Agree that Costello’s early years until about 1982 and Imperial Bedroom were the best . . . though his country cover album Almost Blue in ’81 was stinky. For some reason King of America ’86 doesn’t stand up compared to Elvis’ earlier works. Too long . . . Too much T-bone . . . can’t put my finger on it. Even by the mid-80s Elvis was rather boring in concert. Can’t stand some of his later stuff.

So . . . drug testing is out too I guess?

Look a bit closer–“Only about 2% of the global population lives in polygamous households.” Perhaps this is an undercount. Everyone knows you must have separate households for your wives.

See 1:07:56

might want to read the lyrics . . . won’t get fooled again might be considered nihilistic but hardly communistic. Anyway, seem to recall old pete in a Rolling Stone interview he gave during the early 1980s being a bit of a cold warrior, praising the U.S. military as check on the Soviets. Given the times and the hip crowd he doubtless hung with, this hardly would have been considered Marxist.

Here’s wishing her good luck as a member of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”

You don’t know what you are talking about regarding Louisiana . . . Yes the vote is broken down along racial lines in large part but the Democrat who won was anti-abortion and pro-gun . . . and he had the backing of the state’s sheriff’s organization. Those are some of the reasons why he won his majority. The Republican, on the other hand, was an elderly businessman who refused to give much in the way of detail concerning his plans for the state and refused to show up for all but one debate and refused to to attend events, such one hosted by a key Baton Rouge business group.

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/elections/article_3b65b984-f752-11e9-b497-a3b454d85374.html

The Revolution always consumes its own children . . . it just took 70 some years in Dr. Seuss’s case.

https://library.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dswenttowar/#ark:bb7065726h

Maybe . . . depends on the band.

Have the folks from the Atlantic been to a park recently?

Plenty of people of South Asian or East Asian background and at least a few people of unknown sex on the trails of Yosemite the past two summers during my visit.

Maybe the situation is different at other parks like the Smokies, it was pretty white when I used to go a few decades ago, but then so is East Tennessee and Western North Carolina, though that is changing a bit now.

On the other hand . . . as a not particularly wealthy tourist from across the country, I can see some of the reason for some of the complaints . . . it is expensive to visit a place like Yosemite, given the cost of travel and lodging. Not to mention the fact that you have to plan your visit like you were invading Iraq . . . just try to find anything in or near the park without reserving a year out.

Speaking of diversity, I noticed that on some of the back country trails that the rest rooms which appeared to in the past been segregated by sex are now not. Inconvenient for both sexes, men having to stand in slower lines and women having to use toilets after the seats were pissed on by men.

Also, no dogs allowed . . . probably for good reason. I can image the rangers would have to put up with complaints about dog bits, dogs fighting, lost dogs, dogs falling over cliffs, people stepping in dog shit, etc.

Rules . . . no strollers allowed. I wonder why that was not mentioned in the article? On some of the flat and paved trails near the parking lot a stroller would be useful to the families (mainly Hispanic) toating infants and toddlers.

God I hope that don’t change the ranger uniforms . . . a ranger in a hoodie . . . no thanks.

Impressed by his facebook post?

On the one hand Tyson says:

“Further, I never touched her until I shook her hand upon departure. On that occasion, I had offered a special handshake, one I learned from a Native elder on reservation land at the edge of the Grand Canyon. You extend your thumb forward during the handshake to feel the other person’s vital spirit energy — the pulse. I’ve never forgotten that handshake, and I save it in appreciation of people with whom I’ve developed new friendships.”

The ole Indian chief handshake . . . wtf?

Spiritualism, NPR style?

As opposed to down market National Enquirer spiritualism of one Tyson’s accusers:

“For me, what was most significant, was that in this new life, long after dropping out of astrophysics graduate school, she was posting videos of colored tuning forks endowed with vibrational therapeutic energy that she channels from the orbiting planets. As a scientist, I found this odd.”

As a “non-scientist,” I find it strange that any “scientist” would be impressed that one can somehow connect to another person’s “vital spirit” via a special handshake.

But it does sound like a good pick up line, though one that apparently didn’t work in Tyson’s case.

correct link

Those two or three years made a difference . . . ’82 not many college kids (especially types from places like Gonzaga) were into the Slickee Boys as compared to say the Stones (frat bros) or the soundtrack from the Big Chill (girls).

In ’83 I recall talking to one sorority girl about seeing the Police (which she loved loved loved) but unfortunately in her view a sucky band called REM had opened for them.

By ’85 and ’86, the same folks or their younger siblings were into REM.

Our professor in years past on Woodrow Wilson . . . she was not happy with Archangel Woodrow’s wartime restrictions on civil liberty; see video beginning at 28:00 or so.

Would she have been okay to restrict speech though . . . if the WWI era Germans had been “haters” rather than beastly “Huns”?

Nah . . . more likely Kav & Co. listened to DC 101 . . . if I recall correctly it was an “Album Rock” station that played bands like the Stones, Van Halen, Springsteen and featured Howard Stern (who was “banned” from time to time) as its shock jock.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1982/06/30/dc-101s-howard-stern-fired/098de0a3-c5bb-4b40-ae9b-bc2b0818cf48/?utm_term=.e972f0fde706

There is a reason the 4th hasn’t always been popular in Vicksburg.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/why-vicksburg-canceled-the-fourth-of-july-for-a-generation/

According to McNamara:

“Indeed, the whole concept of “low-aptitude” and high-aptitude” now
needs redefinition. What do these designations really mean? One thing is
certain: they mean something very different from what we have believed in
the past. There is now ample evidence that many aptitude evaluations have
less to do with how well the student can learn than with the cultural value
system of the educator. Too many instructors look at a reticent or apathetic
or even hostile student and conclude: “He is a low-aptitude learner.”

In most cases it would be more realistic for the instructor to take a hard
honest look in the mirror and conclude: “I am a low-aptitude teacher . ..
Students differ greatly in their learning patterns. It is the edu~tor’s
responsibility to become familiar with that pattern in each individual case
and to build on it. More exactly, it is the educator’s responsibility to create
the most favorable conditions under which the student himself can build on his
own learning pattern at his own pace.

Ultimately it is not the teacher who teaches at all; it is the student who teaches himself. Aquinas in the thirteenthcentury and Aristotle fifteen hundred years before him both suggested
that a teacher cannot, strictly speaking, be the cause of the student’s knowledge,
but only the occasion of it. Modern educational psychology confirms
this. But instead of striving to be the inspiring occasions of their students’
knowledge, too many teachers end by causing their students to retreat into a
mental fog of boredom, confusion and noncomprehension. This mix of understandable
reactions is then all too often simply labeled “low-aptitude.”

We discovered within the Department of Defense that the prime reason
many men “fail .. the aptitude tests given at the time of induction is simply
that these tests are geared to the psychology of traditional, formal, classroom,
teacher-paced instruction. These tests inevitably reflect the cultural
value syst~ms and verbal patterns of affluent American society. That is why
so many young·men from poverty backgrounds do poorly in the tests. It is not
because they do not possess basic and perhaps even brilliant intelligence, but
because their cultural environment is so radically different from that assumed
by the designers of the tests.
– 5 –
It is, for example, a generally accepted value of American society to
want to 11achieve 11 something in life. That is a sound value, but it is a
val ue alien to many young people from poverty-encrusted environments. In
this world, achievement is seldom advanced as a value, because it does not
exist as a realistic possibility. Such a person appears to have 11low
aptitude”_,_ by conventional standards since he seems poorly motivated. But
clearly a more accurate way to measure his “aptitude 11 is to place him in a
situation that offers the encouragement he has never had before. That
means a good teacher and a good course of instruction, well supported by
self-paced, audio-visual aids. It also means less formal theoretical
instruction in the classroom and more practical on-the-job training. Under
these conditions the so-called “low-aptitude” student can succeed. ”

http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/326111383057012137/wbg-archives-1772420.pdf

Only a nobody walks in La

Oh, I don’t know . . .

A couple of years ago I had an interesting abet brief conversation regarding American foreign policy with my physician from India, a relatively newly minted American citizen . . . things ended up quickly though when I mentioned in the course of this convo that India had a caste system. According to the doc, India has no caste system. Oh . . I said and changed the subject.

Does anyone recall news reports from the 1980s claiming that republicans had had an advantage in California presidential elections in part because the election was called before polls closed in the state? Also, apparently, the republican advantage in absentee ballots began to lessen in the late 1980s . . .

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2245&dat=19900410&id=o94zAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MDIHAAAAIBAJ&pg=5992,5433193&hl=en

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19870909&id=EdwxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=P-UFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4382,7016002&hl=en