Monday, June 6, 2022

Althouse

Althouse

"Punctuality is paramount as we are going through a re-evaluation of our relationship to time."

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 05:25 PM PDT

"There has been less tolerance for lateness because there is expectation that you have more control over your time and so you should be on time." 

Said Linda Ong, chief executive officer of an L.A. consulting firm, quoted in "Punctuality Is Having a Moment/'Fashionably late' falls out of fashion after more than two years of remote work, when, for many people, there was no good reason to be tardy" (NYT).

Glenn Greenwald compares how WaPo treated Taylor Lorenz with how it treated David Weigel.

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 04:30 PM PDT

ADDED: Greenwald goes on in a series of tweets that I won't link to individually: 

One should prefer any job to being imprisoned inside a newsroom where older editors are petrified and terrorized by the prospect of bad faith bigotry/misogyny accusations being weaponized at any moment by unwell, vindictive millennials, and thus constantly indulge their neuroses. 

The reason this matters is because the people at these media corporations who constantly reveal themselves to be deranged sociopathic freaks and neurotics -- as is happening now at the WPost -- are the ones demanding the right to declare Truth and Falsity and censor in its name.... There's no such thing as satiating the bloodlust of woke sociopaths who live to destroy people to compensate for their own lack of self-esteem and purpose. 

Not content with @daveweigel 's suspension, they now want punishment for Post reporter @jdelreal for the crime of objecting. Jose Del Real is the only Mexican-American on the Post's national desk and an openly gay man to boot. Obviously, in a sane world, none of that should matter, but this would be the key fact if they wanted to defend rather than destroy him. They suspend their own rules at will.

"[W]hat we want is them to know that all are welcome and loved here. But when we put it on our bodies, I think a lot of guys decided that it’s just a lifestyle that maybe..."

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 04:02 PM PDT

"... not that they look down on anybody or think differently – it's just that maybe we don't want to encourage it if we believe in Jesus, who's encouraged us to live a lifestyle that would abstain from that behavior.... It's not judgmental. It's not looking down. It's just what we believe the lifestyle he's encouraged us to live, for our good, not to withhold. But again, we love these men and women, we care about them, and we want them to feel safe and welcome here."

Said Tampa Bay pitcher Jason Allen, quoted in "'We don't want to encourage it': some Rays players refuse to wear Pride logo" (The Guardian).

"A children's museum is apologizing after a social media user pointed out that its Juneteenth menu perpetuated stereotypes about Black people."

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 03:46 PM PDT

"The Children's Museum of Indianapolis on Friday posted about its special 'Juneteenth Jamboree' to celebrate the federal holiday that commemorates the emancipation of slaves. Shortly after, a user Jonelle Slaughter posted a comment that included a photo of the museum's 'Juneteenth Watermelon Salad.'"

 NBC News reports.

"After a more than four-month investigation that led to his reinstatement last week, Ilya Shapiro resigned today from Georgetown University Law Center...."

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 11:05 AM PDT

"Georgetown investigated Shapiro after he tweeted that Sri Srinivasan, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, would be President Biden's 'best pick' for the Supreme Court. He continued: 'But alas [Srinivasan] doesn't fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we'll get lesser black woman.'...  When Georgetown reinstated Shapiro, it said that university policies did not apply to him when he tweeted on Jan. 26, as his employment was to begin Feb. 1.... [A]ccording to Shapiro, the university investigative report said... if he were to 'make another, similar or more serious remark as a Georgetown employee, a hostile environment based on race, gender, and sex likely would be created.' In making this determination, Georgetown effectively told Shapiro he must either toe the company line and keep dissenting opinions to himself or face another investigation and possible sanction.... Shapiro additionally cited examples of Georgetown professors' remarks on matters of public concern that drew attention and ire. None of these professors, however, were investigated or punished, demonstrating disparate treatment by the university...."

FIRE reports, with the full text of Shapiro's letter, which I've read and strongly recommend. I'll excerpt a few things: 

Contrary to your June 2 statement, no reasonable person acting in good faith could construe what I tweeted to be "objectively offensive." It's a complete miscomprehension to read what I said to suggest that "the best Supreme Court nominee could not be a Black woman," as you did in your very first statement back on January 27, or that I considered all black women to be "lesser than" everyone else. Although my tweet was inartful, as I've readily admitted many times, its meaning that I considered one possible candidate to be best and thus all others to be less qualified is clear. Only those acting in bad faith to get me fired because of my political beliefs would misconstrue what I said to suggest otherwise.... 
As the report put it, "The University's anti-harassment policy does not require that a respondent intend to denigrate or show hostility or aversion to individuals based on a protected status. Instead, the Policy requires consideration of the 'purpose or effect' of a respondent's conduct." According to this theory, the mere fact that many people were offended, or claimed to be, is enough for me to have violated the policies under which I was being investigated. Although there was no formal finding of a violation because of the procedural fact that I wasn't an employee when I tweeted and so not subject to those policies, so long as some unstated number of students, faculty, or staff claim that a statement "denigrates" or "show[s] hostility or aversion" to a protected class, that's enough to constitute a violation of Georgetown antidiscrimination rules. The falsity of such a claim is immaterial to being found guilty. Georgetown has adopted what First Amendment jurisprudence describes as an impermissible "heckler's veto."...

ADDED: Here's Shapiro's WSJ column, "Why I Quit Georgetown The university didn't fire me, but it yielded to the progressive mob, abandoned free speech, and created a hostile environment." Excerpt:

Dean William Treanor cleared me on the technicality that I wasn't an employee when I tweeted, but the IDEAA [Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action] implicitly repealed Georgetown's Speech and Expression Policy and set me up for discipline the next time I transgress progressive orthodoxy. 

Instead of participating in that slow-motion firing, I'm resigning. 

IDEAA speciously found that my tweet criticizing President Biden for limiting his Supreme Court pool by race and sex required "appropriate corrective measures" to address my "objectively offensive comments and to prevent the recurrence of offensive conduct based on race, gender, and sex."...

All sorts of comments that someone could find offensive would subject me to disciplinary action.... 

Contrast my case with these recent examples: 

• In 2018, Prof. Carol Christine Fair of the School of Foreign Service tweeted during Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation process: "Look at this chorus of entitled white men justifying a serial rapist's arrogated entitlement. All of them deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps. Bonus: we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine? Yes." Georgetown held this to be protected speech. 

• In 2020, Prof. Heidi Feldman of the Law Center tweeted that "law professors and law school deans" should "not support applications from our students to clerk for" judges appointed by President Trump. "To work for such a judge," Ms. Feldman continued, "indelibly marks a lawyer as lacking in the character and judgment necessary for the practice of law." These comments could threaten the careers of all conservative and libertarian students, or anyone who clerks for duly confirmed but disfavored judges. But Georgetown took no action. 

• In April of this year—months after my tweet—Ms. Feldman tweeted: "We have only one political party in this country, the Democrats. The other group is a combination of a cult and an insurrection-supporting crime syndicate." She went on: "The only ethically and politically responsible stance to take toward the Republican 'party' is to consistently point out that it is no longer a legitimate participant in U.S. constitutional democracy." Unlike me, Ms. Feldman teaches first-year law students in mandatory courses. This pattern of remarks created a hostile educational environment for Republican students—a protected class under District of Columbia antidiscrimination law. The tweets were quietly deleted without apology or disciplinary action....

"I have now read several reports on the subject of this 'slight to Islam' and not one of the articles have told me what was said or what the insulting words actually were."

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 07:02 AM PDT

"Why? Are we so afraid of offending Muslims that the words cannot be repeated even in a news article? This is not the way of modern western countries. If this were about a perceived insult to the Catholic Church or a Pentecostal Church, I have no doubt we would have been given the bald facts - including what was actually said that caused offence. We should stop tip-toeing around Islam."

That's the top comment on the Washington Post article, "Muslim nations slam India over insulting remarks about Islam." I read that comment after reading the article, paragraph by paragraph, getting more and more exasperated by the lack of any quote of the "insulting remarks."

"Far more prone to salty language behind the scenes than popularly known, Biden also recently erupted over being kept out of the loop about the direness of the baby formula shortage..."

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 05:43 AM PDT

"... that has gripped parts of the country, according to a White House staffer and a Democrat with knowledge of the conversation. He voiced his frustration in a series of phone calls to allies, his complaints triggered by heart-wrenching cable news coverage of young mothers crying in fear that they could not feed their children. Biden didn't want to be painted as slow to act on a problem affecting the working-class people with whom he closely identifies.... Members of Biden's inner circle... have complained that West Wing staff has managed Biden with kid gloves, not putting him on the road more or allowing him to flash more of his genuine, relatable, albeit gaffe-prone self."

From "Biden wants to get out more, seething that his standing is now worse than Trump's/Frustrations are mounting and the window for a political revival is closing" by Jonathan Lemire (at Politico).

Let the seething geezer out — gaffe-prone and erupting with salty language. 

What do you think he said when he erupted saltily over being kept out of the loop about the direness of the baby formula shortage? It's fucking babies, man, babies, fucking babies, man, they need their fucking formula, man!!!

"Former President Donald Trump is bored at Mar-a-Lago and anxious to get back in the political arena — as a candidate, not a kingmaker..."

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 05:26 AM PDT

"... according to his advisers, who are divided over whether he should launch a third bid for the presidency as early as this summer. While many Trump confidants believe he should wait until after November's midterm elections... some say he could move more quickly to harness supporters and deny fuel to the busload of GOP hopefuls in his rearview mirror.... Without specifically addressing the question of timing, Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich said in a text exchange with NBC News that he sees growing public appetite for a Trump comeback. 'America was strong, prosperous and greatly respected under President Trump, and that's why he continues to have unprecedented strength through his endorsement record and the demand for his leadership has never been higher,' Budowich said.... [If he announces, Trump] might inadvertently aid Biden by giving the president a contrast point. 'The clearest, cleanest path is to have a cage-match rematch.... If you have that rematch too early, it could actually help Biden a little bit. ... Trump in modest doses has been good for Trump.'"

Writes Jonathan Allen (at Politico).

What, exactly, is a "cage match" in this context? I understand the literal meaning — 2 wrestlers fighting inside a cage. But what's the figurative meaning here? I'm distracted by the picture of a 75-year-old man (Trump) fighting a 79-year-old man (Biden). That's grisly! Trump is younger (though old) and he has a huge weight advantage (perhaps 100 pounds!). 

I guess the figurative meaning is that it's a "cage match" at the point when there are only 2 candidates. How early can that happen? It's mind-bending to think that the 2024 candidates will Biden and Trump again. They are so old! And we (many of us) are so tired of them. It will be bad enough to have them emerge as the final 2 some time in 2024, but it's just crazy to see the 2024 contest already narrowed down in 2022. 

Where is the crowd of younger contenders insisting their time has come? It's absurd that these old men think they are the one. 

"Tonight, he perfectly panfried two veal chops the size of snowshoes and served them with risotto and pre-natal zucchini."

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 04:59 AM PDT

"Sage was used, and, as is his habit, he took great care spooning the life-giving drippings onto the meat. Like always, we ate at the table, which was set and had candles on it.... We usually sit down for dinner between 9:30 and ten. I like to eat until I hate myself.... I once ate an entire 12-ounce can [of Aunt Ruby's peanuts] in one sitting, hoping I'd get eternally sick of them, the way I did with Goldfish crackers when I was 6. No such luck, though. Aunt Ruby's peanuts are my weakness. I cannot resist them, and so I have to do things like eat salads and fish and diet Jell-O in order to fit them into my life. I have to walk a minimum of 15 miles a day and do these sad little exercises all morning otherwise I would be massively overweight, which is something I like on other people, just not on myself."

From "David Sedaris Eats Until He Hates Himself/'Too much lunch puts me in a stupor, but at night, I really take the gloves off'" by David Sedaris (Grub Street).

I love David Sedaris. I even bought Aunt Ruby's peanuts in the middle of reading the article. Of course, I'm reading his new book — that is, I'm listening to the audiobook for the 4th time. Chapter 9 — "Highfalutin" — was recorded at the show he did here in Madison, so I am personally, minusculely, present in the recording.

"There’s a strange afterlife that [George] Carlin enjoys, not just as a comic but also as a moral compass."

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 03:55 AM PDT

"Few of us care in quite the same way if our choices in life would meet the approval of Johnny Carson or Andy Kaufman.... It's still bracing to hear the bitter wordplay in his lament: 'It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.'... But the durability of Carlin's material can be dangerous, too. Dislocated from the time and circumstances that inspired his work, the arguments he delivered can be made to serve purposes he didn't intend. As those who were closest to him have learned, when he is unable to advocate for himself, he can be made to seem like he supported any opinion at all. 'It is a daily battle for me,' said Kelly Carlin, the comedian's daughter.... Kelly Carlin said her father was '99 percent progressive'... But he was also critical of Democrats and 'guilty white liberals,' while he endorsed other ideas that conservatives supported. He despised euphemism and the policing of language, reviled what he called 'the continued puss-ification of the American male' and rebuked his countrymen who would 'trade away a little of their freedom for the feeling — the illusion — of security.'"

From "The Strange Afterlife of George Carlin/Nearly 14 years after his death, his provocative humor has been embraced by people across the political spectrum. What happens when comedy outlasts the era it was made for?" by Dave Itzkoff (NYT).

I've been trying to watch the 4-hour documentary about George Carlin. I even subscribed to HBO just for the purpose of watching it. It's hard going. I'd much rather watch Carlin's old specials in their entirety than clips of him interrupted by other comedians vouching for him or the narrator telling me who took what drug or Kelly Carlin giving the child's-eye view. I've sat down to watch this thing 5 different times and I'm still in the second hour.

Do you think of George Carlin — or any celebrity/artist — as somehow judging you or judging the various people in your life or in our shared public life? Do you imagine that he'd hate your enemies? Do you imagine that you can apply the mind of George Carlin to the issues of our time — a time that George did not live to see? Do you, like Dave Itzkoff, think it's "dangerous" for people to use George Carlin like that? 

Do you want your daughter or son, after you die, to take on the work of setting everybody straight about what you really thought — to declare, with purported authority, what percent progressive you were or where you'd stand on whatever new issue somebody dared to imagine a position you'd have taken had you lived to see it?

Do you think that the words of the dead should not be used to "serve purposes" they "didn't intend"? Is there some "original intent" principle that applies to jokes and other works of literature? 

"What is coastal grandmother, you ask? It’s a term that I coined for this aesthetic.... If you love Nancy Meyers movies, coastal vibes, recipes and cooking..."

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 08:42 AM PDT

"... Ina Garten, cozy interiors, and more, there's a good chance you might be a coastal grandmother. And no—you don't have to be a grandmother to be a coastal grandmother. It's for anyone and everyone. I even made this playlist on Spotify so you can have the coastal-gran ambience with you everywhere you go. If any of this sounds like you, follow along and we'll gran together."

Said Lex Nicoleta — see her say it in this TikTok — quoted by Caitlin Flanagan in "I'm a Coastal Grandmother. Stop Appropriating Our Culture. Young people on TikTok are trying to hijack my lifestyle" (The Atlantic).

Because Lex Nicoleta is clearly some kind of genius, here is a trend that does both things at once: It introduces a subculture to potential new adherents (young people), and it affirms that culture to the other people (the old people) who are already living it.... 

When I was 27, I didn't want to take very slow walks covered head to toe in gauzy white linen. I had a life going on!... Try [the Coastal Grandmother lifestyle] too young, and you miss the point.... Coastal grandmother isn't the thing! Coastal grandmother is the reward for the thing.

I hadn't noticed Lex Nicoleta before seeing this Caitlin Flanagan article, but I had noticed a grandmother trend on TikTok. 

See my March 28th post, with 5 selections from TikTok, including "Everyone should live like a grandmother — 10 reasons!" 

The linked video, from Real Vintage Dolls House, shows a grandma lifestyle that's not specifically "coastal," does not connect to any celebrities, and isn't about being wealthy. It's about warmth and comfort, love and coziness — an ideal of perfect satisfaction within a small, enclosed life. 

Is that something to warn young people away from? I'm not so sure this is about young and old. It might be more about extroversion and introversion. I can see advising young people to be young when they are young, because the time will come when you're old and you'll have to be old. But what is this young thing that Flanagan remembers? She speaks of drunken parties. Is it so bad to miss out on that phase? Some people don't want parties. The Real Vintage Dolls House video shows a woman cooking, knitting, and reading. Yes, you can frame that as "living like a grandmother," but it is also living like an introvert.

You may say: But what do you do for money? Is this "grandmother" person somebody's wife? Is this a promotion of the stay-at-home role for women? It doesn't have to be. When you have a job, there's still your leisure time. The life Caitlin Flanagan says she had going on when she was 27 involved teaching at a college. She spent her leisure time going to the beach and partying. She could have spent that time in quiet, wholesome cooking, reading, gardening, and so forth. That's the living-like-a-grandmother the videos hold out as an option.

Flanagan promotes the urgency of youth: You must go to parties and have fun. It's not always fun, and it doesn't suit everyone, and it has the side effect of generating a fear of aging. If the lifestyle of the grandmother is appealing to you when you are young, then you can see a long path of happiness ahead. And having bypassed the hard-living wild-youth phase, you might be in better shape to enjoy that long pleasurable life.

"What is it like for a college student who has never committed a crime to have the police break down his door and seize his gun?"

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 05:28 AM PDT

"What's it like to have to get examined by psychiatrists and psychologists to essentially prove that he's not a danger to himself or others?"

Said Peter H. Tilem, a lawyer who's had "red flag" clients , quoted in "How a New York County Used the State's 'Red Flag' Law to Seize 160 Guns/Suffolk County on Long Island aggressively uses the law to take guns from people in crisis in an effort to prevent shootings and suicides. Its experience could inform a national debate" (NYT).

There are people accused of threatening a girlfriend, a housemate or an aunt; people who said they were planning a "suicide by cop" and those in the throes of delusion: a man screaming that he was the messiah and that he needed to cut his grandmother out of the side of his body; another with a shotgun under his bed who ranted that U.F.O.s, aliens and the government wanted to shoot him with lasers. 

At least 11 red flag orders involved school threats, including a pair issued Thursday and Friday to two 15-year-olds, one of whom walked into a classroom and shouted "I'm gonna shoot up the school." The other boy posted on Instagram that he hoped he got locked up so that he and the other boy could "BEAT THE CASE SO THEN BOTH US CAN BOOM THE SCHOOL."...

"I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer."

Posted: 06 Jun 2022 03:53 AM PDT

Said Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr., of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, quoted in "A Cancer Trial's Unexpected Result: Remission in Every Patient/The study was small, and experts say it needs to be replicated. But for 18 people with rectal cancer, the outcome led to 'happy tears'" (NYT).

The inspiration for the rectal cancer study came from a clinical trial Dr. Diaz led in 2017 that Merck, the drugmaker, funded... [T]he cancers all shared a gene mutation that prevented cells from repairing damage to DNA.... Patients in that trial took a Merck checkpoint inhibitor, pembrolizumab, for up to two years.... That led Dr. Cercek and Dr. Diaz to ask: What would happen if the drug were used much earlier in the course of disease, before the cancer had a chance to spread?... 

Dr. Diaz began asking companies that made checkpoint inhibitors if they would sponsor a small trial. They turned him down, saying the trial was too risky. He and Dr. Cercek wanted to give the drug to patients who could be cured with standard treatments. What the researchers were proposing might end up allowing the cancers to grow beyond the point where they could be cured. 

"It is very hard to alter the standard of care," Dr. Diaz said. "The whole standard-of-care machinery wants to do the surgery." 

Finally, a small biotechnology firm, Tesaro, agreed to sponsor the study. Tesaro was bought by GlaxoSmithKline, and Dr. Diaz said he had to remind the larger company that they were doing the study — company executives had all but forgotten about the small trial....

At the Over Lode Café...

Posted: 05 Jun 2022 04:57 PM PDT

IMG_0787

... you can write about whatever you want. 

***

No sunrise photo today. It was raining. What you see there is a photo my son Chris took of me hiking the Over Lode Trail in Blue Mound State Park a few days ago.

Just 5 TikToks for you today, but I've been highly selective, and I think it will be a challenge to identify your favorite.

Posted: 05 Jun 2022 04:52 PM PDT

"As I gathered words like gems, I realised that they weren't just funny, strange and beautiful, but that together they told a story about people's lives more than a millennium ago."

Posted: 05 Jun 2022 04:14 PM PDT

Said Hana Videen, author of "The Wordhord," quoted in "'The Wordhord' Review: Here Be Dragons/Old English words can be vaguely familiar and strangely evocative. They conjure a long-ago world of mundane worries and wild imaginings" (Wall Street Journal).

There was no Old English word for "nature"; one simply referred to "sceaft" (creation). Ms. Videen explains that "when left untouched by humans, sceaft was wild, often incomprehensible, inspiring fear and awe rather than joy and admiration." Accordingly, a horse, instead of being seen to have intrinsic beauty, became attractive only once fitted with a fine saddle and gold ornaments. "Sceaft" was haunted by elves, nymphs and goblins....
A much-admired feature of Old English is the "kenning," a figurative phrase or compound noun that stands in for a familiar word: The mind is a "hord-loca," and instead of referring to a ship one might speak of a "flo d-wudu" (flood-wood).... The body is a bone-locker, flesh-hoard or life-house; the sun is a heaven-candle; the sea can be the wave-path, sail-road or whale-way. A spider is a weaver-walker. A battle is a storm of swords. A visit to a grave is a dust-viewing....

"This 'quick charge' should take 5 minutes, based on our calculations. So why does the dashboard tell us it will take an hour?..."

Posted: 05 Jun 2022 11:00 AM PDT

"It turns out not all 'fast chargers' live up to the name.... To be considered 'fast,' a charger must be capable of about 24 kW. The fastest chargers can pump out up to 350. Our charger in Meridian claims to meet that standard, but it has trouble cracking 20.... We feel defeated pulling into a Nissan Mazda dealership in Mattoon, Ill. 'How long could it possibly take to charge the 30 miles we need to make it to the next fast station?' I wonder. Three hours. It takes 3 hours. I begin to lose my mind as I set out in search of gas-station doughnuts, the wind driving sheets of rain into my face.... At zero miles, we fly screeching into a gas-station parking lot. A trash can goes flying and lands with a clatter to greet us. Dinner is beef jerky, our plans to dine at a kitschy beauty shop-turned-restaurant in Memphis long gone....."

From "I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping. Our writer drove from New Orleans to Chicago and back to test the feasibility of taking a road trip in an EV. She wouldn't soon do it again" (Wall Street Journal).

"To bring a child into this world has always been an act of hope," writes Ezra Klein...

Posted: 05 Jun 2022 08:06 AM PDT

... in "Don't Let Climate Change Stop You From Having Kids" (NYT).

The ignorance and lack of empathy is simply astounding. Always? "Always" refers to all of human history, replete with slavery, rape, the subordination of women, and the lack of perfect birth control and the freedom to use it. You didn't need hope! What drivel is this?

I know, women's emancipation is not Klein's focus. He just forgot about it. Outrageously! He's saying — presumably unwittingly — that when women have been raped and impregnated and continued in their pregnancy to the point of childbirth, they were TAKING ACTION — not merely experiencing an ordeal — and — what's more — it was an ACT OF HOPE. Always!!! 

That is so profoundly wrong that I'm virtually certain that Klein would rewrite his sentence if anyone else had read it and nudged him to notice the problem. But he's focused on the privileged slice of humanity — such elitism! — the ones who think about whether they want to have a child and only proceed with a pregnancy if they fully embrace the idea. For them and only for them, to bring a child into the world is necessarily "an act of hope."

Now, Klein's main topic — the thing that's so important that it blinds him to his embarrassing elitist lapse — is that for these women who do enjoy pure choice, there's not enough hope. Funny, isn't it, that the most privileged beings in the history of humanity are insufficiently inspired to hope? What a nutty predicament, compared to, say, the plight of a raped slave or a miserably poor woman whose religious faith denies her birth control and requires submission to her husband!

The privileged human beings that crowd the mind of Klein have talked themselves into a terrible pessimism about climate change that has inspired what he calls "sacrifice." I remember when not having children was called selfish, but he's saying that to forgo parenthood is to "sacrifice."

He says: "A climate movement that embraces sacrifice as its answer or even as its temperament might do more harm than good. It may accidentally sacrifice the political appeal needed to make the net-zero emissions world real."

So... have children because if you don't, you'll be giving up on the future, and the climate-change movement needs your participation? Keep using your body as a hope-manufacturing machine. That's a hell of a reason to have a baby! Klein is pressuring young people to generate hope for the sake of the movement, which runs on hope.

"In 1967, California became one of three states to authorize abortion when, among other indications, a pregnancy seriously endangered a woman’s physical or mental health."

Posted: 05 Jun 2022 06:09 AM PDT

"After then-governor Ronald Reagan signed California's 1967 abortion act, his daughter said, he began to regret it when he learned that 'psychiatrists were diagnosing unwed mothers-to-be with suicidal tendencies after five-minute assessments so that they could get abortions.' Thirty years ago, shortly after the Supreme Court reaffirmed Roe's central holding by a single vote in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the psychiatrist Paul S. Appelbaum speculated that returning to restrictive abortion laws 'will confront psychiatrists with dilemmas from which there is no clear escape.' Recently I asked Dr. Appelbaum to update his prediction. 'Given understandable sympathy for a woman who does not want, and may not be able to care for, a baby, and lacks other options, psychiatrists will be under intense pressure to make such judgments,' he told me. Mental health exceptions will be one of the only ways of gaining access to abortion in some states. This means that my profession will surely assume the troubled role of gatekeeper once more, feeling pressured by a woman's circumstances, and often by their own conscience, to label her as disturbed when in reality she is sane."

 From "The 'Open Secret' on Getting a Safe Abortion Before Roe v. Wade" by psychiatry professor Sally L. Satel (NYT).

That is, it's rather clear that if the state makes psychiatrists into abortion gatekeepers, they will not exercise their power according to professional ethics. That offers a strong foundation to lawmakers who oppose a mental health exception. It's also a good foundation for those who want to permit access to abortion without any need to pass through gates that are only a restriction for those who restrict themselves to honesty.

Here's the Wikipedia article for Satel. There's nothing there about abortion, but I see that she's a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute . And:

In her book P.C. M.D., Satel critiques what she sees as the burgeoning phenomenon of politically correct (PC) medicine, which seeks to address what its proponents view as social oppression by reorganizing the distribution of public health resources. She argues that incorporating social justice into the mission of medicine diverts attention and resources from the effort to prevent and combat disease for everyone. She is considered a political conservative, a description she rejects.

"To distinguish themselves from NIMBYs, the current generation of housing activists has adopted new 'back yard' variants (YIMBY, 'Yes in my backyard'; PHIMBY, 'Public housing in my backyard'; YIGBY, 'Yes in God’s backyard')..."

Posted: 05 Jun 2022 05:32 AM PDT

"... to declare how they are for things (everything, subsidized housing, building on church parking lots) that a NIMBY presumably is not.... [Governor Gavin Newsom said] 'NIMBYism is destroying the state.' .... Encoded in YIMBY ideology is a belief that the best thing to do with NIMBYs is discard them. But since the successes of one generation become the burdens of another, they should first understand them.... Susan Kirsch was partial to 'Small Is Beautiful,' which was published in 1973 by the economist E.F. Schumacher. The book cast doubt on a growth-at-all costs mentality.... 'Part of how it influences me is I think greater self-reliance and self-resiliency are qualities that keep a community or culture strong,' Ms. Kirsch said of the book. 'And the trends we have now, with being able to have efficacy in your own life, is part of what I think is being diminished.'... Environmental activists came to define themselves by what they could stop.... Marin County, a woodsy enclave that sits across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, enacted some of the strictest growth control measures in the country — proudly.... Today Marin County is the most segregated county in the Bay Area."

From "Twilight of the NIMBY/Suburban homeowners like Susan Kirsch are often blamed for worsening the nation's housing crisis. That doesn't mean she's giving up her two-decade fight against 20 condos" by Conor Dougherty (NYT).

I didn't notice that the acronym "NIMBY" had come to refer not only to the attitude but to the person with that attitude.

But according to the OED, the usages go back to 1979 and 1980. The oldest example of NIMBY to refer to the person was in Forbes: "Home builders and city planners have a new name for an old enemy—the 'Nimbys'..those who want no construction that might disturb the character and real estate value of their neighborhoods."

Disparaging those who want to preserve the aesthetics of their neighborhood is an old game. Notice how the homeowner's sensitivity is portrayed as insensitivity. These people lack empathy. They're part of the mechanism of systemic racism. 

ADDED: Here's the Wikipedia article for "Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered." 

In the first chapter, "The Problem of Production", Schumacher argues that the modern economy is unsustainable.... Schumacher's philosophy is one of "enoughness", appreciating both human needs and limitations, and appropriate use of technology. It grew out of his study of village-based economics, which he later termed Buddhist economics, which is the subject of the book's fourth chapter.

Have you heard of "Buddhist economics"? 

The most fundamental feature of Buddhist Economics is seeing "people interdependent with one another and with Nature..." 

Sri Lankan economist Neville Karunatilake wrote that: "A Buddhist economic system has its foundations in the development of a co-operative and harmonious effort in group living. Selfishness and acquisitive pursuits have to be eliminated by developing man himself."...

Buddhist economics holds that truly rational decisions can only be made when we understand what creates irrationality. When people understand what constitutes desire, they realize that all the wealth in the world cannot satisfy it. When people understand the universality of fear, they become more compassionate to all beings. Thus, this spiritual approach to economics doesn't rely on theories and models, but on the essential forces of acumen, empathy, and restraint....

I will restrain myself from divining how that translates into mediating the dispute between condo-builders and the owners of aesthetically pleasing one-family homes.

"Holding your breath and submerging your face in cold water can trigger the 'diving reflex'..."

Posted: 05 Jun 2022 04:56 AM PDT

"... a response that slows the heart beat and constricts blood vessels. Some people who have tried it report that it has a calming effect and can even reduce insomnia. Others wrap an ice pack in cloth and place it on their chest to relieve anxiety. These specific exercises haven't been sufficiently studied as methods for controlling anxiety or depression, so it is difficult to know if they work, or if they do, how well. Even so, some experts say they're worth a shot. 'It's certainly one of the more benign things you can do,' Dr. Aaronson said. But Dr. Tracey urged caution, adding that it's difficult to properly assess the risks and benefits without clinical data. 'I would not advise anyone to do any intervention without checking with their physician,' he said. 'For wellness, try to maintain high vagus nerve activity through mindfulness, exercise and paced breathing,' Dr. Tracey said. 'These are all very good for you.'"

From "This Nerve Influences Nearly Every Internal Organ. Can It Improve Our Mental State, Too? On social media, exercises that aim to 'tone' one of our body's longest nerves have been touted as a cure-all for anxiety and other psychological ailments. Here's what the research says" (NYT).

The article links to the hastag #vagusnerve at TikTok, where you will find stuff like this:

"At least 50 people face prison sentences of up to either 10 years or five years hard labor, or fines of as much as $77,000, for spreading 'false information' about the military."

Posted: 05 Jun 2022 04:45 AM PDT

"More than 2,000 people have been charged with lesser infractions, according to a human rights organization that tracks cases nationwide.... The harsher [of two laws] criminalized deliberately spreading 'false information' about the military, interpreted as anything outside the official version of events. If the actions cause undefined 'grave consequences,' the sentence goes up to 15 years imprisonment or an $80,000 fine....."

From "Thousands Swept Up as Kremlin Clamps Down on War Criticism/The arrests are a stark gauge of how the Kremlin has intensified repression of critics. At least 50 people now face years-long prison sentences" (NYT).

This is terrible. It's happening in Russia. And yet, it's not that far from what is taking hold in the United States. We are losing our commitment to freedom of speech, and many of us have taken up the cause of suppressing what we think of as "false information." It's easy to see from a long distance that a crackdown on "false information" crushes the process of truth-seeking. I'd like to think that recognizing the destructive policy in this distant enemy country could help Americans see the need to restore our commitment to freedom of speech. 

My tag for this topic is "misinformation vigilance."
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