Archive for the ‘Social Science’ Category

Friday, April 2nd, 2021

My respect for Kelly’s journalism is growing week by week. My respect for Peterson is already at the maximum setting. Therefore: with today’s disrupted media, this conversation, in my estimation, is about as good as an interview gets these days. — Get the podcast. —

Friday, January 29th, 2021

“It may be difficult for many of you to embrace the disconcerting and possibly bewildering idea that the entire status quo is untenable and will disintegrate not from policy errors or poor leadership but simply as a consequence of its current structure.”

Charles Hugh Smith, 2018

Monday, May 14th, 2018

Tom Wolfe
1 9 3 0 – 2 0 1 8
a peerless observer
and communicator
R
I
P

Saturday, August 26th, 2017

“Our congenital distrust of authority and suspicion of history were born in the Enlightenment and it informs us all, progressives and conservatives alike. It is what makes America great and exceptional, but in too big of a dose, it becomes lethal. Letting go of the past is the great American curative for all manner of European social and political pathologies. But letting go is not the same thing as forgetting, and forgetting is not the same thing as hating. The progressive push to erase the past has gone from being a remedy for social resentment to a cause of social resentment.”

Jonah Goldberg 8/25/17

Saturday, June 17th, 2017

“Liberalism of the 1950s and ’60s exalted civil liberties, individualism, and dissident thought and speech. ‘Question authority’ was our generational rubric when I was in college. But today’s liberalism has become grotesquely mechanistic and authoritarian: It’s all about reducing individuals to a group identity, defining that group in permanent victim terms, and denying others their democratic right to challenge that group and its ideology. Political correctness represents the fossilized institutionalization of once-vital revolutionary ideas, which have become mere rote formulas. It is repressively Stalinist, dependent on a labyrinthine, parasitic bureaucracy to enforce its empty dictates.”

Camille Paglia 6/15/17

Monday, May 2nd, 2016

“For the white working class, having had their morals roundly mocked, their religion deemed primitive, and their economic prospects decimated, now find their very gender and race, indeed the very way they talk about reality, described as a kind of problem for the nation to overcome. This is just one aspect of what Trump has masterfully signaled as ‘political correctness’ run amok, or what might be better described as the newly rigid progressive passion for racial and sexual equality of outcome, rather than the liberal aspiration to mere equality of opportunity.”

Andrew Sullivan 5/1/16

Saturday, September 19th, 2015

“We live in an age where having addictions, conditions, disorders, and issues is often a moral get-out-of-jail-free card. I have my own “issues” with that.”

Jonah Goldberg 9/19/15

March Exercise IX ~ day six

Thursday, March 6th, 2014

“When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jackboots. It will be Nike sneakers and smiley shirts. Smiley-smiley.”
— George Carlin

Marty drove me to Blue Bank Hall for my session of Mombo Care, because Joan’s truck was still down here at the farm and I did not want to leave Dana without the Avalon. Joan hit a deer last week when I was here and needed the vehicle until Jay could determine that her sedan was safe to drive. Another scar for “The Silver Bunkit.” It was abnormally busy here, with visits from the home-health nurse and occupational therapist, but that phase is probably at an end. Medicare won’t continue to pay, as long as no further progress is being made, according to evaluations. One does not need to spend much time with these providers to learn that they rate Mombo at the top of her age group, based on the attitude and overall physical condition of those they treat. It makes me realize that anyone better than her has not qualified for federal home care and those worse than her do not have as good a mindset to make best use of what is clearly beneficial, wellness-oriented therapy. Another bewildering example of the ongoing clash between the dominant disease-care system and the bureaucracy of collectivist social programs. The OT gal was telling Mombo that she sees people abuse a support system by wanting to be waited on, but that she admires Mombo for using the availability of support to enable her improvement. She seemed to be overcome with genuine emotion with the recognition that this probably would be her last visit.

Find your place in the sun

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Hey, look, I probably get a buzz seeing famous people as much as the average guy, but I take absolutely no interest in celebrities just because they happen to qualify for the description. On the other hand, I really do like the stars I respect, especially if my admiration for them is rooted in the “silver age” of television, and I’d probably step on my Yorkie to shake the hand of Peter Graves.markandlucas.jpg

When I learned that Johnny Crawford was coming back to Danville, I knew I had to meet him and experience his current style of entertainment. Like Kurt Russell and Ron Howard, he was a child star who kept himself on the rails, and he went forward to do an impressive range of cool things in his life as an artist, athlete, and entrepreneur. Most of all, he held true to his earliest passion—music.

If Dana didn’t fully appreciate how much I was looking forward to hearing Johnny’s vintage dance band, it was because I tried my best to avoid behaving like a groupie beforehand, but I think she understood when I dug out one of Dadbo’s old bow ties and taught myself how to tie it. It’s been quite awhile since the two of us had a nice picture taken, so I was tickled when Joan and Caitlan agreed to document our night out. Thanks, ladies!

danaandjohn.jpg

The extra time for pictures cost us the opportunity to pick out a choice table at the Playhouse indoor theater, but I managed to discover an empty love seat near the stage. It was a fine spot to watch Crawford re-enact the period manners of a band leader from the 1920s and 1930s. We were treated to a superb group of musicians crawfordsinger.jpghired locally to become his vintage orchestra for the evening, including Miles Osland, Dave Henderson, and Rick Cook. Watching Crawford’s seat-of-the-pants coordination was a delight, and the entire effect was a testament to the sheer professionalism of everyone on stage. On top of that, the “CD Release Party” aspect seemed to put the star of the show in a heightened mood, and his vocals and repartee at the microphone were thoroughly entertaining. I think Dana would agree the only way it could have been more enjoyable is if I’d spent less time with the bow tie and a bit more with remembering how to do the fox trot. Maybe next time; I hope he’s invited back for an encore performance.

Years ago, when I fell in love with Danville’s brass band festival, I gained a new, profound regard for the quality of American band music from the mid nineteenth century to the era of The Great War. I also came to understand how much work it takes to resurrect all of the instrumentation to recreate a period sound. This summer, Johnny Crawford shared with our community the same preservationist spirit, and it makes me think he may be emerging as one of the country’s most important historians of our popular music, salvaging lost orchestrations and discarded arrangements of favorite dance tunes from that unique period between two World Wars. As David McCullough reminds us, Americans from a different period of our history were less similar to us than we like to believe. They lived differently, and they thought differently. It was the age of radio. Everyone aspired to be a musician, if they didn’t already sing or play an instrument. All popular music was music meant for dancing, and if people didn’t go out to dance, they probably were at a motion picture to watch others dance. There was a spirit in America that observers such as David Gelernter have told us is all but lost. Well, perhaps so, but not if Johnny Crawford has anything to say about it.

crawfordbandleader.jpg

Don’t go ’round moping, hoping happiness will come.
That’s not the way; it doesn’t pay.
If you want happiness, help yourself to some.
Why don’t you try to take life the way I do:

Let the whole world sigh or cry,
I’ll be high in the sky,
Up on top of a rainbow,
Sweeping the clouds away.

I don’t care what’s down below.
Let it rain or let it snow.
I’ll be up on a rainbow,
Sweeping the clouds away.

I have learned life’s lesson: fighters who always win
Are those who can take it right on the chin—and grin.

So I shout to everyone:
“Find your place in the sun,
Up on top of a rainbow,
Sweeping the clouds away!”

More Black History: last but not least

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Before the month is over, I’m extending my personal Black History studies to include some outstanding African-American women.

Bridget “Biddy” Mason
Profile       Google

Willa B. Brown
Profile       Google

Barbara Jordan
Wikipedia       Google

Alvenia Fulton
Obituary       Google

Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Wikipedia       Google

Betye Saar
Wikipedia       Google

My Black History Readings

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

During this month I’m attempting to learn more about the African-American men that I revere most. It goes without saying, but aren’t Wikipedia and Google something else? I can’t imagine what it would be like as a young student, having at my disposal these remarkable tools!

Frederick Douglass
Wikipedia       Google

Booker T. Washington
Wikipedia       Google

George Washington Carver
Wikipedia       Google

Duke Ellington
Wikipedia       Google

Jackie Robinson
Wikipedia       Google

Ralph Ellison
Wikipedia       Google

Dick Gregory
Wikipedia       Google

James Meredith
Wikipedia       Google

Walter Williams
Wikipedia       Google

Shelby Steele
Wikipedia       Google

Damn the statistics; full speed ahead

Saturday, April 15th, 2006

Gruntled Center tells us there’s more to the commonly understood 50-50 failure rate for marriages than a simple coin toss. Most first marriages survive, but the divorce rate for second marriages is closer to 60%. Also interesting is the finding that second marriages which make it through the first two years successfully have the same divorce rate as first marriages.

My question is this— Is ours a first or second marriage?

I’m no social scientist, but I would think that it has to be classified as both, and the success or failure of the union would be applied to both first- and second-marriage statistics.

Nevertheless, on an individual level—just like your state of health—statistics and probabilities are virtually meaningless. Whether Bruce ends his marriage or whether my buddy Mike’s
impending third marriage is a success has to do with who they are and the type of partner they’ve chosen. And, in terms of health, no matter how dire the probabilities associated with any particular prognosis, there’s somebody out there who licked just about every disease or malady ever known to strike the human organism. There are even stories of people surviving falls from airplanes, skyscrapers, and mountains.

Perfect. Now I’ve fully prepared myself to go buy my first Powerball ticket.

Dar-whinnies vs Moonbats

Wednesday, February 15th, 2006

Sunday’s gathering at Mack’s cabin was cancelled due to weather, so we didn’t get to hear the invited speaker—an evolutionist who is also a devout Catholic. Indirectly related to that, I discovered that Deepak Chopra posted his views on the debate between Intelligent Design and Evolution at intentBlog.

The responses to his opinion are not surprising. For some, it solidifies their regard for his keen ability to articulate emerging concepts that integrate science and religion. For others, it just reinforces their attitude that he’s one of the more popular con artists on the new-age scene.

This subject holds some interest for me, but, like the debate over abortion, the endless argumentation rarely moves beyond tedium. The fixed mindsets of the energetic allow little room for moderate viewpoints.

Multi-Mate Marriage

Thursday, December 15th, 2005

It looks like this is polygamy week at Gruntled Center.

Not interested?

Trust me—when Beau Weston zeroes in on something, it’s nothing else but damn interesting.