Yes, high school grads, scores DO matter (new version)

Oy, we had one of those grad speakers at the largest school in my newspaper coverage area.

This tea-sipper (not an alum, but in the AD's department now) trotted out that hoary chestnut, complete with Ol Ball Coach types asking their players in the locker room at halftime what the score is, and they're "supposed to" say "0-0."

Look, Christian New Agey motivationalist, even Bill Belichick doesn't believe that bullshit. He says that a new season starts from 0-0; forget if you won last year's Super Bowl. But, AFAIK, he doesn't utter Christian-filtered or any sort of New Agey bullshit like this.

In an actual game, especially later in the game, the score matters indeed.

If the Hatriots are down two TDs with 5 minutes left, they're chucking longer passes. They're going for it on fourth down. That's whether Tom Brady of the past, Jimmy Garoppolo of trade dispute, Cam Newton of last year or whomever is taking snaps. Etc., etc. (Now, if it's the Pack and Matt LeFleur ignoring the existence of Aaron Rodgers, it's different.)

Ditto in the NBA.

If the Warriors or Lakers are down 20 with 3 minutes left, Steph or LeBron are chucking 3-balls then the scrubbeenies are fouling as needed on D. Ditto for KD or Kyrie if the Nets fall behind the Celtics in the playoffs ahead.

The score matters indeed.

And, it does in the game of life, too.

If you've got a marketing project due in 24 hours and you're behind schedule, telling your boss "the score is 0-0" will get you a good write-in, and if it happens again, a good shit-canning.

If you tell your spouse "the score is 0-0" when they say they want you to go to couples counseling, you'll get your ass divorced.

Reposted because, for whatever reason, although I'm sure I put in all the HTML info off Sports-Reference's linker tool for the two sports, the original only had KD and Kyrie linked.

The real advice for kids at graduation? Don't listen to the graduation speaker's bullshit.

==

Update, May 30, from two graduations this weekend.

First, kids? If you're the val, don't give a 10-minute speech, especially if you're speaking to a tiny private school where everybody already knows every anecdote. Especially don't do so when your mom is semi-top administrative staff and it looks like you're abusing the old "rank has its privileges."

Second, graduation is not only not a finish line, but school is not a career, from the second school I went to.

Yes, high school graduation speaker, scores do matter

Oy, we had one of those grad speakers at the largest school in my newspaper coverage area.

This tea-sipper (not an alum, but in the AD's department now) trotted out that hoary chestnut, complete with Old Ball Coach types asking their players in the locker room at halftime what the score is, and they're "supposed to" say "0-0."

Look, Christian New Agey motivationalist, even Bill Belichick doesn't believe that bullshit.

In an actual game, especially later in the game, the score matters indeed.

If the Hatriots are down two TDs with 5 minutes left, they're chucking longer passes. They're going for it on fourth down. That's whether Tom Brady of the past, Jimmy Garoppolo of trade dispute, Cam Newton of last year or whomever is taking snaps. Etc., etc. (Now, if it's the Pack and Matt LeFleur ignoring the existence of Aaron Rodgers, it's different.)

Ditto in the NBA.

If the Warriors or Lakers are down 20 with 3 minutes left, Steph or LeBron are chucking 3-balls then the scrubbeenies are fouling as needed on D. Ditto for KD or Kyrie if the Nets fall behind the Celtics in the playoffs ahead.

The score matters indeed.

And, it does in the game of life, too.

If you've got a marketing project due in 24 hours and you're behind schedule, telling your boss "the score is 0-0" will get you a good write-in, and if it happens again, a good shit-canning.

If you tell your spouse "the score is 0-0" when they say they want you to go to couples counseling, you'll get your ass divorced.

The real advice for kids at graduation? Don't listen to the graduation speaker's bullshit.

"Breath" is classist and elitist New Age bullshit

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This book is ultimately New Agey, yogic-breath metaphysics peddling cultic bullshit.

Note: As is sometimes my wont, I expand reviews of books I do on Goodreads for either this or my philosophy-related blog. This one does have critical religion elements involved so it may wind up there as well. As usual, additions are italicized.  

Pure and simple, based on the end of this book, and what I’ve glommed on reviews of other books, this is a vehicle to promote yogic breathing practices AND the metaphysics behind them, disguised as a vehicle of a “better breathing” book. That part is addressed more below, as is the classism.

It’s quackery and cultism right there. Beyond that, it promotes pseudoscience elsewhere as well as potentially unhealthy and even dangerous practices.

It seems to have lots of interesting insights, but they’re largely anecdotal. It does have lots of problems. These are mostly at the end, but there’s a few early on, and more pile up in the middle of the book even before Nestor goes New Agey.

He does mention the domestication of fire, eons before refined foods, was the first major jaw-shrinkage time. But, he doesn’t go back older, far far older, to our australopithecine ancestors walking upright, and how that affected sinus drainage (as well as backs and fallen arches). More here, in a review of a great book about how fucked up we are. 

Nestor also, although he talks about how the change in the larynx affect our possibility of choking, doesn't talk about how the post-infancy descent of the epiglottis, in conjunction with that, puts reverse pressure on the nasal passages, also increasing the tendency toward mouth-breathing. See here. At that link, Dr. Gelb, a dentist, also notes our nasal passages are too small for an animal our size. Don't forget that "Lucy" was under 4 feet tall, and less than 100 pounds by a fair shot. Our upright posture plus our big brains combined to squeeze those nasal passages. Dr. Gelb also speculates, with an actual scientific mindset, that epigenetics may play a role in our problems.

The non New Agey pseudoscience starts on page 60 with emphysema, which, first of all, is not the medical term used to day, rather, of course COPD.

The claim that emphysema is mainly due to poor breathing rather than cigarettes is a howler. So is the hint that COPD is curable. It is not. Its progression can be slowed and some of its symptoms can be ameliorated, in part through breathing exercises and related items, yes. But it can’t be cured.

From here, Nestor drops hints, while carefully avoiding direct statements, that other medical maladies can be cured just by breathing right.

The bad stuff is when he goes New Agey on yoga 30 pages before the end. And yes, dude, that’s what it is.

He talks about the “invisible energy” of our breath called prana in Sanskrit, etc., which he equates to chi and other things, which (setting aside the New Agey bullshit that any of this is real), no, they’re not the same.

He next raves about acupuncture. Reality? As Western medicine, starting in the 1700s, started making scientific discoveries, it started replacing acupuncture in China, which only rose again with the aid of the Great Helmsman (Wrecking the Ship of State), Mao.

He then talks about the spiciness of Chinese and Indian food. In reality, Chinese food, especially, was pretty bland before the Columbian Exchange. Beyond that, a lot of Chinese and Southeast Asian food today isn’t that hot. (Contra the claims of someone on Quora, Szechuan pepper is NOT “hot.” Indian long pepper, of the same genus as black pepper, is somewhat hotter, but not that hot.)

He then gushes about Swami Rama, ignoring that good skepticism has shown with other yogis, they’ve never been able to actually stop their heart for more than a second or two; rather, they’ve used body control to muffle their heartbeat and other things. …. And ignoring that outside of that, he behaved like many another modern Indian guru, complete to the point of losing a sexual assault lawsuit.

He then says rocks differ from birds and bees based on the level of energy or “excitability of electrons.” This of course ignores uranium and radium ore rocks in his attempt to put a pseudoscience veneer on things.

After that, no, the Indus Valley Civilization of Harappa et al has nothing to do with pre-Hindu Aryan religious ideas. Since we still can’t translate their language, in fact, we don’t know what it has to do with anything! And, calling the Aryans “black-haired barbarians from Iran” is all wrong. They came from today’s central Asian “stans,” first of all, not Iran. The Indo-Aryans split from Iranians before this migration. And, of course, we have no way of knowing their predominant hair color. And, if this was an attempt to separate Indo-Aryans from Nazi ones, well, the Hindutva-fascism of today’s RSS, the backbone for the BJP political party of Indian PM Narendra Modi, has muddled that back up.

Beyond that? Contra Nestor, though all the main types of yoga may not have evolved at once, ancestors of all of them were in place, not just the postures one, by the time of the turn of the Christian era. 

The postures yoga may have been brought by the Aryans completely, in part and merged with the Harappa civilization, or it may have been a pollination synthesis after the Aryans were on the ground. We do have some good evidence that the postures were originally used by priests as part of sacrifice. (Yep, just like the Israelite cult in Jerusalem and Samaria, and Greeks at Olympos etc., pre-Hindu Indian religion involved bloody killing of animals. The New Agers won't tell you that!)

In addition, the use of the scientific-sounding word "pulmonaut" seems deliberate hand-waving to obscure the yoga background.

One further science-based note. I noted that he doesn't account for upright posture's effect on our sinuses. He does talk about American Indian, Indian and Chinese accounts emphasizing the value of nasal breathing. These were long before white flour, etc., especially in the New World. Why would such emphasis be needed unless mouth-breathing were already a partial problem back then?

As for the actual breathing ideas? Why precisely 5.5 seconds? What makes this better than either 5 or 6 seconds? Outside of a modern “app” (the stress of whose use might negate breathing benefits) who’s counting half-seconds?

Beyond that, Nestor misses an even simpler exercise that I’ve known about for years: the 8-8-8 breathing. Breathe in for 8, hold for 8, out for 8, preferably nasally in and orally out. Maybe the orally out doesn’t address mouth breathing, but that’s only one part of his breath focus, so I can go beyond that, too. It does “ground” one by doing it this way, both on the counting which is full seconds (or if you count a bit fast, still 6 seconds or so), and on focusing on breathing by alternating the nasal in and oral out. In addition, the ‘hold’ part mimics Nestor’s push for a long exhale.

Pursed-lip breathing is something else simple, but non-New Agey connected, that Nestor doesn’t mention. Wiki specifically says, per one health thing that Nestor does hammer, that pursed-lip breathing works on the parasympathetic nervous system.

That then said? There’s little controlled evidence for benefits of alternate nostril breathing, and very little for one nostril controlling one nervous system, and the other the other. Most studies that DO claim benefits are of yogic-influenced alt-med research.

Other things not mentioned? Many of Wim Hof’s records have been broken by others. Multiple people have died following the Wim Hof method.

That said, the subtitle of his “Deep” book containing the phrase “renegade science” should say something.

Now, the classism.

You and I the scrubbeenies don't have either the time or the money to spend a month at a Stanford nasal clinic unless we're highly compensated. I'm guessing Nestor and his Swedish buddy got SOME money but not THAT much. If Nestor did, it's an ethical violation not to disclose any major payments.

Of course, it was the same way 3,000 years ago. The priestly class, rather, CASTE, was moving past the warrior caste as top dog with having settled in on the subcontinent. They may have sincerely believed in the religious efficacy of the postures, of course. But, they had the time. They had the equivalent of money, like the Israelite priesthood, in a cut of sacrificial meat. Money in terms of coinage didn't generally exist then; not sure when Croesus' idea percolated east.

It's true today, beyond Nestor. Look at the Jack Dorsey types, among libertarian and quasi-libertarians. Or tech-neoliberals that are barely distinguishable. Or, going back, non-tech neolibs like Jane Fonda.

 

Ultimately, this part of the book pissed me off as much as the New Ageism.

So, I won’t even recommend this book for the breathing exercises. (Part of them are yogic, to boot.) Find another.


View all my reviews

Texas Progressives: The Lege is again all hat, no cattle

Plenty of nuttery going on under the Pink Dome, as the Texas Legislature races, dawdles or whatever to the finish line.

Here's a few items of import.

First, the Lege FINALLY agrees that state prisons need air conditioning. The no cattle part? In this case, it's no money appropriated. And no, Legiscritters, this bill will NOT protect the state from yet more suits.

Second, it banned those wholesale power plans from being sold to consumers. Small victory, if a bailout of power companies winds up being passed on to consumers. Next, legiscritters? Do loan sharking the same way. Oh, sorry, they prey on only poor people, and especially of color. Sorry I asked.

Related? Off the Kuff relates the tale of how the freeze in Texas and the havoc it played in the natural gas market affected people in other states as well.

The Observer has a roundup. Dead are casinos, requiring natural gas facility weatherization and other things.

 

Rick Casey calls the anti-trans bills in the Lege the real child abuse. The reality of this issue, including that puberty blockers are NOT harm-free, is far more complex.

Other state guv

Our spavined mule of an AG, Ken Paxton, is again suing Biden, this over his refusal to extend Team Trump's rushed-through,  unvetted extension of a state Medicaid waiver. Like most his suits, he'll almost certainly lose.

Coming from windmill country in North Texas, I find this very interesting. The Observer's take on the Chapter 313 law, especially the parts about how 313 projects don't always pay off, and even more, about how, after the tax breaks expire, they normally battle their appraised values. Drew Springer, it notes, tried to get a "clawback" bill on wind farms passed in 2015. It never got to the floor, probably because it didn't target only wind farms.

Matt McConaughey is continuing to make noise about running for gov next year, and if he does, it sounds more and more like as a GOPer, not an indy or a Dem. Gilberto Hinojosa is crying in his cornflakes. That said, with the "dreamy" Don Huffines in the race, especially if Jeebus Shot Sid Miller or Allen West also jump in, it's possible McConaughey could steal the Rethuglican nomination. That said, how many of them would stay home in the fall? As an Indy? He only has a half chance if Miller or West would get in the GOP race and win.

 

Houstonia clarifies what the new booze to go law will mean.

Texana

Chris Hooks reports that most natives aren't happy Elon Musk has moved to Boca Chica. Hooks of course smartly starts with the fact that even by the standards of NASA's predecessors of the last 1950s, Musk is largely a failure as a rocket launcher. He's of course a big success as establisher of a cult.

 

In “honor” of the escaped India, Dan Solomon provides a brief history of tigers on the loose in Texas.

National

Learn all about The Riot Squad, Andy Ngo and other hyperpartisan videographers who make Adam Keefe look tame. Greenwald, in revenge spite? (though the defender of Matt Hale may sincerely believe this) has attacked the Intercept for hating on "working class journalists of color."

Joe Manchin wants to revitalize part of the Voting Rights Act, but make it national by requiring ANY local or state voting law change ANYWHERE get federal preclearance. In the Shelby County case, the self-proclaimed umpire, John Roberts, indicated he was at least open to this. I would support it, in part because the John Lewis Voting Rights Act almost certainly won't survive challenge, and I also hope that Vox is right in saying the anti-third party "For the People Act" is about dead.

SocraticGadfly noted it was the 125th anniversary of Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific, and took a look at corporate personhood misunderstandings, even untruths held by some leftists.

Mother Jones misses just how legally weak Wyoming's threat to sue other states for not buying coal is. States don't buy coal. Electric utilities do.

 

Sanford Nowlin informs us of a saga involving Ted Cruz, President Biden, and Chick-Fil-A dipping sauce.  

 

Steve Vladeck pokes a hole in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' claim that he will "block" an extradition order from New York for Donald Trump.

Brief thoughts: Critical race theory and gender critical radical feminism

More and more nuttery is being spit out of one half, or now both, of the Pink Dome as the Texas Legislature races to bill-voting finish line.

We have one big one, per the first half of the header, and one that's NOT so nutty, despite attacks by some activists, per the second half of the header.

Let's dig in.

Schools can't teach critical race theory, but that was amended with window-dressing inclusion of speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. (of course) and Frederick Douglass (himself somewhat a racist toward American Indians and yes really). Rep. Mary González is right; the wingnuts don't even know what they're trying to semi-ban, but what else is new?

My personal take? I've actually read Eddie Glaude's Democracy in Black, who is on the edges of the movement, and Derrick Bell, a founder of the theory, whose Silent Covenants was a good introduction. 

 

I've also read many other books about how the concept of race was developed.

 

As for critical race theory itself? Beyond looking at the sociological development of race, I think they're half-right or more on how the law has in part been constructed to support the idea of race and support the elevation of White race-ness above other race-ness. Yes, that's an ugly phrasing, or rather, an ugly-looking hyphenated word, but it does the work I see it needs to do.

 

Whether the prescriptions of critical race theory are always right is a different issue, as is some of the methodology its proponents use to reach its prescriptions, or to reach its analysis with all current issues in race-oriented segments of law.

Update, June 20. While not every CRT touter may support these things mentioned in the tweet, the most ardent do. I remember years ago when resegregation first started raising its head to a great degree.

Scholastic battles with CRT apologists on the meaning of terms feels like punching clouds.

Focus on the implementation: neo-segregation in schools and workplaces. Psychological damage to children and adults. Crippling social impact. Make them defend the praxis, not the theory.

— Paul Rossi (@pauldrossi) June 20, 2021

There you go. I retweeted it, but did not comment to it, as the tweeter appears to be a wingnut, or at least a wingnut fellow traveler.

One other thing I reject from CRT is that only White people can be racist. I've seen racism by members of all sociological race groups. The "top" group, Whites in the US, are the most likely to be so, is possible and even likely, as is the fact that their racism will generally be both the most pernicious and that with the strongest effects.

I also reject the corollary that by default, White people are racist. Now, there IS to some degree still a form of structural or institutional racism in America, and that supports White "privilege," or put more accurately to avoid SJW words, an accumulated White group socioeconomic power balance. That doesn't make all Whites today racist. It doesn't make all of them responsible for that power balance still tilting their way. It does, though, mean they still benefit from it.

 

That said, there is such a thing as individual racism as well. And, Blacks, American Indians, Asian Americans, Whites, can all be racist against people of other "races." I've personally witnessed individual representatives of every group but Asians doing this.

 

And, to the degree that critical race theory, or some of its more extreme proponents claim only Whites can be racist? That's the degree I reject CRT.

 

===

 

Also open for debate is the intersection of race and class, an intersection that "interestingly" is generally omitted from discussions by proponents of intersectionality. I personally reject the likes of Adolph Reed and Doug Henwood that issues of race almost always reduce to issues of class. That said, that's a semi-Marxist reductionism, which is wrong not only in being wrong, as I've told Henwood before, but also wrong in, per Dan Dennett, being an example of greedy reductionism in general.

 

At the same time, the likes of Reed and Henwood aren't fully wrong, either. Sometimes what looks like an issue of race is at least partially a class issue of not an issue of class more than race. Beyond that, then, there's the issue of class within each individual racial grouping. 

===

 

Now, on to the second half of the header, as it also relates to the Texas Legislature, with the Senate still pushing for restrictions on sex (sic) transition intervention for minors.

First, I see parallels between CRT and gender-critical radical feminism. Both have things to teach, and have taught me. At the same time, I don't agree with everything in either, and at the same time, sex and race are different things. Sex is more than skin-deep physiological markers. At the same time, contra some Greens battling the "trans activitists," I reject anything that approaches sex essentialism just like race essentialism. That said, to the degree that gender roles arise out of biological sex, sociological understandings and expressions of race are probably about 50 percent parallel. I wouldn't go further.

Speaking of, the Texas House's bill to ban medical interventions for transgender children is dead. The Senate has a similar version; we'll see.

My take? The bill was somewhat too far but NOT that much too far. Instead of a ban, put it age 16 for puberty blockers, require parental consent (this is FAR more than an abortion, so yes, parental CONSENT), and, only allow puberty blocker drugs when STRICTLY following the guidelines established by the Mayo Clinic and elsewhere, which I've noted before. And, speaking of books related to subjects, that includes selections from my review of Alice Dreger's Galileo's Middle Finger.

 

I know that to some regular readers, even some fellow leftists of some sort, this may be a shock. Well, I'm not alone among liberals, left-liberals and leftists, first. If you think I'm a loon or a bigot, you need to read more at those links.

 

Second, although I don't fully agree with GCRFs on this, I think they're at least partially right in that at least some non transsexual trans activists are men who are harmful to feminism.

 

Third, at that "noted before," puberty blockers have a laundry list of known and possible (as in correlation isn't yet necessarily causation) long-term (not short term) medical problems they cause. Many ground level cadres (sic) in the trans activist world don't even know this. Many of the leadership do and poo-poo this. Read for yourself at the links within that link about brittle bones, including full-on osteoporosis, major tooth decay and other issues.

 

Fourth, I have no doubt this is a fraught issue for parents. That said, per the Mayo Clinic, your first resource should be following its guidelines, including proper counseling for your child, before even considering any medical intervention. 

 

Fifth, leftists should know that American capitalism is finding $$$ in hopping on this bandwagon.

Sixth, on other specifics related to the Texas Senate bill? First, it's NOT unconstitutional, contra the LGBQ-plus / "trans activist" crowd. Second, on surgical intervention for minors? Once is once too many. Third, per Mayo Clinic guidelines, no, the No. 1 need for access re child suicide is sex/gender dysphoria counseling; No. 2 is limiting social media access in my personal opinion. Fourth, there ARE people who have started not just the chemical but the physical/surgical sex transition, or even completed it, and later regret it, and try to detransition. (Just like in pre-Maccabean Hellenistic Jerusalem, there were Jewish males who underwent decircumcision surgeries to compete in the gymnasion without embarrassment.) Opponents of the bill appear to continue to conflate sex and gender, too.

 

Seventh, within the Green Party? If this does shatter it, I've already thought that it's past its shelf life and its best-buy date. Per Mark Lause, I was already wondering that after the 2016 election. At the same time, per what I said above, some defenders of the Georgia Green Party, and some of its leadership, need to be more careful of their associations — if they care. Sometimes, the enemy of my enemy isn't even worth it to be invoked as a temporary ally of convenience.

Eighth, for left-liberals and leftists, here's an analogy I use that's very relevant to the current world situation: Gender is not sex like anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.

 

Ninth? "Detransitioning" is a real deal, and as noted, includes people who started into medical sex changes and had regrets. AND, these are adults. That's why "pushing" transitions, or even "pushing" puberty blockers, for minor children whose advanced abstract reasoning functions in their brain aren't fully developed, is horrendous and in this corner, arguably a form of child abuse. Parents? I don't care how often your kid asks. Maybe you need to just say no. And, yes, that counseling is HIGHLY needed. One sexual transitioner says he had 10 years of therapy before going forward. The number of detransitioners may be less than some claim, but it's almost certainly more than trans advocates deny.

Ninth, part two? Per the long-read second link in the above paragraph, those Mayo Clinic guidelines on mental health are observed MUCH more in the breach than in the practice, it seems.

 

Ninth, part three? That link is from Seattle's alt-weekly, so don't "@" me about wingnuts.

Tenth? Note to the GCRFs? Some detransitioners don't like you, or at a minimum, don't like some of your stances, much more than they like wingnuts. They definitely don't like your version of a red-brown alliance. (Neither do I.) You should take notes, but probably won't. 

Eleventh? At the same time, and contra trans advocates, many detransitioners cite peer pressure, whether in-person, online or both, for attempting sexual change in the first place.

==

Finally, with both CRT and GCRF, it's helpful to have at least a thumbnail understanding of the critical theory from which they arise. The Marxist background of critical theory, even if a watered-down reform Marxism of the Frankfurt school, is its biggest handicap. I've long said that Marx was spot on in his criticism of industrial capitalism of his day (tho failing to anticipate its changes). That is, he was spot on in the descriptive side. But, given that Hegelian dialectic is crappy philosophy and literally pseudoscience when made the basis of a scientific theory, he was all wet on the prescriptive side. 

Really finally? This is time for Idries Shah.

This is clearly an Idries Shah issue:

First, as I have said here and elsewhere, the enemy of my enemy may simply be an ally of convenience. That's another side right there. I used that exact phrase in a post last fall talking about Twitter cleanup, inspired by Julian Assange issues.

Second? Neither of the "two" sides in on the sexual transitioning issue (the one side having wingnut and GCRF sub-sides) wants compromises, I think. They want surrender by the other side, and will recruit allies of convenience in a war as needed.

I personally don't regret my degree of immersion in this. But, I even less regret pulling back before immersing even more.

And, with that? This will probably be close to my last in-depth thoughts on the issue until the deaccreditation of the Georgia Green Party. It's almost certain to happen. Georgia Greens should take their lumps and if they're serious about moving on, move on. (That said, I've heard that the SPUSA has already had a bit of this, twosiderism and all, themselves.)

Coronavirus, Week 58: CDC says masks down, but is it a good idea?

The CDC has said fully vaccinated don't need to wear masks in most places, but is that so good? The Trib has the Texas angle, including comment from Dr. Peter Hotez, who worries that it's a bad message with Texas' low, and slowing, vaccine rates. (Only 1/3 of adults are fully vaccinated.) A blog from Harvard Law agrees that it's probably a bad public health decision.

Meanwhile, a number of stores are saying that if you're jabbed up, come in without a mask. That includes Walmart, Trader Joe's and Costco. Employees generally oppose it, surely in part because they know what I suspect: Wally and Two-Buck Chuck land ain't checking for vaccination cards, and Costco probably isn't. (That said, as Costco told Ricky Schroeder, it still TOTALLY follows state law where applicable.)

Speaking of? My local Tom Thumb is getting worse on masklessness than Wally. Corporate says it will talk to them again. And, what will happen? Dock the store manager some bonus money and we'll find out.

And, yes, those people are likely unvaccinated. So, not checking vaccinations only really encourages more cheating.

The vaccine-refusniks are largely Trumpist, per the link above, but the vax-hesitant are largely nonvoters. And, in many cases, unaware the vaccine is free, among other issues.

Ill Eagles have been afraid to get vaccinated, for obvious reasons. Mexican nationals, on the other hand, had no problems crashing Texas vaccination clinics. More here.

Parkland plans to keep running its long-haul COVID clinic through the end of summer.

On the "what is it" front, some evidence suggests COVID is ultimately a disease of blood vessel linings.

Academics too timid on Palestine? Too dismissive? Too MUCH? Zionist academics are still far more too MUCH

After a brief Twitter spat Saturday, I offer a qualified "yes" to all first and second semi-rhetorical questions, while framing the third within the context of the statement that makes up the second half of the header.

Qualified in that I was talking PURELY about tenured faculty.

I was NOT talking about tenure-track but not yet tenured. I was definitely not talking about including non-tenure track. I absolutely was not including adjuncts.

At a major university? Teaching undergrad classes, actual tenured faculty are what, 10-15 percent of total instructors? See first link below.

That said, at the grad level, they're surely at least one-third. And, that's where you get visibility, anyway.

Within that, professors in the humanities are arguably either:

A. Too timid:

B. Despite all their otherwise professed librulizm, too dismissive of the Palestinian cause.

The main person dismissive of me? A grad student. 

It's true that she has a long road to hoe. But, I wasn't speaking of her.

Being actually tenured is not a guarantee against dismissal, but it does require it be done for specific reasons and include a sort of due process.

As of two years ago, non-tenured faculty were about 75 percent of four-year colleges. So, those teaching at grad level only were probably about 50 percent; maybe more at elite  universities in elite programs.

As for the likes of Steven Salaita?

As I've discussed, he IMO went into hate-speech territory, and second, since his contract had not legally been confirmed (and if it had, it was a new job, and if on tenure track not yet tenured) on legal thin ice.

It is true that, in a case like his, donors may threaten to withhold money. But, as with UT alumni chastising black athletes for refusing to salute "The Eyes of Texas," we have two questions:

1. What percentage of university donations do these people make up?

2. Will they actually stop giving if you call their bluff?

And, per that link, an Illini emeritus professor, and also former president of the American University of University Professors, agreed with me on the legal angle — Salaita had not yet been hired, let alone tenured.

There was otherwise ugliness all around, especially from Bobby Kennedy son Christopher, on the Illini board of regents. Ugliness followed Salaita to American University of Beirut and disputes over his hiring process there. And, that former AAUP prez Cary Nelson is himself a Zionist. On the fourth hand, his book about BDS and related issues on campus claims that many BDSers DO turn anti-Zionism into antisemitism, and that Salaita himself .... at least pushed the envelope. More here.

On the FIFTH hand? Those two reviews of Nelson's book are by Commentary and Tablet, which themselves have motive to smear the entire BDS movement with the worst problems of its worst supporters. After all, Mondoweiss comes immediately to mind of a pro-BDS and anti-Zionist organization that is DEFINITELY not antisemitic. 

On the SIXTH hand?

Having run into a Zionist bullshitter on Twitter last night?

1. The Khazar hypothesis IS at least somewhat real. (Related: language is not ethnicity and Rhineland Jews have little connection to those from the Pale; Jews and goys intermarried in medieval Europe far more than Zionists like to admit; Hanukkah has pagan roots; the Revolt was about religion only, not about Hellenism; and other things.)

2. For both Christian Zionists, Zionists who read beyond the Tanakh and rightist Catholics, Daniel, as well as First and Second Maccabees, are steaming shitpiles of legendary pseudo history.

3. The Maccabees had a strong mix of military luck and good PR scriptwriters.

4. Beyond those links? While Zionists in American academia always call on Palestinian-supporting academics to call out the likes of Salaita, I've little doubt that a Cary Nelson has never called out Bibi Netanyahu.

This is clearly an Idries Shah issue:

First, as I have said here and elsewhere, the enemy of my enemy may simply be an ally of convenience. That's another side right there. I used that exact phrase in a post last fall talking about Twitter cleanup, inspired by Julian Assange issues.

Or, the enemy of my enemy may also be an enemy to me on other issues, or even on the issue at hand, just via a different track. 

To move to the finish line? Assange may well be a good analogy for Salaita. Both with some good initial actions, though carrying the seeds of their own self-destruction from the start. Then, through sniffing their own press clippings too much and other things, they started fertilizing those bad seeds with their own bullshit. 

But, per what I said above, I wouldn't publicly repute a Salaita to a Zionist's face unless they agreed to some of their own repudiation at the same time. And I wouldn't hold my breath over that, given that wingnut Erick Erickson has demonstrably lied about what the AP did and did not know about its (alleged by the IDF) landlord, per AP CEO Gary Pruitt himself.