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Post by Russell Letson on May 4, 2024 17:00:50 GMT -5
Hmm--this cream seems to have clotted. Smells funny, too.
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Post by Russell Letson on May 4, 2024 16:58:04 GMT -5
What does being "infertile" (which isn't what Goldman really means in his rhetorical flailing) have to do with being "equipped for the coming set of crises"? Would having children help us face the social chaos that climate change promises? With any luck, we will be gone before the worst of it hits*, but if we were twenty years younger, we'd still be in the shit right along with everybody else, with or without children.
If the "current set of young adults" has handicaps in the coping-with-crisis department, they're more likely a matter of lacking practical skills and the kind of education that allows intelligent analysis of conditions (including political conditions--despots love the poorly educated).
* Though it looks like earlier estimates of the arrival of really bad shit were optimistic.
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Post by Russell Letson on May 4, 2024 11:36:17 GMT -5
So, this is a day to celebrate? Maybe they can combine it with Banjo Appreciation Day. ššŖšŖ Just add slide whistle.
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Post by Russell Letson on May 3, 2024 16:37:53 GMT -5
This current secularist finds Goldman's lumpy stew of assertions about what various religio-cultural populations think and feel not even halfway convincing. And stuff about "self-doomed, infertile, futureless post-Christians" is particularly strange--and interestingly reminiscent of the ethnic-politics assholes who fear that some other demographic will outbreed (and replace) them. What world does this guy live in? (FWIW, no ethno-cultural group lasts forever unchanged or unabsorbed. "O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark."** Fucking get over it.)
** T.S. Eliot, "East Coker"
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Post by Russell Letson on May 3, 2024 14:50:56 GMT -5
Is that John Gardner as in the author of "Grendel" John Gardner? Yup. He would have become my dissertation director if he hadn't gone off to become a Famous Author.
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Post by Russell Letson on May 3, 2024 13:28:41 GMT -5
LJ: As far as any of us could figure, he was a deeply closeted or perhaps unconscious homosexual--lifelong bachelor with a prayer kneeler in his home library. (Praying for what, I recall wondering when I saw it.) Word was that he never gave a woman student an A--until Cezarija. He also was said to have undercut or driven away every one of his potential mentees. So I doubt that he had the hots for C, or any woman. His acolytes were all men. And he bullied a student of C's that she had sent to Carbondale for grad school to the point that she went to Carnegie-Mellon for her Ph.D. The only dissertation I knew him to have overseen to completion was by a friend ours, a gifted artist and scholar, whose project was an original faux Old English poem. Rainbow (the prof's actual name) gave the go-ahead on it, with the proviso that the poem be treated in full academic-edition manner, with a scholarly introduction and full linguistic impedimenta, meaning a glossary including every word and its grammatical function, just like the Klaeber Beowulf edition. I somehow came across one of the file copies of the finished dissertation, and Jerry had done it up in style. But then, reproducing ancient artifacts was one of his hobbies--he painted the ikonstasis for a local Orthodox church and, for fun, painted a historically-correct Renaissance fresco on another friend's apartment wall. He gave me a tiny practice study for a saint and a Madonna, both with gold-leaf backgrounds, and (for my mother) I commissioned a Byzantine-style Christ (can't recall whether it was a Sacred Heart or a Pantocator--my brother has it now). He also designed the wrap-around dust cover for John Gardner's Life and Times of Chaucer. The figure at the bottom holding a paintbrush is a self-portrait, while John looks out from the middle window on the left. To be fair to Rainbow, he was completely competent and a more-than-decent teacher in his area of medieval linguistics, if a bit stuffily old-fashioned on the literary end--he did not at all resonate with John Gardner's big-tent sensibility. And I think that once he saw me as one of John's students, he soured on me.
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Post by Russell Letson on May 3, 2024 11:28:22 GMT -5
I was introduced to Cezarija at an annual departmental meet-the-new-people reception in 1967--she was one of the new grad students and I was a second-year oldster. She doesn't remember that, but I do. The introducer was the professor who three years later would later go from being my mentor to trying to get me drafted. She recalls us meeting in Old English class that term, taught by that same mentor/traitor. But we got fully acquainted when I provided a Christmas-break ride home for her and two other Pittsburghers. It was a long drive from Carbondale to Pittsburgh back in 1967 (the interstates were not quite finished), and we had a lot of time to talk. By the time I got home, I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to end up. It took a bit longer for C. come to the same conclusion, but by 1970, everybody we knew (including our parents) was saying, "So when are you two going to get married?" So we did, just to shut them up.
(And then the draft notice came, and I filed for CO status, and my mentor sent a letter to my draft board suggesting I be inducted, and we parted company academically, and he tried to fail me out of the doctoral program, and I changed my dissertation area from medieval to science fiction and fantasy and finished anyway, and here we are. We're still married and my ex-mentor, I find, has been dead since 1998.)
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Post by Russell Letson on May 2, 2024 18:14:47 GMT -5
And by what means are Hamas to be beaten? How much collateral damage is acceptable? And who gets to do the accepting? We've been through something like this before, and I don't mean the insistence on unconditional surrender at the end of WW2.
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Post by Russell Letson on May 2, 2024 18:02:34 GMT -5
They knew going in that our government would turn on Israel. It only took them a month or so. And the question that remains begged is an evidence that the majority of the Palestinians weren't in favor of the attack. Still, our government asks Israel to surrender, not Hamas. First, I wouldn't mind seeing some evidence (or analysis) that supports the first bolded phrase. (I've already offered my thumbnail analysis: that Hamas intended to provoke the Israeli government.) Next, I'd like to see some support of the assertion that the US government "turned on" Israel, perhaps including a definition of "turn on." Third, I'm not sure how one would establish the factuality of the other bolded passage--even after establishing that the exact nature of the attack could be presented for approval. Fourth, has the US government actually asked Israel to surrender? The reports I see (AP, Reuters, NBC, ) say that the US is pushing for a cease-fire and release of hostages--for example: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Israel on Wednesday to press for a cease-fire deal in the Israel-Hamas war, saying āthe time is now ā and warning that Hamas would bear the blame for any failure to reach an agreement to halt the war in Gaza.
On his seventh visit since the latest war between Israel and Hamas broke out in October, Blinken is trying to advance a truce that would free hostages held by Hamas in exchange for a halt to the fighting and delivery of much needed food, medicine and water into Gaza. Palestinian prisoners are also expected to be released as part of the deal. apnews.com/article/israel-iran-hamas-latest-05-01-2024-a461b0aab9b8d25cddf386f2dfd30d6fNow, is a "halt to the fighting" as a condition of freeing hostages the same as surrender? Is "warning that Hamas would bear the blame for any failure to reach an agreement" an abandonment of Israel? And how would asking Israel to surrender square with supplying them with the arms they need to continue prosecuting the war? (There is a lack of unanimity on material support in Congress and the general public.)
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Post by Russell Letson on May 2, 2024 16:36:18 GMT -5
The post reads, "The obvious question asked by one lone journalist. It's the most obvious question, but heretofore conspicuously unasked." "Heretofore conspicuously unasked" is an assertion about the public discussions surrounding the Hamas-Israel war, and it is clearly made in a manner that implies neglect or bias on the part of those commenting. Even if "heretofore" is adjusted to the time frame of Lane essay, it's not accurate. Which is not the same as arguing the question of surrender itself. On which I offered no opinion.
In fact, I'd be tickled if Hamas surrendered. Do I think it's at all likely? Nope. Do I think Hamas gives a shit about the fate of ordinary Palestinians, in Gaza or Israel? Nope. Do I think that killing everybody around them is a good way of stopping them? Nope. In fact, I suspect that Hamas did what they did on Oct. 7 precisely to provoke Israel's government into doing what they've done, and that many Hamas fighters and strategists are not only not afraid to die but are quite willing to have uninvolved others die as well. Or as badly.
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Post by Russell Letson on May 2, 2024 16:07:52 GMT -5
One lone journalist? I put "why doesn't hamas surrender" into both Google and DuckDuckGo searches and got back quite a few hits, most of which seem to be dated after the Charles Lane WaPo op-ed (11/15/23), but I don't think he was the first to bring up the topic*. In fact, I did find a thoroughly pro-Israel piece published a week before Lane's, by a Democratic "pollster and political consultant" (according to Wikipedia): thehill.com/opinion/4299596-mellman-to-protect-gaza-civilians-hamas-should-surrender/And just to make things interesting, I came across a 2018 Brookings Institute analysis piece with this observation: Israelis might be tempted to celebrate Hamasā weaknessāitās hard, after all, to feel sorry for a group that has an avowed intention of killing you and works with Iran, Israelās arch-enemy. Yet Hamasā continued control of Gaza also serves Israelās interests. Hamas is not the worst of the Palestinian groups opposed to Israel. www.brookings.edu/articles/why-israel-is-stuck-with-hamas/* Also: His piece was picked up by Yahoo News, MSN, and The Week
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Post by Russell Letson on Apr 30, 2024 17:23:38 GMT -5
Tip for housekeeping: Don't look under the bed. And if you do, use tongs to remove what you find there.
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Post by Russell Letson on Apr 30, 2024 12:36:49 GMT -5
FWIW, news as of yesterday evening was that my musical friend got through the triple bypass procedure OK. I'm relieved but not surprised--he's a healthy-seeming 60-year-old (though carrying a bit more weight than is prudent and with a taste for cigars) and the St Cloud Hospital's cardiac department is quite highly rated. Still, it was good to hear the so-far-so-good news. Aside from the inevitable healing and rehab process, the next concern is how he's going to navigate running his sole-proprietor business, which depends on his particular skill-set.
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Post by Russell Letson on Apr 29, 2024 21:31:45 GMT -5
More Good News Dept.: A musical friend got through the first stage of a cardiac crisis today, a triple bypass. Woke up with chest pains last week and was diagnosed the same day. He's a long-time local player and sole-proprietor businessman, and what's as good as the successful surgery is the way his many friends, customers, and fans have rallied around with financial as well as emotional support. (A GoFundMe set up by his sister took off like a rocket.) He won't be back onstage until July, but if rehab goes as well as surgery, he'll make it.
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Post by Russell Letson on Apr 27, 2024 18:58:21 GMT -5
That track is indeed one that ambitious gypsy-jazz students all tackle--some, like Sam Miltich, also accepting Django's left-hand limitations as part of the exercise. I find it as riveting as the famous Coleman Hawkins "Body and Soul," and for some of the same reasons.
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Post by Russell Letson on Apr 26, 2024 14:38:17 GMT -5
Just last night one of the Monday Night Jazz (on Thursday) guys was enthusing about Chimborazo. He particularly liked what he described as a plate full of veggies, which I take to be the Ecuatoriano Vegetariano.
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Post by Russell Letson on Apr 26, 2024 10:38:13 GMT -5
It's worth unpicking/unpacking exactly what a given protest (or, better yet, a given individual protester) is pro or anti. For example, is "pro-Palestinian" the same as "pro-Hamas"? And it's certainly easy to distinguish "pro-Israel" from "pro-Netanyahu" or "pro-settler"--Zionism does not and never has come in just one flavor.
The more granular the better. Who, exactly, is being killed or dispossessed, by whom, and under what circumstances? But then, nuance and "it depends" are not prominent features of collective behavior.
As far as campus protests go, I recall finding much of what my near-contemporaries got up to in the late 1960s foolish or ineffective, even when I shared some of their analyses of what we were up to in Viet Nam. And even then I found it difficult to exactly locate the lines that were foolish or counter-productive to cross. Certainly deliberately or naively getting various authorities to respond with disproportionate violence was tricky and not guaranteed to be seen sympathetically. (I suspect there was plenty of cheering around Carbondale at the prospect of state cops busting heads. There was also a willingness to do a bit of volunteer head-busting among our redder-necked neighbors.)
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Post by Russell Letson on Apr 23, 2024 20:39:41 GMT -5
Followed (eventually) by Hamlet's "I'll lug the guts into the neighbor room. Mother, good night."
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Post by Russell Letson on Apr 23, 2024 18:38:33 GMT -5
"Act as though" is crucial to much civilized (and moral) behavior--operationally, we can get along if we act like civilized, decent people, no matter what lurks in our hearts. It's the same kind of principle that's behind "equal before the law"--with a handful of status exceptions (children, the mentally impaired) and mitigating conditions, the law's the same for all of us. It's also part of the great theological divide between faith and works and the reason our mothers taught us manners and maybe behind Hamlet's advice to Polonius on offering hospitality to the players--
POLONIUS: My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
HAMLET: Godās bodykins, man, much better! Use every man after his desert and who shall āscape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.
(Happy birthday, Willie!)
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Post by Russell Letson on Apr 23, 2024 15:18:47 GMT -5
We celebrated Shakespeare's birthday (a high holiday in this household) by taking C. to the ER--not for anything dire, but to make sure that her lousy upper-respiratory infection (AKA "bad cold") wasn't something more serious. This was on the advice of the CentraCare telemedicine nurse and thanks, I suspect, to a protocol designed to minimize exposure to litigation as well as to more completely eliminate the worst possibilities. Her regular doctor is, of course, completely booked up, and the vibe from the nurse was that the Urgent Care clinic would be sub-optimal. It's nice to have a round of tests (including chest X-ray, EKG, and triple respiratory-virus swab, followed by a session with the ER doc) confirm that it's a more or less normal respiratory virus, but the time-effort-resources overhead is significantly greater than it was in the old see-your-doctor days. On the other hand, 78-year-olds with a history of bronchitis maybe do need to be cautious. (But do I wonder how long it took for someone in authority to look at her history.)
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