I wondered if dogs stick their heads out the window because of the rush of smells on the breeze. They look like they are having a hallucinatory experience, with so much going on that they can't process it.
That turns out to be the second-most important reason (of five) why they do that. #1 is the breeze itself.
I went on a run.of watching Marvin Hagler fights a few years ago, and think I saw them all twice. About two years ago I got into Mike Tyson videos and I think I've seen all of those twice. I've tried to do classics, like Ali and Frazier, or Floyd Paterson, Rocky Marciano, but I don't stay interested for more than a few fights. I can't do the novelty fighters like Butterbean at all, even though I can see they have some talent.
Who does the crowd recommend? No MMA or UFC. Just boxing.
Might be my favorite bluegrass tune. There's a lot of versions out there, including one by Mannfred Mann, of all things. This is one of the best. Good solos, and you don't always get a dobro. Very uptempo, which is right for this one.
I am pleased that Heterodox Academy is having a go at this. Conservatives make angry claims, while liberals say it's all bosh, but HxA attempts to be disciplined about it: How politically diverse are university faculty? The short version is that faculties do skew liberal pretty reliably, more so in some subjects than others - and you will accurately predict which those are, most of you. However, there are more moderates and apoliticals than is usually reported, and studies showing the greatest divergence are more likely to be underpowered and have the worst percentage of faculty response.
The standard response of "But we are professionals and know how to teach both sides" is not addressed here, but we know the human nature answer already: That is true for some people but others are falsely claiming objectivity because of self-deception or dissembling. That discussion has to follow from the basic data, however, not anticipate it.
Looking at sports highlights this afternoon, I noticed that everything is faster. Misieroski for the Milwaukee Brewers; UNC lacrosse in the tournament (movement, reflexes, shots - all a little faster than even a few years ago); and T&F has all sorts of records this year, with Cooper Lutkenhaus, Quincy Wilson, and Sam Ruthe still in high school but coming close to world records already.
It's film and coaching. Better equipment is part of it, but breaking down movement to hundredths of a second and a generation's worth of practice putting that knowledge into the relevant motions pays off. Identifying talent and teaching them better habits early is the real deal.
Scott Alexander takes on what he calls "reddit vexillogy" in his Three Model Organisms For Taste.
If you’re like me, you learned the following code of good flags:
1. They should be so simple that a child could draw them.
2. No images, no “busy” areas, and - for God’s sake - no text
3. The rule of tincture: “never put metal on metal, or color on color”. In medieval heraldry, “metals” were yellow and white (sometimes implemented with literal gold and silver) and “colors” were every other color (except black, which is a “fur” and has its own rules). A good flag shouldn’t have a metal touch another metal, or a color touch another color. So the French tricolor (blue then white then red) is okay, but a hypothetical (blue then red then white) tricolor wouldn’t be okay, because blue would be touching red, which would be “color on color”.
Good old Indonesia, they know how to follow the rules.
I received spam from a new place, assuring me that there were CIA documents that Hitler had survived and lived another ten years. The National Enquirer and similar rags reported a hundred different stories of how he was still out there throughout my childhood and well beyond. There were also alien and bigfoot reports as well, and it was a good education to see how people could take marginal evidence - anything that looked unusual, really - and assure you of a particular interpretation. Well, maybe not an education, because a lot of people grew up with the same weeklies at the supermarket but somehow still at least half-believe them. I was with some of my old Jesus Freak friends this week because of a funeral, and my goodness, they still believe rumors about everything. As with other personality characteristics, credulousness seems to be installed at a stable level in all of us, regardless of what education or logic classes we are exposed to. Sumus quod sumus.
This particular website was even more worrisome than usual, though. It assured me that Hitler had lived those ten years in "Columbia." Whether that was the university or the "gem of the ocean" it didn't say.
Madeline Kahn shows off her versatility
I don't think I had ever heard it. I have an identical plaid shirt to that guy in the center.
I will be in the State o' Maine, Bah Hahbah and Acadier Tuesday to Thursday. I wanted to leave you with a little something to tide you over.
I should probably put up a couple of songs, too.
Just an offhand note on who gets to define Feminism.
Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr. Hitler? The theme song from "Dad's Army."
The real American folk instrument is not the guitar.
Quiet Rant about supposed life behind the Iron Curtain
Post 4500n- Roger Scruton on How to be a conservative.
Because we are doing the last of emptying the house that my father's second wife lived in since 1946, the subject of keeping unnecessary thing that are a burden to your descendants came up this weekend, as it often does in these situations. Our daughter-in-law found a strategy that a reditor reported, approximately this.
Here was a trick my brother used. He would find boxes of things that could be thrown away or donated. Then he would replace them with empty boxes. My father never knew things were missing, but it also did not leave empty spots on the shelves that would just have been replaced with...more stuff. My brother had slowly started to thin things out, so when my father died, we weren't having to start at square one on the cleaning out process.
It was not only one person who created the many full closets on the second floor filled with children's toys and dress patterns, nor the garage with old furniture, gardening chemicals, and lamps. The surface layers and some of the deeper piles were clearly created by Ruth, who just died, but it was quickly obvious that my father who died in 2004 had not been responsible in getting rid of things in his last years either. As we got to very bottom, it became clear that Ruth's parents, who died in the 1970s and 80s, had also not done their duty of weeding through old calendars, sheet music, and cookbooks. It was in fact clear that when they had moved into the house in 1946 they must have brought considerable amounts of saved stuff from the previous house even then. Sunday School books from 1915 (in Swedish), depression glass, 78 rpm records, and somehow, decorative glass from a Packard hearse.
I also just found a use for the oldest of your empty boxes.
There is a lot of deploring of the amount of time the Youth of America is spending in front of screens, and how that has taken over older people's attention as well. Reading from a book is considered better, more ennobling, and certainly better for learning. Silence is considered superior to listening to a speaker, even if one is learning from a course on tape or a podcast.
Are we sure? The research I have seen largely assumes what it sets out to prove. The worst aspects of the new are contrasted to the best aspects of the old. I spend a lot of time on screens, and I did while I was working as well. Am I damaged? Am I not what I should be? Have I let go of the rope and ceased to be a Real Intellectual? Whatever shall we do? The Apocalypse is upon us. Again.
When I was in college and reading Lord of the Rings, I thought invisibility would be the best superpower to have. I also thought that Time Stop would be useful in sports. I eventually settled on Time Travel, but I have been waiting for this and nothing has happened.
I think getting into asimulation that picks up at a particular point of my life might be just as good. I do worry about having to listen to and participating in the boring parts again, but if I make some changes, who knows what I might get out of. A couple of you won't make the friend list next time around, but I intend to be minimalist in my interventions. Who knows what might be upended.
The objection would be that it would be less valuable because it "wasn't real," to which I say "Compared to what?"
