George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2d ago
Gin and tonic with ice and a lemon wedge. Not precious about the gin though London Drys are my preference. Wilkinson tonic.
Yesterday I was given something called Framboise by a very wealthy Frenchman and it tasted as if would take the paint off a car.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3d ago
Yes and no. I used to detect a fish taste in everything. I wasn't wrong -- bonito (katsuo) and dashi powder are ingredients in many, many unexpected foods. I did get used to this and barely notice it if at all now.
No in that I have never really liked fish and still don't eat it unless decorum demands it (i.e. I am at someone's home or there is a dinner somewhere out and I am a guest, etc.) I never choose fish if I have a choice. The less said about things like mentaiko and namako the better. As has been noticed before on this very board, yes it is a waste. Everyone I know likes Japanese food better than I do.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4d ago
Technically user is a noun. I'm not trying to be tedious here.
I suppose my peeve is with the default to the plural when his/her or he/him is perfectly clear in cases where one does not recall who someone is (in your sentence: "I've warned him/her as well"), and indeed was a norm until trans-activists (and the likeminded) pushed for the universal use of the plural pronoun, or terms like zim and zey or whatever. (I will admit I do not know to what degree these were seriously offered as "solutions" or by whom.) The argument that him/her used in this way is an awkward construction is not compelling to me for a number of reasons. And I think the still soft voice of the serpent is in such small details that we do not notice until they're second nature, at which point bringing up the issue at all makes one seem like a man shaking his fist at a cloud. Indeed we may already be there (lowers fist.)
That said, of course you can ignore all this. If no one else cares I'm not going to waste your time or mine any further.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4d ago
Her. You've warned her. Pet peeve.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4d ago
After moving to Japan and living several years, I returned to the US briefly and many foods that had once been part of my routine diet had become nearly unpalatably sweet. A full can of Cola at this point in my life is distastefully cloying. A Krispy Kreme doughnut and it's like I can feel my insulin levels cranking to 11. I think we get used to our diet like our surroundings. The way you drive down your childhood street after a decade away and suddenly notice everything, while when you lived there you drove through automatically without noticing anything or even feeling aware of the drive. Tastes must be similar. Probably.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
Your diagnosis is compelling. I think my concern is more with your prescription. I think reform is not impossible, for history or any number of disciplines. "Dismantling the system," as you put it, would have downstream consequences, and I suppose my concern is that these would mostly be negative. One of the usual complaints about youth (and Americans in general) is a lack of awareness of history--the country's, the world's. Would you agree with that criticism? If so would you suggest self-study is the way to rectify it, and not a better education system?
I do see great value in history as a discipline -- and reading widely and even widely different perspectives I think is part of that, and I'd suggest the role of a professor is to provide exposure to this. Banging one partisan drum is no better than banging another.
Your comment deserves a longer response but I've kept this dormant for a day and am currently on a train.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
9d ago
You may need to learn Slootspeak. I would bet he was being sarcastic in most of his comment until the last bits there.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
10d ago
No need to apologize and yes, the listed qualities are probably accurate for a large percentage, but certainly not everyone. And by uncharitable I mean it frames Americans in a very unflattering manner while ignoring qualities that I at least have noticed about the common man, namely openness to relative strangers, straightforwardness, the ability to enjoy simple pleasures, a sense of humor, self reliance, resistance to pretentiousness, an innate sense of equanimity, occasional unexpected generosity, morality that drives one's actions whether it is always adhered to or not, and so on. You see where I'm going with this--not everyone will have all of these qualities of course, yet nor do they have all of the previously listed.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
10d ago
Stop going to reddit. It will unearth, wash off, and nurture any misanthropic tendencies you may have, in particular about anyone you suspect of being in an outgroup. The same is true more or less of Twitter.
This and the parent comment, while humorous, seems very uncharitable. I personally love Americans when I'm in America. My experience is limited to west coast and predominantly the South.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
Testers, brilliant. Can you buy those? I guess obviously the answer is yes, you can. I somehow always thought they sat there with a sticker saying not for sale. I wonder what @Closedshop would have to say about this list.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
Crazy. I've smelled only a small handful of these, but I admire your thoroughness. Nonetheless, might I suggest that the job of perfume (cough, what? Cologne) is not to be fragrant to the wearer, but to others. To what degree have you looked into pheromones? I remember in the 80s Polo did it for all the gals, and of course we boys dutifully followed suit by buying it...until it became yesterday's (at this point yesteryear's) fragrance. I remember some students once came into my office, when I was wearing Polo Sport, and said it reminded them of....their host father.
My point is that smells say different things to different people, in particular I think even unisex fragrances have different hits for men and women, and even in men and women individuals will vary.
Also you must have spent a fuckton of money. For science, I applaud you.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
I'd argue that you are cherrypicking here (perhaps unintentionally) to make your point. The 1619 project as I understand it was largely driven by media, not historians, in particular Nikole Hannah-Jones (a journalist). Now did it make a splash and influence the public sphere? Sure, but as NYT propaganda. I don't doubt some hacks took it into their history classes to further an agenda, but that's a corruption/subversion of actual historical academia. That's putting an agenda in a class, "People's History" style, not critical thinking. Or so I would argue. Even Beaulieu (an anthropologist) had her ground-penetrating radar comments taken by the media and misrepresented into the blowup about Kamloops. This reminds me of the Ebonics controversy of the 90s--linguists simply pointed out that AAEV/BEV had a noticeable grammar and set of consistent internal rules, that it was not a completely lawless, wild and woolly way of massacring standard English. This was contorted by media outlets into the notion that "linguists say we should teach Black English in schools." My point is that your issues (at least the ones you're listing) seem to be with the larger media contortions than academics.
I am not, again, suggesting that academia as we now know it is unbiased. I am suggesting the Nuke and Pave was way too strong, at least to my own sensibilities.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
This is straightforward but it also assumes that research that does not produce an immediate "return on investment" or immediately reveal "new facts about material reality" is illegitimate, and I would suggest that that is a fairly strong overstatement. Consider archeology, paleontology, linguistics, literature, history, even some types of math. Presumably you would not consign all these to the flames.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
Crazy shit doesn't mean it's worthless. Yes, there are ideologues in anthropology, as everywhere. To dismiss the entire field is a wild overreaction. Even criticism of Mead's work (if you are thinking of the Freeman book) was arguably overcritical.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
I was thinking outside an Anglo or European context actually. I'm not surprised about the UK.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
Rereading I now follow you.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
I'll admit mild surprise at your very seemingly visceral hatred of academia (see "Nuke and pave.") This could be based on your own bitter experience, or on reading articles such as the one in the OP. I'm not sure. I personally doubt stats on how many academics are conservatives if we're relying on self-reports, for a variety of reasons. (I do not contest the assertion that at least in the US academia is largely ideologically captive to left-wing sensibilities--smugly so. This is one reason I doubt the self-reports. I don't think this is necessarily true worldwide.) I have to assume some hyperbole here, though I am aware that a lot of people who did not themselves attend university feel like we could just raze them all to the ground and so what. I have friends back home who I suspect think this. The law of unintended consequences seems to loom large in such a scenario.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
What constitutes 'real value ' and 'legitimate' research to you in this statement? Presumably not poetry or history.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
I'm not sure that's true based on researching your statement. I see information that it can increase cortisol and adrenalin in people who do not consume it regularly, but does not actually increase long-term fat storage. In fact what I'm reading says caffeine can temporarily increase metabolism and therefore increase fat burning. Of course I only drink coffee black, but the question was about caffeine. Mind you I've only briefly researched it, so you may have better information.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
Exactly.
Actually my friend who lived in Mexico a while told me when I wanted something Mexican to order that. It's basically tacos with charcoal-grilled beef. Good if you get good ones. Which makes sense, hey.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
13d ago
If the goal is reducing visceral fat, why the caffeine limitation? Everything else I get.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
13d ago
You're welcome.
Actually it was a rather strong liqueur.
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