Judith Weiss over at Kesher Talk has a novel speculation on how the Palestinian problem is going to resolve itself.
From your lips to God's ears.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
NH Woman Renounces Eccentricity
CONCORD – 1/31/06
Victoria Shouldis of Hillsboro announced at a press conference at the State House yesterday that she has “had it” with eccentricity and has decided to pursue a non-unconventional way of looking at life. “Vonnegut, Foucault, Joyce, I’ve tried them all. Judy Collins had it wrong with that sappy ‘Both Sides Now.’ Life is actually more like an icosahedron, and I’m sick of it.” When asked how she would celebrate this change in direction, Shouldis replied “I’m chucking that bottle of absinthe, buying a liter of White Zin, and going to see a production of ‘Cats.’”
Associates of Shouldis were quick to point out this is not her first attempt seek the center of the bell curve. “Vicky says things like this every few years. We don’t pay attention to it anymore.” Sources who wished to remain anonymous revealed that she has at various times bought Celine Dion CD’s, signed up for home delivery of Newsweek, and spoken highly of eating at Olive Garden. “It’s a pose,” one confided.” She can’t maintain it for more than a week or two. Eventually she has to walk past a used book store, and then she’s back to herself again.”
Victoria Shouldis of Hillsboro announced at a press conference at the State House yesterday that she has “had it” with eccentricity and has decided to pursue a non-unconventional way of looking at life. “Vonnegut, Foucault, Joyce, I’ve tried them all. Judy Collins had it wrong with that sappy ‘Both Sides Now.’ Life is actually more like an icosahedron, and I’m sick of it.” When asked how she would celebrate this change in direction, Shouldis replied “I’m chucking that bottle of absinthe, buying a liter of White Zin, and going to see a production of ‘Cats.’”
Associates of Shouldis were quick to point out this is not her first attempt seek the center of the bell curve. “Vicky says things like this every few years. We don’t pay attention to it anymore.” Sources who wished to remain anonymous revealed that she has at various times bought Celine Dion CD’s, signed up for home delivery of Newsweek, and spoken highly of eating at Olive Garden. “It’s a pose,” one confided.” She can’t maintain it for more than a week or two. Eventually she has to walk past a used book store, and then she’s back to herself again.”
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Recovery From Delusion
There has been a lot of discussion over the last few months at Dr. Sanity, neo-neocon, Sigmund, Carl, & Alfred, One Cosmos, Dr. Helen, and GM Roper about liberal beliefs and their psychological foundations. I have encouraged and contributed to this discussion, which has focussed on the more extreme statements of prominent Democrats and liberals. Distinctions are made which often go unheard, if the comments sections are any indication. "Government can be a force for good" is not a delusional statement, and no one has made that claim. It might be right or wrong, but it's not crazy. "Abu Ghraib is as bad under the US as it was under Saddam," now, that's just nuts. Similarly, Bush stole the election...war for oil...squandered international support...crushing dissent... and all the other familiar attacks fall under a different category. They are not merely wrong, but fevered and overwrought. Those are fair game for commentary by mental health professionals, and speculating whether such things are the result of denial, projection, displacement, etc is intellectually valid. This is because these are ideas which could possibly be true, but have been found to be so devoid of supporting evidence that belief in them reveals something unhealthy about the thinking.
Alternative medicine provides a reasonable analogy. The initial consideration that magnets or copper bracelets or cabbage juice might provide treatment or relief of certain ailments is not delusional. Those beliefs may be odd or unlikely, but heck, stranger things have turned out true. They become delusional when the evidence is in and they are shown to not work, yet people believe in them anyway. At that point it becomes reasonable for a psychologist to consider why the belief persists in spite of adequate disproving evidence.
Many people who vote for liberals are not delusional, but simply inattentive or intellectually lazy. They might cynically believe that something is fishy about Republican motives, but don't bother much about it and get on with their lives. It is worth remembering that such people are likely to vote for sensible Democrats once they become available.
All that was just an incantation to nullify troll mind rays. My real point runs off at 45 degrees from this. It often happens that when people go back on their clozapine and stop hearing satellites beaming messages into their heads that their interpretation of previous events does not change. Oh sure, no one's out to harm my mother NOW, but they were a year ago. This is, needless to say, frustrating for families.
Beliefs that are not based on active hallucinations, but on misinterpretation of everyday events, can be more persistent. The group of Democratic voters I mentioned above, who are cynical and uninformed rather than paranoid, may never change their interpretation of the events of the last 6 years. They might start to favor Joe Lieberman- or Zell Miller-style Democrats, but still think the neocons were too ready to go to war in Iraq.
This will be fine. Conservatives, listen up. This will be fine. Getting people to rewrite their own narratives is very difficult, and only those people who live in the world of ideas and abstracts care very much whether they got it right 20 years ago. It still frosts conservatives that people would think that Gorbachev -- not Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul II -- brought down the Soviet Union, but just live with it. What we want is for the Democrats to make sense again.
If we get to a situation where the Democrats are wrong but not paranoid, and start attracting the undecided vote back from us, that will be an enormous improvement over the current state of affairs.
Alternative medicine provides a reasonable analogy. The initial consideration that magnets or copper bracelets or cabbage juice might provide treatment or relief of certain ailments is not delusional. Those beliefs may be odd or unlikely, but heck, stranger things have turned out true. They become delusional when the evidence is in and they are shown to not work, yet people believe in them anyway. At that point it becomes reasonable for a psychologist to consider why the belief persists in spite of adequate disproving evidence.
Many people who vote for liberals are not delusional, but simply inattentive or intellectually lazy. They might cynically believe that something is fishy about Republican motives, but don't bother much about it and get on with their lives. It is worth remembering that such people are likely to vote for sensible Democrats once they become available.
All that was just an incantation to nullify troll mind rays. My real point runs off at 45 degrees from this. It often happens that when people go back on their clozapine and stop hearing satellites beaming messages into their heads that their interpretation of previous events does not change. Oh sure, no one's out to harm my mother NOW, but they were a year ago. This is, needless to say, frustrating for families.
Beliefs that are not based on active hallucinations, but on misinterpretation of everyday events, can be more persistent. The group of Democratic voters I mentioned above, who are cynical and uninformed rather than paranoid, may never change their interpretation of the events of the last 6 years. They might start to favor Joe Lieberman- or Zell Miller-style Democrats, but still think the neocons were too ready to go to war in Iraq.
This will be fine. Conservatives, listen up. This will be fine. Getting people to rewrite their own narratives is very difficult, and only those people who live in the world of ideas and abstracts care very much whether they got it right 20 years ago. It still frosts conservatives that people would think that Gorbachev -- not Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul II -- brought down the Soviet Union, but just live with it. What we want is for the Democrats to make sense again.
If we get to a situation where the Democrats are wrong but not paranoid, and start attracting the undecided vote back from us, that will be an enormous improvement over the current state of affairs.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Beliefs, and Where They Come From. (The Stork)
"Worldviews are more a mental security blanket than a serious effort to understand the world."
-- Bryan Caplan, The Logic of Collective Belief
A worldview doesn't cost much, except socially. Why shouldn't you have the one that makes you happy, instead of investing a lot of time into finding the one which accords best with reality? That is the logic behind the above. Hat tip, Arnold Kling over at TCS Daily
If you believe very strongly that there is a confederation of malign groups running your political opposites, then change your mind and decide that they're not so bad after all, what would change in your everyday life? You wouldn't likely change what your expectations for you childrens' schoolwork are, you would probably vacation in the same places, and eat the same foods. You would buy the same number of books, though a few titles might change.
The only thing likely to change would be what the people you frequently interact with think about you. Few of us have influence over enough people that our change of mind (or heart) would have much impact on the national scene. Collectively, what people in a democracy believe has an effect, and elections are made from the gradual accumulation of millions of tiny atoms. But for we atoms, why should we change our minds? Why not believe whatever we think will give us the most friends, or money,
or respect?
Trick question
-- Bryan Caplan, The Logic of Collective Belief
A worldview doesn't cost much, except socially. Why shouldn't you have the one that makes you happy, instead of investing a lot of time into finding the one which accords best with reality? That is the logic behind the above. Hat tip, Arnold Kling over at TCS Daily
Recently, economist Jim Miller used the term moral free riding to describe adopting a precarious ideological position when it has little personal risk. George Mason University economics professor Bryan Caplan says that such free riding is the normal state of affairs. He argues that people are insulated from the consequences of their beliefs by the fact that the typical voter has a low probability of influencing the outcome of an election.
Caplan, in a book that eventually is to be published by Princeton University Press, argues that most people do not work very hard to arrive at worldviews that are logically consistent and factually supported, because the reward for rational beliefs is too small. He writes: "we should expect people to...believe whatever makes them feel best. After all, it's free. The fanatical protectionist who votes to close the borders risks virtually nothing, because the same policy wins no matter how he votes."
If you believe very strongly that there is a confederation of malign groups running your political opposites, then change your mind and decide that they're not so bad after all, what would change in your everyday life? You wouldn't likely change what your expectations for you childrens' schoolwork are, you would probably vacation in the same places, and eat the same foods. You would buy the same number of books, though a few titles might change.
The only thing likely to change would be what the people you frequently interact with think about you. Few of us have influence over enough people that our change of mind (or heart) would have much impact on the national scene. Collectively, what people in a democracy believe has an effect, and elections are made from the gradual accumulation of millions of tiny atoms. But for we atoms, why should we change our minds? Why not believe whatever we think will give us the most friends, or money,
or respect?
Trick question
Sir John Cowperthwaite: An Obituary You Missed
Samizdata provides a laudatory obituary on Sir John Cowperthwaite, who was apparently more important than any of us realized. Libertarians and free-marketers will especially cheer.
"Samizdata," BTW refers to the underground publishing done in the Soviet Union before its collapse. A very interesting site, this.
"Samizdata," BTW refers to the underground publishing done in the Soviet Union before its collapse. A very interesting site, this.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Overheard In Avebury
Inside the Avebury stone circle at the Red Lion the young people at the next table were having a discussion about the f-word. A tall young man with several piercings and alert eyes offered the opinion that it was the forbidden nature of the word that created its attractiveness to his juniors. He drew the common conclusion that if we did not forbid the word, it would soon lose its power. This is a variation of the “well if we just get all this talk about sex out in the open and not hush it up, we won’t have these problems anymore.” I have not often heard that in the last ten years, but it was a common refrain when I was younger. In popular culture, we seem to have talked about nothing but sex for several decades, and I have not noticed a decrease in sexual preoccupation, but an increase. So apparently being frank and candid was not quite the way to get back to the garden.
But I perked up my ears at the next part, as this lad had done more thinking than the average bear. “Take the word nigger,” he said. “Because you can’t say it, it’s become a worse insult. It used to be just coarse and stupid; now it’s a real insult, much more cruel.” This is not blindingly profound, but it represents more exercise of the little gray cells than I had expected. Words of opprobrium do change in strength in inverse proportion to their use. The phrase “you suck” has nowhere near the insultive power it had when I was a boy. And I think the man from Avebury is correct: nigger is a worse insult now than it was then.
One word became more acceptable, one less, and their intensity changed accordingly. Though by giving good evidence for his minor point he undermined his major one. When a word is in common use it does not provide the contrast an uncommon one does. When you heard the n-word in the 1960’s, it was not immediately clear whether the speaker was being vicious or just stupid. Stupidity is now a very unlikely explanation. It was good that we forbade the word and gave it more power. By doing so, we removed a lot of the dilute racism from our discourse and concentrated it into the few individuals who really meant it.
But I perked up my ears at the next part, as this lad had done more thinking than the average bear. “Take the word nigger,” he said. “Because you can’t say it, it’s become a worse insult. It used to be just coarse and stupid; now it’s a real insult, much more cruel.” This is not blindingly profound, but it represents more exercise of the little gray cells than I had expected. Words of opprobrium do change in strength in inverse proportion to their use. The phrase “you suck” has nowhere near the insultive power it had when I was a boy. And I think the man from Avebury is correct: nigger is a worse insult now than it was then.
One word became more acceptable, one less, and their intensity changed accordingly. Though by giving good evidence for his minor point he undermined his major one. When a word is in common use it does not provide the contrast an uncommon one does. When you heard the n-word in the 1960’s, it was not immediately clear whether the speaker was being vicious or just stupid. Stupidity is now a very unlikely explanation. It was good that we forbade the word and gave it more power. By doing so, we removed a lot of the dilute racism from our discourse and concentrated it into the few individuals who really meant it.
What's Europe?
There are supposedly 49 countries in Europe. This includes Azerbaijan, for example. I guess FIFA and the CIA World Factbook can categorise countries any way they want -- who's going to stop them? But I can't imagine telling your truelove that you want to take her on a tour of European capitals and then booking flights for Baku and Yerevan. OK, I can imagine it, because in my family that would be considered humorous. What I mean is, I can't imagine still having the sweetheart afterward.
What do you call Europe? I imagine few Cypriots are reading this blog, so you can let your prejudices flow.
What do you call Europe? I imagine few Cypriots are reading this blog, so you can let your prejudices flow.
Peyton Place
2006 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Peyton Place. Grace Metalious lived as an adult in Gilmanton Iron Works, and folks in that part of NH believe the book is an expose about small-town NH. Well, sort of. Grace wrote the book as an adult, and the cynical behind-the-scenes look at what respectable families were like is certainly not a child’s vision even in the worst of circumstances. And maybe the folks in Gilmanton had guilty consciences or something.
But Grace DeRepentigny grew up in Manchester, on the corner of Beech and Blodget. She went to Straw School and to Manchester Central, as I did, but they didn’t advertise the connection to young people in those days. When she died in 1964 I was in 5th grade at Straw, and no one mentioned it.
The street names in Peyton Place are not uncommon for New England in general, but how they are placed and what sort of folk live on them is pure Manchester. My mother and aunt grew up playing with Grace’s younger sister Bunny – and later, my mother was Bunny’s probation officer when, as my uncle says, “she was caught peddling her butt downtown.” That uncle was a year younger than Grace, and as much as he noticed her at all, didn’t like her much. The DeRepentigny family was abusive and irrational. To use the current word “dysfunctional” would be too mild. In retrospect, given Grace and Bunny’s Borderline-y tendencies, it seems likely that they were sexually molested, as was later claimed.
There are two ways to frame the scandals in Peyton Place. What the nation wanted to read – and later watch – was that respectable people had skeletons in the closet. Such things usually sell well, and fit with the egalitarianism and underdog-rooting of our culture. They’re not so big as they think. Lo, how the mighty have fallen. But the same data looks different if you spin it from an abused child’s perspective instead of a cynical adult’s. Horrible people are being treated as if they’re respectable. To a child, abused and invisible, this would be the real outrage.
I think the latter framing is stronger in the book. The adult cynicism is not the core, but the later explanation imposed on the anger of a girl in her early teens looking out at an unfair world.
I have wondered if Cynthia and Jean were any part ofthe girls in Peyton Place who have these seemingly perfect lives and are clearly resented by the narrator.
But Grace DeRepentigny grew up in Manchester, on the corner of Beech and Blodget. She went to Straw School and to Manchester Central, as I did, but they didn’t advertise the connection to young people in those days. When she died in 1964 I was in 5th grade at Straw, and no one mentioned it.
The street names in Peyton Place are not uncommon for New England in general, but how they are placed and what sort of folk live on them is pure Manchester. My mother and aunt grew up playing with Grace’s younger sister Bunny – and later, my mother was Bunny’s probation officer when, as my uncle says, “she was caught peddling her butt downtown.” That uncle was a year younger than Grace, and as much as he noticed her at all, didn’t like her much. The DeRepentigny family was abusive and irrational. To use the current word “dysfunctional” would be too mild. In retrospect, given Grace and Bunny’s Borderline-y tendencies, it seems likely that they were sexually molested, as was later claimed.
There are two ways to frame the scandals in Peyton Place. What the nation wanted to read – and later watch – was that respectable people had skeletons in the closet. Such things usually sell well, and fit with the egalitarianism and underdog-rooting of our culture. They’re not so big as they think. Lo, how the mighty have fallen. But the same data looks different if you spin it from an abused child’s perspective instead of a cynical adult’s. Horrible people are being treated as if they’re respectable. To a child, abused and invisible, this would be the real outrage.
I think the latter framing is stronger in the book. The adult cynicism is not the core, but the later explanation imposed on the anger of a girl in her early teens looking out at an unfair world.
I have wondered if Cynthia and Jean were any part ofthe girls in Peyton Place who have these seemingly perfect lives and are clearly resented by the narrator.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Army Lets Convicted Torturer Skate
From Blackfive
Even with the plea-bargain angle, and the mitigating circumstances, this is unacceptable.
Even with the plea-bargain angle, and the mitigating circumstances, this is unacceptable.
Making Padded Swords
PVC pipe, foam pipe insulation, and duct tape are the primary materials. Half-inch PVC is best for the younger ones, 3/4" as they get older. But be careful, because if you are making something longer than 36", that half-inch stuff can get whippy.
18-36" is best. As in all whapping games, your older or stronger children will have some advantage. They will have less advantage than in most other games, however. You can equalize things a bit by giving the younger child a longer, but lighter sword. Or you can make only one shield, and give it to the younger one.
Don't run the PVC all the way to the point of the sword. Leave about 4" that's just foam insulation wrapped with duct tape. Ditto the sword crosspiece, which should have a 1" foam overlap on each end. A pommel at the bottom is sufficient protection.
Wrap the duct tape in spiral fashion, overlapping it enough so that the final amount of tape is two layers. One layer tends to split. Three layers makes the sword stiff enough to really sting -- too much.
Kids can still get hurt with this, as with any game, but even bruising is unlikely. A stinging smack that brings tears to your eyes is usually about the worst of it. In winter, the cold stiffness of the "blade" is offset by the extra padding worn by the combatants.
I have seen people attempt scimitars, pikes, two-handed axes and the like. Why bother? These swords aren't going to look particularly authentic no matter what you do. They're for play, not reenactment.
18-36" is best. As in all whapping games, your older or stronger children will have some advantage. They will have less advantage than in most other games, however. You can equalize things a bit by giving the younger child a longer, but lighter sword. Or you can make only one shield, and give it to the younger one.
Don't run the PVC all the way to the point of the sword. Leave about 4" that's just foam insulation wrapped with duct tape. Ditto the sword crosspiece, which should have a 1" foam overlap on each end. A pommel at the bottom is sufficient protection.
Wrap the duct tape in spiral fashion, overlapping it enough so that the final amount of tape is two layers. One layer tends to split. Three layers makes the sword stiff enough to really sting -- too much.
Kids can still get hurt with this, as with any game, but even bruising is unlikely. A stinging smack that brings tears to your eyes is usually about the worst of it. In winter, the cold stiffness of the "blade" is offset by the extra padding worn by the combatants.
I have seen people attempt scimitars, pikes, two-handed axes and the like. Why bother? These swords aren't going to look particularly authentic no matter what you do. They're for play, not reenactment.
About Those Postgraduate Voters
I remember people making some noise in the run-up to the 2004 elections about the breakdown of voters by education. Democrats considered it significant that folks with some postgrad study preferred Kerry 55/44/1. I don't blame them for trumpeting it, because whatever it means, it sounds great. Someone just brought it up again in another comments section.
The overall numbers: No Highschool Diploma split 50/49 for Bush. Not much for either side to cheer about there. HS Diploma 52/47 Bush; Some college, 54/46 Bush; College Grad 52/46/1 Bush/Kerry/Nader; Postgrad study, 55/44/1, Kerry/Bush/Nader, as above.
Since that time I ran across the statistic that just under one-third of those with some graduate school took Education. This puts a whole different light on the earlier statistic. Graduate students in Education have the lowest GRE's of any field of study. Their undergraduate GPA's in non-education courses were lowest in any field of study. Their SAT's were not only lower than those who went to graduate school in other subjects, they were lower than those who went on to no graduate school at all.
Advanced degrees in science correlate moderately well with intelligence measures. Other advanced degrees, less well. Grad school is more a measure of perseverence. Persistence is a good thing. It is probably a better quality to have than intelligence. But it is not the same thing.
Also, more than any other field (I am estimating), people in Education depend on government for employment. This would create a certain amount of self-interest in voting for parties that like federal funding of education. While it sometimes feels as if there's no longer any difference between Republicans and Democrats on that, that's just grouchiness on the part of deficit-hawk Republicans. There actually still is a difference. And as for perceptions, Democrats run way ahead of Republicans among educators. Classroom teachers run 61-39 Democrat. Education professors run 92-8 Democrat. Somewhere between that must be where those with some graduate study are. Call it 75-25 Democrat.
Now take those folks with graduate study in education out of the equation, because A) they're not as qualified (generally. Lots individuals with said degrees have superb intelligence), and B) they have a vested interest.
Well, Shazam! All of a sudden Bush is up again. 52/47/1. Huh. The moral of the story is, Kerry did best among people with no HS diploma plus people with some graduate study in Education.
The overall numbers: No Highschool Diploma split 50/49 for Bush. Not much for either side to cheer about there. HS Diploma 52/47 Bush; Some college, 54/46 Bush; College Grad 52/46/1 Bush/Kerry/Nader; Postgrad study, 55/44/1, Kerry/Bush/Nader, as above.
Since that time I ran across the statistic that just under one-third of those with some graduate school took Education. This puts a whole different light on the earlier statistic. Graduate students in Education have the lowest GRE's of any field of study. Their undergraduate GPA's in non-education courses were lowest in any field of study. Their SAT's were not only lower than those who went to graduate school in other subjects, they were lower than those who went on to no graduate school at all.
Advanced degrees in science correlate moderately well with intelligence measures. Other advanced degrees, less well. Grad school is more a measure of perseverence. Persistence is a good thing. It is probably a better quality to have than intelligence. But it is not the same thing.
Also, more than any other field (I am estimating), people in Education depend on government for employment. This would create a certain amount of self-interest in voting for parties that like federal funding of education. While it sometimes feels as if there's no longer any difference between Republicans and Democrats on that, that's just grouchiness on the part of deficit-hawk Republicans. There actually still is a difference. And as for perceptions, Democrats run way ahead of Republicans among educators. Classroom teachers run 61-39 Democrat. Education professors run 92-8 Democrat. Somewhere between that must be where those with some graduate study are. Call it 75-25 Democrat.
Now take those folks with graduate study in education out of the equation, because A) they're not as qualified (generally. Lots individuals with said degrees have superb intelligence), and B) they have a vested interest.
Well, Shazam! All of a sudden Bush is up again. 52/47/1. Huh. The moral of the story is, Kerry did best among people with no HS diploma plus people with some graduate study in Education.
Monday, January 23, 2006
The Four Yorkshiremen
Monty Python did the the best send-up of victimology more than 30 years ago.
I have heard it was based loosely on an actual conversation.
I have heard it was based loosely on an actual conversation.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Teach Your Children Well
I will save you some trouble in educating your children. Don't bring them to an historical place, hoping they will develop some interest and want to learn about it. That does happen, but it is so serendipitous as to be unreliable.
Have them learn first, and then go, painful as that is for you.
We take a family trip in honor of each boy's highschool graduation -- their choice. In 1997, Jonathan chose England and Scotland. Note that Braveheart came out in 1995. Jonathan was very taken with being descended from William Wallace, and all things Scots in general. Our first two sons had grown up in a family oriented toward the medieval. We had gone to SCA events in elaborate costume, had read them dozens of stories with knights and dragons, visited Hammond Castle and the armor museum in Worcester, and made padded swords for them to engage in mock combat. I thought that the second son, Benjamin, would pick up enough history on the trip to aid him in subsequent history classes.
Fast forward four years. "How did the history test go, Ben?" Not bad. I think I got almost everything, except there was a question about Hadrian's Wall (disdainful voice) which of course only Doug knew about. My eyebrows went up, my eyes widened, and I shook in anger, remember the approximately $6K we'd spent on the trip. "You were ON IT! It's the border between Scotland and England and you and Jonathan played on it! Don't you remember?" Oh. Yeah. Sort of.
Two weeks later. Y'know, I think I'd like to see Versailles when we go on my trip.
Spend your money on the movie first, the academic lesson second, and the trip third.
Have them learn first, and then go, painful as that is for you.
We take a family trip in honor of each boy's highschool graduation -- their choice. In 1997, Jonathan chose England and Scotland. Note that Braveheart came out in 1995. Jonathan was very taken with being descended from William Wallace, and all things Scots in general. Our first two sons had grown up in a family oriented toward the medieval. We had gone to SCA events in elaborate costume, had read them dozens of stories with knights and dragons, visited Hammond Castle and the armor museum in Worcester, and made padded swords for them to engage in mock combat. I thought that the second son, Benjamin, would pick up enough history on the trip to aid him in subsequent history classes.
Fast forward four years. "How did the history test go, Ben?" Not bad. I think I got almost everything, except there was a question about Hadrian's Wall (disdainful voice) which of course only Doug knew about. My eyebrows went up, my eyes widened, and I shook in anger, remember the approximately $6K we'd spent on the trip. "You were ON IT! It's the border between Scotland and England and you and Jonathan played on it! Don't you remember?" Oh. Yeah. Sort of.
Two weeks later. Y'know, I think I'd like to see Versailles when we go on my trip.
Spend your money on the movie first, the academic lesson second, and the trip third.
Today's Linguistics Curiosity
River names are among the oldest in any region. New settlers seldom outnumber the old ones at first, and adopt the name already in use. This often gives us some clue as to where various groups of people lived, and when. The Indo-European root "D-n" for river gives us Danube, Dnieper, Donets, Dniestr, Don, and a dozen others in that Black Sea region. Of all the Indian names which persist in America, rivers far outnumber other features. Name-continuity happens less often with mountains because people do not particularly use mountains as they do rivers. Political features are often named intentionally by the inhabitants, and there is usually good reason not to remind everyone who the recent owners were.
Underground DSM-IV: Splitting
If one staff member moves to rescue an Axis II patient, someone else will lean toward punishment to an equal degree. In large groups the mathematics of balance is more complicated but the principle is the same: the group will balance its transference, which is driven by the patient. Moving to the extremes just increases splitting: shift wars, team vs. line staff, community vs. hospital.
Once everyone takes a deep Lamaze Cleansing Breath and remembers this, the treatment of the patient can procedd.
Once everyone takes a deep Lamaze Cleansing Breath and remembers this, the treatment of the patient can procedd.
Gregg Easterbrook's The Progress Paradox
How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse.
For the first 80 pages, Easterbrook hammers home how much better life keeps getting. Each cynic wants to deny it, searching for exceptions in education or international relations, but the list is impressive, and its supporting evidence powerful.
From 1900 to now, life expectancy almost double; percentage in upper-middle class or above went from 1% to 23%. Almost half of all men worked in primary labor – forestry, farming, and half of all wage-earning women worked as domestic servants – not even what we would call blue collar these days -- but now over 50% of each is white-collar.
Since 1950, houses twice as big for families half the size, and 70% own their dwelling. Life expectancy up 35%. Percentage of folks in war zones, down 80% worldwide.
Crime is down, disease is down, IQ’s are up (yeah, really) and education is better (yeah really). Divorce is down, teenage pregnancy down, drug use down. For those who find this impossible to believe there is a short answer: retrospective memory is inaccurate.
There is a different but related list over at No Oil For Pacifists
And yet – clinical depression is way up; anxiety disorders are up; people’s subject sense of well-being is slightly down, people’s hopefulness for the future is down.
Easterbrook suggests a dozen reasons, including unrealistic expectations; lack of sleep and exercise, less community contact, greater awareness of problems everywhere, the preference of intellectual elites for bad news and hopelessness, catalog-induced anxiety, and perceived want. He recommends the new “positive psychology:” cultivating forgiveness and gratitude and the other parts of hazzin’ a good attitude. OK, fine. The book starts to weaken here, and dribbles out altogether at the end, as he repeats his favorite complaints against SUV’s, health insurance insecurity, and the free market’s creation of losers. (He acknowledges, BTW, that market economies have created all the good things above, but keeps thinking there should be something, well, better. Great. Wake me when you find it, Gregg.)
All this we knew at some dim level. This next part is new. Easterbrook believes that stress and anxiety are the default positions for the human personality. The people who worried about the fire going out and listened for war drums over the hill survived; those who stopped to appreciate sunsets got eaten by something. We think relaxation should be our default mode, and when problems go away we should just naturally relax. Probably not. More typical is that we transfer our worry and stress to the next-largest problem. Relaxation has to be cultivated and learned for most of us.
For the first 80 pages, Easterbrook hammers home how much better life keeps getting. Each cynic wants to deny it, searching for exceptions in education or international relations, but the list is impressive, and its supporting evidence powerful.
From 1900 to now, life expectancy almost double; percentage in upper-middle class or above went from 1% to 23%. Almost half of all men worked in primary labor – forestry, farming, and half of all wage-earning women worked as domestic servants – not even what we would call blue collar these days -- but now over 50% of each is white-collar.
Since 1950, houses twice as big for families half the size, and 70% own their dwelling. Life expectancy up 35%. Percentage of folks in war zones, down 80% worldwide.
Crime is down, disease is down, IQ’s are up (yeah, really) and education is better (yeah really). Divorce is down, teenage pregnancy down, drug use down. For those who find this impossible to believe there is a short answer: retrospective memory is inaccurate.
There is a different but related list over at No Oil For Pacifists
And yet – clinical depression is way up; anxiety disorders are up; people’s subject sense of well-being is slightly down, people’s hopefulness for the future is down.
Easterbrook suggests a dozen reasons, including unrealistic expectations; lack of sleep and exercise, less community contact, greater awareness of problems everywhere, the preference of intellectual elites for bad news and hopelessness, catalog-induced anxiety, and perceived want. He recommends the new “positive psychology:” cultivating forgiveness and gratitude and the other parts of hazzin’ a good attitude. OK, fine. The book starts to weaken here, and dribbles out altogether at the end, as he repeats his favorite complaints against SUV’s, health insurance insecurity, and the free market’s creation of losers. (He acknowledges, BTW, that market economies have created all the good things above, but keeps thinking there should be something, well, better. Great. Wake me when you find it, Gregg.)
All this we knew at some dim level. This next part is new. Easterbrook believes that stress and anxiety are the default positions for the human personality. The people who worried about the fire going out and listened for war drums over the hill survived; those who stopped to appreciate sunsets got eaten by something. We think relaxation should be our default mode, and when problems go away we should just naturally relax. Probably not. More typical is that we transfer our worry and stress to the next-largest problem. Relaxation has to be cultivated and learned for most of us.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Perfect Solution
From Clayton Cramer's site, via Instapundit, comes the news that France is announcing its willingness to use its nuclear arsenal against terrorist states.
It seems a perfect solution to me. France gets to show they do too matter. The rest of Europe and America express deep regret but do nothing. Iran gets a hand cut off. The nutcase jihadists have someone new to be upset at, but don't dare take their eyes off their American/British/Australian foes. When there's rioting outside of Paris, this time the French put it down in the same way they do in their colonies. Moderate Muslims pause to consider that maybe things have gotten too crazy. The Russians, French, and Chinese angle for the proper way to corruptly divvy up Iran's oil money. American and Western European leftists burst from contradiction.
I must be missing some downside here. Work with me.
It seems a perfect solution to me. France gets to show they do too matter. The rest of Europe and America express deep regret but do nothing. Iran gets a hand cut off. The nutcase jihadists have someone new to be upset at, but don't dare take their eyes off their American/British/Australian foes. When there's rioting outside of Paris, this time the French put it down in the same way they do in their colonies. Moderate Muslims pause to consider that maybe things have gotten too crazy. The Russians, French, and Chinese angle for the proper way to corruptly divvy up Iran's oil money. American and Western European leftists burst from contradiction.
I must be missing some downside here. Work with me.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Articles You Missed
Bruce Bawer, a gay leftist American lives in Europe a few years and has second thoughts. And third thoughts.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Building Better Brains
Daviess County, KY has a program to build better brains. Starting with the Class of 2010 -- that would be the Kindregarten class of 97-98 -- every student is taught and practices chess, every student studies a foreign language every year, and every child receives music lessons (usually keyboard piano). The idea is to simply build better brains, more neuronal connections, in every student.
Dance was quickly added in, which seemed non-academic to me at first, but does fit with the idea of building new motor and memory pathways.
So far, so good. Daviess County already had a pretty good school system when they started, placing at about the 60th percentile nationally despite having 35% of students qualifying for lunch assistance. More than halfway through the experiment, the district 7th graders are now just shy of the 80th percentile. (For comparison, the 10th graders are still just over 60). This number becomes even more remarkable when one considers...
Not all those tested in the project, called Graduation 2010, have been in the district the whole time. Like anywhere else, people move in and out.
Children entering kindergarten each year are about the same as before, at 60th percentile nationally.
The county had a tornado which did millions of dollars of damage to school buildings.
The superintendent who drove this whole idea has moved on to Fayette County, also in KY. Maybe your new masters won't have Asperger's. Maybe they'll have Kentucky accents instead.
Dance was quickly added in, which seemed non-academic to me at first, but does fit with the idea of building new motor and memory pathways.
So far, so good. Daviess County already had a pretty good school system when they started, placing at about the 60th percentile nationally despite having 35% of students qualifying for lunch assistance. More than halfway through the experiment, the district 7th graders are now just shy of the 80th percentile. (For comparison, the 10th graders are still just over 60). This number becomes even more remarkable when one considers...
Not all those tested in the project, called Graduation 2010, have been in the district the whole time. Like anywhere else, people move in and out.
Children entering kindergarten each year are about the same as before, at 60th percentile nationally.
The county had a tornado which did millions of dollars of damage to school buildings.
The superintendent who drove this whole idea has moved on to Fayette County, also in KY. Maybe your new masters won't have Asperger's. Maybe they'll have Kentucky accents instead.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Thinking and Culture
Albion's Seedlings has a fascinating review of the differences in how Western and Eastern societies perceive and evaluate things. Alphabets, spy planes, and tigers make it into the discussion of Richard E. Nesbitt's The Geography of Thought.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)