"State of Emergency"

Our rascal of a governor has declared a mock "state of emergency" over... voucher programs for schools being considered by the legislature. "When kids leave public school for private schools, the public schools lose hundreds of millions of dollars.... This drops an atomic bomb on public education." 

About time, too. 

Wildly he goes on to describe the legislature's design as including "politicians policing our children's curriculum," as if that wasn't exactly what happens in public schools. He's also exercised about "book bans," which I certainly oppose, but which if anything are at least as much an interest of Democrats as Republicans these days. They only differ as to which books to ban, not whether to ban them (and also in that by "ban" Republicans usually mean 'not have them purchased by public resources like schools and public libraries,' whereas Democrats typically mean, 'prevent them from ever being published, or if already published revise them after the fact to comply with ideology, or pull them from publication').

This is actually a good reason to end public education in favor of a vouchers-for-all program: you can be sure that the books you want your children to be taught are in fact being taught, even if you are locally a minority politically. Moving to a 'better' public school district isn't always an option, given how housing prices have tended to track such things. Vouchers are a road out for the poor as well as for political minorities (and, potentially, other sorts of minority groups as well). 

Plus, the public schools are mostly terrible. I've been so disappointed with the education received by my younger relatives. I think they basically now need the equivalent of an Associates' degree in remedial classes to begin baccalaureate-level studies. Competition would be a real improvement over the inescapable sewer that the public sector teachers have imposed upon much of working-class and poorer America. However much their self-image is one of lifting people out of poverty through education, the quality of these teachers' work is often the very thing that traps the poor in poverty.

Mental gymnastics

Grim reports some difficulty coloring between the lines of hazy community guidelines, so I thought I should post this primer, starting with a PJ Media piece on the white supremacy of advocating early rising.

Now, some of you might be thinking you'd hesitate to stereotype persons of nonpallor as tending to sleep late or otherwise lacking drive and ambition. You may have been brought up to think that that would be a little racist, and if you had to report research showing a correlation between skin color and alarm clocks, you'd tread very carefully, in the manner of Charles Murray, not that it would do you any more good than it's done him, you racist.

Here's the trick. You may freely engage in this kind of offensive stereotype as long as the purpose is to speak truth to the Colonizing Patriarchy, and only in the context of arguing that any preference for early rising, drive, or ambition is itself a sin, that is to say, a violation of Community Guidelines^TM. Admiring hard work "suggests that Asian Americans are doing well and that if other groups would only work harder, have stronger family bonds and get over their histories of oppression, they too would succeed." Why this suggestion is off limits is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer, and left as an exercise for the reader--but don't work too hard on it.

I'm prepared to supply you with a hint, however:

The pro-Asian "model minority" myth pits people of color against one another and creates a hierarchy in which Asian people are often represented at the top. By putting people of color in competition with one another, the myth distracts us from striving together toward liberation for all.

You see the deft approach: obviously you must put people in competition with one another on the basis of their skin color, but you must not do so when it comes to groups of different non-white colors, because that would be divisive. We are to work together toward liberation for all, as long as you understand what we mean by "all," again intuitively obvious, no need to prioritize logic over Community Guideline^TM-approved modes of being.

Also, when I say "work," I certainly don't mean to imply that working harder consistently yields valuable results, you colonizer. To be safe, eliminate the word "work" from your cognitive vocabulary. We are to cooperate in a warmly relaxed communitarian sense towards shared goals that fall like the gentle rain from heaven, without hierarchies of goals, unless used to place the wrong goals at the bottom of the heap.

Alternatively, Asians don't actually have color, in common with some Hispanics. We're still working on that orthodoxy and will get back to you when we think you need to know.

Anarchyball

If you aren’t familiar with the Anarchyball cartoon, the particular type of anarchism they endorse (symbolized by the black and yellow) is genuinely free market capitalism. 

[UPDATE: This post was flagged as violating the content policy, though the reason was unspecified. I do  not believe that it does. It is cartoon political commentary. It does not encourage violence, it points out the government's role in violence. The only firearm represented is being used by a cartoon representing the US government (which is why it is painted like an American flag), and the government would possess those firearms under any circumstances. The cartoon is attributed to its creator.]

[Further: If you're going to persist in removing content for 'violating the community standards,' you need to start explaining exactly what is wrong with the content. I have been using Blogger since 2003, meaning that this blog is now over twenty years old, and for two decades had no trouble with Blogger's content policies; there has clearly been a change on your side in terms of what those policies mean, and you need to explain how you are now interpreting the rules if you want people to adhere to your new interpretation of the rules.]

The Weirdness of the Drag Fight

All over the country, there are suddenly protests on the right against Drag Queen shows. Some of these have risen to the level of state legislation. Here in NC, there was a bill sponsored by my state representative that would have defined drag shows as specifically adult entertainment, with penalties up to felony punishment if you repeatedly violated it. This bill did not survive 'crossover day,' so it's dead for this session; but in Florida, they appear to have enacted a similar law (though not one that, as reported, institutes the death penalty for drag shows).

Now the CBS news story about this states that the Florida law is part of a set of "anti-transgender" bills that were recently signed into law, and that is a weird thing to say. Drag shows are no more connected to transgender issues than minstrel shows are to black issues. Indeed, as I have discovered when reading up on this to try to understand the controversy, those two sorts of entertainment bear a number of similarities: they both came to be about the same time, both initially involved American black culture (the first one on record was a formerly enslaved performer in Washington, D.C.), and both involve someone who is not X impersonating X in a highly exaggerated way for the entertainment value of that. Minstrel shows and blackface are now regarded as entirely inappropriate and racist (which they are), but drag shows -- which involve usually-but-not-always-gay men impersonating women -- are widely accepted and enjoyed in major cities to this day.

What they are not is in any way transgender. A drag performer is no more claiming to "really" be female than a performer in a minstrel show is trying to present himself as actually black. I wonder if the accidental linkage -- a biological male dressing as a woman -- is causing confusion on both sides, as neither Florida Republicans nor CBS seems clear on the distinction.  That might explain why we are suddenly having a nationwide fight over drag culture. 

I have myself never been to a drag show, so I am not positioned to comment on them with any depth, but they are a long-established part of Americana. They are a fringe activity that nobody has been very exercised about for decades at least. I remember there was a drag revue down in Savannah when I lived there, and I don't remember there ever being the slightest trouble about it; people I knew who went enjoyed themselves, and the rest of us just walked on past without stopping in. Like many other fringe parts of American culture, it has managed to exist without causing a major disturbance. Suddenly, everyone is talking about it.

It's not like we don't have a lot of actual problems in the country right now, from inflation and economics to a collapsing military to a corrupt government to an electoral system that has lost the faith of the people. It's weird that, among all of this, what people choose to get exercised about is drag shows.

More Censorship

Last night I saw a poster on a stack of unsold blue beer cartons offering $10,000 weekly giveaways, a rather obviously desperate marketing ploy. I posted a shot of it to comment on how bad things must be to justify such a move, but Google immediately deleted it as a violation of their community guidelines. They didn't explain exactly what the violation was; social commentary has generally been considered fair use, and there was certainly nothing illegal or provocative about the language. 

Weirdly, Google just won a SCOTUS suit maintaining their protections in cases of people using the platform for commentary. Apparently that didn't encourage them to stop the censorship; and they must have automated it, perhaps using their AI, because the takedown was nearly instantaneous. 

Desperation

Thy name is Bud Light. 

[UPDATE: This post was flagged and determined to violate the Blogger Community Guidelines, but I can't see any way that it does. It's not a copyright violation, because (a) commentary on ads is squarely within "Fair Use," and (b) Bud Light has no reason to object to me re-broadcasting their message that they're prepared to pay $10,000 a week. This post certainly is not obscene, nor does it advocate anything illegal or dangerous, nor is it abusive; it's merely commentary on the fix that Bud Light has gotten itself into, and the extraordinary steps that they are prepared to take to try to get out of it. Nor is anyone who reads this blog going to buy any Bud Light as a consequence of the post, if drinking the beer is the supposed harm the post incurred, and not because of the controversy but because they always had better taste.]

The Magic of Waffle House

It’s not the sort of place you’d expect to be magical, but sometimes…

Building Industry

Via Raven, a look at what it takes to establish industry where there isn’t any; it’s in Pakistan, but it may matter for reestablishment of industry in America someday. 

He writes:

The man who posted it, comment # 1, a synopsis of the content, and his reply, comment #7, a brief work history, are of interest also.

This is a man who was trained in the 1960's, and worked around the world in primitive conditions setting up machinery for local power plants ,and industry.

Although the subject matter may be somewhat esoteric, and of most interest to the trade, I found his observations on working in rough conditions with a crew of foreign nationals fascinating.

It’s a Conspiracy

 

How Would You Start Over Today?

We all have stories we tell ourselves and each other about how our lives went, how we became whoever it is that we are. What if you were starting over today, though? If you were just out in the world for the first time, with all the difficulties and changes coming online -- the ChatGPTs undermining ordinary college degrees and entry level white collar careers, the government dysfunction and even outright hostility to starting businesses or succeeding as an individual -- what do you think you might try? The military used to be a good option, but it looks like a much less attractive one now; interest rates are rising, so buying investment properties with whatever you can keep from your labor is probably out for those without established credit and substantial capital; a lot of the old ways are off the table.

Just to make it hard, assume that you're a young white male with no fortune or family -- so no affirmative action, no preference points, and none of the actual privilege that those things are supposed to compensate for either. Maybe you have a regular public school education as it is done today, so you can barely read or write and advanced math has never been taught to you. Just some poor kid who gets nothing from anybody for free, and who has to figure out how to try to make it in today's world.

If the Shoe Fits...

National treasure Dolly Parton was admitted to the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame and declined, stating that she wasn't actually a rock musician. (She has also refused the Presidential Medal of Freedom, twice.) They refused her refusal, so she's put out an entire rock album just so she feels like she qualifies for the honor they're insisting on bestowing upon her. As befits a rock album, there are controversies about it. 

One of them is that she has a song bashing politicians but not naming any (which is pretty good marketing when you think about it -- other brands could learn from that). Asked about which ones she meant, she points out that it applies to "any of them" because none of them are really trying hard enough. 

Another controversy is that some of her left-leaning fans are annoyed that she did a piece on the album with Kid Rock. Right-leaning fans long ago learned to tolerate celebrity opinions that disagree with their own, as almost all of them do; nobody seems to mind she did some with other people too. Indeed, gay-culture outlet the Advocate lists the rest of her co-stars and notes that they're almost a litany of LGBTQ-friendly icons: "Paul McCartney, Stevie Nicks, Lizzo, and Debbie Harry, and queer artists Melissa Etheridge, Miley Cyrus, and Elton John." 

The whole thing's not available yet, but you can hear an initial piece here if you are so inclined. To some degree it points out that she really does have a pretty good claim to being there: a lot of her contemporaries in Tennessee music, including Elvis, were the founders of the genre. She sounds more like they do than the people working today because the genre has long moved on to other things. (Indeed, reportedly the Kid Rock tune -- which I don't think is out yet -- is about faith and charity, which are at best irregular subjects for contemporary rock).

Manly Skills: Knot Tying

Probably because I first learned about knots and their many excellent uses in the Boy Scouts, I think of them as a particularly manly skill that is appropriate to coming of age and proving one's worth in that regard. Nevertheless the last complex knot I learned was actually taught to me by a woman I know, the one listed here as "Bowline on a Bight." (This is the knot list for Technical Rescue: Ropes Basic, and yes, I can tie all of these knots and more).

It's a neat skill that you can practice while sitting in the interminable meetings that seem to bedevil much of contemporary life. Here's a great site with animations for the many knots you might want to learn.

Where Were the Marines?

Recently in Sudan, we had another experience of the US State Department abandoning American citizens to their fate (as more infamously in Afghanistan). The Marine Corps Commandant was asked about this recently by Congress: isn't this part of your job?

The Marine Corps' top general expressed serious regrets over the fact that Marines were not available to help in two major crises in recent months because of a lack of available Navy ships to position units in nearby waters.

"Places like Turkey or, the last couple of weeks, in Sudan -- I feel like I let down the combatant commander," Commandant Gen. David Berger told members of the House Armed Services Committee on Friday.

"[Gen. Michael Langley] didn't have a sea-based option -- that's how we reinforce embassies, that's how we evacuate them," Berger added, referring to the head of U.S. Africa Command.

I appreciate the Commandant being willing to step up and at least take verbal responsibility for this, since that kind of thing was sorely absent in the Afghanistan 'withdrawal' (I use scare quotes because it definitely did not live up to the military standard for the conduct of such an operation). However, there is blame to go around here as elsewhere: the Navy is holding a big part of this bag as well. Partly, too, it's that the two services aren't communicating well.

Read the Commandant’s statements and it’s the US Navy to blame as it hasn’t provided (or built) enough amphibious ships to transport the Marines.

Make no mistake, the “amphib navy” is not the US Navy’s fair-haired child. Spending money on amphibious ships is only done grudgingly.

But in this case, the Navy might argue a degree of confusion about what the Marine Corps wanted. A year or two ago it seemed the Commandant and the Marines just wanted 30 new light amphibious warships.

It's hard to imagine this having happened even a few years ago. And, as the second article points out, the Chinese were able to do better -- they evacuated 1,300 of their own citizens and the citizens of other nations also.

Perfect Timing

PJM points out:

Addressing the committee, [Senator] Goldman said, “You’re trying to gaslight us up here, as if Antifa—which Mr. Rosas is apparently the expert now in organized terrorist activity, has overruled the FBI director who says, there’s a headline that says ‘Antifa is an ideology not an organization.’ No, no, no. Let’s not listen to the FBI director. Let’s listen to—sorry, what’s your title? Senior writer at Townhall, who is going to tell us that the FBI director is wrong.

Oh, well, if the FBI Director Christopher Wray said it…

‘Breathtakingly Corrupt’ FBI EXPOSED in Durham Trump-Russia Report

Is Christopher Wray Covering up for the Biden Family or the FBI Itself?

Christopher Wray Needs to Comply With House Oversight Committee Subpoena; He’s Not Above the Law

CONFIRMED: The FBI Has Spies in Catholic Churches to Hunt for ‘Domestic Terrorism’

More at the link.

I think this is actually the perfect time to invoke the FBI as a credible organization in an incredible cause, because the general public hasn't had time yet to absorb the devastation of its credibility on display in the Durham report. For now most people probably still hold the view of the FBI they've absorbed from Hollywood and television. It'll take time for the truth to seep in.

So, for now, it's a fire sale. Use it up while you can, politicians, because it's going fast and will not return. 

A Medieval Exercise

OK, but scroll to "Dante." 

New Maimonides Text

Here's something you don't see everyday: a new, handwritten text by the Medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides. He is best known among non-Jews for his work on Aristotelian interpretations of Judaism, Guide for the Perplexed, also sometimes translated as Guide of the Perplexed, as there is an ambiguity in the text as to whether Maimonides or his students were supposed to be suffering. If you read the text, there is no ambiguity as to whether he thinks he knows what he's talking about, however.

He was an interesting person.

He influenced thinkers as diverse as Newton and Aquinas and set forth the philosophic foundations of Jewish belief and wider philosophy in works such as the Guide of the Perplexed. Maimonides also served as Head of the Jews in Egypt and was renowned for his medical and scientific knowledge. In addition to being one of the Jewish faith’s most important thinkers and philosophers, Maimonides was also physician to the court of the Muslim sultan Saladin.

The text itself has a minor revelation.

The pages are a glossary of basic terms relating to herbs, basic foods and colours and were identified by José Martínez Delgado, a visiting professor to Cambridge University Library’s Genizah Research Unit, from the Department of Semitic Studies at the University of Granada.

Around 60 fragments written by Maimonides have been found in the Cairo Genizah manuscripts, and most are written in Maimonides’ customary Judaeo-Arabic (Arabic language written with the Hebrew alphabet). His writings include letters, legal rulings, and early drafts of his important works.

What makes this fragment unique, however, is the fact that Maimonides has added the translation in a Romance dialect below some words. It is the first evidence for Maimonides knowing Romance, an evolving dialect version of Latin that is a pre-cursor to what would eventually become modern-day Spanish dialects and language.

Pretty neat.