Retaliation

The disconcerting part is the the comments, where a lot of people defend these responses because they were preceded by real, but much milder provocations. Either they haven't played a lot of sports themselves and experienced the chippiness players sometimes get away with and sometimes get caught at, or they have inadequate frontal lobe activity* that moderates behavior, and let rage take over too easily. Or maybe they hate Mormons or something.

Well of course I commented. Nothing left unsaid around here.

*"Not enough fence to keep the sheep in," as I say often at work.

Success

James has a clear summary discussion of what goes into success and how that is nurtured.  It fits with the Whither Schooling?  Whither the Job Market? essays here and around the net over the last decade.

The Mighty Hercules

I knew it word-for-word, of course.  I sat gape-jawed in front of the TV for hours, it seems, and remembered it all.  That can't be true, of course, because I also remember spending hours reading, and spending hours playing touch football and Chinese Tackle.

There was a closing verse at the end of each episode, which I can't find.

Join us there with pride
Standing at his side
Victory is here
Raise a mighty cheer
At the sight of Hercules.

The singer is Johnny Nash, who later sang "I Can See Clearly Now."  I never knew that connection until now.  I also didn't know that the Trans-Lux which did the cartoons is the same company that does the fancy scoreboards now.  It's been going for almost a hundred years.

Beer

My friend Gerry, a now-retired VP from Anheuser-Busch in Merrimack, always nudged us in the direction of serving beer in a glass.  In my younger days, I scoffed, taking the bottle and telling him not to bother.  I was quite convinced over time, but last night became absolutely convinced.  I grabbed a bottle of Guinness late while typing at the computer, tipped it back and decided this was a different, entirely inferior beverage to the one I usually drink.

I can develop theories as to why, including CO2, or taste buds on the front of the tongue versus the back, but it doesn't matter.  It's a different beverage, and that is all that need be said.

Hiatus

You may have noticed that Sponge-Headed Scienceman over at These Things Happen has not updated for over a month.  He not only has work projects going, he also wants to put whatever spare energy he has into a book.  He has one already, which you would only be excited about if you needed to know a lot about ISO 14001 fast.  Which is why I haven't read it, even though he's one of my best and longest friends; and have no intention of sampling even a paragraph.

The new one looks a bit more interesting, but I'm not teasing it until it's much closer to completion.

You will have to find your New England curiosities, geo and general science updates, and Moxie news elsewhere for awhile.

New Tribes Thoughts

Steffans Personality Blog has the interesting idea of adding Tribalism to the Big Five personality measures. It clearly exists, but does not fall into any of those categories.

A lot is going to have to go into this, of course.  Can folks become less tribal or more over the years?  Can they switch tribes (because of marriage, geography, profession) and retain the same intensity, or does the leaving of one tribe make all subsequent identifications weaker?

Looks like fun.

School Testing

Teachers in Georgia have gotten in trouble for faking results of school tests.  They shouldn't do that, of course, but looking at the perverse system is deserving of at least some attention.

I don't know these particular tests, but I think I am safe in assuming they are much like the other broad tests given to students in nearly all schools in the country.  When I was but a lad, we had the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills every year. They are lead-ins to the PSAT's and SAT's, and are very similar.  They are advertised and treated as achievement tests, measuring what the teacher, the school, and the pupil have accomplished. Hah.

But the SAT is essentially an IQ test.  Insofar as these tests resemble the NEDT's, NMSQT's, NECAPS and other alphabets, they are just IQ tests as well.  (AP exams are more of an achievement test.) IQ is overwhelmingly genetic, and barring the extreme negative circumstances of blows to the head and children kept in closets, some would say "It's all genetic."  In fact, Steve Hsu did say that in the video I posted recently. I'm saying it's north of 90%.

There are some ways of gaming the system within the rules.  I suspect my town, which inexplicably scores highest in the state, is raising the floor by reducing the number of kids who blow off the test and just screw with it or leave it blank after fifteen minutes. (There is some suspicion that the Finns do this on an international level as well, appealing to the national honor to get all students to do their best.  Of course, you have to be a pretty decent and intelligent country to accomplish that, so it may not be unfair. A lot more American children would just say "Yeah, right." to that.)  You can "teach to the test" with more and more specificity, and buy some points that way as well.

But in general, you can't move the dial much.  In NH, Hanover HS generally scores very high in all academic categories.  Dartmouth College.  Ditto UNH professors' children at Oyster River HS, which also scores well.  Inner cities score poorly, very rural schools often do also.  Wealthy communities score well. Yet even at that, the differences from highest to lowest, at least in NH, are not that huge.

So the tests are measuring something other than teacher or school competence, yet it's what the teachers and schools are graded on.  And if anyone knows how grading systems work and how to crack the code, it's going to be teachers.

I am putting some energy into the thought-experiment of Americans understanding that the schools cannot make children more intelligent in terms of candlepower, but might be able to do a lot in teaching the other 70% of stuff one needs for good life outcomes: culture, conscientiousness, cooperation, character.  They do some of that now, but the big payoff of community attention is around that item which the school has the least control over: student IQ.  How would things change if we accepted that?

You Learn Something New

Over at hbd*chick's comments section, I learned that the Aryan Brotherhood is not really a white supremacist organization, as one would expect.  They are just a white gang that deals drugs and handles occasional hit jobs for various other criminal groups, such as the Mexican Mafia.  Actual white supremacist groups don't think so much of them because they willingly accept hispanic and mixed-race people, including a half-Jewish founder, if they just look mostly white.  They're just thugs, gang-members.

When you think of it, it's not that surprising.  Why we would attribute intellectual consistency to groups that call themselves nazi-sounding names?  It gives them more credit than they likely deserve.

Baseball Season

I railed about Runs Allowed last year, and I still maintain it will be key for the Red Sox.  They won 69 games last year.  They won't be worse, because they at least won't let in more runs. The back of the rotation in particular should be much less gruesome.  Not necessarily good, just not disastrous.  And we can hope all the spring-training optimism about Lester and Buchholz is justified, and they both go 16-10 or something. Bullpen unexciting but better. As for hitting, the Slugging Percentage should be worse, On-Base Percentage the same or better, for a net loss of a few runs.

It's hard to see more than another dozen victories out of all that.  This is an 81-win team, that could creep up to 85 if they have few injuries and some players have unexpectedly good seasons.  The jerk factor should be much improved, though, and even if the love is not restored this year, they should be able to position themselves for forgiveness soon.

Cwm Rhondda

I am weak, but Thou art mighty.

China And Social Darwinism

Ron Unz's article in The American Conservative How Social Darwinism Made Modern China has been linked by a few sites I follow.  Fascinating reading, and I think you will see why people want to share it.  It's one of those big-picture ideas that can frame how one thinks about other issues.

Relatedly, Steven Hsu's explanation of the Genetic Architecture of Intelligence.  Long.  Skip to 5:30.  The audio isn't great, so pick a time and place without background distractions. This is a great summary. 

The fiction in the movie GATTACA becoming fact in not too many years.

Here are the slides that go with the talk.

Update: BGI is also doing 10K genomes of autistic people.

Picky Eaters

I was a picky eater as a child, and both my biological sons were.  I have changed as an adult, as has one of my two children.  The other, still picky son now has a daughter who is a picky eater.  Thus it comes as no surprise to me that being a picky eater may be have some genetic forces behind it. (H/T hbd*chick)

Naming it neophobia tied it in to another phenomenon I have thought about recently.  I actively seek new experiences in general, my wife prefers familiarity.  She was not a noted picky eater when young - she was a perfect child, and her mother largely backed her up on that.  Yet she largely avoids new foods now. Despite the child/adult changeover in our family, I think there is something general to the neophobia. The picky granddaughter is especially reluctant to try new anythings - though my wife has had more success by letting her approach them at her own speed.

A concept that was largely unknown in my parenting.

Celibacy

Retriever, who is vacationing in Iceland and sending photos, also sends a link from First Things about a WSJ column criticising the Catholic requirement of celibacy for its clergy.  It seems that the whole practice is unnatural enough that it much be the cause of the child-molestation scandals.  Never mind that Protestant ministers, Jewish rabbis, cultists, Boy Scout leaders, schoolteachers, and coaches all also molest children.  Details, details.

It's not a topic I think about often.  I don't agree that celibacy should be required.  But I also see the point of it, and don't like to see folks criticised stupidly.

This comes up especially around the election of popes, doesn't it? I recall my frustration in 1978 (both times) when all the news sources could talk about was whether the possible new popes would change the RCC teachings about abortion and the ordination of women.  (You will notice that gay marriage was not even on the radar at that point.) Those were the things they and their friends were most interested in, so of course that's what everyone was really concerned about.  Plus, if you keep selling that idea, that your issues are the only issues, it has a certain self-fulfilling quality, in that young, weak, or impressionable minds tend to believe you that all the cool kids care most about those issues.

Prayer?  Humility? Scholarship?  Piety?  What are those compared to real issues?

Secessions

One of my wife’s fourth-graders brought in a report on the State of Jefferson for his regional studies.  It turns out there have been a few proposed Jeffersons, but the Pacific Coast version which would include parts of Northern California and Southern Oregon, is the best known.  It makes for some interesting reading, which we’ll get to in a bit.

She countered by giving him information about Indian Stream Republic, a 19^th C secessionist movement in the northern tip of NH (Indian Stream is one of the sources of the Connecticut River).  It seems that those residents objected to being claimed - and taxed - by both the US and Canada, especially as they didn’t seem to be getting anything back in terms of roads and bridges.  One sees their point, eh?

Watch The Republic of Indian Stream on PBS. See more from Windows to the Wild.

There has been quite a bit of secessionist rhetoric in American history, and a common theme has been taxation by those damfools down in Washington or Concord or Sacramento or Austin without getting much in return.  Remoter areas feel neglected and ignored.  This is nearly always true. 

On the list of secession movements, NH is represented pretty well for a small state, which fits our Live Free Or Die* stereotype.  Earlier American secession movements tended to be focused on regional concerns, which has changed subtly into a more cultural outlook in the 20^th C.  Cascadia, for example.  I recall Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard toying with the idea of seceding from Mass and joining NH in the 70's, which fell apart when our excitable, tone-deaf governor wondered allowed if we could build the nuclear plants there after having so much controversy at Seabrook.

The list on the Jefferson State site leans to the conservative and libertarian - and a lot of local news and blogs - but there are a few left-leaning ones as well.  2ndVermont Republic (the Green Mountain State originally tried to make a go at being independent.) wants all meganations and megacorporations to break into smaller pieces to promote peace; the whitest state in the union wants to ally with the whitest nations in the world because of common values but is apparently oblivious to the whiteness part**.  Still, I like them in many ways, and even agree with some of it.  Side note:  one of its writers has politics starkly different from mine, but has come to much the same conclusions about Obama that I have.  Sometimes all it takes is standing outside a phenomenon from virtually any perspective to see clearly.

Sorry, got distracted there.

My uncle sent along an op-ed from the opposite extreme of this.  Keller at the NYT was all irritated by the efflorescence of states’ rights, in that South and North Dakota might have different abortion laws, or Colorado and Wyoming different marijuana laws.  Gone wild, indeed.  I confess I have very little sympathy with that POV.  He would never state it this way, for then the game would be up, but it’s entirely clear: there is a correct opinion on these issues, and deviation more than a cosmetic amount should not be allowed.  There is a national consensus among the Best People, and the others are just wrong.  It’s rather chilling, actually.  It is more common among liberal elites at present, but conservative elites pull this as well, and in the past have been worse.  It is politics by current fashion rather than reason. I don't see any secessionists I hold with, and dislike the idea in general, but I'm closer to them than to Keller.

*Reminder: the full quote is Live free or die.  Death is not the worst of evils.  Which puts a whole different spin on things, doesn’t it?

**Heck, their chosen group doesn’t even include Slavs or Romance peoples, let alone people of other colors.  Sheesh.

Last Kiss

Summer camp brings a different perspective. I was in Ranger village at Camp Mi-te-na in 1964, deeply unaware and unconcerned about popular music. But my junior counselor thrashed badly on a guitar much of the time, and kept the radio tuned to the popular music station. I have no idea what station had the range to reach Alton, NH at that point.

And thus, I heard this song many times and was deeply moved.  It was horrifying, overwhelming, an offense against all that was just and good.  How can such evil things happen in the world?  I comforted myself with the idea that it probably wasn't true - that nothing like this had ever happened - and was written as a warning to the young to drive safely, and be good to Your Girl.  Frightening us for good cause seemed a responsible thing for popular singers to do, and I was still of an age where I believed that adults would not allow a song to be popular and on the radio if it was really bad for us.


A decade later a college friend, Steve Nobles, wrote a parody of the genre called "One Last Cola," and two decades after that, for my 40th birthday party, Joe Brancato, a psychologist friend pulled out a similar teen tragedy song he had written in the same era.  It was based on a carnival ride from a summer job he had held, ending with the girl dead but unreachable by the boyfriend as the "Turtle of Death" spun through its pattern, just missing each other many times as she slowly succumbed to the centripal force and he watched helplessly.

What is with those faux angelic background voices, anyway?  Creepy.  They sound more like minor demons.

Hearing

I have discussed before the surety that psychotic people feel in their delusions.  I may not have mentioned how intense it can be, that they cannot allow you to get even two words into a sentence where you are disagreeing - as if they cannot even endure that an opposing view exists.  It is a little puzzling.  People who disagree even violently about political or religious points can usually make themselves at least listen until another person completes a sentence.  Guys getting into bar fights about nothing usually at least get complete idiotic sentences out, which are responded to with at least some minimal comprehension.  People with OCD can at least hear you ask "What is the bad thing that will happen if you don't count the squares again?"

My only theory is that because the place in their brain which makes and compares alternative narratives is so thoroughly broken that any bumping up against it is psychically painful, like bright light in the eyes of a person coming from complete darkness, it is perceived as a denial of reality at impossibly levels.  It is not a questioning of whether the sky is blue, but of whether there has ever been a sky.

Bracket

My West Region is a nightmare and won't get better, as I had Gonzaga in the Final Four.  Everything else is good.  My South Region is perfect except for Florida Gulf Coast, which I don't imagine anyone got.  44 out of 64 points so far.

Multiculturalism...

...is something that only white people do well.

Coffee

A bit of history concerning the buying of cups of coffee while traveling, short local travel.

Dunkin Donuts is now ubiquitous in New England.  Every numbered route has a Dunkin's about every mile or so in populated areas, it seems.  They are sometimes nearly across the street from each other.  It's decent coffee, but people who care deeply about comparing one coffee to another assure us it's nothing special.  How, then, did it take over an entire region and begin to expand nationwide?

I've told you the main secret already.  It's decent coffee.  We forget how abysmal roadsidc and corner store and even restaurant take-out coffee was - always was - not so very long ago. Come to think of it, that was true of coffee at home as well.  People made a pot of coffee, poured a cup, then put it on a burner all day.  We are now sensitive enough to the taste that we know that after 30 minutes or so it starts to taste unattractive. But we used to stop for coffee and find that the last two cups in the pot were the rough chemical equivalent of ammonia, having sat there baking for hours.

"I can make you a fresh pot.  It will only take a few minutes." they would sometimes say, but we seldom felt we could wait that long.  We were going from here to there, in a hurry, and took what was already prepared.  Some of us were also shy about putting the shopkeeper to that much trouble, having to waste a few cups of coffee by throwing them out.  That's certainly an oversensitivity, as it is their job, after all.

Horrible, thick cups of coffee, sometimes lightened only with powdered creamer. Some places seemed to intentionally make it weak to start, so that it wouldn't get so "strong" so fast.  Everyone had their limit of how bad it had to get before we wouldn't drink it, and my standards were lower than most.

Dunkin Donuts relied on advertising about how fresh the donuts were.  Sing along, oldsters: "Fresh ev'ry four hours.  Fresh ev'ry four hours!" and donuts are of course a wonderful thing.  But I can still eat "stale" donuts that are five hours old easily (Hell, five days old isn't a problem), while I could never drink that gas station coffee again.  The reliability of the coffee won us over.  That is how all the fast food and chain restaurants win us over, BTW: reliability and a high minimum standard.  If they do not exceed their own minimum standard often, at least they don't fall below it, either. (I have mentioned before that the international complaint and disdain for McDonalds is pure bunk and hypocrisy.  They moved into places where the other restaurants didn't have clean restrooms or staff trained in hygienic food preparation. They served fried potatoes and inexpensive beef sandwiches quickly. You never found a little gem of a McDonalds hidden away in Sussex that you could brag about to your friends, but you knew what the hell you were getting.  Locals, and in-country travelers, not Americans, keep them afloat, thank you very much.)

Back to the coffee - and now everyone, even the gas stations, has nice flavored coffees kept in thermal dispensers - and DD's.  They got in first.  They figured it out and established themselves as a tradition before other places even had the idea new.  I think something similar happened with Tim Horton's in Canada.  Canadians coming to America used to wail and moan that we didn't have Tim Horton's here.  Oh, it's so much better than Dunkins.  You just don't know.  Well, I liked it alright when we traveled up to Moncton.  Nice pastry selection, and usually conveniently located.  A decent cup of coffee.  But I also found that New Brunswick 2005 looked a lot like New Hampshire 1980 (Moncton, maybe 1965), with roadside coffee to match.  If you weren't at a Tim Hortons, you were often looking at a very bad cup of coffee. That Canadian chain caught the same wave that DD's did in New England.  If you go anywhere else, you're taking a big chance on that coffee. Better keep driving.

Plus, they would go heavy on the sugar - an extra trick to convince you how much more wonderful it was. They've gotten pretty clever with the pastry and food choices as well, adjusting to the market rapidly.  Steak and egg sandwich now, plus a fascinating collection of summer beverages, coffee or sweet fruit iced drinks.  It's a tradition.  You feel like a real New Englander every time you go.

Perfect People and Weird People

On nearly-successive days, I read a complaint about churches because the people there expected everyone to be perfect/conformist/respectable followed by a verbal comment that there were too many weird people at most churches, by which I think the speaker meant socially-clumsy, overbearing, or unfashionable somehow.

Though this is a contradiction, there is truth in both complaints, and I don't know the solution.  I could lump them both under the category of "they're not cool," or "not up-to-date," but that's only part of it.  We are too tolerant and not tolerant enough; our expectations are too high and too low.  There is a balance that we miss, objecting to the wrong things, reinforcing the wrong things.

I suppose the simplest answer is that we all come from those categories, believing we should be perfect but being too weird to get that quite right.