Here we are, coming up on three years of dealing with COVID, and not only are people still arguing about vaccines against the disease, the anti-vax sentiment that seemed to blossom when the COVID vaccine became available in 2021 has now crosspollinated and found its way into the veterinary clinic. A
Am I the only one who thinks that Americans are getting dumber and dumber? This is nonsense: Rabies is a deadly disease. As someone who grew up before the polio vaccines, I thank God every day we have these vaccines available. Forgo them at your own peril but at least protect your beloved companions.
I dream of mass suicide-by-non-vaccination. Darwin's Law strikes again-- yet another way for the trumpsters/anti-vaxxers (surely a near-100% overlap) to self-exterminate.
And that's ok, I just don't want those people to take others with them. Innocent people should not have to die because of other's stupidity. Good God, Y'all.
We are committing suicide by cultural ignorance. There is an easy fix for the pet vax. Make it a felony to own a dog without tags. But our idiot politicians are too focused on Hunter Biden and culture wars to address even the simplest of problems.
Don't forget the mass media as enabler of the "Hunter Biden laptop scandal," a laptop which was out of his possession for around THIRTEEN MONTHS before it was analyzed to see what was on it!
That would pose insuperable problems for a serious courtroom trial, thus the kangaroo court "House Investigations Committee" presided over by dedicated, biased, absurdly unfair Freedom Caucus stalwarts took over to perpetrate the ungrounded smears amongst a few legitimate issues about possible tax problems and a gun law violation by Hunter Biden.
"At the start of the 118th U.S. Congress in January 2023, Republicans will hold 222 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Democrats will hold 213 — one of the closest House margins in years. Had Democrats won just five more seats, they would have retained a bare House majority and full control of Congress.
While keeping the House margin so narrow represents something of an unprecedented success for Democrats, it’s important not to lose sight of the impact that the decennial redistricting process had on this outcome. Republicans spent much of 2021 and 2022 enacting new maps to give themselves an electoral advantage, and this year’s midterms were the first elections held under the new district lines. Though it’s impossible to know for sure what would have happened under a different set of maps, it’s entirely plausible that Republicans only won the House thanks to gerrymandered maps in the following states — and a few helpful assists from the courts." *****
There follows a fairly granular dissection of how it worked in
Alabama
In 2021, Alabama Republicans — who controlled all the levers of redistricting power in the state — passed a new congressional map featuring just one majority-Black district despite Black Alabamians making up almost 27% of the population. Given the racially polarized voting in the state, the new map meant that Democrats would likely only win one congressional district. **** (More)
Florida Georgia Louisiana Ohio Utah
Gerrymandering — and an assist from the U.S. Supreme Court — helped Republicans win the majority.
Overall Outcome: -at least 6 Democratic seats
These states demonstrate that the Republicans’ five-seat margin of victory in the House could be attributable entirely to gerrymandering. Had fair maps been in place in Ohio and Utah, as well as additional Black-performing seats in place in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana, Democrats may very well have retained control of the House. ***** HEAVILY EDITED, the complete rundown is enlightening.
thank you once again, Richard. this is important and wonderful for arguments with the skeptics and assholes who always say you're clutching at straws when you blame partisan gerrymandering for the Democrats losing the House.
Agree w/Hunter Biden and culture war position. Do have a few questions, though.
-Why mandated license/shot tags for a doggo and not a cat or hooman?
-Understand people still use the word pet and ownership thereof yet doesn't fit as snuggly as it implies. Are po-po K9s pets when on or off duty? How about MWDs? Specialized doggos that search, rescue or sniff for drugs, cadevers, explosives, and for a specialized adhesive onoy cellphones use? The plethora of commonly known companion doggos included those who spend their days in nursing homes and medical centers, seeing and hearing doggos? Why is it some states and nations require doggo "papers" inc a health check by a registered vet to cross borders but not hoomans?
Am for easiy fixes but not for wrong ones. Did you know the current 2forms of injectable rabies/boosters can and do interfere with canine and feline cancer treatments?
All living things are equal and can't be owned any more than a hooman can. Had hoomans accepted just that it is highly unlikely wars, Global Climate Change, poverty, untreated illnesses and diseases and yes ignorance would be the hooman legacy.
I think cats have to be vaccinated for rabies as well. I'm not sure there even are rabies vaccinations for people. up till now (and still including now for the time being), rabies in people has been very, very rare, due to the regulations about animals. how long this lasts if a lot of people fail to vaccinate their animals is something we'll have to see.
I'm completely with you regarding the ugliness of claiming to "own" animals. it's a term I try never to use. lots of folks use "guardian," which might be more correct but has always sounded not-quite-right either. so I just to refer to, say, "people with their animals" or a particular animal's "person."
in my case, if there's any ownership involved, these dogs own ME.
"in my case, if there's any ownership involved, these dogs own me." Respect and a smile from understanding.
Yes, sometimes the English language lacks the right word. Likely a result of a bias or attitude against the subject since words such as set and run have 100s of definitions in the OED. Aren't aware of a single aboriginal or indigenous society that uses anything comparable to pet owner or the cringeworthy term of I had to put down my____.
Western civ has forgotten it was ~wolf~ who taught man how to properly hunt for their empty bellies and would argue it was ~wolf~ who assisted in domesticating mankind. Advance that because ~wolf~ preceded humankind by 1000s of years and had developed a clear hierarchy.
Suspect men saw how successfully the pack hunted and began to form their own hunting parties. Also feel strongly men stole wolf pups rather than a few adults wandering into a cave occupied by humans and barking whatsup and pet me.
Back to the missing word or term. Native Hawaiians have a beautiful word ~kahu~. Its meanings track the life cycle of the relationship between human and animal. Its highest order in translation is beloved attendant. As I said, includes the life of the animal in what is seen by them and all aboriginal and indigenous cultures as co-equals, therefore reciprocal. So, there is guardianship, protection stages, and good stewardship all together add up to beloved attendant of one another. Is a far a cry away from pet owner as one can achieve.
Yes, felines supposed to be get their shots however there is no penalty as there is for canines. Do suspect there are exceptions in various jurisdictions, though.
Be Well, Good Man. May your doggos live long healthy lives.
I don’t know where y’all live, but rabies vaccinations are required where I live, outside Augusta GA. If your doggie is picked up without a tag, it’s off to Animal Control Central, out in Appling, where life is apt to be nasty, brutish and, if you don’t go bail them out, short. I get tags for my cat when she gets her shots, too.
I'm not sure it's a felony, but in NYC, not having proof of rabies vaccination is definitely illegal. and if your unvaccinated dog bites a person or another animal, that dog is going to be put down. and btw, I know there are people who'll sell bogus vaccination tags, so actual proof has to include the little document that comes with the tag. I suppose it'd work if you referred the authorities to your vet because rules governing the recording of rabies vaccinations are very strict, thank god.
My almost 87 year old retired teacher aunt said (confessed) to me in March 2020 that she believed that lack of an education which encouraged dialogue, higher order thinking, identifying fallacies…would soon divide this country.
This was after a very short conversation about trump and Covid—Shirley chooses to concentrate on unpleasantries for 30 seconds. By the way, she was a math teacher.
She was uncomfortable saying that as having those thoughts may be elitism.
When the use of one's intelligence to express an opinion based on both evidence and observation is elitism, we really are in trouble - Please tell your aunt Thank you! from us for having the courage to still speak up. If we don't who will?
In that case, the country's been in trouble almost since it was founded. Richard Hofstadter's ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN AMERICAN LIFE came out in 1963 and won a Pulitzer in 1964. I read it for the first time in college (ca. 1971) and it explained a lot of what I'd already seen around me and read about in U.S. history. Anti-intellectualism explains so much about the right wing, especially but not exclusively the religious and/or racist right. Remember how George Wallace and his ilk used to refer regularly to "pointy heads"? They were not referring to Klansmen in their white hoods.
Exactly. Ideologies are anti- intellectualism because they're unprovable beliefs that must be and can only be taken on faith.
My fav example is the broad Trickle Down Economics BS. Time and time again it's been PROVEN NOT to work in PRACTICE yet Rs/cons still preach it will work in THEORY.
Unfortunately even affluent so called educated people are subject to ideological ignorance. Lots of antivaxxers have college degrees who take information out of context and overgeneralize outliers and anecdotes.
it's gotten to a point where I don't even know what "elitism" in this context even means. I know some very bright people who can think critically and didn't graduate high school. I know some moronic fools with advanced degrees. if it's "elitist" to talk about people in these terms, I can think of worse things to be called...
A friend had to get shots because of a dog bite from a possibly rabid dog. The shots are VERY painful and there were five of them, some days apart.
Regarding dumber and dumber Americans, the natural curiosity of children disappears earlier and earlier. People never ask the anti-vaccine people Why? Why should vaccines that have been successfully used for decades on millions of people and animals around the world should raise suspicions now? (The Rabies vaccine dates back to Louis Pasteur in the 1880s.) Well, the only real country is America, those others are just in the movies.
Rabies shots should be prominent in the discussion. Shots for people who have been exposed, or might have been, are so ghastly they're avoided if at all possible. When they must be administered that's news all by itself. But if anyone can have a tommy gun, what the hell, why not a potentially rabid dog? At worst, it could only kill somebody.
I agree difny. I was walking in the country in summer of my senior HS year. Dog came from its owner’s yard and just bit my leg. The owner told the police that she was certain I had antagonized the dog! What?! But pooch had to be impounded and watched. I knew what I would face if it developed symptoms. It didn’t. Phew!
Oy. Some people and their pets! I knew a couple whose pathological dog (I forget what breed) was a three-time loser: one more bite and Joey would have to be put down—or maybe he was already condemned. They devoted a lot of their lives to preventing justice for Joey.
there used to be a large brown "pit bull" (it was actually a Staffordshire because actual Pits don't get this big) across the street (I can see the apartment right now) who killed three other dogs and badly maimed many others. this dog's human family was obviously psychopathic, because they seemed to enjoy it all. a late friend of mine succeeded in poisoning the miserable cur and the whole neighborhood was in his debt. he's a "late friend" because of cancer, not revenge.
during the ten years I lived in Washington Heights, we dog people had a whole lovely park for our animals. but at about nine every night, the wannabe crack kingpins took over and "trained" their Pits with blood-soaked t-shirts and CHAINS (to "discipline" their dogs). I've never met a Pit Bull owned by responsible people who was anything other than very sweet-natured.
I get that impression when I read most polling results. I wish I could believe that being polled makes people stupid, but in my area of southeastern Massachusetts, where education levels are relatively high, the anti-vaxxers were out in force long before COVID. I know enough of them personally. Playing games with rabies is so godawfully stupid that I hope it hasn't caught on here -- proof of rabies vac is required to get a dog license -- but I'm going to ask my vet what she's seen and heard.
No, Kit, you are most assuredly NOT alone in thinking that a growing segment of the American population is getting dumber every day. This didn't happen overnight -- our education system, as dictated to by non-educators (i.e., right wing politicians), has become far less effective in educating young people for the past few decades. I certainly don't blame the teachers whose hands are tied in more ways than I'll go into. The dumbing down of America has certainly been accelerated by the far right and is now personified by those who support the Dumpster. Darwin's Law is now on full display in our country.
You are still attributing a modicum of rationality and sensible survival instincts as well as a non-sociopathic weltanschauung to fanatics, to humans in the throes of what looks like the "Authoritarian Personality" * run amok, maybe reconsider your views?
The Authoritarian Personality is a 1950 sociology book by Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford, researchers working at the University of California, Berkeley, during and shortly after World War II.
The Authoritarian Personality "invented a set of criteria by which to define personality traits, ranked these traits and their intensity in any given person on what it called the 'F scale' (F for fascist)."[1] The personality type Adorno et al. identified can be defined by nine traits that were believed to cluster together as the result of childhood experiences. These traits include conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception, superstition and stereotypy, power and "toughness", destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and exaggerated concerns over sex.[2][3]
Though criticized at the time for bias and methodology,[4][5] the book was highly influential in American social sciences, particularly in the first decade after its publication: "No volume published since the war in the field of social psychology has had a greater impact on the direction of the actual empirical work being carried on in the universities today."[6]
***** Yes, the model isn't perfect, and yes, it has been refined and modified to better capture
the hurly-burly of lived experience in a complex society with many moving parts, too.
what's funny is that I know one or two people who tell me they'll have nothing to do with anything relating to The Frankfurt School because it's "social engineering."
the wonderful LaRouche Legacy seems to be at work in at least one of these cases, which proves that very often, with very evil people, their death doesn't have a whole lot of effect on the "movements" they started.
and I'm not sure what's so horrible about so-called "social engineering."
LOL, even my INCOME TAX prof made a point several times, during the required course and thus to a kind of captive audience, to note that our income tax code is engaged in a kind of "social engineering"!
Some kinds of investments (in homes, condos, for example) get tax breaks, other kinds of expenditures discouraged, you know the drill on this, so allowing for governments to invest in education, libraries - albeit not enough, especially compared to dubious military hardware - is social engineering to help develop an educated population! Big deal!
The critics - and especially those LaRoucheites of course - are in a near frenzy over basic common sense programs - besides which, the remedy is to monitor them for "waste, fraud and abuse," like we theoretically do with ANY government program, or any private enterprise in which government monies are involved.
When my folks moved to L.A. in 1950 we lived in one of those small collection of interconnected bungalows. One of the tenants had a TV - the first I’d seen. The neighbors invited my mom to send me over to watch TV and visit with her son: a paralyzed victim of polio who had to sleep in an iron lung! What a monstrous and shocking this thing was. It scared the crap out of me. I remember my parent’s concern about polio: no one knew where it came from (I remember stagnant water was one theory among the public.) I was in the first wave of the Salk vaccine, and a great weight was lifted from my small shoulders and every parent we knew. Sometimes it feels as though we are on the cusp of either a new “dark age” or a descent into Idiocracy.
It was absolutely a terrifying disease. And, we accepted the childhood diseases, like measles, which could also cause a lot of damage. I bless our world that we now have these vaccines plus so many others. If you've had shingles once, you want to get that vaccine. Consequently, I look at the anti-vax people as ignorant fools. Thanks for your comment.
before the Salk vaccine came out, people in NYC (and every other big city) would do their damndest to get out of town during the summer to minimize their chances of exposure to polio. everybody was TERRIFIED.
I had a good friend at CCNY named Lennie Kriegel who had gotten polio when he was ten or so, back in the forties (you might have known him, Lucian...he liked hanging out in the Lion's Head, engaged in a perpetual argument with Joel Oppenheimer about who belonged in a fantasy Jewish All-Star baseball team). he was on crutches, then later in a wheelchair and wrote about the experience with great eloquence (he left us a year or so ago, almost making it to 90).
it's virtually impossible to convey to people the extent to which EVERYTHING CHANGED when that vaccine came out (I've tried it with anti-vaxxers and good luck with THAT).
a little fact I like to share with people is that I once had my picture taken with Dr. Salk during a CCNY Homecoming event when I was about six. connections in high places dontcha know...
You echo something I've said and written and posted for years now, going back before Drumpf even: "It's not your imagination, people really are getting stupider."
Since we be old men, Lucian, we can remember the scourge of distemper in dogs, so many pet deaths until the vaccine. And dog pets no longer get rabies (another story I will write about with one of my dogs). I have little hope for that portion of our population not believing science or reality. Watching a news broadcast where a woman our age was asked about Trump, "What do you like most about him?" She answered in all seriousness, "He never lies to us." There is no cure for stupid.
The cure for stupid is death. Stupid people who refuse vaccines for themselves and their pets are dying in greater numbers than the sane, intelligent people who get both themselves and their pets vaccinated. The stupid are self-exterminating, but WAY too slowly!
I think that generations who have never seen disease don't think it exists. When my grandmother was 17, she watched a half-dozen of her high school peers die of the Spanish flu. Every summer polio would come to visit, killing and crippling thousands of kids and more than a few adults. An infected cut could result in amputated limbs, teeth rotted and fell out, people died at 60.
And dogs died of distemper or rabies (remember Ol' Yeller?).
But because they themselves haven't seen it, they don't believe it. Whether covid came from a lab or not, it's among us and will be forever (my wife has it now, in fact).
My belief in a thing has no effect on its reality, but many Americans believe the opposite.
With you up until the very last enthymematic argument - your beliefs about your own beliefs, that is, our human beliefs about our own beliefs, pose a problem, unless you're subscribing to some form of Idealism.
Are beliefs `things'? If beliefs are not thing-like at all, what are they like? It seems as if beliefs are at least real enough to cause behavior, or inhibit behavior, otherwise it's a fast slope into no one "really" being responsible for their own overt acts, or for the failure to act, including when they might have a legally assigned "duty of care," to act in the best interests of a minor, or someone who is incapacitated, or a victim of spousal or other abuse - it's a long list and overlaps with the law of torts.
But if beliefs have causal efficacy, such that the beliefs under discussion here, in this commentary on anti-vaxxers, are believed by we critics to motivate self-destructive, dangerous acts in the real world, that sure looks like a
"belief in a thing that DOES have an effect on its reality, " and we have to be more cautious and qualify the more sweeping claim about "many Americans {believing} the opposite."
Not that difficult when it's a belief that praying to the tortilla that "has the face of Jesus" will bring about effects, or that betting on one's "lucky numbers" increases the odds you'll win the lottery or at roulette, sure, but it becomes much trickier when it goes into self-criticism, introspection, and revising one's views about vaccinating Chaser the dog against rabies!
The amazing story of a very smart Border collie who is redefining animal intelligence.
Chaser has a way with words. She knows over a thousand of them—more than any other animal of any species except humans. In addition to common nouns like house, ball, and tree, she has memorized the names of more than one thousand toys and can retrieve any of them on command. Based on that learning, she and her owner and trainer, retired psychologist John Pilley, have moved on to further impressive feats, demonstrating her ability to understand sentences with multiple elements of grammar and to learn new behaviors by imitation.
John's ingenuity and tenacity as a researcher are as impressive as Chaser's accomplishments. His groundbreaking approach has opened the door to a new understanding of animal intelligence, one that requires us to reconsider what actually goes on in a dog's mind. Chaser's achievements reveal her use of deductive reasoning and complex problem-solving skills to address novel challenges. ***** Pilley's book about this journey is fascinating.
Now having read your other posts, I can see I was wrong - you're just attempting to be intentionally rude, rather than being incapable of producing coherent discourse about topics like this - a really bizarre response to me posting such fundamental questions about the nature of belief, questions that have puzzled and still puzzle the best minds from science and philosophy!
I would ask you for your motivation, but what kind of motivation would make any sense, right? And what the odds you even know what motivated it, or would ever admit any mistake in doing so?
Can I save this? It's illustrative of a huge number of profound philosophical insights, such as that "people have beliefs," no arguing with that, and that some beliefs are harmful - true enough, and arguably one harmful belief is that a summarized sketch of my questions about the nature of beliefs isn't being fair to your own intellectual development, even if it is fair to me - did you consider that and then reject it as silly, or not worth bothering about?
The reduction of Chaser's example to "some dogs are very smart" is an incredible feat, as it manages to almost completely miss the entire point of the video - here, take another look and see if you might reconsider your views on that:
777,545 views Sep 5, 2013
"The amazing story of a very smart Border collie who is redefining animal intelligence."
{Note the phrase, "[R}edefining animal intelligence," not sure "some dogs are very smart" exactly captures that claim too well, sorry to bring that up, as your seem completely satisfied with it, but life is hard that way sometimes! }
"Chaser has a way with words. She knows over a thousand of them—more than any other animal of any species except humans. In addition to common nouns like house, ball, and tree, she has memorized the names of more than one thousand toys and can retrieve any of them on command. Based on that learning, she and her owner and trainer, retired psychologist John Pilley, have moved on to further impressive feats, demonstrating her ability to understand sentences with multiple elements of grammar and to learn new behaviors by imitation.
"John's ingenuity and tenacity as a researcher are as impressive as Chaser's accomplishments. His groundbreaking approach has opened the door to a new understanding of animal intelligence, one that requires us to reconsider what actually goes on in a dog's mind. Chaser's achievements reveal her use of deductive reasoning and complex problem-solving skills to address novel challenges. "
***** Note the reference to "deductive reasoning," does that indicate some change your summary from "Some dogs are very smart" is advisable, in any way?
I can sincerely state that I personally have never seen these theories about beliefs delivered in such a brief fashion, so there's that - as the Bard put it, "Brevity is the soul of wit."
True enough, the upshot of what you came up with seems flatly incoherent to me, as if you just refused to consider the ideas at all, but different strokes for different folks - I am sure you believe you offered a fair and accurate summary of the post, and I would enjoy asking other participants in the online study group on epistemology I belong to, what they make of it. Keeping your name out of it, you would be anonymous, of course, so there's no question of any invasion of privacy.
You do realize if you simply caricature someone's post as was done here, it hardly shows a good faith effort, or any effort at all, to deal with the fact that the unexamined life is not worth living?
But thanks for responding at all, you could have saved yourself the immense effort and just written, tl, dr.
Addendum: Btw, EMOJIS??? Come on, it's that level of extremely rare open trolling on HERE, this blog, as opposed to the rest of the internet, that led me to block you -that is, it's incomprehensible to me (and I assure you, many other people as well) why anyone - anyone, mind you, as this is NOT about "you" personally to the exclusion of all other persons, since I do not even know you, and was making purely abstract arguments for consideration - why you or anyone else would react with trolling to direct questions raised, that do bear on our collective human understanding of belief systems, such as those rightfully excoriated in LKTIV's column.
That's all that was done, all that was intended, and there was no need to play at the old "Here's what you meant to say, let me put massively over-simplistic words in your mouth" schoolyard game, is there?
I should say my disbelief in a thing doesn't make it less real. Of course people use this argument to "prove" that their particular divinity or dogma is real. However, with vaccinations I think it applies.
Here is the story- My dog of course had all his shots, including rabies. I had taken the prep for a colonoscopy about two hours previously and was starting to feel its effects. My Pit wanted to go into the fenced in back yard, this was at 12pm. Okay, that will only take a minute...he goes out and suddenly crashes through the bushes bringing out a raccoon. The critter is fighting him, of course, Tonka, the Pit Bull, bores into him. I get a shovel and go out to attempt to separate them- to no avail. Tonka has brought it to an end. I wrap the body in a bag, with gloves on, but still get blood on myself. I take Tonka to the bathtub and wash him and his cuts, meanwhile the intestinal fluid is sending urges through my body. Sigh. Later I call the town's department and they send out a person to collect the raccoon to check it for rabies. Raccoons seldom venture out in the middle of day. Several days later I am sitting by the fire, Tonka's massive head in my lap, the phone rings. A voice, "Is Tonka there?" I say, "Sorry, he is sleeping right now. Can I give him a message?" The voice, laughing, says- "The raccoon did not have rabies." I thanked the town official not only for his call but for the humor. The day after the incident, I went to our vet and go rabies boosters but was really worried about me.
My Father , against his own better judgment, hand-fed raccoons on his front porch. One night, a new raccoon showed up, who didn'tunderstand that grabbing the peanuts was not allowed. My dad's sense of humor was dry, but a grin always let you know when he was joshin' My mom called told me about this and asked me to talk some sense into him. I drove out there, picked him up and took him to the hospital where the shots were ordered, hand delivered. and waiting. The cost of the shots $15K. According to the nurse. They are given on three different visits, they are no longer given in the stomach but rather in the hip. Dying of rabies is a horribly painful death. Look it up. Do not wait if you're bitten by a stray dog cat raccoon, get the shots. My dad was on Medicare at the time, and could have afforded the payment, but 0 was charged, nothing for the shots.
haha, he was so bad, when the nurse asked him if he had had suffered any confusion, he said, "Yes." looked at me and smiled. The nurse grabbed the sides of her rolling desk, flipped her head around like she was looking at a dead man, WHEN?! Dad answered, "For the last 5 years." He hid the gaps in his thinking (dementia) with his sense of humor.
We brought a puppy into our house during the pandemic like a lot of other people. We've had dogs before, but this time I spent a lot of time online learning about care, training, etc. I quickly discovered that amount of anti-science in the "dog community." Everything from vaccines to dog foods, the lack of faith in the veterinary and scientific committee is astounding.
I've had dogs all my life. I cannot fathom how woefully ignorant these people are. In the last 30 years, veterinary science has greatly expanded, all to the benefit of our pets. Our beloved companions (and children) should not die as the result of such stupidity.
Lots of hysteria about dog diets. Some of it justified. The raw meat diet is typical of pet owners basic lack of understanding about evolution. Their dog is not a wolf and can handle carbohydrates. Wild canines, not so much. There's very little that we eat, if we eat a a healthy diet, that a dog can't eat. Grapes, dark chocolate spring to mind.
I am completely baffled by the anti-science mentality. Vaccines have prevented enormous amounts of suffering and death. They are one of the great benefits of living in the modern era. With a rabies shot, "Old Yeller" would have had a happy ending and I wouldn't have been a young kid sobbing in a dark theater.
These idiots must think the baseline in which we have been living, where we do not have these diseases, is nature, and that if they get a vaccination they are interfering with nature. These people are beyond idiocy. And team normal has to live among them.
Yes, our protected existence is confused with nature! I got a thorn in my thumb while gardening. Not unusual for me, but that night I woke up with the thumb throbbing, hot, red, twice its normal size. Might have killed me untreated, the doctor said. Nature.
It is not possible to herd a dachshund, so what do they want those who love sausages to do? Put bleach in their water bowls? What would a dachshund do if you tried to shine infra red light into its mouth and down its throat?
"Where the hell did that come from, you might ask?" Trademark Mr. T.: conversation in written form. But enough about good writers.
This issue is part of a piece, of course. The dumbing down of a sizable part of the population in tandem with nutty conspiracies theories masquerading as received wisdom. We are now living with a new kind of Republican ... one who believes in government by charade.
Soon they will find witches to burn.
So ... it comes as no surprise that banging the drum for vaccines harming people would eventually be applied to man's best friend. I wonder, sometimes, if this crowd goes looking for ways to sound crazy.
As an aside, and adopting the title and outlook of Laurie Stone's stack, "Everything Is Personal," I will share something I think you'll find interesting. Through an odd circumstance, Jonas Salk and I were friends at the time the Salk Institute was new. During a long car ride from San Diego to his avocado ranch, we had a wide ranging conversation. Here is what I found memorable: I asked him how he was able to beat Sabin to a vaccine, seeing as how Sabin had begun his research first? He said he intuited the answer - still having to prove it, but saving time.
He mused that he was unhappy that he had not been awarded the Nobel.
I was taken aback by his honesty, as well as his humanness.
The Act of Creation is a 1964 book by Arthur Koestler. It is a study of the processes of discovery, invention, imagination and creativity in humour, science, and the arts. It lays out Koestler's attempt to develop an elaborate general theory of human creativity.
From describing and comparing many different examples of invention and discovery, Koestler concludes that they all share a common pattern which he terms "bisociation" – a blending of elements drawn from two previously unrelated matrices of thought into a new matrix of meaning by way of a process involving comparison, abstraction and categorisation, analogies and metaphors. He regards many different mental phenomena based on comparison (such as analogies, metaphors, parables, allegories, jokes, identification, role-playing, acting, personification, anthropomorphism etc.), as special cases of "bisociation".
Book One: The Art of Discovery and the Discoveries of Art
The Act of Creation is divided into two books. In the first book, Koestler proposes a global theory of creative activity encompassing humour, scientific inquiry, and art. Koestler's fundamental idea is that any creative act is a bisociation (not mere association) of two (or more) apparently incompatible frames of thought.[1] Employing a spatial metaphor, Koestler calls such frames of thought matrices: "any ability, habit, or skill, any pattern of ordered behaviour governed by a 'code' of fixed rules."[2] Koestler argues that the diverse forms of human creativity all correspond to variations of his model of bisociation.
In jokes and humour, the audience is led to expect a certain outcome compatible with a particular matrix (e.g. the narrative storyline); a punch line, however, replaces the original matrix with an alternative to comic effect. The structure of a joke, then, is essentially that of bait-and-switch. In scientific inquiry, the two matrices are fused into a new larger synthesis.[3] The recognition that two previously disconnected matrices are compatible generates the experience of eureka. Finally, in the arts and in ritual, the two matrices are held in juxtaposition to one another. Observing art is a process of experiencing this juxtaposition, with both matrices sustained.
According to Koestler, many bisociative creative breakthroughs occur after a period of intense conscious effort directed at the creative goal or problem, in a period of relaxation when rational thought is abandoned, like during dreams and trances.[4] Koestler affirms that all creatures have the capacity for creative activity, frequently suppressed by the automatic routines of thought and behaviour that dominate their lives.
Book Two: Habit and Originality
The second book of The Act of Creation aims to develop a biological and psychological foundation for the theory of creation proposed in book one. Koestler found the psychology of his day (behaviorism, cognitivism) portraying man merely as an automaton, disregarded the creative abilities of the mind. Koestler draws on theories of play, imprinting, motivation, perception, Gestalt psychology, and others to lay a theoretical foundation for his theory of creativity.
Literature
Reed Merrill: Arthur Koestler. In: Irene R. Makaryk (Ed.): Encyclopedia of contemporary literary theory. University of Toronto Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8020-6860-X, pp. 390–392.
Thank you for sharing this. My art teacher/friend and I were just discussing this last week: "According to Koestler, many bisociative creative breakthroughs occur after a period of intense conscious effort directed at the creative goal or problem, in a period of relaxation when rational thought is abandoned, like during dreams and trances."
As it relates to our experiences with art, this translates (for us) into letting a piece "percolate" or "rest" until we can return to it with "fresh eyes."
Yes! I just mentioned a place where I worked over twenty years ago, in another reply on this site, it was situated about fifty yards from the Mississippi, inside part of the "rehabbed" now closed Grain Belt Brewery, artists were in some of the rooms, and next door (still open with many more artists in there these days) also former Grain Belt building, and outside between us and the the river was a sculpture garden.... let me see if I can find a link to a photo of some of the works...
Zoran's Sculpture Park is online as a reference but photos want me to use Facebook (no way) and Zoran is evidently, characteristically, monomaniacally but "in a good way" doing his art, not maintained a website about it!
Point is you could watch the gigantic stone and wood constructions he made change with the seasons, literally cast a new light on the sculptures. Also plenty of birds hopping around, as usual.
Thank you so much for the link. It was reassuring to see those work spaces looking like REAL work spaces. My "studio" is my kitchen and it is as filled with art supplies as some of those tables. (Makes for some challenging meals at my table!)
^^^^^ This has been built up for a long, long time in Nordeast. Makes sense some of the artists move heaven and earth to get ensconced in studios where they can give everything they've got.
And all too easy, and very superficial indeed, to hear about the weather in Minneapolis-St. Paul and rule it out as somewhere to live, to retire to, to visit in the cold long nights and short days of winter (it's COLD! I played downtown at the Hyatt Regency Hotel rooms hosting the 117th consecutive Minnesota Open chess tournament held in February, 2006 - and it never got above ZERO degrees - and that's not a wind chill, either - that entire week, including the Friday-Sunday tournament, but stay here a few years and "your blood thickens" to adapt, just as when I lived in Tempe, the first summer was a brutal change from Des Moines, the next was fine!)
True enough, there have been some deeply troubling and challenging events, plus their aftermath, since May 25, 2020's extrajudicial killing / police murder of George Floyd - but one of many, many stark contrasts is the fantastic, aesthetically enthusiastic massive crowd turn-outs for the Art-a-Whirl festival in May - the "largest indoor arts festival in the world."
And only SOME of it is, well, kitsch, some of it is as good as it gets. Most is some where in between, everyone should consider visiting if they enjoy the arts.
Whenever I think of the scourge that is polio, I think of the Salk vaccine, probably because that is the one that I and the rest of my family received, I had forgotten about Sabin. I often use Jonas Salk as an example of what one person can do, change the lives of millions for the better, which is why we need to educate everyone in this country, because who knows where the next Jonas Salk will come from. To think Margo, that you knew the man well enough for him to display his humanity says much about you 🙏
We were odd friends. I think we initially related because of our Jewishness, especially because my starter husband, a Salk Institute donor, was what my father called “Jewish by denial.” This guy really wanted to be Episcopalian.
I saw an analysis (can't remember where unfortunately) suggesting the winning vote margin for Biden in some traditional majority Republican areas that rejected masks and vaccines etc was directly correlated with the number of COVID deaths that occurred. Conspiracy theories have consequences.
But people LIKE conspiracies, they add excitement to drab lives. People don’t recognize propaganda and persuasion techniques, some of which are used on us all the time by advertisers and used car salesmen, not to mention politicians. They don’t realize that they are being manipulated if they identify with the propagandists.
I’m reminded of my mixed feelings at the 2017 “March for Science” in San Francisco (I’m a conservation ecologist and climate scientist) where it felt great the 50,000 people of all walks were supporting “me,” but felt really disturbing that we had to be there at all defending the basics of “The Enlightenment.” I now have some insights into how science and rationality can be overwhelmed by the forces of deliberate ignorance and fundamentalism. I’m eagerly awaiting my next Covid vax, as far as I know I’ve not caught it (yet) but the possibility of an asymptomatic infection still lurks.
I thought it was cool and enlightening when a Modern Philosophy course in gradual school I was T.A. ing began with selections from Copernicus and Galileo.
Really zeroed in on the perspective that evolving a basic consensus on a scientific method was a radical shift - and threatened the former "Gatekeepers" who enforced a distinction of approved and heretical thinking, aka The Church, and their partners in anti-intellectualist crimes.
I didn't want to generalize, but you said it well, pointing out the "gatekeepers." As I was reading these comments, I kept thinking about specific individuals I know in my own community who not only do not accept modern medicine or science, but who strenuously advocate against vaccines, etc. and every one of them is a member of some sort of fringe evangelical group. Every single one of them. Example: one is a chiropractor (a very good one, but with inordinate psychological influence over his patients); another one is a personal trainer (also a very good one, but with inordinate psychological influence over his clients.) I could go on, but I'll stop with two anecdotal examples.
I'm in your boat; as far as I know I haven't caught it yet, but really do not know. The next vaccine coming out in September is said NOT to really apply to the newest covid variant (they're still working on that one), nevertheless, word to the wise is get it anyway, plus the flu shot and then when the next vaccine comes around, get that one too. Maybe I'm being overly cautious, but I want to be around to vote in a few more cycles and do my bit to get this listing ship back upright. Having just lost several someones very dear to me, the fragility of life is uppermost in my thoughts these days.
I remember clearly what it was like to be a child in the era before the polio vaccine, I had a number of friends with crippled arms or legs that polio had ravaged. It’s beyond my comprehension why anyone with a brain would resist vaccines, given the alternative. And now the dystopia has spread to the lives of our pets, WTF? I suppose that just because you walk upright on 2 feet, the intellectual capacity of the brain isn’t necessarily engaged. It’s hard to even imagine a world where people can reach conclusions that are so against their own interests.
When I was a kid, the only vaccine I received was for smallpox. Fortunately, I never had polio, but I had most everything else: measles, mumps, chicken pox, rubella and many cases of the flu. Those who survived polio then suffered from post-polio syndrome in mid-life. A cousin of mine had polio at age 12, and in her mid-fifties her spine began to collapse sideways. Since the generations that were born after the Boomers had the advantage of receiving multiple vaccines, they assume contagious diseases never existed before COVID, so why get vaccinated? If they were able to go back in time and experience what Lucian describes in his article or go back in time when smallpox was rampant, they would be first in line for any vaccine available.
Comment was deleted twice, because the computer malfunctioned.
My gist was recalling mandatory vaccinations in Kindergarten. We lined up alphabetically and I was at the beginning of the line. I felt dizzy and David Anson held my hand.
note: David and his brother Peter moved up to Canada decades ago.
Like all the smart folks swimming in the FL Gulf who walk past the many signs on the beaches warning of fecal contamination in the water! To say nothing of the flesh eating bacteria.
With deep regret I have to conclude that a large segment of the American public has regressed voluntarily into the abyss of ignorance that characterized the Middle Ages. And much of it is the fault of social media because far too many of us are more concerned with getting 'likes' and 'followers'. They fancy themselves as 'influencers', and what they are creating is a tidal wave of dross, crassness, and sheer stupidity. I haven't yet figured out what it is that makes those of us want to be popular among people they never would want to know in their daily lives, much less seek out their companionship and association. Such is the price of loneliness and alienation where people living in multifamily housing barely know each other. At least back in the days when our forebears would hang out on the stoop of their tenement houses, they actually knew their neighbors and interacted like real people. Now they act like they're passengers in a standing room only subway car or commuter train, unable to meet the gaze of anyone else in the car by looking them in the eye. Our innate sense of social distancing has been compressed by at least a third. Everywhere in life is like driving on a crowded freeway, jockeying around for position and avoiding any form of contact with fellow travelers. It doesn't help that the self-imposed isolation makes us vulnerable to every sort of pervert or weirdo, because predators are always on the alert for the week, the helpless, and the inattentive. Glancing at someone for more than a moment, and they'll think that they've been subjected to some sort of felonious assault, mentally being stripped naked, and regretting the moment that they decided to take the train rather than drive to wherever they are going by car. It almost makes people want to wear a sign that says "hello! I am as uncomfortable about this is you are!"
Social media is like the old-fashioned chain letter that momentarily alleviates the loneliness of life, but without the human touch. Humans are social animals, and we need human contact; but when we get too much of it, and too close for comfort, we freak out. It turns out that anyone who provides a smidgen of warmth and attention will get a rave review, even if their ideas are full of hooey. What we are after in that eye contact is the smile that invites us in regardless of whatever else happens to be tucked away, hidden inside their poker face. But bad ideas are still bad ideas; but how do you say 'I'll take a pass on that', without rejecting the other person entirely? We have yet to figure this out.
Q: but how do you say 'I'll take a pass on that', without rejecting the other person entirely?
A: Most times I respond w/interesting included agreeing on any point or position that can be agreed upon, then depending on the person move the convo to their fav things, whether food, drink, activities, family, common friends. If they refuse to go along with that, do a time check and take your leave.
Agree. For me, it's dependent on any number of factors framed by who-what-where-when and how. (Why is not something I consider due to it being far too highly subjective).
In the late 70's and 80's, we lived on a ranch in rural NE Washington, above the Columbia River. I came to appreciate and enjoy the subtle tradition local ranchers had. When passing us in their pick-up trucks, they would raise one finger up off the steering wheel, as if to say, "Hey there, howdy". I still do that sometimes on rural roads in NE Minnesota. Human connection - #fearlesscompassion
This is still a custom in rural E Tenn where I live, whether you know the driver or not. We don't have strangers in our neck of the woods. My late husband used to complain that check-out lines would move much faster if customers didn't form life long friendships while waiting to pay. But he, as well, never met a stranger. It was a culture shock when we moved from Fairfield county CT down here 35 years ago, but I wouldn't live anywhere else. I love the neighborliness, the helping hand and the innate honesty of my neighbors. I wasn't able to plant a garden this year, but I have been gifted with homegrown produce all summer. This is a little piece of heaven which is, thankfully, still living as if it were decades ago.
That's neighborly and well-received. Horizon to horizon suburbs and their connector freeways are another thing entirely. I had always believed that California drivers were well-mannered, but that was true sixty years ago when I was a college student. Too many people here drive like they're back in their home towns of New York or Boston. It's not the same world.
I recently did a “deep dive” into history. I wouldn’t use “Middle Ages,” since people were beginning to pull themselves out of the Dark Ages. These Repugs have regressed to the DARK AGES. They didn’t even need a catastrophe like the eruption of Krakatoa and Plague to go there--they just jumped on a Mob Bus fueled by corrupt, fascist billionaires and took themselves there.
A fatal encounter with rabies, contracted from their own dogs.... What a perfect way for these already-rabid humans to be eliminated. By their own idiocy!
We have become used to (mostly) freedom from the most dangerous diseases: smallpox, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, etc. What a luxury to worry about vaccine effects from a much- discredited study! My great-great grandparents had 11 children. Records indicate that 7 may have died of diphtheria as young children over a period of a few years. This is the dystopia that awaits us if the anti-vax, anti-science crowd prevails. Then, not nearly as much was known, and diseases were not as preventable as now. Vaccines are a huge piece of that prevention.
Hey difny I should apologize for overreacting in a recent absurd kerfuffle I brought about, sorry for that.
It has had one practical, immediate, very useful effect: base don your praise and mention of The Mouse That Roared (film I always loved) I googled Leonard W's wikipedia entry, was suitably impressed, wanted to see what he might have being aiming at in the theory, or the suggestive comments you mentioned, found his 1971 book Voyage by Bus: Seeing America by Land Yacht - for all I know YOU might have helped edit it or worked with who did, right? - at the Internet Archive.
Now, that alone helped me out, since I have had a helluva time dealing with the Hennepin County Library e-book options as far as reading them in a browser (I use a 43 inch TCL Roku TV as a monitor, can adjust it six ways from Sunday) - and discovered quickly that the Internet Archive digital version was really good for that, plus the narrative drew me right in, he was clearly an extremely talented writer, and must have been a fascinating conversationalist and/or companion, no doubt.
Which also, of course, serves as a reminder of how silly it was for me to assume LW had some absolutely inflexible "thesis or theory," a theory of some kind that simply dismissed the great stretches of the continent as cultural wastelands, no, it looks like just an interesting starting point he used to open discussion and thinking about connected issues.
No need for apologies, Richard. You simply jumped to a conclusion. You're not the first. I'm not sure the sailing book is where Wibberley tossed off what I remembered, a review copy of it just seems the most likely. A prolific writer, mostly forgotten. Anyway, I'm glad your horizon got widened to include him.
That hasn't been my experience, MJ. Ever. I revise compulsively. I often go back to comments days later and make little changes no one will ever notice. I've never been unable to do so.
Me too, but I usually catch those proofreading errors soon. I must admit that, half-asleep, a better word choice, better phrasing, will come to me and the next morning I can't stop myself from changing it. Sick!
Maybe, maybe it's a browser issue - I have edited comments several days after posting them when I noticed an annoying enough typo or really infelicitous expression I used.
My husband, now 74, was in an iron lung for 3 months as a 3 year old. His parents could visit but not touch him for 1 hour a week on Sundays. Fortunately, he has minimal residual. We get every vaccine available! God and Mother Nature are indifferent to human suffering.
Or alternatively, they or him and her or the Cosmic Mystery, whatever you want to call these gnomic rules of the game, have left that job up to us, as engaging in it by proxy would arguably leave us mere robots, absolutely functioning as marionettes, without any participation or contribution to establishing values, in our own lives.
Yeah I know what that sounds like, like some version of Christian theological justifications that rely on a covert teleology, a "Grand Purpose" behind Deism, but I I simply find examining possible alternative interpretations of metaphysical obiter dicta irresistible!
Am I the only one who thinks that Americans are getting dumber and dumber? This is nonsense: Rabies is a deadly disease. As someone who grew up before the polio vaccines, I thank God every day we have these vaccines available. Forgo them at your own peril but at least protect your beloved companions.
I dream of mass suicide-by-non-vaccination. Darwin's Law strikes again-- yet another way for the trumpsters/anti-vaxxers (surely a near-100% overlap) to self-exterminate.
And that's ok, I just don't want those people to take others with them. Innocent people should not have to die because of other's stupidity. Good God, Y'all.
Exactly!
We are committing suicide by cultural ignorance. There is an easy fix for the pet vax. Make it a felony to own a dog without tags. But our idiot politicians are too focused on Hunter Biden and culture wars to address even the simplest of problems.
Don't forget the mass media as enabler of the "Hunter Biden laptop scandal," a laptop which was out of his possession for around THIRTEEN MONTHS before it was analyzed to see what was on it!
That would pose insuperable problems for a serious courtroom trial, thus the kangaroo court "House Investigations Committee" presided over by dedicated, biased, absurdly unfair Freedom Caucus stalwarts took over to perpetrate the ungrounded smears amongst a few legitimate issues about possible tax problems and a gun law violation by Hunter Biden.
Yup! and BTW Where's Jared and Don Jr?
Yeah where ARE Jared and Don Jr?
That fascistically engineered* narrow control of the House of Representatives has saved their legal and financial "lives," in all
likelihood!
*
www.democracydocket.com/analysis/how-gerrymandering-helped-republicans-win-the-house/
"At the start of the 118th U.S. Congress in January 2023, Republicans will hold 222 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Democrats will hold 213 — one of the closest House margins in years. Had Democrats won just five more seats, they would have retained a bare House majority and full control of Congress.
While keeping the House margin so narrow represents something of an unprecedented success for Democrats, it’s important not to lose sight of the impact that the decennial redistricting process had on this outcome. Republicans spent much of 2021 and 2022 enacting new maps to give themselves an electoral advantage, and this year’s midterms were the first elections held under the new district lines. Though it’s impossible to know for sure what would have happened under a different set of maps, it’s entirely plausible that Republicans only won the House thanks to gerrymandered maps in the following states — and a few helpful assists from the courts." *****
There follows a fairly granular dissection of how it worked in
Alabama
In 2021, Alabama Republicans — who controlled all the levers of redistricting power in the state — passed a new congressional map featuring just one majority-Black district despite Black Alabamians making up almost 27% of the population. Given the racially polarized voting in the state, the new map meant that Democrats would likely only win one congressional district. **** (More)
Florida Georgia Louisiana Ohio Utah
Gerrymandering — and an assist from the U.S. Supreme Court — helped Republicans win the majority.
Overall Outcome: -at least 6 Democratic seats
These states demonstrate that the Republicans’ five-seat margin of victory in the House could be attributable entirely to gerrymandering. Had fair maps been in place in Ohio and Utah, as well as additional Black-performing seats in place in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana, Democrats may very well have retained control of the House. ***** HEAVILY EDITED, the complete rundown is enlightening.
thank you once again, Richard. this is important and wonderful for arguments with the skeptics and assholes who always say you're clutching at straws when you blame partisan gerrymandering for the Democrats losing the House.
This time EXACTLY in caps!
Agree w/Hunter Biden and culture war position. Do have a few questions, though.
-Why mandated license/shot tags for a doggo and not a cat or hooman?
-Understand people still use the word pet and ownership thereof yet doesn't fit as snuggly as it implies. Are po-po K9s pets when on or off duty? How about MWDs? Specialized doggos that search, rescue or sniff for drugs, cadevers, explosives, and for a specialized adhesive onoy cellphones use? The plethora of commonly known companion doggos included those who spend their days in nursing homes and medical centers, seeing and hearing doggos? Why is it some states and nations require doggo "papers" inc a health check by a registered vet to cross borders but not hoomans?
Am for easiy fixes but not for wrong ones. Did you know the current 2forms of injectable rabies/boosters can and do interfere with canine and feline cancer treatments?
All living things are equal and can't be owned any more than a hooman can. Had hoomans accepted just that it is highly unlikely wars, Global Climate Change, poverty, untreated illnesses and diseases and yes ignorance would be the hooman legacy.
I think cats have to be vaccinated for rabies as well. I'm not sure there even are rabies vaccinations for people. up till now (and still including now for the time being), rabies in people has been very, very rare, due to the regulations about animals. how long this lasts if a lot of people fail to vaccinate their animals is something we'll have to see.
I'm completely with you regarding the ugliness of claiming to "own" animals. it's a term I try never to use. lots of folks use "guardian," which might be more correct but has always sounded not-quite-right either. so I just to refer to, say, "people with their animals" or a particular animal's "person."
in my case, if there's any ownership involved, these dogs own ME.
"in my case, if there's any ownership involved, these dogs own me." Respect and a smile from understanding.
Yes, sometimes the English language lacks the right word. Likely a result of a bias or attitude against the subject since words such as set and run have 100s of definitions in the OED. Aren't aware of a single aboriginal or indigenous society that uses anything comparable to pet owner or the cringeworthy term of I had to put down my____.
Western civ has forgotten it was ~wolf~ who taught man how to properly hunt for their empty bellies and would argue it was ~wolf~ who assisted in domesticating mankind. Advance that because ~wolf~ preceded humankind by 1000s of years and had developed a clear hierarchy.
Suspect men saw how successfully the pack hunted and began to form their own hunting parties. Also feel strongly men stole wolf pups rather than a few adults wandering into a cave occupied by humans and barking whatsup and pet me.
Back to the missing word or term. Native Hawaiians have a beautiful word ~kahu~. Its meanings track the life cycle of the relationship between human and animal. Its highest order in translation is beloved attendant. As I said, includes the life of the animal in what is seen by them and all aboriginal and indigenous cultures as co-equals, therefore reciprocal. So, there is guardianship, protection stages, and good stewardship all together add up to beloved attendant of one another. Is a far a cry away from pet owner as one can achieve.
Yes, felines supposed to be get their shots however there is no penalty as there is for canines. Do suspect there are exceptions in various jurisdictions, though.
Be Well, Good Man. May your doggos live long healthy lives.
that was beautiful and thanks so much for it.
it's also very plausible and enlightening. that it touches my heart goes without saying, but I said it anyway.
you be well too.
I don’t know where y’all live, but rabies vaccinations are required where I live, outside Augusta GA. If your doggie is picked up without a tag, it’s off to Animal Control Central, out in Appling, where life is apt to be nasty, brutish and, if you don’t go bail them out, short. I get tags for my cat when she gets her shots, too.
There’s a contagion of craziness and stupidity among a segment of the American population.
I'm not sure it's a felony, but in NYC, not having proof of rabies vaccination is definitely illegal. and if your unvaccinated dog bites a person or another animal, that dog is going to be put down. and btw, I know there are people who'll sell bogus vaccination tags, so actual proof has to include the little document that comes with the tag. I suppose it'd work if you referred the authorities to your vet because rules governing the recording of rabies vaccinations are very strict, thank god.
You and I are in agreement.
My almost 87 year old retired teacher aunt said (confessed) to me in March 2020 that she believed that lack of an education which encouraged dialogue, higher order thinking, identifying fallacies…would soon divide this country.
This was after a very short conversation about trump and Covid—Shirley chooses to concentrate on unpleasantries for 30 seconds. By the way, she was a math teacher.
She was uncomfortable saying that as having those thoughts may be elitism.
When the use of one's intelligence to express an opinion based on both evidence and observation is elitism, we really are in trouble - Please tell your aunt Thank you! from us for having the courage to still speak up. If we don't who will?
In that case, the country's been in trouble almost since it was founded. Richard Hofstadter's ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN AMERICAN LIFE came out in 1963 and won a Pulitzer in 1964. I read it for the first time in college (ca. 1971) and it explained a lot of what I'd already seen around me and read about in U.S. history. Anti-intellectualism explains so much about the right wing, especially but not exclusively the religious and/or racist right. Remember how George Wallace and his ilk used to refer regularly to "pointy heads"? They were not referring to Klansmen in their white hoods.
Exactly. Ideologies are anti- intellectualism because they're unprovable beliefs that must be and can only be taken on faith.
My fav example is the broad Trickle Down Economics BS. Time and time again it's been PROVEN NOT to work in PRACTICE yet Rs/cons still preach it will work in THEORY.
Great example. They've been preaching it for decades, it still doesn't work, and those who've been hurt by it keep following the preachers.
Unfortunately even affluent so called educated people are subject to ideological ignorance. Lots of antivaxxers have college degrees who take information out of context and overgeneralize outliers and anecdotes.
it's gotten to a point where I don't even know what "elitism" in this context even means. I know some very bright people who can think critically and didn't graduate high school. I know some moronic fools with advanced degrees. if it's "elitist" to talk about people in these terms, I can think of worse things to be called...
A friend had to get shots because of a dog bite from a possibly rabid dog. The shots are VERY painful and there were five of them, some days apart.
Regarding dumber and dumber Americans, the natural curiosity of children disappears earlier and earlier. People never ask the anti-vaccine people Why? Why should vaccines that have been successfully used for decades on millions of people and animals around the world should raise suspicions now? (The Rabies vaccine dates back to Louis Pasteur in the 1880s.) Well, the only real country is America, those others are just in the movies.
Rabies shots should be prominent in the discussion. Shots for people who have been exposed, or might have been, are so ghastly they're avoided if at all possible. When they must be administered that's news all by itself. But if anyone can have a tommy gun, what the hell, why not a potentially rabid dog? At worst, it could only kill somebody.
I agree difny. I was walking in the country in summer of my senior HS year. Dog came from its owner’s yard and just bit my leg. The owner told the police that she was certain I had antagonized the dog! What?! But pooch had to be impounded and watched. I knew what I would face if it developed symptoms. It didn’t. Phew!
Oy. Some people and their pets! I knew a couple whose pathological dog (I forget what breed) was a three-time loser: one more bite and Joey would have to be put down—or maybe he was already condemned. They devoted a lot of their lives to preventing justice for Joey.
there used to be a large brown "pit bull" (it was actually a Staffordshire because actual Pits don't get this big) across the street (I can see the apartment right now) who killed three other dogs and badly maimed many others. this dog's human family was obviously psychopathic, because they seemed to enjoy it all. a late friend of mine succeeded in poisoning the miserable cur and the whole neighborhood was in his debt. he's a "late friend" because of cancer, not revenge.
during the ten years I lived in Washington Heights, we dog people had a whole lovely park for our animals. but at about nine every night, the wannabe crack kingpins took over and "trained" their Pits with blood-soaked t-shirts and CHAINS (to "discipline" their dogs). I've never met a Pit Bull owned by responsible people who was anything other than very sweet-natured.
I get that impression when I read most polling results. I wish I could believe that being polled makes people stupid, but in my area of southeastern Massachusetts, where education levels are relatively high, the anti-vaxxers were out in force long before COVID. I know enough of them personally. Playing games with rabies is so godawfully stupid that I hope it hasn't caught on here -- proof of rabies vac is required to get a dog license -- but I'm going to ask my vet what she's seen and heard.
No, Kit, you are most assuredly NOT alone in thinking that a growing segment of the American population is getting dumber every day. This didn't happen overnight -- our education system, as dictated to by non-educators (i.e., right wing politicians), has become far less effective in educating young people for the past few decades. I certainly don't blame the teachers whose hands are tied in more ways than I'll go into. The dumbing down of America has certainly been accelerated by the far right and is now personified by those who support the Dumpster. Darwin's Law is now on full display in our country.
You are still attributing a modicum of rationality and sensible survival instincts as well as a non-sociopathic weltanschauung to fanatics, to humans in the throes of what looks like the "Authoritarian Personality" * run amok, maybe reconsider your views?
* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Authoritarian_Personality
Opening excerpt:
The Authoritarian Personality is a 1950 sociology book by Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford, researchers working at the University of California, Berkeley, during and shortly after World War II.
The Authoritarian Personality "invented a set of criteria by which to define personality traits, ranked these traits and their intensity in any given person on what it called the 'F scale' (F for fascist)."[1] The personality type Adorno et al. identified can be defined by nine traits that were believed to cluster together as the result of childhood experiences. These traits include conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception, superstition and stereotypy, power and "toughness", destructiveness and cynicism, projectivity, and exaggerated concerns over sex.[2][3]
Though criticized at the time for bias and methodology,[4][5] the book was highly influential in American social sciences, particularly in the first decade after its publication: "No volume published since the war in the field of social psychology has had a greater impact on the direction of the actual empirical work being carried on in the universities today."[6]
***** Yes, the model isn't perfect, and yes, it has been refined and modified to better capture
the hurly-burly of lived experience in a complex society with many moving parts, too.
once again, Richard, you're on the money.
what's funny is that I know one or two people who tell me they'll have nothing to do with anything relating to The Frankfurt School because it's "social engineering."
the wonderful LaRouche Legacy seems to be at work in at least one of these cases, which proves that very often, with very evil people, their death doesn't have a whole lot of effect on the "movements" they started.
and I'm not sure what's so horrible about so-called "social engineering."
LOL, even my INCOME TAX prof made a point several times, during the required course and thus to a kind of captive audience, to note that our income tax code is engaged in a kind of "social engineering"!
Some kinds of investments (in homes, condos, for example) get tax breaks, other kinds of expenditures discouraged, you know the drill on this, so allowing for governments to invest in education, libraries - albeit not enough, especially compared to dubious military hardware - is social engineering to help develop an educated population! Big deal!
The critics - and especially those LaRoucheites of course - are in a near frenzy over basic common sense programs - besides which, the remedy is to monitor them for "waste, fraud and abuse," like we theoretically do with ANY government program, or any private enterprise in which government monies are involved.
When my folks moved to L.A. in 1950 we lived in one of those small collection of interconnected bungalows. One of the tenants had a TV - the first I’d seen. The neighbors invited my mom to send me over to watch TV and visit with her son: a paralyzed victim of polio who had to sleep in an iron lung! What a monstrous and shocking this thing was. It scared the crap out of me. I remember my parent’s concern about polio: no one knew where it came from (I remember stagnant water was one theory among the public.) I was in the first wave of the Salk vaccine, and a great weight was lifted from my small shoulders and every parent we knew. Sometimes it feels as though we are on the cusp of either a new “dark age” or a descent into Idiocracy.
It was absolutely a terrifying disease. And, we accepted the childhood diseases, like measles, which could also cause a lot of damage. I bless our world that we now have these vaccines plus so many others. If you've had shingles once, you want to get that vaccine. Consequently, I look at the anti-vax people as ignorant fools. Thanks for your comment.
before the Salk vaccine came out, people in NYC (and every other big city) would do their damndest to get out of town during the summer to minimize their chances of exposure to polio. everybody was TERRIFIED.
I had a good friend at CCNY named Lennie Kriegel who had gotten polio when he was ten or so, back in the forties (you might have known him, Lucian...he liked hanging out in the Lion's Head, engaged in a perpetual argument with Joel Oppenheimer about who belonged in a fantasy Jewish All-Star baseball team). he was on crutches, then later in a wheelchair and wrote about the experience with great eloquence (he left us a year or so ago, almost making it to 90).
it's virtually impossible to convey to people the extent to which EVERYTHING CHANGED when that vaccine came out (I've tried it with anti-vaxxers and good luck with THAT).
a little fact I like to share with people is that I once had my picture taken with Dr. Salk during a CCNY Homecoming event when I was about six. connections in high places dontcha know...
You echo something I've said and written and posted for years now, going back before Drumpf even: "It's not your imagination, people really are getting stupider."
Since we be old men, Lucian, we can remember the scourge of distemper in dogs, so many pet deaths until the vaccine. And dog pets no longer get rabies (another story I will write about with one of my dogs). I have little hope for that portion of our population not believing science or reality. Watching a news broadcast where a woman our age was asked about Trump, "What do you like most about him?" She answered in all seriousness, "He never lies to us." There is no cure for stupid.
The cure for stupid is death. Stupid people who refuse vaccines for themselves and their pets are dying in greater numbers than the sane, intelligent people who get both themselves and their pets vaccinated. The stupid are self-exterminating, but WAY too slowly!
I saw that person, too...SMH!
I think that generations who have never seen disease don't think it exists. When my grandmother was 17, she watched a half-dozen of her high school peers die of the Spanish flu. Every summer polio would come to visit, killing and crippling thousands of kids and more than a few adults. An infected cut could result in amputated limbs, teeth rotted and fell out, people died at 60.
And dogs died of distemper or rabies (remember Ol' Yeller?).
But because they themselves haven't seen it, they don't believe it. Whether covid came from a lab or not, it's among us and will be forever (my wife has it now, in fact).
My belief in a thing has no effect on its reality, but many Americans believe the opposite.
With you up until the very last enthymematic argument - your beliefs about your own beliefs, that is, our human beliefs about our own beliefs, pose a problem, unless you're subscribing to some form of Idealism.
Are beliefs `things'? If beliefs are not thing-like at all, what are they like? It seems as if beliefs are at least real enough to cause behavior, or inhibit behavior, otherwise it's a fast slope into no one "really" being responsible for their own overt acts, or for the failure to act, including when they might have a legally assigned "duty of care," to act in the best interests of a minor, or someone who is incapacitated, or a victim of spousal or other abuse - it's a long list and overlaps with the law of torts.
But if beliefs have causal efficacy, such that the beliefs under discussion here, in this commentary on anti-vaxxers, are believed by we critics to motivate self-destructive, dangerous acts in the real world, that sure looks like a
"belief in a thing that DOES have an effect on its reality, " and we have to be more cautious and qualify the more sweeping claim about "many Americans {believing} the opposite."
Not that difficult when it's a belief that praying to the tortilla that "has the face of Jesus" will bring about effects, or that betting on one's "lucky numbers" increases the odds you'll win the lottery or at roulette, sure, but it becomes much trickier when it goes into self-criticism, introspection, and revising one's views about vaccinating Chaser the dog against rabies!
youtube.com/watch?v=J982KYWohT8&ab_channel=HarvestBooks
777,474 views Sep 5, 2013
The amazing story of a very smart Border collie who is redefining animal intelligence.
Chaser has a way with words. She knows over a thousand of them—more than any other animal of any species except humans. In addition to common nouns like house, ball, and tree, she has memorized the names of more than one thousand toys and can retrieve any of them on command. Based on that learning, she and her owner and trainer, retired psychologist John Pilley, have moved on to further impressive feats, demonstrating her ability to understand sentences with multiple elements of grammar and to learn new behaviors by imitation.
John's ingenuity and tenacity as a researcher are as impressive as Chaser's accomplishments. His groundbreaking approach has opened the door to a new understanding of animal intelligence, one that requires us to reconsider what actually goes on in a dog's mind. Chaser's achievements reveal her use of deductive reasoning and complex problem-solving skills to address novel challenges. ***** Pilley's book about this journey is fascinating.
So, if I can condense your post. People have beliefs, some of those beliefs are harmful. And some dogs are very smart. Thank you for your opinion.
You'll be blocked from any Substack I create, of course, stop wasting everyone's time including your own is sound advice.
I already tried to block you on here but did not want to bother, maybe I have to do that as well.
Now having read your other posts, I can see I was wrong - you're just attempting to be intentionally rude, rather than being incapable of producing coherent discourse about topics like this - a really bizarre response to me posting such fundamental questions about the nature of belief, questions that have puzzled and still puzzle the best minds from science and philosophy!
I would ask you for your motivation, but what kind of motivation would make any sense, right? And what the odds you even know what motivated it, or would ever admit any mistake in doing so?
Can I save this? It's illustrative of a huge number of profound philosophical insights, such as that "people have beliefs," no arguing with that, and that some beliefs are harmful - true enough, and arguably one harmful belief is that a summarized sketch of my questions about the nature of beliefs isn't being fair to your own intellectual development, even if it is fair to me - did you consider that and then reject it as silly, or not worth bothering about?
The reduction of Chaser's example to "some dogs are very smart" is an incredible feat, as it manages to almost completely miss the entire point of the video - here, take another look and see if you might reconsider your views on that:
777,545 views Sep 5, 2013
"The amazing story of a very smart Border collie who is redefining animal intelligence."
{Note the phrase, "[R}edefining animal intelligence," not sure "some dogs are very smart" exactly captures that claim too well, sorry to bring that up, as your seem completely satisfied with it, but life is hard that way sometimes! }
"Chaser has a way with words. She knows over a thousand of them—more than any other animal of any species except humans. In addition to common nouns like house, ball, and tree, she has memorized the names of more than one thousand toys and can retrieve any of them on command. Based on that learning, she and her owner and trainer, retired psychologist John Pilley, have moved on to further impressive feats, demonstrating her ability to understand sentences with multiple elements of grammar and to learn new behaviors by imitation.
"John's ingenuity and tenacity as a researcher are as impressive as Chaser's accomplishments. His groundbreaking approach has opened the door to a new understanding of animal intelligence, one that requires us to reconsider what actually goes on in a dog's mind. Chaser's achievements reveal her use of deductive reasoning and complex problem-solving skills to address novel challenges. "
***** Note the reference to "deductive reasoning," does that indicate some change your summary from "Some dogs are very smart" is advisable, in any way?
youtube.com/watch?v=J982KYWohT8&ab_channel=HarvestBooks
I can sincerely state that I personally have never seen these theories about beliefs delivered in such a brief fashion, so there's that - as the Bard put it, "Brevity is the soul of wit."
True enough, the upshot of what you came up with seems flatly incoherent to me, as if you just refused to consider the ideas at all, but different strokes for different folks - I am sure you believe you offered a fair and accurate summary of the post, and I would enjoy asking other participants in the online study group on epistemology I belong to, what they make of it. Keeping your name out of it, you would be anonymous, of course, so there's no question of any invasion of privacy.
You do realize if you simply caricature someone's post as was done here, it hardly shows a good faith effort, or any effort at all, to deal with the fact that the unexamined life is not worth living?
But thanks for responding at all, you could have saved yourself the immense effort and just written, tl, dr.
🤣🤣🤣
You're already blocked, thanks!
Addendum: Btw, EMOJIS??? Come on, it's that level of extremely rare open trolling on HERE, this blog, as opposed to the rest of the internet, that led me to block you -that is, it's incomprehensible to me (and I assure you, many other people as well) why anyone - anyone, mind you, as this is NOT about "you" personally to the exclusion of all other persons, since I do not even know you, and was making purely abstract arguments for consideration - why you or anyone else would react with trolling to direct questions raised, that do bear on our collective human understanding of belief systems, such as those rightfully excoriated in LKTIV's column.
That's all that was done, all that was intended, and there was no need to play at the old "Here's what you meant to say, let me put massively over-simplistic words in your mouth" schoolyard game, is there?
Clearly not.
I should say my disbelief in a thing doesn't make it less real. Of course people use this argument to "prove" that their particular divinity or dogma is real. However, with vaccinations I think it applies.
Here is the story- My dog of course had all his shots, including rabies. I had taken the prep for a colonoscopy about two hours previously and was starting to feel its effects. My Pit wanted to go into the fenced in back yard, this was at 12pm. Okay, that will only take a minute...he goes out and suddenly crashes through the bushes bringing out a raccoon. The critter is fighting him, of course, Tonka, the Pit Bull, bores into him. I get a shovel and go out to attempt to separate them- to no avail. Tonka has brought it to an end. I wrap the body in a bag, with gloves on, but still get blood on myself. I take Tonka to the bathtub and wash him and his cuts, meanwhile the intestinal fluid is sending urges through my body. Sigh. Later I call the town's department and they send out a person to collect the raccoon to check it for rabies. Raccoons seldom venture out in the middle of day. Several days later I am sitting by the fire, Tonka's massive head in my lap, the phone rings. A voice, "Is Tonka there?" I say, "Sorry, he is sleeping right now. Can I give him a message?" The voice, laughing, says- "The raccoon did not have rabies." I thanked the town official not only for his call but for the humor. The day after the incident, I went to our vet and go rabies boosters but was really worried about me.
Great Sat morning storytell, hope ya shared it with all your family and friends
My Father , against his own better judgment, hand-fed raccoons on his front porch. One night, a new raccoon showed up, who didn'tunderstand that grabbing the peanuts was not allowed. My dad's sense of humor was dry, but a grin always let you know when he was joshin' My mom called told me about this and asked me to talk some sense into him. I drove out there, picked him up and took him to the hospital where the shots were ordered, hand delivered. and waiting. The cost of the shots $15K. According to the nurse. They are given on three different visits, they are no longer given in the stomach but rather in the hip. Dying of rabies is a horribly painful death. Look it up. Do not wait if you're bitten by a stray dog cat raccoon, get the shots. My dad was on Medicare at the time, and could have afforded the payment, but 0 was charged, nothing for the shots.
Bad Dad, No biscuit!
haha, he was so bad, when the nurse asked him if he had had suffered any confusion, he said, "Yes." looked at me and smiled. The nurse grabbed the sides of her rolling desk, flipped her head around like she was looking at a dead man, WHEN?! Dad answered, "For the last 5 years." He hid the gaps in his thinking (dementia) with his sense of humor.
We brought a puppy into our house during the pandemic like a lot of other people. We've had dogs before, but this time I spent a lot of time online learning about care, training, etc. I quickly discovered that amount of anti-science in the "dog community." Everything from vaccines to dog foods, the lack of faith in the veterinary and scientific committee is astounding.
I've had dogs all my life. I cannot fathom how woefully ignorant these people are. In the last 30 years, veterinary science has greatly expanded, all to the benefit of our pets. Our beloved companions (and children) should not die as the result of such stupidity.
Lots of hysteria about dog diets. Some of it justified. The raw meat diet is typical of pet owners basic lack of understanding about evolution. Their dog is not a wolf and can handle carbohydrates. Wild canines, not so much. There's very little that we eat, if we eat a a healthy diet, that a dog can't eat. Grapes, dark chocolate spring to mind.
I am completely baffled by the anti-science mentality. Vaccines have prevented enormous amounts of suffering and death. They are one of the great benefits of living in the modern era. With a rabies shot, "Old Yeller" would have had a happy ending and I wouldn't have been a young kid sobbing in a dark theater.
These idiots must think the baseline in which we have been living, where we do not have these diseases, is nature, and that if they get a vaccination they are interfering with nature. These people are beyond idiocy. And team normal has to live among them.
And apparently measles is on the rise again due to parents refusing to vaccinate their children. Yes, we live among them.
Yes, our protected existence is confused with nature! I got a thorn in my thumb while gardening. Not unusual for me, but that night I woke up with the thumb throbbing, hot, red, twice its normal size. Might have killed me untreated, the doctor said. Nature.
Do the idiots believe dogs will survive through their famous belief in 'herd immunity'?
It is not possible to herd a dachshund, so what do they want those who love sausages to do? Put bleach in their water bowls? What would a dachshund do if you tried to shine infra red light into its mouth and down its throat?
"Where the hell did that come from, you might ask?" Trademark Mr. T.: conversation in written form. But enough about good writers.
This issue is part of a piece, of course. The dumbing down of a sizable part of the population in tandem with nutty conspiracies theories masquerading as received wisdom. We are now living with a new kind of Republican ... one who believes in government by charade.
Soon they will find witches to burn.
So ... it comes as no surprise that banging the drum for vaccines harming people would eventually be applied to man's best friend. I wonder, sometimes, if this crowd goes looking for ways to sound crazy.
As an aside, and adopting the title and outlook of Laurie Stone's stack, "Everything Is Personal," I will share something I think you'll find interesting. Through an odd circumstance, Jonas Salk and I were friends at the time the Salk Institute was new. During a long car ride from San Diego to his avocado ranch, we had a wide ranging conversation. Here is what I found memorable: I asked him how he was able to beat Sabin to a vaccine, seeing as how Sabin had begun his research first? He said he intuited the answer - still having to prove it, but saving time.
He mused that he was unhappy that he had not been awarded the Nobel.
I was taken aback by his honesty, as well as his humanness.
Great story!
Arthur Koestler wrote several books on that theme, one of my favorites is this one, even has its own Wikipedia entry:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Act_of_Creation
The Act of Creation is a 1964 book by Arthur Koestler. It is a study of the processes of discovery, invention, imagination and creativity in humour, science, and the arts. It lays out Koestler's attempt to develop an elaborate general theory of human creativity.
From describing and comparing many different examples of invention and discovery, Koestler concludes that they all share a common pattern which he terms "bisociation" – a blending of elements drawn from two previously unrelated matrices of thought into a new matrix of meaning by way of a process involving comparison, abstraction and categorisation, analogies and metaphors. He regards many different mental phenomena based on comparison (such as analogies, metaphors, parables, allegories, jokes, identification, role-playing, acting, personification, anthropomorphism etc.), as special cases of "bisociation".
Book One: The Art of Discovery and the Discoveries of Art
The Act of Creation is divided into two books. In the first book, Koestler proposes a global theory of creative activity encompassing humour, scientific inquiry, and art. Koestler's fundamental idea is that any creative act is a bisociation (not mere association) of two (or more) apparently incompatible frames of thought.[1] Employing a spatial metaphor, Koestler calls such frames of thought matrices: "any ability, habit, or skill, any pattern of ordered behaviour governed by a 'code' of fixed rules."[2] Koestler argues that the diverse forms of human creativity all correspond to variations of his model of bisociation.
In jokes and humour, the audience is led to expect a certain outcome compatible with a particular matrix (e.g. the narrative storyline); a punch line, however, replaces the original matrix with an alternative to comic effect. The structure of a joke, then, is essentially that of bait-and-switch. In scientific inquiry, the two matrices are fused into a new larger synthesis.[3] The recognition that two previously disconnected matrices are compatible generates the experience of eureka. Finally, in the arts and in ritual, the two matrices are held in juxtaposition to one another. Observing art is a process of experiencing this juxtaposition, with both matrices sustained.
According to Koestler, many bisociative creative breakthroughs occur after a period of intense conscious effort directed at the creative goal or problem, in a period of relaxation when rational thought is abandoned, like during dreams and trances.[4] Koestler affirms that all creatures have the capacity for creative activity, frequently suppressed by the automatic routines of thought and behaviour that dominate their lives.
Book Two: Habit and Originality
The second book of The Act of Creation aims to develop a biological and psychological foundation for the theory of creation proposed in book one. Koestler found the psychology of his day (behaviorism, cognitivism) portraying man merely as an automaton, disregarded the creative abilities of the mind. Koestler draws on theories of play, imprinting, motivation, perception, Gestalt psychology, and others to lay a theoretical foundation for his theory of creativity.
Literature
Reed Merrill: Arthur Koestler. In: Irene R. Makaryk (Ed.): Encyclopedia of contemporary literary theory. University of Toronto Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8020-6860-X, pp. 390–392.
See also
Analogy
Conceptual blending
Conceptual metaphor theory
Creativity
Gregory Bateson
Invention
Smile
Thank you for sharing this. My art teacher/friend and I were just discussing this last week: "According to Koestler, many bisociative creative breakthroughs occur after a period of intense conscious effort directed at the creative goal or problem, in a period of relaxation when rational thought is abandoned, like during dreams and trances."
As it relates to our experiences with art, this translates (for us) into letting a piece "percolate" or "rest" until we can return to it with "fresh eyes."
Yes! I just mentioned a place where I worked over twenty years ago, in another reply on this site, it was situated about fifty yards from the Mississippi, inside part of the "rehabbed" now closed Grain Belt Brewery, artists were in some of the rooms, and next door (still open with many more artists in there these days) also former Grain Belt building, and outside between us and the the river was a sculpture garden.... let me see if I can find a link to a photo of some of the works...
artspace.org/grainbelt
Zoran's Sculpture Park is online as a reference but photos want me to use Facebook (no way) and Zoran is evidently, characteristically, monomaniacally but "in a good way" doing his art, not maintained a website about it!
Point is you could watch the gigantic stone and wood constructions he made change with the seasons, literally cast a new light on the sculptures. Also plenty of birds hopping around, as usual.
Thank you so much for the link. It was reassuring to see those work spaces looking like REAL work spaces. My "studio" is my kitchen and it is as filled with art supplies as some of those tables. (Makes for some challenging meals at my table!)
mplsart.com/events/art-a-whirl-2023
^^^^^ This has been built up for a long, long time in Nordeast. Makes sense some of the artists move heaven and earth to get ensconced in studios where they can give everything they've got.
And all too easy, and very superficial indeed, to hear about the weather in Minneapolis-St. Paul and rule it out as somewhere to live, to retire to, to visit in the cold long nights and short days of winter (it's COLD! I played downtown at the Hyatt Regency Hotel rooms hosting the 117th consecutive Minnesota Open chess tournament held in February, 2006 - and it never got above ZERO degrees - and that's not a wind chill, either - that entire week, including the Friday-Sunday tournament, but stay here a few years and "your blood thickens" to adapt, just as when I lived in Tempe, the first summer was a brutal change from Des Moines, the next was fine!)
True enough, there have been some deeply troubling and challenging events, plus their aftermath, since May 25, 2020's extrajudicial killing / police murder of George Floyd - but one of many, many stark contrasts is the fantastic, aesthetically enthusiastic massive crowd turn-outs for the Art-a-Whirl festival in May - the "largest indoor arts festival in the world."
And only SOME of it is, well, kitsch, some of it is as good as it gets. Most is some where in between, everyone should consider visiting if they enjoy the arts.
So interesting. Thank you.
I noticed Wiki seems to have a typo, "Smile" for "Simile," unless it's a sneaky bit of advice!
Whenever I think of the scourge that is polio, I think of the Salk vaccine, probably because that is the one that I and the rest of my family received, I had forgotten about Sabin. I often use Jonas Salk as an example of what one person can do, change the lives of millions for the better, which is why we need to educate everyone in this country, because who knows where the next Jonas Salk will come from. To think Margo, that you knew the man well enough for him to display his humanity says much about you 🙏
We were odd friends. I think we initially related because of our Jewishness, especially because my starter husband, a Salk Institute donor, was what my father called “Jewish by denial.” This guy really wanted to be Episcopalian.
So funny! Thank you for the giggle.
I saw an analysis (can't remember where unfortunately) suggesting the winning vote margin for Biden in some traditional majority Republican areas that rejected masks and vaccines etc was directly correlated with the number of COVID deaths that occurred. Conspiracy theories have consequences.
I don’t know if it’s being dumb, but surely ignorance stems from easy access to out of control conspiracy propaganda.
But people LIKE conspiracies, they add excitement to drab lives. People don’t recognize propaganda and persuasion techniques, some of which are used on us all the time by advertisers and used car salesmen, not to mention politicians. They don’t realize that they are being manipulated if they identify with the propagandists.
I’m reminded of my mixed feelings at the 2017 “March for Science” in San Francisco (I’m a conservation ecologist and climate scientist) where it felt great the 50,000 people of all walks were supporting “me,” but felt really disturbing that we had to be there at all defending the basics of “The Enlightenment.” I now have some insights into how science and rationality can be overwhelmed by the forces of deliberate ignorance and fundamentalism. I’m eagerly awaiting my next Covid vax, as far as I know I’ve not caught it (yet) but the possibility of an asymptomatic infection still lurks.
I thought it was cool and enlightening when a Modern Philosophy course in gradual school I was T.A. ing began with selections from Copernicus and Galileo.
Really zeroed in on the perspective that evolving a basic consensus on a scientific method was a radical shift - and threatened the former "Gatekeepers" who enforced a distinction of approved and heretical thinking, aka The Church, and their partners in anti-intellectualist crimes.
"But it still moves," etc.
I didn't want to generalize, but you said it well, pointing out the "gatekeepers." As I was reading these comments, I kept thinking about specific individuals I know in my own community who not only do not accept modern medicine or science, but who strenuously advocate against vaccines, etc. and every one of them is a member of some sort of fringe evangelical group. Every single one of them. Example: one is a chiropractor (a very good one, but with inordinate psychological influence over his patients); another one is a personal trainer (also a very good one, but with inordinate psychological influence over his clients.) I could go on, but I'll stop with two anecdotal examples.
"gradual school" - that's what it was for me, for sure. 😅
I really appreciate reminding us of that radical shift for modern philosophy.
~Respect~
I'm in your boat; as far as I know I haven't caught it yet, but really do not know. The next vaccine coming out in September is said NOT to really apply to the newest covid variant (they're still working on that one), nevertheless, word to the wise is get it anyway, plus the flu shot and then when the next vaccine comes around, get that one too. Maybe I'm being overly cautious, but I want to be around to vote in a few more cycles and do my bit to get this listing ship back upright. Having just lost several someones very dear to me, the fragility of life is uppermost in my thoughts these days.
I remember clearly what it was like to be a child in the era before the polio vaccine, I had a number of friends with crippled arms or legs that polio had ravaged. It’s beyond my comprehension why anyone with a brain would resist vaccines, given the alternative. And now the dystopia has spread to the lives of our pets, WTF? I suppose that just because you walk upright on 2 feet, the intellectual capacity of the brain isn’t necessarily engaged. It’s hard to even imagine a world where people can reach conclusions that are so against their own interests.
When I was a kid, the only vaccine I received was for smallpox. Fortunately, I never had polio, but I had most everything else: measles, mumps, chicken pox, rubella and many cases of the flu. Those who survived polio then suffered from post-polio syndrome in mid-life. A cousin of mine had polio at age 12, and in her mid-fifties her spine began to collapse sideways. Since the generations that were born after the Boomers had the advantage of receiving multiple vaccines, they assume contagious diseases never existed before COVID, so why get vaccinated? If they were able to go back in time and experience what Lucian describes in his article or go back in time when smallpox was rampant, they would be first in line for any vaccine available.
Comment was deleted twice, because the computer malfunctioned.
My gist was recalling mandatory vaccinations in Kindergarten. We lined up alphabetically and I was at the beginning of the line. I felt dizzy and David Anson held my hand.
note: David and his brother Peter moved up to Canada decades ago.
Like all the smart folks swimming in the FL Gulf who walk past the many signs on the beaches warning of fecal contamination in the water! To say nothing of the flesh eating bacteria.
Key phrase, 'anyone with a brain'!
With deep regret I have to conclude that a large segment of the American public has regressed voluntarily into the abyss of ignorance that characterized the Middle Ages. And much of it is the fault of social media because far too many of us are more concerned with getting 'likes' and 'followers'. They fancy themselves as 'influencers', and what they are creating is a tidal wave of dross, crassness, and sheer stupidity. I haven't yet figured out what it is that makes those of us want to be popular among people they never would want to know in their daily lives, much less seek out their companionship and association. Such is the price of loneliness and alienation where people living in multifamily housing barely know each other. At least back in the days when our forebears would hang out on the stoop of their tenement houses, they actually knew their neighbors and interacted like real people. Now they act like they're passengers in a standing room only subway car or commuter train, unable to meet the gaze of anyone else in the car by looking them in the eye. Our innate sense of social distancing has been compressed by at least a third. Everywhere in life is like driving on a crowded freeway, jockeying around for position and avoiding any form of contact with fellow travelers. It doesn't help that the self-imposed isolation makes us vulnerable to every sort of pervert or weirdo, because predators are always on the alert for the week, the helpless, and the inattentive. Glancing at someone for more than a moment, and they'll think that they've been subjected to some sort of felonious assault, mentally being stripped naked, and regretting the moment that they decided to take the train rather than drive to wherever they are going by car. It almost makes people want to wear a sign that says "hello! I am as uncomfortable about this is you are!"
Social media is like the old-fashioned chain letter that momentarily alleviates the loneliness of life, but without the human touch. Humans are social animals, and we need human contact; but when we get too much of it, and too close for comfort, we freak out. It turns out that anyone who provides a smidgen of warmth and attention will get a rave review, even if their ideas are full of hooey. What we are after in that eye contact is the smile that invites us in regardless of whatever else happens to be tucked away, hidden inside their poker face. But bad ideas are still bad ideas; but how do you say 'I'll take a pass on that', without rejecting the other person entirely? We have yet to figure this out.
Q: but how do you say 'I'll take a pass on that', without rejecting the other person entirely?
A: Most times I respond w/interesting included agreeing on any point or position that can be agreed upon, then depending on the person move the convo to their fav things, whether food, drink, activities, family, common friends. If they refuse to go along with that, do a time check and take your leave.
It's okay to disagree.
Agree. For me, it's dependent on any number of factors framed by who-what-where-when and how. (Why is not something I consider due to it being far too highly subjective).
You could slip them a Mickey like in the Seinfeld episode! Oh wait...never mind.
...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revenge_(Seinfeld)
The alphabet in my head started vibrating the letters as I read every word you wrote.
That's good. Right?
Way Good.
Read your essay again Arthur Silen. Sublime.
In the late 70's and 80's, we lived on a ranch in rural NE Washington, above the Columbia River. I came to appreciate and enjoy the subtle tradition local ranchers had. When passing us in their pick-up trucks, they would raise one finger up off the steering wheel, as if to say, "Hey there, howdy". I still do that sometimes on rural roads in NE Minnesota. Human connection - #fearlesscompassion
This is still a custom in rural E Tenn where I live, whether you know the driver or not. We don't have strangers in our neck of the woods. My late husband used to complain that check-out lines would move much faster if customers didn't form life long friendships while waiting to pay. But he, as well, never met a stranger. It was a culture shock when we moved from Fairfield county CT down here 35 years ago, but I wouldn't live anywhere else. I love the neighborliness, the helping hand and the innate honesty of my neighbors. I wasn't able to plant a garden this year, but I have been gifted with homegrown produce all summer. This is a little piece of heaven which is, thankfully, still living as if it were decades ago.
That's neighborly and well-received. Horizon to horizon suburbs and their connector freeways are another thing entirely. I had always believed that California drivers were well-mannered, but that was true sixty years ago when I was a college student. Too many people here drive like they're back in their home towns of New York or Boston. It's not the same world.
Yes!!!
I recently did a “deep dive” into history. I wouldn’t use “Middle Ages,” since people were beginning to pull themselves out of the Dark Ages. These Repugs have regressed to the DARK AGES. They didn’t even need a catastrophe like the eruption of Krakatoa and Plague to go there--they just jumped on a Mob Bus fueled by corrupt, fascist billionaires and took themselves there.
A fatal encounter with rabies, contracted from their own dogs.... What a perfect way for these already-rabid humans to be eliminated. By their own idiocy!
Except the dog might be more likely to bite you or your children than his owner?
We have become used to (mostly) freedom from the most dangerous diseases: smallpox, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, etc. What a luxury to worry about vaccine effects from a much- discredited study! My great-great grandparents had 11 children. Records indicate that 7 may have died of diphtheria as young children over a period of a few years. This is the dystopia that awaits us if the anti-vax, anti-science crowd prevails. Then, not nearly as much was known, and diseases were not as preventable as now. Vaccines are a huge piece of that prevention.
The tricon to the right under a comment you've posted enables editing or deleting.
Hey difny I should apologize for overreacting in a recent absurd kerfuffle I brought about, sorry for that.
It has had one practical, immediate, very useful effect: base don your praise and mention of The Mouse That Roared (film I always loved) I googled Leonard W's wikipedia entry, was suitably impressed, wanted to see what he might have being aiming at in the theory, or the suggestive comments you mentioned, found his 1971 book Voyage by Bus: Seeing America by Land Yacht - for all I know YOU might have helped edit it or worked with who did, right? - at the Internet Archive.
Now, that alone helped me out, since I have had a helluva time dealing with the Hennepin County Library e-book options as far as reading them in a browser (I use a 43 inch TCL Roku TV as a monitor, can adjust it six ways from Sunday) - and discovered quickly that the Internet Archive digital version was really good for that, plus the narrative drew me right in, he was clearly an extremely talented writer, and must have been a fascinating conversationalist and/or companion, no doubt.
Which also, of course, serves as a reminder of how silly it was for me to assume LW had some absolutely inflexible "thesis or theory," a theory of some kind that simply dismissed the great stretches of the continent as cultural wastelands, no, it looks like just an interesting starting point he used to open discussion and thinking about connected issues.
I plead guilty to needlessly needling you!
No need for apologies, Richard. You simply jumped to a conclusion. You're not the first. I'm not sure the sailing book is where Wibberley tossed off what I remembered, a review copy of it just seems the most likely. A prolific writer, mostly forgotten. Anyway, I'm glad your horizon got widened to include him.
I know, but only for a short period after posting.
That hasn't been my experience, MJ. Ever. I revise compulsively. I often go back to comments days later and make little changes no one will ever notice. I've never been unable to do so.
I do that as well, sometimes a word or two, sometimes typo’s. No matter how much I reread before hitting “Post”, I still miss stuff. 🤷♂️
Me too, but I usually catch those proofreading errors soon. I must admit that, half-asleep, a better word choice, better phrasing, will come to me and the next morning I can't stop myself from changing it. Sick!
Maybe, maybe it's a browser issue - I have edited comments several days after posting them when I noticed an annoying enough typo or really infelicitous expression I used.
I remember kids with flaccid arms or legs in school. Those were the lucky ones who didn't end up in a wheelchair or iron lung. Preach, brother!
My husband, now 74, was in an iron lung for 3 months as a 3 year old. His parents could visit but not touch him for 1 hour a week on Sundays. Fortunately, he has minimal residual. We get every vaccine available! God and Mother Nature are indifferent to human suffering.
Or alternatively, they or him and her or the Cosmic Mystery, whatever you want to call these gnomic rules of the game, have left that job up to us, as engaging in it by proxy would arguably leave us mere robots, absolutely functioning as marionettes, without any participation or contribution to establishing values, in our own lives.
Yeah I know what that sounds like, like some version of Christian theological justifications that rely on a covert teleology, a "Grand Purpose" behind Deism, but I I simply find examining possible alternative interpretations of metaphysical obiter dicta irresistible!