A Detailed Case-Study in Theatrical Woke Defiance at Haverford College

In "Race and Social Panic at Haverford: A Case Study in Educational Dysfunction," Quillette's Jonathan Kay gives a detailed account of how Woke-permeated campus-wide insanity can be triggered by nothing in particular. Kay makes a strong case that Haverford College, a private and expensive far-left-leaning liberal arts institution, self-spiraled into moral panic in a way that brings to mind the meltdown of Evergreen State, a story told and experienced by evolutionary psychology professors Brett Weinstein and Heather Heying.  See also, Weinstein's discussion of Evergreen with his brother, Podcaster Eric Weinstein ("The Portal").

The self-annointed thought police are still working overtime at Haverford, where free-speech is merely a phrase and where tribal truths are the reality.  I could not imagine sending any student to Haverford if they wanted to learn how to think self-critically and be prepared to hold a job in the outside world.

Jonathan Kay's long article leaves a pit in my stomach and casts a pall over my evening as I write this comment. He needed to fill his article with an extraordinary amount of details in order to substantiate his extraordinary conclusions, including the following:  A) Nothing insensitive or racist occurred at Haverford College leading up to the current shrill unrest. B) Nothing that happened at Haverford justified the long ridiculous list of student demands (to which the administration mostly acceded).  C) Most chillingly, the administrators of Haverford (and many other colleges) lack the the necessary resources to have meaningful conversations with students or to take respectable negotiating positions during these Woke-fueled paroxysms.

A few excerpts from Jonathan Kay's excellent article:

[T]he mania that swept Haverford College in late October and early November 2020 lays bare, with unusual clarity, the fervid atmosphere of grievance and self-entitlement that has made the administration of elite colleges and universities so difficult.

Of all the Haverford community members I spoke with, the only one who asked to be quoted by name was recently graduated philosophy major Alex Gutierrez, who once summarized the mindset of campus activists in an essay about Jacques Lacan. “Modern activists have psyches that are built for the joy of transgression,” he observed. “They engage in activism so they can repeatedly experience that joy, a joy that is denied them in everyday life because everyday life is dominated by the ethics of pleasure… And so they need to invent fictional dominant orders so that they can defy them. This is why protesters would actually be extremely unhappy if oppression went away. They want white patriarchy to be as powerful as possible, so they can defy it.”

Gutierrez wrote these words before his alma mater fell into upheaval in late October. But his analysis seems apt. When students complained that Raymond had caused them “harm” with her October 28th email, they weren’t really speaking up as activists denouncing racism on campus (since there doesn’t seem to be much of it), but as consumers whose parents paid good money for them to experience the sensation of transgressive social-justice heroism. “Normally, the administrators are the perfect target for student transgression,” Gutierrez told me. “They take the abuse and they’re not supposed to push back. That’s part of their role. That’s what students expect.”

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Time for a new party?

This year, once more, I was not pleased with the choices. Absent a viable third party, we were faced with an impossible choice for president: An old white man who had appealed to his party’s darkest fringes and failed the most significant test of his presidency, allowing his ego to overwhelm him; or an old white man who had trouble speaking and remembering where he was, whose party had been taken over by the loons of the left. The electorate chose the forgetful guy, but otherwise turned its back on his party. For the other party, which had neared becoming a cult, it won the larger election but was handed notice that its leader was unacceptable to America.

After the 2016 election, Democrats refused to accept the results. After the 2020 election, Republicans refused to accept the results. The past four years have nearly torn us to shreds. It’s not clear to me that our country can endure another four years just like the last four.

In 2016 I was not pleased with the choices, and voted for the Libertarian candidate. Libertarian is the closest we have to a third party, but it can never win a nationwide election. Its appeal is its downfall. The party celebrates the supremacy of the individual over the group, which yields what most Americans seem to want: social liberalism and fiscal conservatism. The problem comes when departing from core principles to the nuts and bolts of policy. Put ten Libertarians in a room and you’ll get 23 opinions on any policy issue you put forward. And, party discipline is anathema to a group that celebrates the supremacy of the individual over the collective.

To compete, we will need to be a big-tent political party accepting anyone who can subscribe to individual liberty as the basis of our Republic. We are not a collection of group rights, we are a collection of equal, individual citizens. Libertarians can set the principles, but politicians will be needed to run a political party. I think I know where we can find them. [More . . . ]

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The COVID Vaccine: The Long Pole in the Tent

"The Long Pole in the Tent" is a common term used by the US Army to describe the most difficult, or time-consuming, or resource-intensive task in getting a job from start to finish. Often, it is all three. We are in the midst of a nearly year-long effort to develop a vaccine that will fix the pandemic. Victory is in sight.

Not so fast. Vaccines don’t save lives. Vaccinations save lives. For that to occur, far more is needed than developing the molecules for a messenger RNA (mRNA) virus, or manipulating a cold virus (adenovirus) to carry elements of another cold virus (COVID19) that will prompt the human immune system to develop the necessary tools to kill the latter virus. That work is critical, and can only be done by highly-educated and disciplined scientists familiar with how to work at the molecular level with biology, how to develop and choose among candidate vaccines, how to establish testing methods and protocols, and thirty thousand other things few people on earth are qualified to do. We owe them a debt of gratitude.

Their work is in vain, though, until a vaccine becomes a vaccination, which is a vaccine that is injected into a patient. This brings us to the long pole in the tent: getting a manufactured vaccine safely and securely into the syringe to be injected into the patient.

The next step is manufacturing the vaccines. Why we need more than one is a story guaranteed to cure insomnia. Each vaccine uses a separate mechanism to interfere in the virus’s nefarious activities. None is “the best” for everyone, and some carry risks for certain groups but not risks for others. Why that is so will cure insomnia relapse.

Vaccine manufacturing isn’t like home-cooked meth. Very strict procedures, highly technical machinery, well-trained workers and pure ingredients are needed. Each batch must undergo quality assurance. When the vaccine is finished, it must be carefully measured into individual vials, usually of five doses each. Vials go into cartons of either 200 or 1,000 vials. Three vaccines are on the verge of being approved for manufacturing.

Each of these three vaccines each operates a bit differently, and each follows a different track in the supply chain. Obviously, all are tamper-evident sealed, bar-coded, receipted all the way through. Only one of them can remain effective at room temperature, let’s call that one ATZ. Ideally, everybody takes ATZ. Except it carries different risks for different people than the other two. And, ATZ, will have to re-enter Stage III trials to correct a testing error, so it won’t be ready immediately.

When it is ready, it’s easily handled with existing secure processes. On arrival at port it is offloaded, undergoes customs inspection and payment of any import fees, turned over to the consignee who is probably a Third-Party Logistics (3PL) provider. Because the vaccine does not require refrigeration, the contents are broken down in a warehouse for separate shipments to hospitals, pharmacy chains, group practices, distribution centers and government stockpiles. This will work well in First World Counties, even in landlocked countries such as Switzerland, Andorra, San Marino, the Vatican, and small nations such as Singapore, New Zealand, Iceland and Monaco.

The Third World is not so lucky. Much of the world is tribal, and vaccines entering a tribal country are likely to be kept by the ruling tribe to keep subjugated tribes in line. Keloptocracies and mob-ruled countries will make equitable distribution problematic. Lack of reliable roadways or railways will delay deliveries and lose some vials. Stops at international and intranational borders offer opportunity for mischief. And, keeping track of where things are is difficult enough in First World countries; in Third-World countries, the basics are still aspirational.

Even first-world countries such as Bahamas face a daunting task reaching individual islands. Small countries, such as Palau or Samoa, will never be a priority for scheduled air travel nor ocean cargo. Then, there are dozens of areas of active conflict, ranging from Donbass in Ukraine to war of starvation in Yemen. And India still struggles with the basics.

All of this is for the best case. The other two vaccines present much greater logistical challenges and will be dealt with in Chapters Two and Three. Where we are will then be addressed in Chapter Four.

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About “Vulva Owners” and Our Nomenclature Wars.

More and more people cannot bear to say words like "men" and "women" anymore. Talk about "objectifying" sexuality . . . Consider this recent article from Healthline:

Here's an excerpt:

‘Do Vulva Owners Like Sex?’ Is the Wrong Question — Here’s What You Should Ask Instead. . . . Some do like sex and some don’t. Just like some penis owners like sex and some don’t.

This question, in and of itself, isn’t great, though. It makes some broad generalizations and assumptions about people and sex in general.

So instead of asking whether vulva owners like sex, you should really be focusing on the person you want to have sex with, and ask them how they feel, what they want, and what they need.

Here's an article about a recent ad by Tampa.  Same issue:

[More . . . ]

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How to Jump Out of an Airplane Without a Parachute

Today I learned that Luke Aikins, professional skydiver, jumped out of an airplane at 25,000 feet and landed safely into a net. Wow! Check out the comments in this video for a lot of good information on this stunt.

One more thing - Check out this interview - Luke admits that he came a little too close to the edge - he had intended to hit the middle..

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