Welcome"A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel." (Robert Frost, cited by Barak Obama)
The following in the violet border is not text. It is an image containinig text. I seem to recall it was the entire facebook posting to which I responded but (BMcC[18-11-46-503]) I failed explicitly to log that fact.
I think all progressives and radicals should be admonished that the probable reason Bush beat Gore in 2000 was that Ralph Nadir (misspelling intended! [right]) said there was no big difference between the two so it didnt't matter that his campaign gave Floriade to Bush. Shame to the Nadir of American politics and all who voted for him![2]
I going to disagree. The purpose of the vote was to establish a viable 3rd party and get funded as such. Clearly the 2 party system is a major drag on US politics. In the same last 20 years, in Europe and elsewhere we've seen the Greens and many other progressive parties take commanding roles in broad coalitions of parties holding power where the need is to collaborate and work together. Those oountries are better off in almost every measure than the United States. The over-riding reality is that Gore ran a very well documented catastrophe of an election. The New Yorker wrote a devastating piece on just how terrible it was. We've had continual problems in the Democrats allowing for basic principles to fall away even when they've controlled the Presidency, the Senate and the House, as Obama did in his first two years. With our fawning consent he was busy expanding the powers of the Executive that gloriously paved the way for Trump to do so even more and say, Hey, Obama did it. As many people have said, Trump and Covid have exposed the rot. If you think the rot is Nader, that's pretty sad. The Democrats piss away opportunity and may again today. I'm voting Biden and Harris. I think Biden's choice of Harris is the best possible. I'm hoping that they're forced to support Medicare for All by the convention. If not we need to keep holding them accountable. Democrats should not be participating in the wholesale murder of black, brown, poor and old people. Nader has never done that. And I hope you get on to a new "brilliant" topic, Brad. All the best for Sunday.
Agree that Nadir is not the rot. But I think he enabled it. IMO George W. Bush was a catastrophe, albeit a minor catastrophe compared to Trump. Bush's aneurysm ecomony which burst certainly hurt me personally. I think Al Gore ran a very ill advised campaign, although I think the reason it was ill advised is that he thought of himself as something like a Roman Republic Senator, but America was sleaze. Gore didn't stoop to ask Clinton to help him. I think that was his big mistake. I think with Al Gore we would have much better climate policy and less likely would the economy have busted as in the GWB regime. I forgot: No Bush, no prodigal son's IRAQ WAR to hand his daddy Saddam Hussein's head. The root of all evil? I think that goes back at least to Ronnie Raygun who said California's public universities needed to learn to do without some "intellectual luxuries" and get on with teaching basic job skills. Donald J. Trump-L'oeil continues to trump himself, exceeding even such New York Times OpEd indictments as traitor (Susan Rice), and sending us all to "die for the Dow" (Paul Krugman). I know a man with a high IQ who is a Trumpie who is bedridden but fantasizes fighting it out at his front door in a new Civil War to defend his rights against the Democrats. There's a popular song from 1975: "America needs you Harry Truman...." Keep well, all!
"The meaning is the use" (Ludwig Wittgenstein; paraphrased)
Above image is second Facebook posting, which people seemed to like. I replied (including typos):
What are we going to rename Legionairres Disease? Swine flu? Avian influenza? Llasa fever? Lyme disease? Of course many people who use the phrase "China virus" may be racists but maybe they would still be racists if it was called "Noname Syndrome", wouldn't they? Does it have to be the case that words become IED's (Improvised explosive devices) and Semiotic hand grenades? If people don't watch out, all that will be left of the language is International Aviation English, in which oratory, poetry etc. is rather difficult to speak or savor. Isn't Ciovid like oriental martial arts: fighting by stealth not kilotonnage, -i.e., a :"Kung flu" (asymptomatic transmission)? Why deny good p[ersons the opportunity to have some ecologically, epidemiologically and otherwise safe fun playing woth words? As for the racists, they are bad even if their vocabularies are no bigger than Donald Trump's of Nancy Reagan's ("Just say no.")..
Reply to me, again on Facebook:
Too clever sometimes, Brad. Sorry. This isn't about controlling the language or about being smart. How would you like to have a life threatening disease named after you? And to have people attack you because of it? https://www.voanews.com/.../asian-frontline-medics-us...
My reply to said Facebook item, offline not public airing of dirty laundry. It is imperative to appreciate that I made this response offline to my interlocutor presicely for the reason of showing "sensitivity" to said person's public audience, i.e.: to their Wokiness, ignorance and/or any and all other prejudices and/or "sensitivities" they might have. This would have included sensitivity to the apparently extremely "thin skinned" world class MD+PhD virolgist whose sentivities my interlocutor was protecting. I did assume my interlocutor would be capable of coping with civil discourse. Herewith the email sent to said interlocutor, offine, repeat: offline, out of extreme respect for people's sensitivities:
Respectfully, [name withheld], for me this has nothing to do with cleverness or intellignce but with the integrity of human language and civilkization.
If I was a direct descendent of King Vlad the Impaler (who may have been the most evil person in all human history; see picture attached), I would be "cool" with it because I do not myself turn people into living shish-kabobs and I'd like to have royal blood and there is nothing I can do to have prevented him from committing his crimes 500 years ago. If I had discovered Alzheimer's disease, I would be honored to have it named after me (I would be trying to cure it). I think I am a "Polack".
I think political correctness is destroying the English language and academic freedom, too. See the Harper's magazine: "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate" from Summer 2020, concermng which I seem to have read that one signer: recanted. (remember poor Galileo Galilei who also recanted?)
It seems to me that America is headed toward a new version of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy witch-hunting, only this time targeting persons farther to the left [Corrected to: mainstream] in the political spectrum than "tailgunner Joe" did.
The doctor in the posting may not have really thought the culture wars problematic through in depth, and I can appreciate anybody being angry about whatever parts of this whole bad pandemic mess. And "China virus" is a blunt instrument, as opposed to, say "Wuhan virus" or "Kung flu". But it is a China virus (OK, maybe it's from Thailand?) just like I suppose Lyme disease came from Lyme Connecticut or Legionairres disease came from "in Philadelphia in 1976, largely among people attending a state convention of the American Legion, led to the name "Legionnaires' disease."
Any educated person in our current place and time who thinks that "political correctness" and "Wokeness" and such is good should study and absorb Julien Brenda's 1927 essay "The treason of he clerks". The New York Times newspaper and CNN are now lynching New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo in the kangaroo court of fashionable ideology.
Please, you are welcome to delete my posting if there is any way you can do it (Many "social media" at root are not intellectually respectable anyway wit their "FOLLOW" dreck [as opposed to possibly: "Subscribe"], which suggests persons are sheep). I recently joined the honorable ranks of those who have been censored by speaking out against ideology by being banned from a Reddit forum about which I will gladly provide details, where obscenities were rampant but speaking out against cancel culture and its pet jargon was verboten.
Again, please feel free to delete what I posted. I just now did a Google search and found that: "Lassa fever was first discovered in Nigeria, when two missionary nurses became ill with the virus in 1969. Its name is derived from the village of Lassa, where it was first documented. Lassa fever is a viral infection carried by the multimammate rat Mastomys natalensis (M. natalensis)." So what should we call that disease to not offend anybory?
To end on a humoroius note: "Sticks and stones can break my [fragile] bones, but the effect of names on me [apart from "pink slips"] depends on my ideological orientation.
[ Possibly identifying but conceptually irrelevant political reference removed. ]
Hope you [name withheld] keep well in the continuing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 or SARS-CoV-2 or whatever the name of the mutating virus is today!
Response to said private aside (I believe the correct name for the virus that causes "Covid-19" is: "SARS-CoV-2", but there can be differences in usage among persons none of whom are racists). Hiliting added by me (BMcC[18-11-46-503]):
[Possibly identifying text withheld], a well known and highly respected infectious disease specialist who also happens to be Asian. He's not a polemicist, nor does he use politically correct jargon. To be honest I don't know if he is Chinese or not. But I think you missed a very clear point that Ben was making. He was claiming his knowledge - "I know a thing or two about viruses" - and he pointed out that China virus isn't a virus, it's a slur. The correct name is COVID-19. Simple. End of.
And you're missing another very basic point. Asians are being attacked because of COVID-19. And there's an increase in attacks on Asians since COVid-19. And he was posting shortly after a group of Asian women were killed in Atlanta. A similar thing didn't happen about Legionnaires disease. I can't speak about Lyme. But a clear point is that people are using COVID-19 to play into existing stigma and discrimination against Asians. Lyme doesn't have a history of stigma and discrimination.
You can make your points all you want but I thought your point with a focus on your issues about political correctness, given the demonstrated issues around violence against Asians, including health providers, was insensitive.
I am well aware of issue of political correctness and often comment against it. Again, in the context of someone drawing attention to clear issues of violence, I would have stifled my urge to get all lecturey about it.
All the best to you, Brad. I'm going back to work.
