As far as my knowledge of Chapel Hill is concerned, I had a good friend who was a faculty member there and we visited them once. He is now retired. My daughter also considered becoming a student there, which I would have supported (my motto: I don't care where you go to school as long as it is 500 miles from home.)
So, little if anything from direct, personal experience upon which to assert that where you live is “far different.”
That sounds like the old "we have lots of diversity except for black people and poor people" problem. At historically white universities, why are there so many more professors who moved here from foreign countries, than African-American professors? Also, don't get too complacent about good schools in college towns.
The workforce in academia (and hence the population of most small college towns) is incredibly segregated by class, race, and gender. Try asking yourself why it's so much easier for white academics to form friendships and find commonality with middle-class/wealthy people from other countries, than with working-class people from their own city.
Gramps, you are in the PNW which is historically hostile to black residents - how many American-born black families live in your school district at all?
By the way, I grew up a faculty brat in Chapel Hill - one of the towns featured in the above Atlantic article - so I do know the territory.
Our school district reports there are 1,742 (71.7%) Whites, 231 (9.5%) Asians/Pacific Islanders, 226 (9.3%) Asians, 225 (9.3%) Hispanics, 154 (6.3%) people with two or more races, 62 (2.6%) Blacks, 14 (0.6%) American Indians/Alaskan Natives and 5 (0.2%) Pacific Islanders. According to the census bureau, there are 1,038 African Americans (2018) in my community compared to 450 and 305 respectively in communities of similar size in the congressional district
Please do not stereotype my community. We are far different from Chapel Hill. I can tell you as far as academia is concerned, though, the number of chairs, administrative officers we have are proportionate to our faculty numbers. We recently lost a well-liked president of the university to cancer who was African American.
Bizarrely, racial-ethnic stereotypes cut in many directions, indicating that this is a human problem, not just a pernicious invention of a "white"-Euro-centric-Imperialist-Capitalist power structure ...
As far as my knowledge of Chapel Hill is concerned, I had a good friend who was a faculty member there and we visited them once. He is now retired. My daughter also considered becoming a student there, which I would have supported (my motto: I don't care where you go to school as long as it is 500 miles from home.)
So, little if anything from direct, personal experience upon which to assert that where you live is “far different.”
Why is it you chose to triangulate a discussion between Antisocial Alto and myself? I know very little about Chapel Hill just as AA knows very little about my university--or, for that matter--you.
Okay, we'll assume for the sake of discussion that Gramps' town is far different from Chapel Hill (for one thing, it appears to have about 18 percent fewer black residents). But is it also far different from Berkeley and Ann Arbor? They have similar problems with "excellent" public school systems that produce a tremendous achievement gap.
Okay, we'll assume for the sake of discussion that Gramps' town is far different from Chapel Hill (for one thing, it appears to have about 18 percent fewer black residents). But is it also far different from Berkeley and Ann Arbor? They have similar problems with "excellent" public school systems that produce a tremendous achievement gap.
Different from Minneapolis, Minnesota, too, I'm sure ..
So, the run-off takes place the day before Congress is to confirm the vote in the Electoral College. Will the new Georgia senators be able to participate in the spectacle, erm, deliberations? Will their swearing-in be accelerated?
So, the run-off takes place the day before Congress is to confirm the vote in the Electoral College. Will the new Georgia senators be able to participate in the spectacle, erm, deliberations? Will their swearing-in be accelerated?
I doubt that the ballots will be fully tabulated by Wednesday ...
So, the run-off takes place the day before Congress is to confirm the vote in the Electoral College. Will the new Georgia senators be able to participate in the spectacle, erm, deliberations? Will their swearing-in be accelerated?
No. There’s simply no way it can happen that quickly.
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D), who Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) named as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris' replacement, is set to assume the seat after Harris resigns following the Jan. 20 inauguration.
{snip}
A Democratic victory in both seats would result in a 50-50 split in the chamber, with tie votes broken by Harris.
Can we just briefly celebrate the other participant in that phone conversation, a Georgia Republican demonstrating considerable integrity in the face of pressure?
Can we just briefly celebrate the other participant in that phone conversation, a Georgia Republican demonstrating considerable integrity in the face of pressure?
Yes indeed. I think back to watching The West Wing and plot lines where even senators would avoid talking to the President because they knew he would ask them to do something they didn't want to and they didn't feel they could say no. I think back and I shudder to think what may have gone on in the last four years with that mindset in place, and I am deeply relieved that there are Republican officials who retain some vestige of integrity and respect for the electoral process and the rule of law.
Can we just briefly celebrate the other participant in that phone conversation, a Georgia Republican demonstrating considerable integrity in the face of pressure?
Yes, but let's not discount the fact that they are also demonstrating considerable ass-covering. This isn't just adopting the moral high ground in my view.
Amid widespread outrage including calls for a second impeachment, Bob Bauer, a senior Biden adviser, said: “We now have irrefutable proof of a president pressuring and threatening an official of his own party to get him to rescind a state’s lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place.”
Outrage? Of course.
Trump won’t care, he feeds off outrage. It’s the attention he craves. He’ll become ever more outrageous as the spotlight inevitably moves away from him.
So, the run-off takes place the day before Congress is to confirm the vote in the Electoral College. Will the new Georgia senators be able to participate in the spectacle, erm, deliberations? Will their swearing-in be accelerated?
I doubt that the ballots will be fully tabulated by Wednesday ...
The technical answer is "yes", provided the election is so lopsided a victory as to leave no doubt as to the outcome. As @Fr Teilhard points out the realistic answer is "no", they'll likely still be counting votes and nothing will be certified by the proper authorities yet. Simplifying things is that mail-in ballots in Georgia must be received no later than 7:00 pm on Election Day, so there isn't the issue of late arriving mail-in ballots.
That sounds like the old "we have lots of diversity except for black people and poor people" problem. At historically white universities, why are there so many more professors who moved here from foreign countries, than African-American professors?
Acadaemia is fairly international. You find academics from all over the world in most countries (well, most countries with some good universities). That's a good thing. I still remember the look on the face of one lecturer from Russia, in my UK university, at the laughter that echoed around the room when the top text on his list of recommended texts was in German. (Basically, he said "this is the best text I know on the topic. It's in German. For those of you who don't read German, these two in English are quite good". The assembled class of Brits was contemptuous of the idea that anyone might possibly read a textbook in German. I don't think my tourist-level German would have been up to reading that textbook, but I was rather ashamed of my classmates' contemptuous laughter.)
This kind of international diversity is a good thing, but it doesn't replace the domestic diversity of also having a diverse representation of your local population.
Try asking yourself why it's so much easier for white academics to form friendships and find commonality with middle-class/wealthy people from other countries, than with working-class people from their own city.
Commonality of interest?
I'm the white academic from another country, living in the US. I like interesting people, by which I mean people who have some kind of interesting geeky focused knowledge that I find interesting. People who have the time and money available to develop that kind of interest are usually economically comfortable - usually not "rich", but usually pretty secure. It doesn't have to be an academic interest - some of my local friends carve wood with hand tools, or brew up chemicals in the garage to make various kinds of old-fashioned photograph (tintypes etc.) But they all have expertise in something that makes for an interesting conversation.
I've no interest in vapid socialites, or sports, so if you're the kind of person whose interests revolve around the lives of celebrities, the local sports team, and attending parties, then we probably have nothing in common.
I like my current neighbours. They're nice people, we shovel each other's driveways in the winter, feed each other's cats when we're away, and chat from time to time. But we have absolutely nothing in common, beyond living in adjacent houses. We don't enjoy the things they like, and they don't enjoy the things that we like. So we're not friends, and don't spend any time together.
That sounds like the old "we have lots of diversity except for black people and poor people" problem. At historically white universities, why are there so many more professors who moved here from foreign countries, than African-American professors?
Acadaemia is fairly international. You find academics from all over the world in most countries (well, most countries with some good universities). That's a good thing. I still remember the look on the face of one lecturer from Russia, in my UK university, at the laughter that echoed around the room when the top text on his list of recommended texts was in German. (Basically, he said "this is the best text I know on the topic. It's in German. For those of you who don't read German, these two in English are quite good". The assembled class of Brits was contemptuous of the idea that anyone might possibly read a textbook in German. I don't think my tourist-level German would have been up to reading that textbook, but I was rather ashamed of my classmates' contemptuous laughter.)
My university department (physics) had a lot of academics from the former communist countries. I assume this was because they were both skilled and comparatively cheap. This did lead to a conversation where a class was complaining about how difficult the Particle Physics II course was only to have the Georgian lecturer retort along the lines of "how do you think I feel, I learned it all in a different alphabet". I was also puzzled for a time about what mathematical objects mattresses might be. I did have a fellow student who made use of at least one textbook written in German, but as he was studying group theory that wasn't quite the challenge it would have been if he'd been studying, say, psychology.
I remember when I was in college one of my professors of history came in and read an article he had found to us. We were furiously taking notes. When he was done, he told us he would put it on reserve in the library, but then he said "Of course, it is in Russian." I think there were only two in class that were fluent in Russian,
In grad school (history and philosophy) there were almost always (for my courses) readings in English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish. Certainly we weren't expected to have a reading knowledge of all the languages (I always wondered how the comp lit people could possibly manage!), but we were expected to have one other than English that we knew well enough to get through an article, if not a full book, for the following week's session. One professor, for a third year undergrad course in Reformation history, told us in the first session that if we couldn't read german we were wasting out time. It was his way culling the herd. (Notoriously not a people person.)
In grad school (history and philosophy) there were almost always (for my courses) readings in English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish. Certainly we weren't expected to have a reading knowledge of all the languages (I always wondered how the comp lit people could possibly manage!), but we were expected to have one other than English that we knew well enough to get through an article, if not a full book, for the following week's session. One professor, for a third year undergrad course in Reformation history, told us in the first session that if we couldn't read german we were wasting out time. It was his way culling the herd. (Notoriously not a people person.)
At the time, my languages were German, Greek, and Hebrew. I could wade into Latin a bit if I had to. Unfortunately, if you don't use the languages you lose them. I donated my Biblica Hebraica to a seminary in Africa this summer. I can still work through the Novum Testamentum, and I was able to refresh my German when I was over there a couple of years ago.
Since I grew up in rural Southern Idaho I did pick up Spanish too.
So, can this fascist and his black shirts be stopped from paralysing, infecting and inflaming America? At all? He cannot be shut up. He makes Nixon look saintly. How much more damage does he have to do before Pence invokes the 25th? And on what basis? If Trump's cabinet ignore him he will fire them. All. Then what? America's already objectively flawed democracy is getting even more shamefully, and precipitously, breath holdingly, worse.
Former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was just on CNN (with Wolf Blitzer) - talking like an adult, and also thanking and praising the media for their work.
Sighs of relief. Powell is VERY outspoken about the incumbent, and asking why nobody was standing up to him in Congress, which, as he says, is not what Congress is for - they're needed for the balance of powers.
Forget about that Martin. There's an undercurrent of fascism all over Europe and its offshoots that just requires the right circumstances to breach. Its probably in other cultures too, but I don't know enough about them to say. Actually, is that your Socratic point? I think it probably is.
I am very grateful to Trump for being such a foolish fascist. If someone smart and with good tactical nous was running the American Right, they would not have shot their shot (video contains cross dressing) yesterday.
Throw the book at Trump and his minions, but fighting fascists is a game of whack-a-mole.
Good for Powell. He's a complicated guy...but I kind of wish we'd had him for president. His family, terrified for his safety, talked him out of running.
Former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was just on CNN (with Wolf Blitzer) - talking like an adult, and also thanking and praising the media for their work.
Sighs of relief. Powell is VERY outspoken about the incumbent, and asking why nobody was standing up to him in Congress, which, as he says, is not what Congress is for - they're needed for the balance of powers.
Powell is a mensch. I would have voted for him had he run - it would have been my first ever vote for a GOP presidential candidate. Since he didn't that vote is yet to emerge.
Powell. I'll never ever forget him talking about "killing it", when referring to destroying the retreating the Iraqi army. Yes, mass killing of retreating soldiers. That isn't a mensch. That's something else entirely. Combined with scary, dangerous and hateful.
You've got a weird concept of war, NP. Killing of enemy soldiers is usually considered an important element, whether they're advancing or retreating. What were you expecting, mass hugging?
And in any case, he wasn't specifically talking about the "retreating" Iraqi army. He was describing the general plan for the ground offensive before it had started ("Our strategy to go after this army is very, very simple. First, we're going to cut it off, and then we're going to kill it.") The Iraqi army hadn't had time to start retreating yet.
I'm convinced Powell is a good man. I don't know why he let himself be talked into misleading the UN. I haven't read the second half of his autobiography yet. The chapters on his life up to the Vietnam war were good insights for me into two different families. Powell's was from a Jamaican immigrant family in New York - factory workers from memory who were very involved in their Episcopalian church. His wife's family was from Birmingham Alabama. I can't remember her Father's occupation but they were wealthy compared to their neighbors. Reading his and Charles Blow's autobiography helped me understand something of the rich variety of African American lives.
I'm convinced Powell is a good man. I don't know why he let himself be talked into misleading the UN.
That's what he does. Powell got his start explaining away U.S. atrocities in Vietnam. He's always been a "good soldier" about pushing the official line to the press and the public.
I'm convinced Powell is a good man. I don't know why he let himself be talked into misleading the UN. I haven't read the second half of his autobiography yet.
You’re convinced he’s a good man because that’s how he comes across in his autobiography?
Is that his story? All those years in the Army, and the thought of him running for president terrified them?
Glad we got someone else, then, who wasn’t instrumental in lying us into the Iraq war.
Well, Powell's family was terrified he'd be assassinated for being African American. I think they were wise. And that's not just his story--it's *theirs*. IIRC, they were public about it.
As to the rest: like I said, he's complicated. But I think he has the instincts, skills, and makings of a great leader, and I'm sorry he didn't get to use those as president.
Comments
Bizarrely, racial-ethnic stereotypes cut in many directions, indicating that this is a human problem, not just a pernicious invention of a "white"-Euro-centric-Imperialist-Capitalist power structure ...
Why is it you chose to triangulate a discussion between Antisocial Alto and myself? I know very little about Chapel Hill just as AA knows very little about my university--or, for that matter--you.
Different from Minneapolis, Minnesota, too, I'm sure ..
If he made such a call to the Georgia SoS, has he made similar threatening calls to the SoSs of OTHER states where Biden won?
Because overturning Georgia's result is pointless without doing the same thing in other states.
I would like to see sworn affidavits from all the affected SoSs confirming whether or not they have had similar conversations with Trump.
I think he is fixated on Georgia -- today -- because of the run-off election on Tuesday ...
I doubt that the ballots will be fully tabulated by Wednesday ...
Yes indeed. I think back to watching The West Wing and plot lines where even senators would avoid talking to the President because they knew he would ask them to do something they didn't want to and they didn't feel they could say no. I think back and I shudder to think what may have gone on in the last four years with that mindset in place, and I am deeply relieved that there are Republican officials who retain some vestige of integrity and respect for the electoral process and the rule of law.
Yes, but let's not discount the fact that they are also demonstrating considerable ass-covering. This isn't just adopting the moral high ground in my view.
Outrage? Of course.
Trump won’t care, he feeds off outrage. It’s the attention he craves. He’ll become ever more outrageous as the spotlight inevitably moves away from him.
The technical answer is "yes", provided the election is so lopsided a victory as to leave no doubt as to the outcome. As @Fr Teilhard points out the realistic answer is "no", they'll likely still be counting votes and nothing will be certified by the proper authorities yet. Simplifying things is that mail-in ballots in Georgia must be received no later than 7:00 pm on Election Day, so there isn't the issue of late arriving mail-in ballots.
Acadaemia is fairly international. You find academics from all over the world in most countries (well, most countries with some good universities). That's a good thing. I still remember the look on the face of one lecturer from Russia, in my UK university, at the laughter that echoed around the room when the top text on his list of recommended texts was in German. (Basically, he said "this is the best text I know on the topic. It's in German. For those of you who don't read German, these two in English are quite good". The assembled class of Brits was contemptuous of the idea that anyone might possibly read a textbook in German. I don't think my tourist-level German would have been up to reading that textbook, but I was rather ashamed of my classmates' contemptuous laughter.)
This kind of international diversity is a good thing, but it doesn't replace the domestic diversity of also having a diverse representation of your local population.
Commonality of interest?
I'm the white academic from another country, living in the US. I like interesting people, by which I mean people who have some kind of interesting geeky focused knowledge that I find interesting. People who have the time and money available to develop that kind of interest are usually economically comfortable - usually not "rich", but usually pretty secure. It doesn't have to be an academic interest - some of my local friends carve wood with hand tools, or brew up chemicals in the garage to make various kinds of old-fashioned photograph (tintypes etc.) But they all have expertise in something that makes for an interesting conversation.
I've no interest in vapid socialites, or sports, so if you're the kind of person whose interests revolve around the lives of celebrities, the local sports team, and attending parties, then we probably have nothing in common.
I like my current neighbours. They're nice people, we shovel each other's driveways in the winter, feed each other's cats when we're away, and chat from time to time. But we have absolutely nothing in common, beyond living in adjacent houses. We don't enjoy the things they like, and they don't enjoy the things that we like. So we're not friends, and don't spend any time together.
My university department (physics) had a lot of academics from the former communist countries. I assume this was because they were both skilled and comparatively cheap. This did lead to a conversation where a class was complaining about how difficult the Particle Physics II course was only to have the Georgian lecturer retort along the lines of "how do you think I feel, I learned it all in a different alphabet". I was also puzzled for a time about what mathematical objects mattresses might be. I did have a fellow student who made use of at least one textbook written in German, but as he was studying group theory that wasn't quite the challenge it would have been if he'd been studying, say, psychology.
"Mattesses" = "matrices"?
Well, given books like "The Mathematical Magpie", "The Mathematical Mattress" might do well. The form of the springs; planes; etc.
Yep.
Less linguistic and more plain bizarre was the same lecturer's analogy of perturbation theory to a woman with hairy breasts.
At the time, my languages were German, Greek, and Hebrew. I could wade into Latin a bit if I had to. Unfortunately, if you don't use the languages you lose them. I donated my Biblica Hebraica to a seminary in Africa this summer. I can still work through the Novum Testamentum, and I was able to refresh my German when I was over there a couple of years ago.
Since I grew up in rural Southern Idaho I did pick up Spanish too.
Yep
He has to be arrested, charged, tried and convicted. For what?
That's probably one case Trump can win.
Sighs of relief. Powell is VERY outspoken about the incumbent, and asking why nobody was standing up to him in Congress, which, as he says, is not what Congress is for - they're needed for the balance of powers.
Forget about that Martin. There's an undercurrent of fascism all over Europe and its offshoots that just requires the right circumstances to breach. Its probably in other cultures too, but I don't know enough about them to say. Actually, is that your Socratic point? I think it probably is.
I am very grateful to Trump for being such a foolish fascist. If someone smart and with good tactical nous was running the American Right, they would not have shot their shot (video contains cross dressing) yesterday.
Throw the book at Trump and his minions, but fighting fascists is a game of whack-a-mole.
Glad we got someone else, then, who wasn’t instrumental in lying us into the Iraq war.
Powell is a mensch. I would have voted for him had he run - it would have been my first ever vote for a GOP presidential candidate. Since he didn't that vote is yet to emerge.
And in any case, he wasn't specifically talking about the "retreating" Iraqi army. He was describing the general plan for the ground offensive before it had started ("Our strategy to go after this army is very, very simple. First, we're going to cut it off, and then we're going to kill it.") The Iraqi army hadn't had time to start retreating yet.
That's what he does. Powell got his start explaining away U.S. atrocities in Vietnam. He's always been a "good soldier" about pushing the official line to the press and the public.
deleted
Well, Powell's family was terrified he'd be assassinated for being African American. I think they were wise. And that's not just his story--it's *theirs*. IIRC, they were public about it.
As to the rest: like I said, he's complicated. But I think he has the instincts, skills, and makings of a great leader, and I'm sorry he didn't get to use those as president.
How long before *real* Trump tweets the opposite?