Category Archives: Social Commentary

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Campus Sex Police

4 Comments

Trump’s budget cuts funding for it. Good, except it will probably be restored by Congress. Devos needs to put the right people in place, and issue new guidance.

[Update a while later]

Related, sort of. Students are largely not learning to think in college. Because it’s more important to the universities to indoctrinate them, while taking their money and blighting their futures.

Business, Education, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Public Speaking

11 Comments

This looks like a very useful development. I find this a strange attitude:

Let’s just remember that bilingual speakers are by definition fluent in two languages yet are too often deemed uneducated or undeserving of opportunity simply for sounding not quite like the people we see on TV.

As someone really only fluent in one language, I’m always impressed by people who are bi- or multi-lingual, even if they have an accent.

Education, Social Commentary

When I Learned To Read

6 Comments

…the second time:

I do not remember what books she gave me, except that they were thick hardcovers. I believe one might have been a Thomas Hardy. It makes no difference. My English teacher was right, and I was wrong. Some books are better than others. And as a teen I had no way of judging for myself.

Without that bet, I would still have read serious literature when I had to, but I’m not sure how much I would have read because I chose to. Mrs. Dickey had taught me that there are things one ought to read. I put away the books of sports records and pulpy sci-fi. By the time I finished high school, I had read all of Shakespeare, the sonnets included.

When I started college, although I began as a physics major, with lots of work in math and computer science — you can’t entirely ungeek the geek — I was drawn increasingly to literature. In those days you could still find a jampacked course on Western Civilization and read the great books. (Dante haunts me still.) I devoured Greek drama, medieval philosophy, Russian absurdist stories, and the novels of Updike and Baldwin. In my spare time I prowled the stacks of the campus library, in search of authors of whom I had never heard. I was an addict whose craving could never be satisfied. I was finally in the oasis after a lifetime in the desert.

I read a lot of SF when I was a kid, but I read a lot of other things, too. You can’t be a good writer if you haven’t read a lot (I’ve always wondered where Mark Twain got access to his education).

[Update]

Sorry, link fixed…

Business, Economics, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Paris Agreement Advocates

Glenn Reynolds says they should practice what they preach, by government force if necessary:

First, we need to tax the “blue zones.” That is, we need to impose steep taxes on property in coastal areas that will be flooded by the sea-level increases that global warming is supposed to bring. By discouraging people from living or building there now, we’ll save ourselves from big problems in the future. Sure it’ll drive down property values, but those values should go down — they’re values for property that’s going to be flooded anyway, remember?

Second, we need to ban taxpayer-funded air travel to conferences. State legislatures could ban reimbursement for travel outside their states; Congress could require that no federal grant money be spent on air travel to conferences and similar events. A lot of academic conferences would fail, but that’s a small price to pay for saving the planet. And besides, it will encourage the development of Internet-based conference alternatives. A whole new industry might result: Green jobs!

Donald Trump can strengthen America by dumping Paris agreement: Sen. Inhofe
Third, we need to ban private jet travel. At first I thought about just taxing it heavily, but with the planet at stake, that might not be enough. It’s nice that John Travolta can have his own Boeing 707, or that Leonardo DiCaprio can jet around the world speaking against climate change, but the carbon emissions involved set a bad example that outweighs anything he might say. So no more private jets. Bigshots will just have to fly commercial like everyone else, the way they did in the 1950s. (And sorry, Leo, but massive yachts have to go, too). Politicians, too, should have to fly commercial. No more government-funded “executive jets” for them.

Fourth, we need a luxury tax on mansions. Any home more than twice the size of the average American home should be taxed at 25% of its value per year. Celebrities and the rich enjoy great powers of persuasion — but with great power comes great responsibility, and they have a great responsibility to set a good example for the rest of us on climate change!

As he says, it seems like a modest proposal.

Business, Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Our Decades-Long Diet Experiment

14 Comments

We were all guinea pigs. Well, most of us, anyway. I gave it up in the nineties.

“The change in dietary advice to promote low-fat foods is perhaps the biggest mistake in modern medical history.”

And they still won’t fess up to it, and they’re still doing it with that disastrous school-lunch program. Betsy Devos should be doing something about that.

[Update a few minutes later]

Related, sort of: Did feminism cause the obesity epidemic? The fact that people aren’t cooking as much is certainly a factor, but I think the low-fat craze is probably more responsible.