, Youngkin at fifty-five and especially DeSantis at forty-three are bordering on the fetal.

Youngkin was supposed to be the sort of country club Republican (Harvard MBA, mega-wealthy co-CEO of private equity firm) voters on the right have gotten used to electing but barely tolerating. Unlike DeSantis, Youngkin had no political experience prior to becoming governor. Yes, it was great that he defeated McAuliffe of Virginia. But would he follow through? So far the answer is a resounding “yes.” This could change, of course. But it’s certainly encouraging.

Youngkin had promised to end the mask mandate and to stop CRT in schools, and he almost immediately did both. But then he did something more creative:

Youngkin is also taking on one of the left’s sacred cows — the woke establishment — and doing so in a way that is incredibly satisfying.

The governor has renamed the state’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer the Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion Officer. Further, he appointed a conservative to the spot and also listed one of the job requirements as being an “ambassador for unborn children.”

The thing that seems unusual about that isn’t so much the policy changes as the language changes. It’s the left that has so very successfully employed naming and renaming as a political act to change hearts and minds: “Black Lives Matter,” “undocumented immigrants,” “unhoused,” and of course “equity.” So:

Democrats are not used to being fought on their own ground. By and large, the left has come to expect that while they may be opposed, the guardrails they’ve set up will be respected. That’s why a change like this makes them so upset, and to be sure, the wailing in response has been deafening. You aren’t supposed to actually retake territory when you fight the left. You are, instead, supposed to kowtow to their institutions and work around the edges.

It’s early yet, but Glenn Youngkin seems to have learned some process lessons from the left.

[NOTE: I’m not sure where to put this little fact, so I’m placing it here: Youngkin is 6’7″.]

A Canadian teacher writes about how the school system’s pandemic reaction has hurt children psychologically

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s incredibly sad, tremendously frustrating, and infuriating because it didn’t have to be and it was foreseeable. If you close schools for this long and require remote learning, as well as drilling into children the idea that disease is all around them and everyone can be dangerous to them, it can be easily predicted that there will be grave psychological repercussions.

And so:

Our students were taught to think of their schools as hubs for infection and themselves as vectors of disease. This has fundamentally altered their understanding of themselves…

When we were physically in school, it felt like there was no longer life in the building. Maybe it was the masks that made it so no one wanted to engage in lessons, or even talk about how they spent their weekend. But it felt cold and soulless. My students weren’t allowed to gather in the halls or chat between classes. They still aren’t. Sporting events, clubs and graduation were all cancelled. These may sound like small things, but these losses were a huge deal to the students. These are rites of passages that can’t be made up.

In my classroom, the learning loss is noticeable. My students can’t concentrate and they aren’t doing the work that I assign to them. They have way less motivation compared to before the pandemic began. Some of my students chose not to come back at all, either because of fear of the virus, or because they are debilitated by social anxiety. And now they have the option to do virtual schooling from home…

My older students (grades 11 and 12) aren’t even allowed a lunch break, and are expected to come to school, go to class for five and a half hours and then go home. Children in 9th and 10th grades have to face the front of the classroom while they eat lunch during their second period class. My students used to be able to eat in the halls or the cafeteria; now that’s forbidden. Younger children are expected to follow the “mask off, voices off” rule, and are made to wear their masks outside, where they can only play with other kids in their class. Of course, outside of school, kids are going to restaurants with their families and to each other’s houses, making the rules at school feel punitive and nonsensical.

That’s part of the anger, isn’t it? That so many of the rules – and this isn’t limited to Canada or to schools – are nonsensical on their face, and are inconsistent as well.

I think this is a key point – and not just for students and young people [my emphasis]:

They are anxious and depressed. Previously outgoing students are now terrified at the prospect of being singled out to stand in front of the class and speak. And many of my students seem to have found comfort behind their masks. They feel exposed when their peers can see their whole face.

Please read the whole thing.

RIP Marvin Lee Aday (aka Meat Loaf)

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s another death of a celebrity in the arts, the actor and singer who adopted the memorable moniker Meat Loaf. He was 74 and no cause of death was given, and although COVID is rumored, I don’t know whether or not that was the case.

Meat Loaf was the interpreter par excellence of the songs of Jim Steinman, who died last spring. Meat Loaf was known for his role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and one of his most famous and dramatic songs was Steinman’s small opera of teenage desire and adult disillusionment, known as “Paradise By the Dashboard Light.” The latter is one of those songs that reactors on YouTube love to feature, and it still amuses and rather shocks them to this day. Meat Loaf went all out; I don’t think he was ever afraid of looking ridiculous.

I never paid much attention to his music at the time, although I remember liking “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.” But he was enormously popular and had a huge following, mainly with the cohort that grew up in the 70s and 80s, the period of his greatest popularity. He didn’t look like the quintessential rock star; most of his life he was overweight, although from photos it appears to me that he slimmed down somewhat when he was middle-aged and beyond. His nickname is reported as having been bestowed on him by his father (the “Meat” part) and a football coach (the “Loaf” part).

Here’s “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.” The guy could certainly sing:

Here’s the mini rock opera known as “Paradise By the Dashboard Light.” It’s an experience:

Has Biden met your expectations?

The New Neo Posted on by

He’s certainly met mine. I expected a mendacious, cognitively challenged, nasty leftist tool. I expected every single thing he did to be bad for the country. And he’s fulfilled all of that early promise.

I expected him to be extremely divisive, but in that he’s actually exceeded my expectations and engendered even more divisiveness than I thought he would.

In yesterday’s appearance, Biden said this:

“I didn’t overpromise,” Mr. Biden said at a rare news conference in the East Room of the White House. “But I have, probably, outperformed what anybody thought [would’ve] happened.”

Is he delusional? Perhaps somewhat. Or maybe he’s just the same old BS artist he always was, although worse for a host of reasons – including the fact that he’s in charge now (or at least is nominally in charge), which makes him more dangerous.

Trump was a braggart; it was one of his most salient characteristics. And he certainly exaggerated. But he actually had a lot to brag about. Biden most decidedly does not.

And although leftist operatives have said for some time that Biden’s done well, the rest of America begs to differ.

Why would anyone except a leftist have expected anything of him? He’s never shown any capacity to lead or problem-solve – au contraire – and it’s not as though he doesn’t have a lengthy record in public life to scrutinize. Hatred of Trump, desperate wishful thinking, and/or the naive assumption that as an 8-year vice president Biden must know something worthwhile about how to be a president led to some voters being deluded about who Biden has always been and what he would be accomplishing in the future.

[NOTE: Whether or not you think Biden actually won the presidency without resorting to fraud, there still were plenty of people who voted for him.]

The evolution of the idea that each election is illegitimate

The New Neo Posted on by

The idea that Joe Biden floated yesterday at his press conference – that the next election might be illegitimate if Congress doesn’t pass the Democrats’ radical “voting reform” bill – would have once been verboten. But in the last two-plus decades, such challenges have become almost commonplace, although Biden’s innovation is to say it nearly a year before an election takes place, and to tie it to an act of Congress that would federalize election laws and actively work to make people distrust elections’ results.

Prior to the election of 2000, an illegitimate president was more of a fringe idea, at least in my lifetime. Some people thought Kennedy might have cheated in Illinois but I don’t recall any significant number of people calling him illegitimate as a result. Bill Clinton didn’t win a majority of the popular vote in 1992 because there were three candidates. But again, although plenty of people disliked him, I don’t recall many cries that the manner of his election made him illegitimate as a president.

2000 was a turning point; Bush was indeed called illegitimate (or some similar word), but that election was highly unusual. It really was a horse race with a photo finish and no real winner in the statistical sense, with SCOTUS having to step in. And in addition, Bush failed to win the popular vote. In 2008, a significant minority of people (at its height it was about 25%, but dropping later on) claimed that Obama wasn’t a natural born citizen. But again, although I seem to recall many of them did claim as a result that he wasn’t really president, most just wanted him to show what they considered the proper proof of United States birth.

Then there was Trump. Now, that was a real watershed. Not only was it a popular claim among Democrats and NeverTrumpers that he was illegitimate, but there was a huge effort to get rid of him as president by using the force of government agencies such as the FBI, combined with the MSM, based on the idea of this illegitimacy. It was something we heard about on a daily basis for Trump’s entire presidency, and it was a huge burden that lingers to this day.

Then came COVID and the relaxation of voting laws in many states, allowing Democrats to fulfill a dream of theirs (HR1 was first passed by the Democratic-controlled House in January of 2019, indicating their intentions prior to COVID). On election night of 2020 there were enormous anomalies that made at least half the country suspicious, and that suspicion remains. I probably don’t have to describe it here.

And that brings us to the present, when in a press conference Biden launches a preemptive strike on the next election just in case he doesn’t win it. It’s one of many pernicious signs that the republic is sinking, or perhaps has already sunk.

Jordan Peterson resigns his full professorship

The New Neo Posted on by

And he certainly doesn’t go out with a whimper:

I recently resigned from my position as full tenured professor at the University of Toronto. I am now professor emeritus, and before I turned sixty. Emeritus is generally a designation reserved for superannuated faculty, albeit those who had served their term with some distinction. I had envisioned teaching and researching at the U of T, full time, until they had to haul my skeleton out of my office. I loved my job. And my students, undergraduates and graduates alike, were positively predisposed toward me. But that career path was not meant to be. There were many reasons, including the fact that I can now teach many more people and with less interference online. But here’s a few more…

First, my qualified and supremely trained heterosexual white male graduate students (and I’ve had many others, by the way) face a negligible chance of being offered university research positions, despite stellar scientific dossiers. This is partly because of Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity mandates (my preferred acronym: DIE)… My students are also partly unacceptable precisely because they are my students. I am academic persona non grata…

Second reason: This is one of many issues of appalling ideology currently demolishing the universities and, downstream, the general culture. Not least because there simply is not enough qualified BIPOC people in the pipeline to meet diversity targets quickly enough (BIPOC: black, indigenous and people of colour, for those of you not in the knowing woke). This has been common knowledge among any remotely truthful academic who has served on a hiring committee for the last three decades. This means we’re out to produce a generation of researchers utterly unqualified for the job…

All my craven colleagues must craft DIE statements to obtain a research grant. They all lie (excepting the minority of true believers) and they teach their students to do the same. And they do it constantly…

Oh, you know what? Just click on the link and read the whole thing, because nearly every time I cut out a sentence it feels as though I’m cutting out something important.

Peterson is unafraid of the truth and of the consequences of telling the truth, traits that seem to be rather rare these days. In recent years he also has had the advantage of having built an enormous following by dint of his intensity, courage, hard work, and brilliance.