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Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.

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Friday, May 20, 2005

NOW EVEN SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN IS “SPEAKING TRUTH TO…..“, WELL….TO WHOM?

Am I the only one stunned that Scientific American is dissenting from the orthodoxy on something so “controversial”?

It turns out that male and female brains differ quite a bit in architecture and activity…...Several intriguing behavioral studies add to the evidence that some sex differences in the brain arise before a baby draws its first breath.

we are told.  This isn’t news to parents of young children, especially to those who try to interest their girls in trucks and their boys in dollies!! 

Nevertheless, in this day and age, one welcomes every “scientific” bolstering of what is obvious to anyone paying attention, and THIS ARTICLE does a lot of bolstering.  Is it possible that reality will actually win out on this subject in the U.S. of A.?  Keep your powder dry for a while, I doubt the skirmishes are over…....

Posted by Earl on 05/20 at 10:53 AM
Miscellany • (0) Comments •

YOU’D THINK LARRY SUMMERS’ FATE WOULD HAVE COWED THE REALISTS…...

Not some of them.  The Claremont Institute for instance, has published THIS REVIEW of Steven E. Rhoads’ book, Taking Sex Differences Seriously, itself something of a profile in courage these days.  The following gives a bit of the flavor of the review:

Yet amble any great distance along the path of sex differences, and you will soon find yourself with Harvard President Larry Summers, tripping painfully on the gnarled and dangerous roots buried there. Summers’s provocative comments about sex differences at an academic conference prompted Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nancy Hopkins to walk out of the room in protest. Hopkins, who now moonlights as the Ivy League’s self-appointed, publicity-seeking gender warden, several years ago spawned a similar media tempest by claiming, on paltry evidence, that women at MIT were the victims of institution-wide discrimination. Posturing provosts nationwide reacted with predictable alacrity, setting up panels and convening commissions at their own universities to root out this new but amorphous enemy: “unintentional” discrimination against women. Summers’s crime, in this context, was to have the temerity to state what science has long known about men and women, and to do so without worrying about offending the missish sensibilities of some female academics.


  and the review ends with a forthright recommendation:

Rhoads’s book might be especially useful for men and women in college, who are thinking about the kinds of lives they would like to lead. Perhaps with some reflection they might begin to see the truth in Rhoads’s suggestion that our differences should not be the source of bitterness or resentment, but the recipe for genuine complementarity of the sexes. Men’s “sense of duty and capacity for sacrifice will be brought forth more readily if women will say ‘no’ to casual sex and give them time and motive to turn their lust into love,“ Rhoads writes. “The idea that women can transform men for the better is out of fashion, but as the social science on the effect of marriage makes clear, it is undeniably true.“ Whether young women will be willing to take on the role of arbiter, and in the process transform relations between the sexes, remains to be seen, but if they read this book they will at the very least have heard a persuasive argument for why they should.

OH! that every college student would READ THE WHOLE THING!

Posted by Earl on 05/20 at 10:30 AM
Miscellany • (0) Comments •

WHAT DOES COURAGE LOOK LIKE?

One thing for sure, in THIS CASE it appeared as no more than hands and a face…....  Natalya Dmytruk

interprets for Ukraine’s state-run television. Her face and hands appear in a little box at the bottom of the screen as she sends out the news on the mid-morning and early afternoon telecasts to the hearing-impaired.

During the tense days of Ukraine’s presidential elections last year, Dmytruk staged a silent but bold protest, informing deaf Ukrainians that official results from the Nov. 21 runoff were fraudulent. Her act of courage further emboldened protests that grew until a new election was held and the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko , was declared the winner.

READ THE WHOLE STORY

Posted by Earl on 05/20 at 10:22 AM
Miscellany • COURAGE AWARDS • Politics • International • (0) Comments •

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

CONTRA-DANCING WEEKEND

Gail and I spent last weekend visiting a high-school friend in North Carolina and having a great time at the Lake Eden Arts Festival.  We saw more TIE-DYE than anytime since the 1970s, when we were LOTS younger!! 

But, the major purpose for the visit was
the Contra Dancing, explained in detail in the link.  Gail always said that this was like the dancing we watched in the Pride and Prejudice videos from the BBC (also seen in Emma, Sense and Sensibility and other similar costume dramas).  Well, this was my first time, and MAYBE one could imagine contra dancing from watching P&P, but only if you think of Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, their friends and the instrumental group all on speed!!  There was absolutely nothing “sedate” about these dances!  Much more like SQUARE DANCING, only in long straight lines (to start with, anyhow). 

If your musical taste doesn’t include Warren Wilson College on Thursday evening, in an old gym that must have been built in the ‘20s or ‘30s—it looked just like the one at PUC Elementary School, where we used to live in Angwin, Napa County, California.  LOTS of college students, many beginners, and everyone friendly and willing to put up with “old people”!! 

Friday afternoon, Saturday night, and Sunday morning, we danced at the Festival, and by Sunday   (Friday p.m. I only did one dance) I was doing it correctly more often than not.  In fact, I was aware enough to notice that even really good dancers were making occasional mistakes!  Usually because they were adding extracurricular frills and elaboriations, but hey! 

The best of the musical groups was The Ghillies, from Scotland and they played twice for us.  If you’ve never heard bagpipes playing jigs and reels, you should listen to their music—it was grand!

For the terminally klutzy (definition 2), THIS is your dance…..all one has to do in most figures is walk forward!!  Ideal for me - with 57+ years of “no-dancing” experience.  We had a great time - so Thanks, Frank!  We’ll be contra-dancing in Chattanooga ‘most every other Saturday night!

Posted by Earl on 05/18 at 11:03 AM
Miscellany • (2) Comments •

DARTH VADER INHABITS THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL!!

Well, sort of.  HERE’S THE STORY

Posted by Earl on 05/18 at 11:01 AM
(0) Comments •

IT REALLY *IS* OK TO HATE THE FRENCH…..

There’s a new poll being reported in the Telegraph, and it was taken in numerous European countries….....  Guess what?  NO ONE likes the French!! 

“Interviewees were simply asked an open question - what five adjectives sum up the French,“ said Olivier Clodong, one of the study’s two authors and a professor of social and political communication at the Ecole Superieur de Commerce, in Paris. “The answers were overwhelmingly negative.“

One more fruitless guilt trip I won’t be taking…...!

Posted by Earl on 05/18 at 10:57 AM
Politics • International • (0) Comments •

Thursday, May 05, 2005

THE AMERICAN SOLDIER

hasn’t had a great press in this country for a while.  Can anyone deny the bias of our major media when PICTURES AND STORIES like this one somehow don’t get splashed all over the front pages and the TV newscasts…..?  SPLASHED…....?  When was the last time you saw EVEN ONE such story…....on page 6, or at the end of the evening news?

It wasn’t always like this…..U.S. soldiers used to be honored as doing an awful job that was necessary to keep this country free, and to extend the blessings of liberty to others.  HERE IS A TRIBUTE  to our guys and gals in uniform.  We owe them a tremendous debt.  God bless ‘em all!!

Posted by Earl on 05/05 at 10:24 AM
(0) Comments •
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