George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
I don't find your last point at all convincing, if your suggestion is that female breasts are on the same level as the male chest in terms of a sexualized part of the anatomy.
edit: apostrophe
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
Two healthy sons, my wife and I have our 20th anniversary in a few months. We're probably not perfect but we're absolutely fantastic when I compare us to many of the couples around us and back home. I am both resigned to permanent solitude and almost never actually lonely, but I probably have idiosyncratic definitions for both terms. I agree with those who've posted earlier on their respective strategies. Also I agree with the old saw that the secret to staying married is relatively straightforward: Don't get divorced.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America by John McWhorter was pretty controversial when it was released twenty years ago. McWhorter is a Columbia linguist and is himself black. Glenn Loury's Anatomy of Racial Inequality also bears mentioning.
Neither of these are brother-on-the-street accounts, but I'd say are closer to such than what you'd find by Thomas Sowell.
I'd argue Baldwin's The Fire Next Time is now dated, but it's worth reading if only because Baldwin was such a compelling writer and that book is widely revered/reviled. In a similar (i.e. dated) vein, although it's been 30 years since I read it, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was Maya Angelou's best (in my view only really good) work. It's really worth reading, though I don't understand the hype around anything else she ever wrote.
I like Coleman Hughes but it's sometimes like reading the perspective of a white guy who grew up black, and in that sense I suspect removed from a more typical experience.
I grew up in the deep south where black folks were a large part of my youth, and then lived in Africa three years where I was the only white dude for 200km. Still half my life has been in Japan, where I'm again a minority but there aren't a lot of black people, so I feel pretty out of touch in how the racial climate particularly in the US has changed. It certainly seems worse than it used to be but who knows from this distance.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
Congratulations 🎉🎉
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
Awesome post, thanks for the share. Enjoyed the progress pics as well.
Totally tangential: Tampons absorb blood but don't assist in clotting. They're more like a sponge, which will soak up and expand but not staunch the flow. Whenever I read about this strategy of using tampons in trauma situations I wonder if it's really done regularly and if so, why. Pressure from wrapping with a towel or something seems like it would be far more effective in preventing blood loss. Unless the idea is-- as in when a tampon is used for its designed purpose--just to prevent a sanguineous mess.
Menstrual discharge, absent menorrhagia or some other issue, is typically of a predictably finite amount, whereas an open wound will keep bleeding until hemostasis.
Sorry for the derail. Anybody who knows about this plz feel free to enlighten me.
Edit: paging @JTarrou and/or @self_made_human
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
Notably, at that event, it was Harris who didn't show up (and had been scheduled to).
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
I was annoyed by (one of) the interviewer's immediate leaping on the term "black jobs" (which was, previously , gleefully repeated by the press in the vein of "binders of women"--a pointless, meme-level, no-issue-whatsoever jibe) when he was talking about black employment. If he has said "jobs for African-Americans" I wonder if she would have had the same reaction. At least he basically ignored her. (I also noticed her continual use of the word "Sir" as if she had read somewhere that this is a way to make a sentence sound polite if you add it at the end of a question.)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
Hidden premise maybe. In both cases one assumes: In the democrat example you assume they believe a fetus counts as a person (this is the crux of the argument for a reason among some.) In the republican argument you assume the motivation for money is the only and ultimate motivator for republicans.
Yet both of these seem different than the good republican example you gave of Sorkin's writing.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
There was a discussion going in in last week's CW thread, if you haven't seen it.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
Thank you! Yes I was expecting a comment on simmer time. I was on the clock and served it far too early. Still there is still a cup or two left for today so maybe I'll cook it down a bit more.
It is now Saturday morning here, but inspired by @clo , @AsTheDominoesFall , and @hydroacetylene I decided to go for it and try making gumbo again last night, Friday evening.
Usually I am what is in Japan called a "kitchen drinker" and imbibe a nice glass of red or a beer or whatever I can get my grubby hands on while chopping my celery, but this time I settled for this. I only recommend it for the hard-core who do not care what they are pouring down their gullet as long as it seems remotely related to beer (I was in that category as I made the gumbo).
I started, as one does, with a roux of flour and oil. It started like this.. I may have had the heat up too high (it was on the small burner as low as it would go) but I got distracted and the roux burned and I had to scrap it. Undaunted I began again. The new roux looked like this when I considered putting in the trinity which in my case also contained garlic, but I avoided the temptation, mainly because my gumbo is never dark enough. I kept stirring. It eventually looked like this..
You may notice the portion is small. That is for two reasons. 1) I was not sure of success. 2) I am enculturated thoroughly to Japan and thus I think small when it comes to portion sizes. I held off until the roux was darker, ultimately like this though it was darker in reality than this photo shows.
Too much going on for me to take photos of other phases, but I added sausage (unfortunately this means the small, ubiquitous and not that tasty Japanese ソーセージ, shrimp, laurel leaf, and all this..
What I did not add is Tabasco, as although I like Tabasco it makes everything taste like itself. I ate a smallish portion over rice with the actual dinner. It wasn't bad though I expect both the users mentioned above and probably I can do better in the future.
Advice welcome.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
Congratulations!
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
Congratulations to you as well, lest this comment slips through. Maybe others were already aware, but I was not.
Correct on the song. My mistake.
As for Tar baby, I haven't checked the etymology of when it came to be considered a (rather dated now) slur, but as early as the 70s.
(edit: spelling)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
You're right! I hang my head in shame.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
You can't watch a lot of Robin Williams' comedy now without imagining the ways it probably pisses people off. The guy did a lot of accents and was good at it, and got a lot of (not only white) laughs. In this clip with Martha Stewart you can hear the enthusiastic response to his "brown sugar" riff, and, just like I know ChatGPT's "juniper" voice is modeled after a black woman voice, I can hear the black womenfolk's laughter here.
I've seen it. Saw it as a kid, once in the theater I think. I remember a character named Tar Baby, a pretty pejorative term to the modern ear. "Bear Necessities" was a memorable song. (edit: a memorable song that had nothing to do with that film, thanks for the corrections, I got it. Please insert Zip a dee doo dah)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
I have no dispute with the pit bull suggestion. I think the comparing them to humans is the problem.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
While I can go to Wikipedia (a dubious source, unless it supports one's views I guess) and search for the FBI stats (a dubious organization, until its statistics support one's views) that you mention, this is still equating human beings with dogs. That's an presupposition that in my view is unfounded. A human's behavior, or many humans' behaviors, may be attributable to various factors other than simply their breed, and I'd suggest this is true more so than in the case of dogs. This may be an unpopular view on the Motte, I'm not sure, but it's mine.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
If something's unethical, it's unethical, regardless if it's you doing it to get back at someone else who does the same unethical thing. This shouldn't be that controversial.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
Let's turn it around and say you're the prole dum-dum and she's the elite status genius. How would you feel if she harboured these doubts about you? Called it off because although you click on every level, she just doesn't want her kids to be stuck going to a state school because they inherited your midwit genes?
I can't imagine the feeling is good. Or maybe you're just that kind of pragmatist. My (less snarky) take: If you are lucky enough to meet a woman you love, then further that luck when that same woman loves you, and then you show yourself to be among the truly blessed and manage to be healthily and happily married, and then, miracle of miracles, get her pregnant and she carries the child to term and has a boy or girl with no complications, then you've really had an amazing good fortune that many in history have not. If you then have further children, then you're lucky beyond measure. To be sure, so are a lot of people, but then that's for lack of a better term survivorship bias.
My opinion here should be clear. HBD may be observable and to some degree predictable. Unlike many here I am not particularly interested in or swayed by that idea. Plus I'm probably more a romantic than not.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
Because this is how my mind works: What food or drink was the culprit?
Edit: I see you answered below.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3mo ago
Note methylphenidate is considered a controlled substance in Thailand. I might check the embassy website to see the best way of bringing it in and how much you can legally bring (I suspect a month with a prescription but I'm not sure.) You may already know this information, of course.
Again I was given a book, this one fiction, called Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian, or the book the film is based on. I am 4 chapters in and I am already dreading the rest of it. The story, the plot itself, is fine-- interesting even. But the author's writing style sets my teeth on edge.
Example passage:
Ah. Dr. Grace. You look refreshed." She gestured to her left. "There's food on the credenza."
And there was! Rice, steamed buns, deep-fried dough sticks, and an urn of coffee. I rushed over and helped myself. I was hungry as heck."
The "hungry as heck" bug you? It does me. And he does this throughout the 1st person narrative. Now I don't need swear words to feel realism, but if you want to eliminate epithets, just go without. He doesn't. It's like reading a book written by a Sunday school teacher for ten-year olds, which might be fine if it weren't ostensibly a story based in science. The humor is equally twee and grating. I am rarely this annoyed by a writer's style. Ok that's not true I am often annoyed by writers' styles but rarely like this.
More options
Context Copy link