Bravo, as copilot, and I did a road trip to one of my almas mater in Amherst, Mass. this weekend. Decades since I studied there, and was struck at how politically correct our public and private campuses have become. The event honoring graduates we attended was at the lovely fine arts center, right across from the campus pond. On both sides of the entrance to the building were enormous loud signs declaring, sanctuary city style, that hate isn't tolerated on campus. Unless of course it's hate against straight white conservative older men, some with small hands and carrot tops. Aa..
Two hundred dollar cheapskate HP PC was on the Fritz. Windows 10. Luckily had time left on Walmart 2 year extended warrantee. Sent it in and hoping they can't effect repair so I'll get a check, like the one I got recently from homeowners' for a free new roof on the Aa Ponderosa mansion after tree paid us a close visit. May then buy new one. But this machine was hanging around---twins won it guessing jelly beans number in jar at orthodontist. So dad gets to use it for a while. Spoiled rug rats got brand new wicked costly Apple LP's. Had forgotten how nice Apple platforms are. But old dinosaurs die hard. Aa.
Dear CS pals. The Aa cyber girl is ill. Letters # 13 & 14 out. So please just supply these for texts where appropriate till repair effected. Thaks uchly. Aa.
So much is not widely known about these agents. Back in the 50's, when we could do little more than lock patients up on back wards of 2,000 resident state sanatoria, use electroconvulsive (shock) treatments, insulin shock therapies, psycho ANALytic nonsense talk therapies, and mostly in better times, merely allow these poor folks to wander about the verdant lovely hospital grounds,---it was discovered, serendipitously, that while treating TB and other infections with a new drug, in some patients, symptoms of depression and psychosis seemed to decrease. The big drug companies were then off and running to develop other such medications. Not long afterward, the feds instituted the FDA- supposedly to protect the public with regard to medical treatments. Dirty little secret is, for a new drug to gain approval, only two positive research studies were required, even if the results in support of the new patent were marginal at best. Negative studies were given little attention, and all sorts of biases were ignored in both the conduct and the publication of this research. Just getting warmed up here, peebles. Aa.
sure, many are familiar with the more striking ones. Sleep and appetite changes, lack of concentration/energy, mood down, increased anger (esp. in kids), more use of substances, and even thoughts of self harm, etc. But what about the more subtle clues? I love to listen to music on the the radio, where of course, things get repeated. The few times when I've been down, I found it annoying to listen to songs I've heard a thousand times.. Technically called anhedonia, loss of interest in normally enjoyable things, may be an important clue that things aren't right. Aa.
Documentary from Zeitgeist Productions by French filmmaker Agnes Varda. Sort of blew me away. We have all seen the pathetic scenes of dump salvage workers in Africa and Asia. This film first shows how poor French in the countryside used to (some still do), glean the farm fields for crops the machines missed. Grain to potatoes. The scenes then shift to urban French, who salvage furniture, etc., from market places, and food from restaurants. I then recall my summer visits with family in central PA, where I heard of how, during depression days, my aunts and uncles, then kids, did the same, including walking along the many Bethlehem Steel freight train tracks to collect coal that must have fallen off the coal cars. Our Dad instilled some of the same in us, and I still have an eye for useful stuff people leave at our recycling center. Never had to buy a bike for the twins. Just repaired the mostly nice ones others left, and after kids grew, returned them for others to use, taking larger ones. The 1% won't get any of this. Gleaners, indeed. Aa.
Steely Dan gave us an alternative to the tedious 3 major chord usual modern music. Pentatonic scales sound ok, but a guitarist familiar with the modes stands out as special, Wonder what he died of. Aa.
over the years, there have been reports of shamelessly high (20 to 35%), administrative costs of the money these take in from generous, caring donors. Today, with Houston upon us, there was a story on how the American Red Cross may be scimming cash as well. Apparently, in ARC efforts in recent disasters in Haiti, 25% of the money was for. administrative "costs". I no longer regularly donate blood to the RC, when I learned that the supply they get at relatively low operational/storage costs, gets marketed formany hundreds of dollars a pint in hospitals. The very high salaries of the suits in such organizations, such as Goodwill, should be instructive to us all in these regards. Some larger regional hospitals will gladly take blood donations. Of course, speaking of scams on donors, look at the Catholic and other religious organizations. Aa.
interviewing styles. Sure, all reporters are under time constraints, so they often tend to interrupt to keep things going. But I've noticed that lefties, which means the overwhelming majority of print and broadcast media types, as determined by surveys on their voting/political affiliations, especially when interviewing someone from the opposite ends of the political spectrum, really overuse this controlling technique. In the past, interviwees merely acquiesed. But perhaps with trumpian shifts in the body politic, things are changing. Today on taxpayer funded so -called public broadcasting, a reporter interrupted a lady attorney, who is defending a man against the ueber PC bully climate at, I think, Amazon or Google. She put the news guy in his box by simply saying, "can I continue?", each time this guy tried the tactic. Perhaps more folks should do this. I would also comment openly and publicly on each reporter's use of such styles. Aa.
Normally, esp. when the girls were younger and not away at school, and mom and dad were still an item, we'd take some time to sail north for family vacation. Usually up to the lovely area near the Canadian border, where tides and currents are a challenge, and you have to bring with you all you need. Eastport and Campobello Island. Now it's Mr. Bravo and me, Have done short day sails with visitors though-several this summer. No time for longer trips with so much to do at home. So to temporize, we'll explore the striking beauty of Acadia National Park. I stupidly used to look down my snout at this place, which is not as well known as the larger ones out West. And it's only some 40 miles away as the crow flies. Drove there to watch the partial eclipse. Stunning beauty. Still some ground fish. Google it. Aa.
title of latest book by conservative subcontinental writer Dinesh Desousa. Who hasn't heard the near constant drone of those on the alt-left and their proletarian biased media about how racist/fascist are our new President specificlly, and Republicans in general? It's endless. Well, surprise, surprise. Well documented approach shows that for a hundred years after civil war reconstruction, first by violence (KKK were Democrats) and then via State wide Jim Crow legislation, the repression of our Negro citizens was almost exclusively done by Democrats, all lefties. Worse, in parallel fashion, the original violence of Brown Shirt SA/SS aginst Jews and others, was followed by more legal means of persecution. Hitler apparently commented on the improved approach in following the Democrats of our post Civil War south. Shocking, but not surprising. Reaction formation, as a psychological defense measure, is alive and well in the Democrat Party. But of course, Pres. Lincoln, a Republican, did briefly entertain the idea of sending Negroes back to Africa. Aa.
Who hasn't heard it a million times? "Studies show"---global warming is real and man made. Children in homosexual unions are as normally adjusted as those in normal relationships with a real mom and dad. The stock market is economically efficient. Charter and private schools are much worse than government schools in educating our kids. There are no differences between the races in how successful cultures are. Illegal immigration is not a net drain on the economy. Lots more. Typically, these research results come from universities or "independent" research places. The staff there, typically, are overwhelmingly of liberal sentientalities. At every step of any research project, lots of judgement can enter in to bias the effort. At the idea stage, where hypotheses and theories are used to help decide whether an investigation makes sense. In obtaining funding and research staff. In gathering data, especially using questionnaires. In making adjustments to how research is conducted. You might think that statistical analysis of data would be above board, but even, perhaps especially here, political views can enter in. And, interpretation of results is just that---interpretation. Where to present and publish these bring about further possibilities for bias. All not to mention the biases these researches indoctrinate into their students while teaching, and while being interwiewed by, you guessed it, the alt-left biased media. Finally, who pays the piper still calls the tune. Of course, biases enter into science on all sides of the political spectrum. But only one side predominates in numbers, and has the media in its pockets. Aa.
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