Judith

The way I heard it, a Texan and his wife were visiting Australia and doing the usual obnoxious thing, seeing things and saying that they were bigger in Texas.

Then they drove by a bunch of kangaroos, and the Texan said, "What the heck are those?"

The Australian guide deadpanned, "Mice."

"tank" as if being dunked in a deep tank of water. see also "deep six" and "eighty-eight" akin to "Davy Jones."

I assumed it wasn't a good thing based on the context. Thank you.

Judith -- there is nothing wrong with your finding nothing wrong with "erudite." Your other acceptances of correct, if wordy, statements is also personal, subjective, and valid. In a recent class in social psychology, we talked about the commercials running on TV for beer. I had to listen. We just got TV. Anyway, it was said that Sam Adams Beer plays up its colonial era craftsmanship and quality, whereas Budweiser sells friendship and enjoyment. MSK is selling Budweiser and you are buying Sam Adams. There is no problem with either. You are talking past each other. Judith, you seem to be the kind of upscale clientele buyer who is not distracted by content in an ad and, indeed, who is motivated by it. MSK is not chasing that market.

Interesting analogy. I don't watch TV, so I'm not familiar with the current ads for either. Odd thing is, though, I always liked the YouTube links that people sent me for the playing horses in the Budweiser commercials, especially the holiday one with the horses playing in the snow. Since I don't like beer, though, it wouldn't get me to buy the product. :-)

Judith

I have no doubt the erudite text will tank compared to the other one. I have already read of many cases where this happened.

The erudite text will what???

They can be avoided easily by substitution of a single word, such as "endure", etc. I don't see that one's style is seriously cramped thereby.

It depends on who you are writing to and what you are selling. If I were selling a dog training course, I would never expect good results from:

"Are you tired of hearing neighbors complain about your dog's barking? Well, that's one thing you don't have to endure!"

You could always tell the dog owner prospect:

"If you use the techniques in my course, I don't see that your dog's happiness will be seriously cramped thereby."

??? What in hell's wrong with those constructs? They sound just fine to me. Except, of course, for the dangling "that" (I don't know the technical term for it, but I was dinged for it in Freshman English and I never forgot the lesson) in the first one. Should be something more like, "Well, that indignity is one thing you don't have to endure!"

Judith

Winston Churchill said the last word on the claim that one must never end a sentence with a preposition. He said: "That is the kind of pedantic nonsense up with which I will not put."

And then there's this old joke:

A Texan is visiting a friend at Harvard. They had agreed to meet at the library, but the Texan is lost, so he stops a passing student.

He asks, "Could you tell me where the library's at?"

The student replies, "Around here, we don't end our sentences with prepositions."

The Texan responds, "All right, then, could you tell me where the library's at, asshole?"

As I heard it, a tourist was touring Boston and asked a local, "Can you recommend somewhere we might stop at?"

The local replied, "I would recommend, sir, stopping before the 'at'."

The whole problem often arises, as in the case with Churchill's example, with colloquial expressions, such as "put up with", ending with prepositions. They can be avoided easily by substitution of a single word, such as "endure", etc. I don't see that one's style is seriously cramped thereby.

But, if you consider the rule, it is crappy and inefficient, and goes to old-school grammar. You get one you're writing where it feels like the ender is "of," say, then, if you self-edit, consider the alternative, which is clunky as shit and basically just a given. "From whom it was..."

??? "From whom it was" sounds perfectly normal and colloquial to me.

I've got no problem with breaking rule #2 in colloquial speech or writing. Rules 1 and 3, however, sound so ugly when broken, and are so easy to avoid breaking, that there's really no excuse for breaking them even in oral communication. When broken, they just sound WRONG and grate on the ear.

Judith

Judith - The more you dig the more depressing stuff you find. I think freedom is more endangered today that at any time in recent generations. You'll see more of that in my future pieces. And believe me, I get as depressed and frustrated as anyone.

Humans are capable of the basest degeneracy. And as Rand shows, sometimes we're not being destroyed by some grand, formidable foe but, rather, by a bunch of little insects—my words, not her. (Judith, listen in Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben his musical representation of his critics that comes right after the rousing opening of that piece!)

But to live as humans means to seek the good, the true, and the beautiful. We as Objectivists must highlight dangers and attempt to provoke the just anger of our fellows to oppose their own enslavement. But we also must hold out the vision of what life can be and should be, for those possibilities are why we want and deserve freedom in the first place.

Remember in the Fountainhead, when Wynand gives Roark the commission for the Wynand building, Wynand says of it: "The last achievement of man on earth before mankind destroys itself."

Roark replies: "Mankind will never destroy itself, Mr. Wynand. Nor should it think of itself as destroyed. Not as long as it does things such as this."

And that was written when the Nazis and the Communists were major forces in the world.

And I believe it was Nathaniel Branden who said at the end of his Objectivism course that individuals shouldn't die for their ideals but live for them.

Remember that it was during the Peloponnesian War, when Athens was in a political mess that would ultimately lead to its defeat by Sparta, that Socrates taught and the great Greek dramatists wrote.

Thanks, Ed. I needed that.

You know, every time I think things can't possibly get any worse in the world, I read something new and find a new low. BO's antics are bad enough -- but I followed the links in Ed's article and found out about the European and UN attempts at tax harmonization.

Makes me glad I don't have children. Only thing is, the world might well crash while I'm still alive. :-(

By what raring scheme are the Thai and Indian doctors first class. Also, concerning medical service, would you go to a hospital in a country where 80 percent of the arable land is covered with cow shit and human shit. I am sure Indian doctors wash their hands and sterilize their instruments. It is not going to a hospital in India that concerns me. It is exiting from the hospital. If you go by life expectancy, apparently the excellence of Indian doctors have not help the population of their countries overly much.

Do your research. Excellent quality heart surgery, orthopedic surgery, and others are available in India in resort-class hospitals with superb service for about $10,000.

Times have changed.

Judith

I'm still confused.

As I understand it, once you're 65 you get Medicare A (hospital) automatically at no cost to you. Medicare B and D are optional. Now, when you don't have Medicare B and you are over 65 you can go to any doctor you want but that doctor cannot charge you any more than the Medicare B pay sheet permits unless he refuses all Medicare patients. Since I turn 65 on the 28th I have to choose whether I enroll in B and D.

What the heck are the differences between A, B, and D? Is there a C? :-)

If something really serious comes up, I can go abroad for treatment. I've refused to pay for private health insurance for over a decade because of mandates that inflate the cost and because I kept reading about fully insured who go bankrupt for medical costs anyway and because the insurance companies out of their own desperations screwed over their customers whenever and however they could--seemingly--and because of the way health care providers seemingly kept coming after the patients after the insurance paid out.

Are you saying you could go abroad for treatment of something serious because it would cost you less, you being uninsured, or because of legal issues with Medicare?

I believe in health insurance to protect against economic disaster, not for expected visits to the doctor.

YES!! YES!! A thousand times yes!

I wish people would begin to understand this concept. God damn it, that's what the term insurance MEANS! One doesn't buy auto insurance to cover replacement tires and oil changes! The coverage that always gets me whenever I'm looking over plans is "well baby visits". I'm supposed to pay into the premium pool for other people's babies to go to the doctor when they're WELL?? And these visits are anticipated by anyone having a baby, and therefore budgetable? But NO, we live in a society in which medical care has become expected to be "free", all because of a stupid tax loophole created after WWII. Makes me want to scream.

Judith

It is already virtually impossible to opt out of the current government-regulated system if you’re a senior citizen. You’re automatically enrolled in Medicare when you retire and begin to collect Social Security. And if you and your doctor—virtually every one of them in the country—are taking Medicare money, the government will determine what you can be treated for and what sort of treatments are permitted. If you want to take out your own wallet and pay for some extra treatment that the government doesn’t authorize, forget it. It’s currently a crime.

!!!!

Under what circumstances, specifically, can and cannot a senior citizen pay with his or her own money for health care determined directly between him/her and the doctor, just as one does with one's veterinarian and with no intervening interference?

I need to know.

Judith

There are times and occasions where one has to shake his/her bootie. Talking heads have their limitations.

The symphony and recitals and great plays are not "talking heads". And speak for yourself. I've never found my limit for quality entertainment and found a need to "escape" to mindlessness. Never. When other people start talking about boring stuff (like gossip) I just wait until I can bring the conversation back to something interesting; if I can't I go do something else. I suppose different people have different capacities for intensity; mine is pretty much 100% until I crash and then I sleep.

Judith

If you read -Atlas Shrugged- carefully you will find that entertainment in Galt's Gulch consisted of piano recitals and stage plays. Nowhere did you read about stand-up comics or rave parties. Not even dances of a more subdued nature. So what did they do in Galt's Gulch for fun and games. Did they do anything? Or were the folks there 105 percent Apolonean and no percent Dionysean?

Sounds ideal to me. Good music, good dramatic plays, good conversation -- what's lacking? I remember reading it for the first time and thinking, "Wow. Can't wait to go there!" Whenever I go on cruises, the stupid entertainment is one of the things that bugs me; more of this kind of thing would please me greatly.

Judith

I agree that sexually abusing children is immoral.

If an adult wants to have sexual relations with a child there is something wrong with the adult and in all likelihood they were abused as children themselves. This is how the vicious circle of emotional/physical/sexual abuse works and this is why we have laws against it. Your essay seems like a rather long convoluted way of saying this.

What a child needs before adolescence is love, acceptance and support. Not sex. Throw in sex and a monkey wrench is thrown into the psycho-sexual development.

So far, these responses seem to be proving the point made in the original post about everyone hastening to assure everyone else that they disapprove of children having sex, but no one really being willing to discuss it.

The question is, WHY is it bad or wrong for children to have sex, either with each other or with adults? And yes, I'm making the usual disclaimers that I don't think it's good for them either, yada, yada, yada, lest I be accused of approving of it simply by asking the question, as everyone seems to fear. But WHY? Vague generalities aren't answers.

Judith

A couple of years ago a guy lent me a (clean, unused) handkerchief to clean my glasses. I was appalled that anyone still carried cloth handkerchiefs in this day and age. I'm appalled that anyone uses cloth diapers in this day and age. But this ... this ... is beyond words. We definitely need separate countries ... separate PLANETS ... from people who think like this. PLEASE, let's hurry with space exploration so we can get away from these nuts.

Judith

If he would not hurt the snake, and if the snake did not respond to his "waves of love" -- doesn't that mean Gandhi would allow the snake to kill the child?

As Christopher phrased the question, the venomous snake was just "near" the child, not actually threatening it. Snakes differ. We in North America are fortunate to live among the shyest venomous snakes in the world; the snakes generally mind their own business and leave if they perceive humans in their vicinity, unless of course they are cold on a cool night and want to curl up next to you in your sleeping bag. In places like Australia, on the other hand, venomous snakes are actually aggressive, and upon perceiving a human will chase the human and attack. I have no idea how aggressive the snake was that the questioner had in mind when putting the problem to Gandhi; it's quite possible that the snake wouldn't have harmed the child at all, and on the other hand, it's possible that the snake would have attacked. Few snakes attack without provocation, but there are those that do. Perhaps that's what Gandhi had in mind about sending "waves of love"; behaving in such a way as to set up an atmosphere of peace in which the child, the snake, and Gandhi were all relaxed and non-provocative.

Judith

Idiots! Come live in Arizona--Tucson--and drive up our property values! Want some ocean? Rocky Point, Mexico or San Diego without the cost of living in CA. Humidity? what in the hell is humidity?

I love Arizona. Tucson is wonderful in the winter, and Flagstaff is wonderful in the summer. Just need the private plane to get me to a decent symphony once every two weeks or so....

Judith

I generally hate to harm any living thing. When ladybugs come into the house during the winter, I consider them welcome winter guests. I do, however, draw the line at self-defense. Mosquitoes, invading rodents, whatever carries disease and/or attacks me is fair game and brings out all the primitive hunting instincts I have.

I remember being in a Florida hotel a few years ago. I generally hate Florida: humid, hot, insect-ridden, and overall unpleasant. I was there for a seminar and had checked in late, so the only rooms left in my reserved block were the fancy corner suites on the upper floors. I had actually left the patio doors and windows open one night in my eleventh floor room around sunset, not thinking that bugs would fly that high, but after dark I noticed that the room was suddenly filled with -- you guessed it: mosquitoes. Horrors. I called the maintenance guy. He and I hunted down every single one of the suckers. I think he gave more than a few wary looks as I leapt from chairs, swatting the ones on the ceiling with a towel and letting out mad victory cries, but with his help every one of them died, and I didn't get a single bite that night. :-) One of my fonder hunting memories.

Judith

Okay, over the months and years, more than one contributor here has mentioned or implied or hinted to the effect that purported world elite conspiracies such as the Illuminati, Bilderbergers, CFR, etc. are more than paranoid fantasies, but every link I've ever seen and every search I've ever done on the internet has led to nothing but rabid paranoid Christian Armageddon-ridden type exorcism and demon-type stuff talking about massive famiy bloodlines where the kids undergo satanic rituals from birth, etc. Folks here seem to be fairly bright, so where's the research and links that support this conspiracy stuff?

Judith

Perhaps it's time to start saving up money (or gold, or unset gems) for travelling to India or Central America for necessary health care. Those places are already becoming centers of fine heart surgery and knee replacements in luxurious hospitals for prices under $10,000 for many Americans.

Judith

Is anyone as horrified by this issue as I am? I've been following it with a great deal of concern. I've also read that the "bail-out" bill provides for federal downloading of all patient computerized records to this new agency.

The following article, published today at Jewish World Review, summarizes the issue nicely:

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Prescription for medical malpractice

By Wesley Pruden

Feb. 13, 2009

Nasty surprises are always nasty. We can expect to see a lot of them as the details of Barack Obama's Big Bopper Bailout unfold over the next several months. Joe Biden reckons the chances of the bailout working, despite the hype and hysteria, to be no better than 30 percent "even if we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty."

We've already had a few nasty surprises, enlivening the front pages from the moment President Obama took the oath. Sen. Judd Gregg's deciding that he doesn't have the stomach to be the secretary of Commerce is only the latest of the misfires. But the nastiest surprises are not likely to be the failure of the bailout legislation to work, but the way some of it will work only too well. The surprises won't be the Bridges to Nowhere, but the bridges to places no one wants to go.

Nastiest of all will be the health care catastrophe hidden in the thousands of pages of this legislation, the work of Tom Daschle, who was almost secretary of Health and Human Services before he was sent back to K Street to work on his tax returns.

The health rules set out in the bailout legislation will, as the bill boasts, affect "every individual in the United States." There will be no escaping the consequences of turning life-and-death health care decisions over to officious bureaucrats. (Members of Congress will get their usual special privileges.) If you think dealing with insurances companies is as awful as it can get, you'll be surprised.

A vast bureaucracy called the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, soon to be vaster, will carefully monitor what your doctor prescribes for you, not to protect and restore your health, but to make sure your doctor does what the government deems "appropriate" and "cost-effective."

These provisions are identical to the prescriptions set out by Mr. Daschle last year in his book about what to do about "the health care crisis." Doctors, he wrote, have to forgo their own judgment and "learn to operate less like solo practitioners." Deference will not be required to, say, distinguished professors from the Harvard Medical School, but to narrow-minded little men armed not with learning but with a lot of attitude, trained not in the medical arts and sciences but in government paperwork.

"Hospitals and doctors that are not 'meaningful users' of the new system will face penalties," Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor New York who is an analyst of health care issues at Hudson Institute, writes for Bloomberg News. " 'Meaningful' user isn't defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose 'more stringent measures of meaningful use over time.' "

How doctors will be penalized for putting the health of their patients above all else is not specifically set out in the bailout bill. But Mr. Daschle offers a hint or two in his book, language borrowed by the authors of the bailout bill's health care passages. The goal is to slow up the development of new medications and treatments that are driving up costs. He praises Europeans -- whose health care is rarely praised for its quality or efficiency -- as being more willing to accept "hopeless diagnoses."

Americans expect miracles; Europeans are resigned to mediocrity. (Does anybody go to London or Paris for advanced surgery?) The government bureaucrats would work from a formula dividing the cost of the treatment by the number of years a codger could expect to live. The elderly are expected to understand they're supposed to get sick when they get old, and hear something like: "Here, take this aspirin and if you don't feel better tomorrow don't call me, call the undertaker."

He cites as an example of what to expect from the decree of a British health board, which told elderly patients with macular degeneration that they must wait until they go blind in one eye before they could get expensive drugs to prevent losing sight in the other. Only after years of angry protests was the grotesque regulation rescinded.

But where are the angry protests here from Congress, or from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), which worked to elect Barack Obama? Where is the coverage from our robust mainstream media? Where is the follow-up to Miss McCaughey's revealing account in Bloomberg?

President Obama and his partisan allies in Congress are determined to get this bailout legislation to his desk for a signature before all its gory details are discovered. He calls it "inexcusable and irresponsible" to delay. Why the rush? He remembers what happened to Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care plan, and he's determined that this one gets no scrutiny, or, as Mr. Daschle warns, is "stalled by Senate protocol."

The nasty surprise is saved for later.

Thanks MSK, Kat, Chris. My sister Joan passed away suddenly this week. This followed the passing in late Sept. of my youngest brother Tom, who had just become a grandfather, after a 3-week battle with cancer. Very tough times, esp. for my parents.

Ed, that's horrible. I'm so sorry.

Judith

No signs of cancer from colonoscopy on Jan 28. I don't have another colonoscopy for five years. Dancing is permitted and encouraged.

Mazel Tov! No bad news is definitely good news.

Chris, have another in a year, regardless.

--Brant

I'd second that. There's nothing like early detection, it's worth the cost if insurance won't pay it, and you'd really, really hate to kick yourself if you don't do it and later think you should have done.

Congratulations on the great news!

Judith

I don't agree with Bob's views, but I think they're probably healthier than Roark's. I can understand that Roark would not value Toohey's opinions, and thus the "I don't think of you" line is probably somewhat accurate in that sense, and it's a good gibe, but if Roark truly didn't think of Toohey after having public opinion orchestrated against him and, therefore, having his career stunted by Toohey's destructiveness, I'd think that Roark would have to be mentally impaired. Expecting people to emulate Roark and not think of those who are out to destroy them comes across as a bit naive.

Perhaps if Roark had thought about Toohey and the fact that he was having a very real and negative effect on his career, he might have made wiser decisions in protecting himself and his work, and wouldn't have had to resort to destroying others' property because they violated a contract that they didn't have with him?

I think we're talking about apples and oranges here. Roark didn't perceive Toohey as a threat. He figured that people who wanted his work would perceive its value and come to him regardless of Toohey's blathering and plotting. To a certain extent, he was right; Roark might have lost a few clients, but others would come to him; people like Heller, etc. On the other hand, al Quaeda and the other jihadis are a real, physical threat. Roark would not have ignored them. Neither should we.

Judith