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Mole

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Everything posted by Mole

  1. If the question is do I want a moderate government and a full reckoning with Trumpism, the answer is yes. I don't think that reckoning is possible with a center right Senate. The problem is bigger than Trump, even though he's a giant problem. We'd still largely have a Senate that voted to acquit. That's an on-the-record, hearty endorsement of corruption. That needs to be rooted out. If it were possible to root that corruption out without a hard swing left, I'd love it. I don't think that's possible. In the medium term, Trumpism is a champion for the progressive cause.
  2. Bad strength of schedule this year.
  3. In our present world, anything with partisan designations is highly political. Actually, everything, including objective reality, is sadly political. They might not be bad people personally, but their judgment is highly suspect if they choose to associate with the corruption, destruction, and moral degeneracy that is the GOP.
  4. I’ll admit to only marginally keeping up with all of this, since how much horrifying stuff can we individually keep track of at once, but I think you left off one option — he either heard an announcement, he’s lying, or he’s wrong. Just because there doesn’t seem to be a good motive to lie doesn’t mean it’s an accurate recounting, it just means it’s more likely that the witness thinks it’s an accurate recounting.
  5. To be fair, the term didn’t widely carry the same cultural connotation until recently. People don’t name their kids Isis all that much anymore either. There’s a lot of missing context here that I can’t piece together. I think the implication by some is that she desires to build some sort of theocracy. Following the links, you end up at an essay by someone else that quotes her. You just get the phrase and no context at all. If the essay accurately represents the context, then I would her interpret her “Kingdom of God” line much more charitably. The law and politics has the ability to reward a kind of cynical situational ethics (see Mitch and the post hoc justification for the SC). The essay (again, not written by her, but quotes her as supporting their argument) seems to reject that viewpoint. I suspect that most of us are at least conceptually against this kind of shifting ethics. And just to be clear, I think that given all that has gone down the past 5ish years, the healthy thing for the country would be to wait for the results of the election before any nomination. But here we are finding new and improved ways to rip ourselves apart.
  6. If we read the same article about this, this isn’t quite accurate. The headline suggested this, but the article itself painted a slightly different picture. As I remember the article, the Handmaiden’s Tale was partially inspired by an unnamed group that shared some similarities to People of Praise. The extent of those similarities and their relevance to anything at all is a different matter. Based on the article and the timeline and locations given, it was pretty clear that People of Praise could not have been the direct inspiration for the book. If I remember right, people of praise was in the Midwest while the unnamed group was from New Jersey. As to the question at hand, it’s absolutely appropriate to try to determine whether a nominee can fairly apply the law. Personal/spiritual/religious philosophies often intermingle with academic and professional philosophies. The line can get murky, but I think it’s clear enough. It’s fair to work out how murky a given nominee’s line is. Religious tests and the bigoted language that gets slipped into these discussions shouldn’t have a place in decent society. There are appropriate places to debate and discuss religious matters, but government is definitely not that place. This is mostly just a proxy for abortion anyway. It would be nice if we could deal with it directly rather than perpetually come up with new ways to talk around the issue.
  7. That’s an interesting phenomenon. Most musicians tend to become better (more proficient, more sophisticated, better at clearly performing their ideas, more nuanced ideas, etc.) as they age, at least to a point where the body breaks down. At the same time, groups that play together longer tend to get better at playing together. Metallica in 2006 should be “better” than Metallica in 1986 (except for the Cliff issue). Yet that doesn’t often seem to be the case in rock. Musicians in other genres are able to continue to innovate and grow — Miles Davis reinvented jazz throughout his life, both mostly sober and not even close to sober, for example. It must be something about the genre, maybe. So perhaps: 1. Part of the rock aesthetic is that of ideas exceeding the grasp both compositionally and technically. Once those ideas are well formed and well performed, maybe they become less compelling. Part of what made the Replacements so exciting was their drunken attempts at making music within their own musical limitations. Better, more sober players and writers working with the same musical ideas might not move us the same way. 2. Part of the rock aesthetic is youth challenging the culture and status quo. Once the challenger becomes the status quo, it loses some of that appeal, even if it hasn’t really changed. Metallica trying to recreate their early days after they found commercial success doesn’t hit the same way when so many groups had copied Metallica. The newness is exciting. One more metal band that sounds like Metallica isn’t all that interesting even if it’s Metallica. 3. It’s really hard to write good music and is kind of a crap shoot. Extended success is very unlikely unless you really know what you’re doing. 4. They don’t actually get “worse,” we just feel that way due to nostalgia. I’m not sure what to think, but it happens enough that there must be something going on.
  8. Those with young children will probably strongly disagree, but the Blippi songs are quite well constructed. They’re way move sophisticated than they let on. The band isn’t the tightest, but the songs are well thought out. The train song cleverly mimics the Doppler effect of a passing train and the switch to a swing/shuffle feel at the end is a really nice musical moment. The fire truck song effectively and subtly switches back and forth between the major mode and Lydian mode.
  9. Not pulling into the intersection on an unprotected left turn. I’m not sure whether or not it’s legal everywhere, but it’s the courteous and safe move. Assuming you’re entering the highway at the speed of traffic, people who pass you just before the on ramp becomes the right lane. I remember someone on the shag calling it cutting you off from behind.
  10. I've been associated with similarly minded groups. There were always a certain amount of disaffected old hippies and people on the fringes of society. See the Jesus movement/Jesus freaks.
  11. It seems like a good opportunity to not religiously persecute then. Most (almost all) Christian claims of persecution in America are complete nonsense, but some of this stuff here is treading dangerously close. It's a perfectly valid line of questioning to determine if the potential Justice will fairly apply the law, but when those questions are predicated on caricatured and often bigoted interpretations of a person's religious beliefs, that's an entirely different matter. The word covenant is a bit of a conservative Christian shibboleth; describing it as a "loyalty oath" is generally not accurate. No doubt though, some covenants are really bad for those signing them, so it's a good personal rule to avoid them. My knowledge of People of Praise is about 1 inch deep, but their materials and the articles read a lot like many Christian groups that I've been associated with except for the Catholic obsession with hierarchies.
  12. I don’t know if there’s a good solution, but there’s something broken about our system here. It seems cruel that she felt that she needed to stay on the court through all of this and it seems cruel that her dying wish was a political one. I don’t blame or begrudge her; it makes sense given the way our system works, but it’s somehow broken. I’m probably doing a poor job of articulating my thoughts.
  13. I’ve seen enough educational outrage from the right to understand that we’re missing a lot of context. An assignment is usually given within the context of a classroom discussion. This could be a right wing teacher “indoctrinating” students, a ham handed attempt at “balance”, or a thoughtful assignment ripped entirely from the bigger context. I’m a college professor. I’ve given out assignments that could be used to attribute all sorts of terrible political and social beliefs to me. If a teacher brings up critical race theory in the classroom, they might not be engaging in Marxist indoctrination. Likewise, if a teacher brings up this shooter kid as a modern hero (in certain circles he’s widely described as such), they might not be advocating support for his cause. When you do these things, there’s a certain amount of trust that students (or their parents) will think deeply and not use you as ammo for their political cause. It’s important to teach students to think deeply and critically, so most good educators will keep doing this, but it carries some personal risk. You could face personal and professional repercussions for doing what you’re supposed to do. Sometimes there’s a bigger perspective, sometimes you’re trying to teach students to consider various assumptions, sometimes you’re trying to reach critical thinking by challenging them in various ways, and sometimes you miss the mark. If we want a truly educated populace, we need to accept these risks.
  14. 8x8 is 54 in duodecimal, which is a better system anyway.
  15. Darrell Huff’s How to Lie with Statistics contains a chapter on the slipperiness of the word “average.” It’s most commonly used to describe mean, but it could also correctly be used to describe mode or median. “Average” is a useful word when we want to introduce vagueness into our language and use of numbers. Sometime the context clarified the use, but sometimes we’re left guessing.
  16. Giant Steps or bust.
  17. Regarding the sax, Harvey Pittel (retired UT professor and world renowned classical sax player) has some great videos on YouTube discussing technique and how to play in a healthy manner. Pittel studied with Joe Allard, who taught most of the great players from the pervious generation. There’s a great, extended interview with Joe Allard on YouTube if you look for it.
  18. Same here, but my text came after dinner time last night.
  19. Well Q and Mark are often described as the source for the Gospels, so it makes sense that modern day Q would help write a new gospel.
  20. I’d add to this, for me, the Texas game has been the first sports I’ve watched since March. The NBA playoffs are one of my favorite events (the world’s best athletes in a 7 game chess match is awesome), but I haven’t really had much interest this year. It isn’t the social issues or the weirdness of the environment or some sort of illegitimacy for the seasons; it just seems less important. For me, this is for two reasons: 1. I’ve personally seen enough suffering and death related to our current situations that watching games that I’m not REALLY invested in seems uninteresting. Escape is good, but I’d rather be productive. 2. The current state of our world means that my work life is busier and way more complicated. I’m simply too busy and too tired to sit through a game unless I’m invested in the players. I work in higher ed and most of my students seem to be walking around in a similar fog. It was really nice to watch the Texas game though. The lack of band, etc. made it less colorful, but the lack of sucking made up for it.
  21. Let’s be honest, there are few questions where a good answer is “we need more lawyers.”
  22. A few scattered, sometimes related points: 1. Come on, Ted. Stop exploiting the culture war for votes. 2. The claims that the show, which seems intended as cultural criticism, is normalizing the sexualizing of children seems to be a bit much. The culture war always demands a target though. 3. Criticizing how our culture deals with the sexuality of children, particularly girls, is valid. We are exploitive and need to change. To the extent that this show accomplishes that, good for them. 4. Critiquing the over-sexualizing and sexual exploitation of children, particularly girls, by sexualizing them seems to be a bit much; exploitive even. It can be a murky line to walk, but I think that line is discernible. 5. The show appears to be guilty of the very things it is criticizing. When it comes to artistic expression, I tend to value freedom of speech above all else, but this is pretty icky. 6. Seriously though, come on, Ted. Coming after this admittedly icky show while simultaneously supporting your president’s predatory behavior and involvement in the exploitation of children (Miss USA, trafficking and the border mess, his admissions on tape, his possible connections to actual child traffickers, etc.) seems disingenuous.
  23. Mole

    Another one...

    If only; how do the rules of engagement compare?
  24. The Fox website is running with Woodward should have gone public with the COVID stuff to save lives.
  25. I’ve gone back and forth on the responsibility of the anonymous sources to come out. My current view is that once they come out, they become the story. Their credibility, which is defined as loyalty to Trump, becomes the focus. The moment they are revealed, a new excuse will emerge. As long as they are anonymous, the story remains the focus. I think anonymous is good for now. It’s been confirmed by multiple outlets, including Fox. It rings true based on his own words. The denial was marked by verifiable untruths. As is, it’s extremely credible.
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