WOKE - Defined

 Vivek Ramaswamy says it...

Methinks we may have lost a voice that might've tempered some of the lack of forethought. 

Robert Lepage's *Ring*

A *superb* documentary.

Maga Mentality (non-existent)

Reading Collision of Power by Martin Baron. 

On p. 102 he offers this observation of an incident covered by a Post reporter during Trump's 2016 campaign:

Why the Dems Lost the Working Class

We all know classical is elitist, socialist & woke! YAY!

Somehow, the youtube performance got juxtaposed with The New York Times. Don't think the internet doesn't have a sense of humor.

Bruce! Bruce! BruuuuUUUCCEEE!

Work of Practical Beneficence

It was an osmotic process: finding something to do. I'd signed up for June's Senior Cat Rescue's newsletters and was impressed by the writing. It was a natural extension of my stock market research to researching grant opportunities -- the search money, donchyuhknow?

This morning, it's 4:14 a.m., I've been reading about Mackenzie Scott's philanthropy and found her essay: No Dollar Signs This Time. 

In these times where acquisitiveness and avarice are rampant, it offers some perspective...that recognizes a variety of expressions of kindness and generosity. And it's nicely written, besides.

https://yieldgiving.com/essays/no-dollar-signs-this-time?q=Anima

Schemenlaufen

Jon Klassen's artwork in The Three Billie Goats Gruff led to his retelling of the Tyrolian story of The Skull. In it the protagonist tells of collecting the masks worn in that region. Delving, we found the pre-Lenten festivals of Schemenlaufen and Blochziehen Fiss.

Schemenlaufen

Blochziehen Fiss

Aphorisms

 Michelle's mom descended from one of the Robber Baron families in Goshen, Indiana. 

This evening she imparted these two tidbits that i feel shiuld not be ploughed under. 

If at first you do not fricassee, fry, fry a hen. 

Chick inna car and the car won't go. That's how you spell ChiCAgo. 

One should emphasize the 2nd syllable in Chicago in order to impart the full measure of nuance.

Illustration by John Tenniel. (Public Domain)

If these don't suffice, you might contemplate the dearth of oysters on the beach after the passing of the carpenter & the walrus. 

Kiffness

The Kiffness is doing a worldtour! Here's his website with the places & dates.

https://www.thekiffness.com/

June 10th at Meow Wolf in Fanta Se. Only $25.00

Here're several of my favs

Warby Parker & Buckminster Fuller

Warby Parker's eyeglass emporium's aesthetic is dominated by books. 

Waiting while Michelle perused the selection, I pulled out Virtual Words.

Tap image to goto Amazon listing

Virtual Words is a "dictionary" of terms associated w the Web & cyberscience. He gives the etymology of qubit, a word i've recently encountered w my research of quantum computing companies and wondered about its numerical value. 

Another of Mr. Keats's books, also from Oxford University Press, is a reprise of Buckminster Fuller. It's available here for free from the Internet Archive or you can tap the image to goto Amazon's listing.  .

Of the thousands of books in the store, what were my chances? 

I got out of RGTI at $19.24 just before it fell 47% to around $10.50. One of the pundits commented "It's smart to not be greedy." Lucky Herrmann!

RGTI closed 10.Jan at $8.93 

America's Mediocrity

On 26.Dec.2024 at 9:06 a.m., V. Ramaswavy (the other DOGE leader) posted on  X

The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:

Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.

A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.

A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers.

(Fact: I know multiple sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates).

More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less “hanging out at the mall.”

 

Most normal American parents look skeptically at “those kinds of parents.” More normal American kids view such “those kinds of kids” with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.

Now close your eyes & visualize which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest.

“Normalcy” doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.

This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.

That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it. 

I'm skeptical. Dad, who was a double-agent in the 2nd WW, ostensibly on the American side, used to say w scathing sarcasm, "Americans think culture is a hamburger."

The veneration of mediocrity has been going on a lot longer than the '90s.

A country that elects an avowed pussy-grabber deserves what it gets. Now that I'm playing the stock market, I'm looking forward to Trump lowering or DOING AWAY WITH!! the tax on capital gains. 

MAGA!  MAGA! MAGGOT!!

LET's GO!!!

WAY TO HUSTLE!!

Let 'em eat cake.