George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
20hr ago
A father should do what's best for his son. It's debatable whether get-out-of-jail free cards and general leniency qualifies as such. (I'd suggest it doesn't.)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1d ago
A good friend of mine started following college (SEC) football in his mid teens so that he could immediately bond with pretty much anyone (he was a bit of a politician a s eventually went into business). He had no real interest in it before.
When he died at age 48, his wife (who had known only the last five or so years of his life) had a Bama football-themed wake for him, where people were wearing crimson and white and houndstooth and signing Roll Tide etc. in the memory book.
It was an odd feeling for me, having known him almost all his life. Maybe he would have liked it? I kept this all to myself.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2d ago
If you've something to say, please say it.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2d ago
I don't agree with anything you're saying here, except that I concede that people may be using メス and オス for humans in a pejorative way--that simply illustrates my point, that these terms are for animals, and thus to use them with humans is considered rude.
I'm also not sure what you mean when you say
For obvious reasons, feminists tend to be sensitive about being associated too closely with their biological nature.
What are the obvious reasons? I know many women who consider themselves feminists of various stripe and I wouldn't say any of them are sensitive about being associated with biological femaleness. In any way.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3d ago
Had our first around 4/5 years after our wedding. Despite what I was taught by Risky Business, it's not always that easy to get a woman pregnant.
I'm a native English speaker but do know the words you mention here I'd argue mesu (female) like osu (male), is an idiosyncratic use only for animals in a way that male and female is not in English. Much hay has been made in feminist circles of Mulvey's term "the male gaze" in cinema (and elsewhere), to say nothing of the general term "male chauvinism." I haven't heard any men upset with the term. It seems unexpectedly childish for women to be upset over the use of female--like an adult woman I know strongly dislikes the word moist among other words. But that's just a mild word aversion. She doesn't try to justify it.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3d ago
Today I learned there are women who are offended by the term female. Really we are living in interesting times.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3d ago
I haven't been an Atlantic reader in some time, but enjoyed that article, thanks for the link.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
5d ago
Very true. Christmas decorations are up for sale at the local Costco, and Christmas cake adverts are also already out. The colonel as you point out is already in his Santa garb in front of KFC. Christmas music is also played in public areas like shopping complexes. That said, Spotify may not be aware of any of this.
Of note, Christmas Eve is the day of import here, I think December the 25th goes largely unremarked upon in Japan. Christmas cakes are discounted, and kids after a certain age get no more presents in most households (the local house that used to have really nice decorations outside stopped having any once their kids got out of elementary school). Christmas Eve is actually a datenight and couples go out for some romantic whatnot. I remember girls' without boyfriends saying they would party with their girlpals and called it "single bells" (シングルベル). New Year's Eve, meanwhile, is a family time here, and you're hard pressed (or used to be when I would go out at these times) to find anyone singing auld lang syne at midnight in a local bar.
At my own house we celebrate more the American-style I'm used to, with a tree, decorations, presents opened Christmas morning, etc.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
5d ago
Possibly because we are in Japan and my (Japanese) wife and family regularly use the same account?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
5d ago
Interesting article! Thank you for linking it.
I expect for anyone who might not already be convinced, however, the study will not be compelling or alternative rationales will appear. For example:
Through carefully controlled experiments, the researchers demonstrated that exposure to anti-oppressive (i.e., anti-racist) rhetoric—common in many DEI initiatives—consistently amplified perceptions of bias where none existed. Participants were more likely to see prejudice in neutral scenarios and to support punitive actions against imagined offenders. These effects were not marginal; hostility and punitive tendencies increased by double-digit percentages across multiple measures.
The (pat?) response is to say "Thus we can see, there are in fact no neutral scenarios, nor any situations where bias does not exist." This is the end state of DEI: Racist/sexist turtles all the way down.
I am also skeptical of the study, but then I'm skeptical of most sociological and psychological studies. I'd need time to look at it for methodology issues (of which there are almost always a few, in addition to all the statistical noise in psychometrics). I am at first blush very willing to believe it at face value, but that's the still soft voice of the serpent.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
5d ago
I'll look again but on my television and computer this was absent. It's true I may have missed it.
Edit: Just looked on my phone. There is no set playlist called Happy Holidays for me. Strange.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
5d ago
My first search was "Christmas" but I was also interested if there were "Seasonal" or "Holiday" mixes which as you say would cast a wider net.
I used to have an MD player, those square disk-playing things, where I transferred loads from Napster and the like, and still have most of the minidiscs. The player has long died. You can find stereo components that play these discs but they take space, and the convenience of playing Spotify over our sound bar has won over. The playlists are also available on my mobile and can be bluetoothed into our car speakers. It's quite a marvel technologically for someone who grew up with turntables and 8-tracks and created actual mixtapes (using actual cassette tapes). @aqouta put it well.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
6d ago
I saw reports of this yesterday. Apparently methanol poisoning in Laos has been increasing recently, something to do with the locals making booze to sell to the tourists and not being particularly careful about what the hell it is they're serving. There have been arrests apparently though to what degree this represents justice I have no idea. My condolences to you. You may find, as I have, that death hits constantly, all around--acquaintances, family, friends--and more often than any of us would like, and tends to happen when you least expect it.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
6d ago
Quick question: WHY?
Like many, I have Spotify, and pay for it to avoid the constant ads and improve the sound quality. Like many, I have it on my television because the March of Time has somehow created a situation where I have no stereo player in my home. I still have CDs that sit on a shelf unused and probably need to be sent to a recycle shop or sold or thrown in a landfill. I also have some (gulp) LPs but they adorn my office shelves like tchotchkes of a bygone area--even the millennial guy I know who collected vinyl has stopped doing so because it's "too expensive." I threw out my last turntable about 15 years ago but I keep the records. Sentimental, probably
Back to Spotify. I was making a holiday playlist for putting up our tree this year. I prefer the oldies to the newies, and the medium oldies like Driving Home for Christmas. Anyway as I was browsing I decided to look (and this is on my TV app) at the various genres thinking maybe there would be one called holiday.
There wasn't. What there was, well. That's why I decided to post this.
What there was were the expected playlists like Made for You (which had songs that are algorithmically linked to the account meaning songs my wife and sons click on). Also the expected K-Pop, Top Hits, Jazz, Hip Hop, In the Car, Chill, Punk, Party, Blues and even Educational, Kids & Family, Latin, and Ambient. All this is fine.
Then I saw a Playlist called Glow. Hm. Glow? Turns out this is subtitled "Songs from the Community." The community being the ineffable LGBTQ+ community. There is also a Spotify-produced playlist called EQUAL. This one? You guessed it. Songs exclusively made by women. Then there was FREQUENCY which, no, wasn't the top requested songs, but was a playlist of music made exclusively by black folks. The subtitle: "All Black like the Cover of Essence."
Question is Why? Why is this needed? Audiophiles want genres that have something to do with the music, no? Who decides to listen to music just because it was produced/written/performed by a gay group? Is this just Spotify pandering? And if so, who signed off thinking this was a swell idea? What does the performer being gay have to do with the sound? Do people actually care about this?
My best steelman is that they are trying to signal boost "underrepresented groups" but of the three groups mentioned arguably only women are underrepresented in music.
Theories appreciated.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
6d ago
That's... optimistic. I don't like making predictions but I believe to some degree there will be a blowback on Trump simply because he is a cause (viz Trump Derangement Syndrome) that the far left can rally around opposing.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
Possibly, in some circles even probably, but historically (I write that without solid support beyond my assumption) this type of behavior has been invisible. To be too brazen or overt (by, say, throwing a shoe, or, imagining Connie Corleone, breaking a bunch of dinner plates and sloshing the pitcher of wine over the veal) is to reveal oneself as an aggressor and thus drop the plausible deniability (if I may borrow a CIA term).
Any physically vulnerable or weaker player will necessarily develop strategies to compensate for this weakness, and passive aggression done well is like an art form. Its sisters, cattiness, backstabbing, intrigue, manipulation, these are the fey but effective weapons of the court (or dining table) as opposed to the battlefield or backyard. And to repay cattiness with a smack up the mouth is forbidden (and ineffective), just as to answer a blow to the jaw with a withering comment doesn't win fights.
This is nothing that everyone here is not already aware of (probably. Some might take issue ) I suppose my point is that this behavior gets modeled and copied, the same way swagger and volume of voice and strongarm get modeled for growing boys. Modeled without being so much overtly talked about.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
Have you already read A Wild Sheep Chase? The two books are mildly connected.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
8d ago
men grow cold as girls grow old / and we all lose our charms in the end
The trade-off of being a very beautiful woman is the extremely brief shelf-life. Female beauty, at least in terms of "hotness," is very ephemeral.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
8d ago
A Da Vinci is a robotic surgical setup meant to be less invasive. I had thought they were relatively new but that Wiki link says they were introduced in 2000.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
10d ago
Much clearer now that this is a set of allusions that not unsurprisingly flew over my head. Thanks. The Motte really does keep me on my toes.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
Just an aside and nothing personal against you, but I really dislike:
- the use of embedded links as glosses of esoteric terms.
Why: I dislike the continual minimizing/maximizing of windows and the break in flow of thought
- linking to a website instead of simply explaining in words what it is you yourself have intended in your post. (You intended as the hypothetical you, not necessarily you.
Why: it seems dismissive and rude, like when someone asks where the restroom is and you just point at a sign instead of speaking. Sometimes one might intend to be dismissive and rude, and sure, maybe this is just me clinging to more traditional mores. Could be.
I realize people are sometimes short of time or impatient but damn.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
I take rosuvastatin and it has had a dramatic effect on my cholesterol levels. (Dramatically good).
Irving's prose I always enjoyed, and I remember reading A Prayer For Owen Meany and thinking it could have been a timeless, beautiful novel if not for the constant intrusion of his politics (Iran Contra and Reagan). I still enjoyed it, and the Dickens influence on Irving is evident.
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