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Thursday Link Encyclopedia 

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The road back to reality will be long for climate activists. 

And the road to getting some shame and not being such entitled drama queens will be even longer for some.

A good solution for surplus people: drug them up with legal ecstasy and they won’t bother you.

A great post on the bankruptcy of hypocrisy charges.

An unexpectedly good post on diversity at Inside Higher Ed.No, really.

This is the absolute worst thing in higher ed. I have absolutely no idea how to teach when so many people are convinced that mentioning something equals celebrating its existence.

37 responses to “Thursday Link Encyclopedia ”

  1. Stringer Bell Avatar
    Stringer Bell

    Nice post on cultural appropriation.

    http://fredrikdeboer.com/2016/12/01/no-one-has-the-slightest-idea-what-is-and-isnt-cultural-appropriation/

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. AcademicLurker Avatar
      AcademicLurker

      I just had falafel for lunch from the Middle Eastern cart across the street.

      Doh! Cultural appropriation!!!!

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Great article. The concept of cultural appropriation is about making one’s consumption more exclusive through limiting access to what one consumes. It’s all consumer sports.

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  2. The Dark Avenger Avatar
    The Dark Avenger

    <

    blockquote>The regulatory green-light follows six smaller-scale trials that showed remarkable success using the drug. In fact, some of the 130 PTSD patients involved in those trials say ecstasy—or 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)—saved them from the devastating impacts of PTSD after more than a decade of seeing no improvement with the other treatment options available.

    PTSD doesn’t just happen to surplus people, FYI.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Did you see one of the preceding posts where the author argues that everybody has PTSD because of the election? How hard it is to get a doctor to prescribe pretty much anything if you claim you are in pain? Hey, I literally had a doctor chase me out into the parking lot with an opioid prescription and I didn’t even ask for one.

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      1. The Dark Avenger Avatar
        The Dark Avenger

        Um, just because people untrained in medicine make stupid statements doesn’t undermine his reporting of the facts in this case, about people who were diagnosed with PTSD by medical professionals and had no relief until they got MDMA for treatment.

        You’re confusing apples and oranges here. That’s just what I would expect from a neurotic like you(see how that works?

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          There is this great book titled Dreamland that I highly recommend. There is a part in there that discusses how the American medical establishment adopted the philosophy that if a patient claims to be in pain, it’s necessary to prescribe whatever the patient demands even if there is no proof that the pain is real. The heroin epidemic we keep hearing about is the result of adopting that philosophy. How is it a good idea to get the half of the population that is still not on heroin on to ecstasy?

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          1. The Dark Avenger Avatar
            The Dark Avenger

            Opioids, like alcohol, nicotine, barbiturates, and meth, can induce physiological dependence in a user, which is not true of MDMA, LSD, or hallucinogenics in general. If you could find a MDMA junkie, it would be worth a paper in a major medical journal.

            I love how you cite a flibbertygibbet doctor who probably can’t understand you if he has to follow you out to the car with a prescription for an opioid.

            Around here in California, we’ve begun sending doctors to jail for overprescribing narcotics for patients who either sell it off or ending up ODing later on said narcotics under a law that was passed a few years ago.

            http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-doctor-murder-overdose-drugs-sentencing-20160205-story.html

            What you know about drugs could fill a flea’s navel.

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              “I love how you cite a flibbertygibbet doctor who probably can’t understand you if he has to follow you out to the car with a prescription for an opioid.”

              • I had just had two teeth removed. Of course, nobody could understand me. But neither this nor what’s addictive or not has any relevance to what’s being discussed. The subject of the discussion is that people who are not needed by the market will be pushed off into a narcotic haze where they will vegetate and not disturb anybody. That’s a model of social engineering that is coming into vogue right now. What the narcotic is has little importance.

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  3. J. Otto Pohl Avatar
    J. Otto Pohl

    What I have been talking about in class all week.

    http://jpohl.blogspot.com/2016/11/more-on-soviet-kurds.html

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  4. el Avatar
    el

    In case you missed it. So good:

    http://morreth.livejournal.com/2970406.html

    Wonder if Americans or Europeans would get the poem.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Wow, that’s really good. Thank you, I love it.

      Freud wasn’t post-Soviet, so I’m thinking everybody with a functioning brain would understand. It would even make sense to use the poem to teach Intro to Psychoanalysis, if anybody dared teach such a course.

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  5. el Avatar
    el

    Linking it since the part about Zionism and trees is true (even I heard many times about Jews making desert bloom), but I have never thought about the reasons for Arabs’ behavior till now.

    http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1480687505

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      “http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1480687505”

      • Good article.

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  6. el Avatar
    el

    That’s what I thought too:

    \ The Zionists did not ask themselves why the country was bereft of so many kinds of trees. The obvious answer was that the Arabs didn’t care, that’s just the kind of people they are. No love for the country. No love for trees.

    And I do identify with hating “the Palestinian landscape as it was.”

    Interesting whether Uri is right here, or if lack of trees also derived from Arab poverty and inferior technology, leading to different priorities and abilities, respectfully.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I’d say it’s possible that people who come from someplace else want to recreate the familiar landscapes and plant trees. And those who haven’t lived elsewhere don’t see a problem with the landscape the way it is.

      It’s just my guess.

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  7. el Avatar
    el

    https://scontent-waw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/s480x480/15095087_1452050818142570_6208773808329567118_n.jpg?oh=ae15e95883fd6219b9682fbd67428f15&oe=58B863DE

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    1. Dreidel Avatar
      Dreidel

      Oh, no!!! That idiot Trump has started World War III before he’s even in office!

      Or perhaps not…According to several news sources, Trump merely accepted an incoming congratulatory call from Taiwan’s FEMALE leader (something that a certain Western country — cough! cough — just failed to elect).

      So far, Beijing has sought to play down the importance of the phone call, with foreign minister Wang Yi dismissing it as “just a small trick” by Taiwan. No doubt, China will have a much tougher message for Obama’s cringing, lame-duck administration as it slinks out the corridors of power.

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      1. Stringer Bell Avatar
        Stringer Bell

        “So far, Beijing has sought to play down the importance of the phone call, with foreign minister Wang Yi dismissing it as “just a small trick” by Taiwan.”

        Basically they said Trump is a small child who doesn’t know any better. ‘Got tricked’ by a minnow like Taiwan, and that this changes nothing.

        Interesting to see Dreidel who never misses a chance to tell us when Obama has been humiliated (real or imagined) make such an ignorant and willful misinterpretation of China’s statement when it concerns Trump.

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        1. Dreidel Avatar
          Dreidel

          DIRECT QUOTES from Chinese officials are a “ignorant and willful misinterpretation of China’s statement?? 🙂

          Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the call between Taiwan’s president and Trump was “just a small trick by Taiwan” that he believed would not change U.S. policy toward China, according to Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV. (Hong Kong television report)

          Earlier Saturday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi labeled the phone call “a shenanigan by the Taiwan side” when he was asked about it on the sidelines of a foreign policy seminar. (CNN report)

          Your feathers are SO easy to ruffle, Stringer Boy! Thanks — this website wouldn’t be the same without you.

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          1. Stringer Bell Avatar
            Stringer Bell

            In diplomat-speak, making a statement that the POTUS was duped by a ‘small trick’ is a humiliating remark.

            Love how ‘never-Trump’ Dreidel has been carrying water for his hero the moment he was elected. And to think Hillary Clinton wasted time and resources to appeal to people like you.

            Enjoy your victory, dude.

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              For as long as people notice and object to such things, we are not living in an autocracy. So let’s all be very thankful that this faux pas is being discussed and not accepted in silence. Slipping into autocracy is easy because it’s so seductive. And Americans have a secret love for totalitarianism and will create one the second they get a chance.

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            2. Dreidel Avatar
              Dreidel

              “Enjoy your victory, dude.”

              Hey, “dude,” Hillary’s reptilian competence kept me from voting for Trump — so obviously her time and resources aimed in my direction weren’t completely wasted.

              On the other hand, since you haven’t even bothered to become an American citizen while you keep freely taking advantage of all the benefits that this country has to offer, you’ve contributed NOTHING to this election AT ALL except your smug, hateful superiority toward Americans who do exercise their right to vote — and your crudely expressed contempt almost certainly never influenced a single vote.

              For better or worse, Trump is going to be President for at least the next four years. You can damn him to hell if you want, but until you become a U.S. citizen and start becoming politically active at some level, you can’t do a goddamn thing to influence the outcome.

              So if being a bitter outsider with no influence is all you’re aiming for, keep up the impotent hated while those of us with a party affiliation and the right to vote proceed to determine your adopted country’s future for you.

              But hey, why don’t you just try to chill out for the next few months? This is the holiday season and all. 🙂

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              1. Stringer Bell Avatar
                Stringer Bell

                Yeah, that’s what I’m aiming for when I post comments on this blog: influencing elections.

                Your rant, cribbed from Rush Limbaugh, is misplaced. Sad!

                Like

              2. Stringer Bell Avatar
                Stringer Bell

                “For better or worse, Trump is going to be President for at least the next four years.”

                Yes. And he’s going to be called stupid a LOT for at least the next four years. Get used to it. Don’t want you to have a stroke every time someone calls your hero an idiot. Chill.

                Like

  8. NG Avatar
    NG

    Trump has just made a pubic call to the leader of TAIWAN and publicly tweeted about it breaking 37 years of protocol and making a major US policy shift. Does he know the difference between President Elect and President? Does he care?

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    1. Shakti Avatar
      Shakti

      Trump has just made a pubic call to the leader of TAIWAN

      I… Just pray that he doesn’t understand that Snapchat is a thing. Then we’ll be bombarded with breathless chyons about the garbage he posts there.

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  9. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    Now Is The Time to Talk About What We Are Actually Talking About
    I can’t excerpt the whole thing, obviously.
    The case for women is not that they are inherently better or more moral. It is that they are half of humanity and should have the same opportunities—and be judged according to the same standards—as the other half.

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    1. Shakti Avatar
      Shakti

      Now is the time to call things what they actually are, because language can illuminate truth as much as it can obfuscate it. Now is the time to forge new words. “Alt-right” is benign. “White-supremacist right” is more accurate.

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  10. el Avatar
    el

    Interesting approach from кандидат психологических наук:

    http://hbr-russia.ru/biznes-i-obshchestvo/fenomeny/a18445/

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Good article! This part especially:

      Школа не готова приспосабливаться к современному ребенку и к тому типу общества, в котором ему придется жить. В школьников по-прежнему запихивают объем информации, а сегодня надо учить компетенциям, трекам, по которым ребенок сможет добывать знания сам.

      This is precisely what I keep telling to students and what I was saying in the thread on jobs.

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      1. el Avatar
        el

        I thought you would disagree with “Не будут они читать,” especially since you are a uni lit prof.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          I see no difference in reading from a screen than from a printed page.

          And by the way, the percentage of people who read literature and access cultural products was minuscule in all epochs.

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  11. el Avatar
    el

    Remember Merkel talking how immigrants are not terrorists? Here:

    http://www.germanjoys.eu/2016/12/another-17-year-old-afghan-goes-on-a-murder-spree.html

    Interesting whether it will influence German elections.

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  12. el Avatar
    el

    Felt bad reading Andrew’s comment. Of course, nobody deserves to be raped and murdered (except may be that murderer himself), but those people do sound as remarkably decent:

    http://www.germanjoys.eu/2016/12/unusual-haircut-leads-to-arrest-in-rape-murder-case.html#comment-6a00d834516a2569e201b7c8b83ca9970b

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    1. cliff arroyo Avatar
      cliff arroyo

      “but those people do sound as remarkably decent:”

      I’m going to sound hard-hearted here, but all things considered I’d rather that negative consequences of Merkel’s decision to bring in hundreds of thousands of unvetted migrants fell upon those who supported that policy.

      Of course, I’d rather that sort of thing happened to no one, but if it happens to supporters the quicker that people will realize just how catastrophicaly wrongheaded her decision was and take steps to rectify it. If it happened to low income Germans who didn’t think it was a good idea in the first place then those who support it wouldn’t really care and would go right on supporting it.

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  13. el Avatar
    el

    Putin’s Great Patriotic Pseudoscience
    Russia has a proud history of scientific inquiry and advancement. Now the Kremlin is investing in academic kooks and conspiracies.

    Putin’s Great Patriotic Pseudoscience

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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