WSJ: Elon Musk on Woke Mind Virus
WSJ: Elon Musk on Woke Mind Virus
For months and months, the world’s richest man has been talking about the “woke mind virus”—let’s call it WMV for short. He describes it as a threat to “modern civilization” and says those concerns motivated his decision more than a year ago to buy the social-media platform now known as X.
People talk about the attributes of different generations, and it got me wondering who names the generations. They aren’t doing a good job: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Generation Y and Generation Alpha.
This article from the Pew Trust explains some of it. Big national events and trends shape the children, giving the generations different characteristics.
I have often been asked by people over 35 or so, “Are we supposed to say ‘they want’ or ‘they wants’?” I always answer that the proper form is “they want,” but must it be? Instead, we could say this, which would make perfect and intuitive grammatical sense:
Singular: I want, you want, he/she/they wants
Plural: we want, you want, they want
My proposal is that we agree that male, man and boy refers to a person born with a penis, and that female, woman and girl refers to a person born with a vagina. For the exceedingly rare people born with neither or both, they can choose. My proposal has the advantage of being consistent across cultures for thousands of years.
Judd Apatow made a short documentary of the friendship between Bob Newhart and Don Rickles. It doesn’t seem like they’d be friends, but seeing them together, it obviously works.
NewYorker: Bob Newhart and Don Rickles
NewYorker: Bob Newhart and Don Rickles
“I love that they became friends because they both played Vegas and neither wanted to cheat on their wives,” Apatow said.
Free Press: David Sedaris Punching Down
Words, we are now regularly reminded, are violence. So too is silence. I read not long ago that capitalism is violence, as is misgendering someone. Ignoring someone is violence, but so too is paying them attention.
Sedaris is a cosmopolitan humorist, so he is describing coastal people and what is written by influencers on social media, but many young people don’t seem very resilient.
My dad was a waist gunner in a B-24 Liberator during World War II. He is the one we think of on Veteran’s Day, but other family members served. Uncle Pete was in the Navy, Uncle Nick was an officer, but I don’t recall which branch. My brother Chris was in the Air Force for the Vietnam War, and brother-in-law John was in the Army. Nephew Dusty was also in the Army. Mom would want me to mention that she volunteered for the USO, so really, she should get something. Remember the people who served, and listen to their stories while you can.
My dad tells some of his story:
Dinklage said. “You’re still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me. You’re progressive in one way and you’re still making that f–king backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together, what the f–k are you doing man? Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I’m not loud enough.“
I need some clarification.
George W. Bush was always good at this sort of thing.
Reminds me of the movie, Dave.
Don’t get cocky. The election process is still shaky in many states.
BBC: Bird names will be changed
Several bird species in the US and Canada will receive new names based on their habitats and traits rather than people’s names, the American Ornithological Society has announced.
“Exclusionary naming conventions developed in the 1800s, clouded by racism and misogyny, don’t work for us today, and the time has come for us to transform this process and redirect the focus to the birds, where it belongs,” the society’s CEO, Judith Scarl, said in a statement.
How do these people keep sneaking in?
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