The science journal reference in the video on mimiviruses had a lead author of Didier Raoult (sp). He’s the same Frenchman that was shouting about HCQ very early in the covid pandemic. But wait, wasn’t he a thoroughly discredited charlatan? At least that’s what the media told us.
Is a virus alive? If one has a very fundamental definition for life with a few criteria, and the item in question fails even one of them; then how is this a debatable issue? Not alive, I’d say.
There was a weird thing in my neighborhood a week ago. There were a few largish streetside signs posted on a heavily traveled residential street. At the top of the sign it said “Attention Virus Geeks” and then below it said that you can get your free covid-19 test down the street. Who self indentifies as a virus geek in that context?
Where did viruses come from?
Well, it appears that nobody knows; just another mystery of life.
Of course, the same question can be asked about the origin of life on earth.
Saw a brief video, year or so ago, in which three experts were discussing the origins of human life on earth. One of the experts was a computer science prof. at Yale ; he is considered a computer genius.
He was convinced that life did not just appear by chance (he had calculated the odds of certain necessary events to occur to enable life) and the odds were astronomically small.
Thus he concluded that there had to be some sort of “extraneous” and intentional decision implemented to enable humans to appear on earth.
IIRC, he was in no way religious.
I’m pretty sure they come from labs.
*Trigger Warnings*
WARNING-
I’m going to talk about some sexual comments or gender comments that might EMOTIONALLY shock, or startle, some readers.
However- I think that the possible problems that I will mention, are [VERY possible problems], + that the [universities + colleges, + other schools, of the United States] SHOULD take steps to keep these problems from happening.
…When Lia, the transgender woman, was allowed on [a University of Pennsylvania swimming team], The University of Penn.’s teachers PROMISED the born-female swimmers on the team- that the born-females on the team would not have to share a locker room with Lia, but that Lia would have her own locker + facilities, for Lia to use on her own.
Recently, The University of Penn. has broken its promise to the team’s b.-females and has said, in essence:
[Lia will now share the locker rooms + showers with the REST of the women’s team. If you’re not comfortable with seeing Lia’s, naked private parts, too bad.]
OK, possible problems here:
I went to a US college, + to US grade schools. Not all students in their 20s, + in their grade school years…who are 18 and under, are good about keeping-
1] their self control in check and 2] some aren’t good about keeping their sexual feelings in check, either.
University/college students on sports teams, sometimes get mad at each other. Very, VERY MAD.
So…what if Lia is standing around, nude, in a locker room, + she’s arguing with a teammate.
And the argument gets heated, + people start pushing each other. And then the teammate gets mad about being shoved, so she punches Lia’s private parts!
If she punches Lia’s private parts, can that be reported as a molestation crime?
Are the team’s coaches prepared for that sort of fight?
After a fight like that, does anyone want to go to court, to keep off the sex offender registry?
Or- a lot of people in their 17-19 teen years aren’t in full control of their sexual feelings yet.
Maybe to bother Lia, they might [stage a mistake], and brush their hand against Lia’s private parts, or Lia’s other unmentionable areas, and then they’ll say: “Oops! Sorry! I was reaching for my gym bag!”
Are the team’s coaches prepared for that sort of problem?
There’s a reason that-
we don’t let [born-male-declaring-as-males students], and [born-female-declaring-as-females students], share the same showers…and locker rooms, in grade schools and colleges.
Some of these people can’t behave properly in that situation.
Some students, who go to these schools, and are [18 and under], and [29 and under] CAN’T be trusted to 1] keep their hands to themselves
and 2] can’t be trusted to keep their hands to themselves, when not-supervised by their teachers.
Please, University of Pennsylvania, please give Lia private changing quarters, and private shower quarters, again.
Allowing Lia, a born-male-person, to be unclothed in these places, with born-females, [can lead to a lot of trouble for the schools].
I have this position, because I think that, currently-
the nation can’t fully discuss + solve a problem that came before this one-
solving the problems between The USA’s born-males + born-females, with all of the [needed safety] and the 100% [needed maturity].
(I apologize if my above topics, or my above theories, have- offended anyone, or have emotionally triggered anyone.)
Well, TR, an even more likely scenario comes from Lia’s admission of still being interested in women sexually, and having the biological apparatus for that interest.
Yawrate, “I’m pretty sure they come from labs.” +1
@Kate
Of course. I totally agree.
That’s another problem they will need to look into.
What do you suppose is the Cleveland Clinic’s actual reason for insisting on this?
Just remember
in November
Boot the Groomers.
With half the Democrat leadership apparently testing positive for COVID, despite vexing and boosting, I cannot imagine what the Cleveland Clinic’s rationale could be, unless they’re threatened with delicensing, or they’re funded by Pfizer and Moderna.
I tend to believe a lot of celebrities are mentally unwell. To succeed in a profession that requires so much make believe, so much insincerity. It must be nearly impossible to navigate high levels of fame without abandoning one’s relationships with parents, siblings, old friends… What type of person would be willing to sacrifice all of that? And some of them seem to viscerally need the applause, adulation and attention of strangers. “Look at me. LOOK AT ME!!”
Because I believe they are often damaged people I try not to give them too much thought, but Ace has this post up regarding Amy Schumer, https://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=398568
and, while I agree with him that it is very odd a grown adult would a private moment with her child for publicity as depicted in the photo she shared, I have an even more fundamental question:
Who the heck took the picture?! Look at that photo. It’s a very intimate photo of a private moment. But based on the angles someone else had to be in the room to take it. In other words, it’s staged. How very, very bizarre.
And, at the top of Ace’s post, preceding Schumer’s photo, is a very bizarre video exchange between Will Smith and his wife. My wife would not do that to me, nor would I to her. How can one live with someone that shallow? That insensitive? I guess Mr. Smith may be equally shallow and insensitive and that’s part of the attraction?
A statement Bill Murray made in an interview years ago has stuck with me. He was playing in a celebrity golf tournament and had a teen-aged boy for his caddy. After getting to know each other over the first few holes Murray asked the boy, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” The boy smiled and said, “I want to be rich and famous like you, Mr. Murray.” Murray replied, “Go for rich, kid.”
Fame seems less like paradise and more like prison.
Good one, Yawrate!
TR,
I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms (I’m not weird, I just like playing sports and exercising 😉 ). I’ve seen some odd things. As you mention, I’ve seen fights. I once saw two men having sex in a shower. A lot of guys slapping towels at guys bottoms and fronts. I’ve seen men just sit naked, for long periods of time, reading or watching television. Also theft. There is a lot of theft.
I try not to linger any longer than I have to and wear at least a towel whenever practical, but to each their own. Some guys (and I imagine it’s the same for women) are really comfortable being naked in front of others and some even seem to take pleasure in it (there are nudist colonies for a reason). Others, like me, see it more as a necessary inconvenience. I know still others who simply won’t do it. They change and shower at home.
Regardless where one falls on the locker room privacy spectrum I have to believe 90+% prefer single sex locker rooms based on the sex displayed by one’s genitalia (or private, family locker rooms for parents with children). So why don’t we just stick with what has worked for millennia, and what the vast majority of people prefer? If an athlete doesn’t feel comfortable sharing a locker room with others who share his or her genitalia he or she can change and shower elsewhere.
Forcing women to undress, change and shower with a biological man in order to keep a scholarship and attend University is something I would love to see tried in a court of law. Especially if the defendant is 17 or younger. Hopefully such a case will be brought soon.
RTF. “A lot of celebrities are mentally unwell”.
Truman Capote once said “ the better the actor the stupider the person”. Not surprising given that they have to be very good at pretending to be many different characters with wildly different personalities.
I notice that my comment above got auto-corrected. What was meant to be “vaxxing and boosting” ended up as “vexing and boosting.” Well, maybe autocorrect is right this time. It is vexing.
Regarding the video on virii,
I am very, very excited that it is likely that in my lifetime we will have very good guesses of how species evolved from one another; the phylogenetic tree.
Without DNA, Carolus Linnaeus’ system of taxonomy is a pretty good way to go about populating the branches on the tree. Looking at visual clues, skeletal structure, organ systems… Salamanders probably came from snakes, or at least a type of snake. Dolphin likely came from a Mammalian ancestor but sharks came from a Piscean ancestor. (And I still insist lobster came from a bug that adapted to life under water.)
But there are almost certainly some surprises not readily discernible by outward appearances. When I look at a deer I see some rabbit there. But horses evolved a lot of similar traits to deer but don’t look rodenty (rodentish?). Obviously species evolve similar traits independently due to adaptations being well suited for a particular environment and that doesn’t always mean a shared ancestor. Humans independently evolved to live at high altitudes in at least three, distinct methods. If one assumed Andeans were descended from Nepali (or vice versa) because both groups are good at living in low oxygen regions one would be wrong.
So, as the video on virii depicts, I think “Big Data” along with DNA collected from the Earth’s taxonomy will eventually piece together a true, phylogenic tree that has a high degree of likelihood of depicting how it all likely came about.
And I look forward to seeing it!
One of the actual women punching ” Lia ” in the naughty bits would be amusing, at least.
Art Deco @ 1:56,
“What do you suppose is the Cleveland Clinic’s actual reason for insisting on this?”
Whatever the actual reason, it’s an appalling violation of the medical profession’s Hippocratic Oath. If the kid dies, voluntary manslaughter charges should result against every person responsible for that decision.
Rufus,
“I tend to believe a lot of celebrities are mentally unwell. To succeed in a profession that requires so much make believe, so much insincerity.”
I suspect that’s the primary determinate. Yet, in the aggregate, the greatest generation’s actors seemed much more grounded. l think the determinate in the much greater percentage of mental unwellness is due to today’s crop of actors being far more leftist than yesteryears’. Collectivist ideologies rest upon a fundamental rejection of aspects of both objective reality and human nature. A perfect breeding ground for a career in highly rewarded pretense.
“some of them seem to viscerally need the applause, adulation and attention of strangers. “Look at me. LOOK AT ME!!”
Sally Field’s “You like me! Right now! You like me!”
Regardless where one falls on the locker room privacy spectrum I have to believe 90+% prefer single sex locker rooms based on the sex displayed by one’s genitalia (or private, family locker rooms for parents with children).
Rufus:
Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” was a revelation to me in the 7th grade. I almost wanted to go to military school under its influence. (I got over it.)
In the late 90s Paul Verhoeven filmed his version of “Starship Troopers.” It was reasonably true to Heinlein. However, because Verhoeven liked to show a bit of skin and more (think “Showgirls,” a great bad movie), it had a unisex military locker room scene of boys and girls together.
To be fair, Heinlein liked to “show” more than a bit of skin in his books too. There was always a good excuse for his characters to peel down. You could call it fan service, but I think Heinlein liked sex, liked naked bodies, and was doing his bit to move society beyond puritanism.
However, I read the behind-the-scenes account of Verhoeven’s locker room scene. The Hollywood actors completely froze when they were thrown together with both sexes naked!
Verhoeven had to cheer them on from his director’s chair to loosen up and appear to have fun. It looks OK on the screen.
Anyway. “Starships Troopers” is fun and weirdly subversive in a conservative way. If anyone is curious, here’s the one and only Critical Drinker recommending it:
Well, just so you know what to expect, they’ve succeeded in ruining Picard. Took a really really good story/plot and decided they HAD to get preachy as eph.
Without giving away too much, it involves time travel. And, of course, to 2024. I turned off the middle of the fourth Ep because of the fourth successive harangue about how horribly awful everything is in 2024.
The fourth one IN THE EP.
🙁 🙁
Without DNA, Carolus Linnaeus’ system of taxonomy is a pretty good way to go about populating the branches on the tree.
I think “Big Data” along with DNA collected from the Earth’s taxonomy will eventually piece together a true, phylogenic tree that has a high degree of likelihood of depicting how it all likely came about.
And I look forward to seeing it! — Rufus TF
I had a very thorough intro to biology in college in the early ’70s with a good coverage of taxonomy as it was known then. Decades later, dipping my toe into astrobiology, life on other planets or moons, researchers are stuck with looking at earth’s early biology. I was shocked. The old taxonomy of the 70’s has really been blown up.
Even back then, my textbook said something about throwing fungi into the plant kingdom even though they suspected that was not correct. (From memory:) Now fungi get their own “domain” above kingdoms, something that did not exist back then. And the big one, and of most import for the astrobiologists, is the Archaea domain. The very first archaea were discovered in the 70’s I think.
Starship Troopers. The first 8 or so trivia items below are quite amusing.
I’m reading Nassim Taleb’s “Skin in the Game.” One of the “fascist” themes of Starship Troopers is that privileges are allowed to those who have demonstrated that they have skin in the game of public service. Not necessarily dumb or fascist. Of course, some of those privileges are things most consider basic human rights. That’s fascist.
I liked Starship Troopers, and much of Heinlein’s libertarianish ideas. Especially the responsibilities, duties, which are expected of citizens. I still like those.
His libertine open marriage, “responsible promiscuous sex” seemed cool to me as a teen & thru early post-college years, but it’s destroying civilization, now.
So I listened to this later ’86 Live in Tokyo concert. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1dhdIUz5U
Only OK until about min 30 when she has an a capella version of “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, and a couple other VU songs.
For this Doors fan, her version of “The End” is cool, similar, different.
Really unique voice. No harmony, almost no melody; almost not even music, but rather an aural experience.
TommyJay, etc. —
The mistake people usually make about Starship Troopers is believing that only the military got to vote, and therefore ergo fascist (which also misunderstands fascism). In fact, the serving military explicitly did not get to vote; you had to serve but then leave service to do so.
The other mistake is asserting that Heinlein held up the world government in the book as an ideal. He wrote elsewhere that he did not; it was a form that he could logically see arising given the circumstances he imagined, and one that would work and be stable, and that’s all.
Rufus, TommyJay, Bryan:
I was pretty liberal even in the seventh grade, so “Starship Troopers” was a challenge to my tendency towards pacifism and being anti-military. “Troopers” showed me the necessary and noble side of the military.
I realized I didn’t have an answer to the question of whether those who put themselves in harm’s way in order to defend society might have a larger say in that society.
Later, after I understood WW II better, I realized that the Bug Attack on Earth paralleled Pearl Harbor.
Tom Grey:
Thanks for the mention and link to the “Nico” article. She’s an intriguing character, as well as muse to some of Leonard Cohen’s best songs, as I call ’em anyway.
Her “Chelsea Girls” album is a strange, wonderful, moody miracle of all the ingredients coming together at just the right place at the right time. Hard to believe Jackson Browne was one such ingredient.
I read a biography of her which was quite dispiriting.
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The science journal reference in the video on mimiviruses had a lead author of Didier Raoult (sp). He’s the same Frenchman that was shouting about HCQ very early in the covid pandemic. But wait, wasn’t he a thoroughly discredited charlatan? At least that’s what the media told us.
Is a virus alive? If one has a very fundamental definition for life with a few criteria, and the item in question fails even one of them; then how is this a debatable issue? Not alive, I’d say.
There was a weird thing in my neighborhood a week ago. There were a few largish streetside signs posted on a heavily traveled residential street. At the top of the sign it said “Attention Virus Geeks” and then below it said that you can get your free covid-19 test down the street. Who self indentifies as a virus geek in that context?
Where did viruses come from?
Well, it appears that nobody knows; just another mystery of life.
Of course, the same question can be asked about the origin of life on earth.
Saw a brief video, year or so ago, in which three experts were discussing the origins of human life on earth. One of the experts was a computer science prof. at Yale ; he is considered a computer genius.
He was convinced that life did not just appear by chance (he had calculated the odds of certain necessary events to occur to enable life) and the odds were astronomically small.
Thus he concluded that there had to be some sort of “extraneous” and intentional decision implemented to enable humans to appear on earth.
IIRC, he was in no way religious.
I’m pretty sure they come from labs.
*Trigger Warnings*
WARNING-
I’m going to talk about some sexual comments or gender comments that might EMOTIONALLY shock, or startle, some readers.
However- I think that the possible problems that I will mention, are [VERY possible problems], + that the [universities + colleges, + other schools, of the United States] SHOULD take steps to keep these problems from happening.
…When Lia, the transgender woman, was allowed on [a University of Pennsylvania swimming team], The University of Penn.’s teachers PROMISED the born-female swimmers on the team- that the born-females on the team would not have to share a locker room with Lia, but that Lia would have her own locker + facilities, for Lia to use on her own.
Recently, The University of Penn. has broken its promise to the team’s b.-females and has said, in essence:
[Lia will now share the locker rooms + showers with the REST of the women’s team. If you’re not comfortable with seeing Lia’s, naked private parts, too bad.]
OK, possible problems here:
I went to a US college, + to US grade schools. Not all students in their 20s, + in their grade school years…who are 18 and under, are good about keeping-
1] their self control in check and 2] some aren’t good about keeping their sexual feelings in check, either.
University/college students on sports teams, sometimes get mad at each other. Very, VERY MAD.
So…what if Lia is standing around, nude, in a locker room, + she’s arguing with a teammate.
And the argument gets heated, + people start pushing each other. And then the teammate gets mad about being shoved, so she punches Lia’s private parts!
If she punches Lia’s private parts, can that be reported as a molestation crime?
Are the team’s coaches prepared for that sort of fight?
After a fight like that, does anyone want to go to court, to keep off the sex offender registry?
Or- a lot of people in their 17-19 teen years aren’t in full control of their sexual feelings yet.
Maybe to bother Lia, they might [stage a mistake], and brush their hand against Lia’s private parts, or Lia’s other unmentionable areas, and then they’ll say: “Oops! Sorry! I was reaching for my gym bag!”
Are the team’s coaches prepared for that sort of problem?
There’s a reason that-
we don’t let [born-male-declaring-as-males students], and [born-female-declaring-as-females students], share the same showers…and locker rooms, in grade schools and colleges.
Some of these people can’t behave properly in that situation.
Some students, who go to these schools, and are [18 and under], and [29 and under] CAN’T be trusted to 1] keep their hands to themselves
and 2] can’t be trusted to keep their hands to themselves, when not-supervised by their teachers.
Please, University of Pennsylvania, please give Lia private changing quarters, and private shower quarters, again.
Allowing Lia, a born-male-person, to be unclothed in these places, with born-females, [can lead to a lot of trouble for the schools].
I have this position, because I think that, currently-
the nation can’t fully discuss + solve a problem that came before this one-
solving the problems between The USA’s born-males + born-females, with all of the [needed safety] and the 100% [needed maturity].
(I apologize if my above topics, or my above theories, have- offended anyone, or have emotionally triggered anyone.)
Well, TR, an even more likely scenario comes from Lia’s admission of still being interested in women sexually, and having the biological apparatus for that interest.
Yawrate, “I’m pretty sure they come from labs.” +1
@Kate
Of course. I totally agree.
That’s another problem they will need to look into.
https://pjmedia.com/columns/paula-bolyard/2022/04/08/psychosis-of-flawed-morality-9-year-old-ohio-boy-denied-kidney-transplant-because-father-is-unvaccinated-n1587991
What do you suppose is the Cleveland Clinic’s actual reason for insisting on this?
Just remember
in November
Boot the Groomers.
With half the Democrat leadership apparently testing positive for COVID, despite vexing and boosting, I cannot imagine what the Cleveland Clinic’s rationale could be, unless they’re threatened with delicensing, or they’re funded by Pfizer and Moderna.
I tend to believe a lot of celebrities are mentally unwell. To succeed in a profession that requires so much make believe, so much insincerity. It must be nearly impossible to navigate high levels of fame without abandoning one’s relationships with parents, siblings, old friends… What type of person would be willing to sacrifice all of that? And some of them seem to viscerally need the applause, adulation and attention of strangers. “Look at me. LOOK AT ME!!”
Because I believe they are often damaged people I try not to give them too much thought, but Ace has this post up regarding Amy Schumer, https://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=398568
and, while I agree with him that it is very odd a grown adult would a private moment with her child for publicity as depicted in the photo she shared, I have an even more fundamental question:
Who the heck took the picture?! Look at that photo. It’s a very intimate photo of a private moment. But based on the angles someone else had to be in the room to take it. In other words, it’s staged. How very, very bizarre.
And, at the top of Ace’s post, preceding Schumer’s photo, is a very bizarre video exchange between Will Smith and his wife. My wife would not do that to me, nor would I to her. How can one live with someone that shallow? That insensitive? I guess Mr. Smith may be equally shallow and insensitive and that’s part of the attraction?
A statement Bill Murray made in an interview years ago has stuck with me. He was playing in a celebrity golf tournament and had a teen-aged boy for his caddy. After getting to know each other over the first few holes Murray asked the boy, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” The boy smiled and said, “I want to be rich and famous like you, Mr. Murray.” Murray replied, “Go for rich, kid.”
Fame seems less like paradise and more like prison.
Good one, Yawrate!
TR,
I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms (I’m not weird, I just like playing sports and exercising 😉 ). I’ve seen some odd things. As you mention, I’ve seen fights. I once saw two men having sex in a shower. A lot of guys slapping towels at guys bottoms and fronts. I’ve seen men just sit naked, for long periods of time, reading or watching television. Also theft. There is a lot of theft.
I try not to linger any longer than I have to and wear at least a towel whenever practical, but to each their own. Some guys (and I imagine it’s the same for women) are really comfortable being naked in front of others and some even seem to take pleasure in it (there are nudist colonies for a reason). Others, like me, see it more as a necessary inconvenience. I know still others who simply won’t do it. They change and shower at home.
Regardless where one falls on the locker room privacy spectrum I have to believe 90+% prefer single sex locker rooms based on the sex displayed by one’s genitalia (or private, family locker rooms for parents with children). So why don’t we just stick with what has worked for millennia, and what the vast majority of people prefer? If an athlete doesn’t feel comfortable sharing a locker room with others who share his or her genitalia he or she can change and shower elsewhere.
Forcing women to undress, change and shower with a biological man in order to keep a scholarship and attend University is something I would love to see tried in a court of law. Especially if the defendant is 17 or younger. Hopefully such a case will be brought soon.
RTF. “A lot of celebrities are mentally unwell”.
Truman Capote once said “ the better the actor the stupider the person”. Not surprising given that they have to be very good at pretending to be many different characters with wildly different personalities.
I notice that my comment above got auto-corrected. What was meant to be “vaxxing and boosting” ended up as “vexing and boosting.” Well, maybe autocorrect is right this time. It is vexing.
Regarding the video on virii,
I am very, very excited that it is likely that in my lifetime we will have very good guesses of how species evolved from one another; the phylogenetic tree.
Without DNA, Carolus Linnaeus’ system of taxonomy is a pretty good way to go about populating the branches on the tree. Looking at visual clues, skeletal structure, organ systems… Salamanders probably came from snakes, or at least a type of snake. Dolphin likely came from a Mammalian ancestor but sharks came from a Piscean ancestor. (And I still insist lobster came from a bug that adapted to life under water.)
But there are almost certainly some surprises not readily discernible by outward appearances. When I look at a deer I see some rabbit there. But horses evolved a lot of similar traits to deer but don’t look rodenty (rodentish?). Obviously species evolve similar traits independently due to adaptations being well suited for a particular environment and that doesn’t always mean a shared ancestor. Humans independently evolved to live at high altitudes in at least three, distinct methods. If one assumed Andeans were descended from Nepali (or vice versa) because both groups are good at living in low oxygen regions one would be wrong.
So, as the video on virii depicts, I think “Big Data” along with DNA collected from the Earth’s taxonomy will eventually piece together a true, phylogenic tree that has a high degree of likelihood of depicting how it all likely came about.
And I look forward to seeing it!
One of the actual women punching ” Lia ” in the naughty bits would be amusing, at least.
Art Deco @ 1:56,
“What do you suppose is the Cleveland Clinic’s actual reason for insisting on this?”
Whatever the actual reason, it’s an appalling violation of the medical profession’s Hippocratic Oath. If the kid dies, voluntary manslaughter charges should result against every person responsible for that decision.
Rufus,
“I tend to believe a lot of celebrities are mentally unwell. To succeed in a profession that requires so much make believe, so much insincerity.”
I suspect that’s the primary determinate. Yet, in the aggregate, the greatest generation’s actors seemed much more grounded. l think the determinate in the much greater percentage of mental unwellness is due to today’s crop of actors being far more leftist than yesteryears’. Collectivist ideologies rest upon a fundamental rejection of aspects of both objective reality and human nature. A perfect breeding ground for a career in highly rewarded pretense.
“some of them seem to viscerally need the applause, adulation and attention of strangers. “Look at me. LOOK AT ME!!”
Sally Field’s “You like me! Right now! You like me!”
Regardless where one falls on the locker room privacy spectrum I have to believe 90+% prefer single sex locker rooms based on the sex displayed by one’s genitalia (or private, family locker rooms for parents with children).
Rufus:
Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” was a revelation to me in the 7th grade. I almost wanted to go to military school under its influence. (I got over it.)
In the late 90s Paul Verhoeven filmed his version of “Starship Troopers.” It was reasonably true to Heinlein. However, because Verhoeven liked to show a bit of skin and more (think “Showgirls,” a great bad movie), it had a unisex military locker room scene of boys and girls together.
To be fair, Heinlein liked to “show” more than a bit of skin in his books too. There was always a good excuse for his characters to peel down. You could call it fan service, but I think Heinlein liked sex, liked naked bodies, and was doing his bit to move society beyond puritanism.
However, I read the behind-the-scenes account of Verhoeven’s locker room scene. The Hollywood actors completely froze when they were thrown together with both sexes naked!
Verhoeven had to cheer them on from his director’s chair to loosen up and appear to have fun. It looks OK on the screen.
Anyway. “Starships Troopers” is fun and weirdly subversive in a conservative way. If anyone is curious, here’s the one and only Critical Drinker recommending it:
–The Critical Drinker, “Starship Troopers – Deceptively Smart Satire”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8nM5N4ptkw
Kate —
“vexing and boosting.”
Well, they’re certainly vexing me. 🙂
Well, just so you know what to expect, they’ve succeeded in ruining Picard. Took a really really good story/plot and decided they HAD to get preachy as eph.
Without giving away too much, it involves time travel. And, of course, to 2024. I turned off the middle of the fourth Ep because of the fourth successive harangue about how horribly awful everything is in 2024.
The fourth one IN THE EP.
🙁 🙁
Without DNA, Carolus Linnaeus’ system of taxonomy is a pretty good way to go about populating the branches on the tree.
I think “Big Data” along with DNA collected from the Earth’s taxonomy will eventually piece together a true, phylogenic tree that has a high degree of likelihood of depicting how it all likely came about.
And I look forward to seeing it! — Rufus TF
I had a very thorough intro to biology in college in the early ’70s with a good coverage of taxonomy as it was known then. Decades later, dipping my toe into astrobiology, life on other planets or moons, researchers are stuck with looking at earth’s early biology. I was shocked. The old taxonomy of the 70’s has really been blown up.
Even back then, my textbook said something about throwing fungi into the plant kingdom even though they suspected that was not correct. (From memory:) Now fungi get their own “domain” above kingdoms, something that did not exist back then. And the big one, and of most import for the astrobiologists, is the Archaea domain. The very first archaea were discovered in the 70’s I think.
Starship Troopers. The first 8 or so trivia items below are quite amusing.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120201/trivia/?ref_=tt_ql_trv
I’m reading Nassim Taleb’s “Skin in the Game.” One of the “fascist” themes of Starship Troopers is that privileges are allowed to those who have demonstrated that they have skin in the game of public service. Not necessarily dumb or fascist. Of course, some of those privileges are things most consider basic human rights. That’s fascist.
I liked Starship Troopers, and much of Heinlein’s libertarianish ideas. Especially the responsibilities, duties, which are expected of citizens. I still like those.
His libertine open marriage, “responsible promiscuous sex” seemed cool to me as a teen & thru early post-college years, but it’s destroying civilization, now.
The New Yorker had a fine article about heroin addict Nico, with a cool flat voice in the Velvet Underground. I like Lou Reed & John Cale. Cale’s quoted “you can’t sell suicide”.
https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-misunderstood-voice-of-nico
So I listened to this later ’86 Live in Tokyo concert.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1dhdIUz5U
Only OK until about min 30 when she has an a capella version of “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, and a couple other VU songs.
For this Doors fan, her version of “The End” is cool, similar, different.
Really unique voice. No harmony, almost no melody; almost not even music, but rather an aural experience.
TommyJay, etc. —
The mistake people usually make about Starship Troopers is believing that only the military got to vote, and therefore ergo fascist (which also misunderstands fascism). In fact, the serving military explicitly did not get to vote; you had to serve but then leave service to do so.
The other mistake is asserting that Heinlein held up the world government in the book as an ideal. He wrote elsewhere that he did not; it was a form that he could logically see arising given the circumstances he imagined, and one that would work and be stable, and that’s all.
Rufus, TommyJay, Bryan:
I was pretty liberal even in the seventh grade, so “Starship Troopers” was a challenge to my tendency towards pacifism and being anti-military. “Troopers” showed me the necessary and noble side of the military.
I realized I didn’t have an answer to the question of whether those who put themselves in harm’s way in order to defend society might have a larger say in that society.
Later, after I understood WW II better, I realized that the Bug Attack on Earth paralleled Pearl Harbor.
Tom Grey:
Thanks for the mention and link to the “Nico” article. She’s an intriguing character, as well as muse to some of Leonard Cohen’s best songs, as I call ’em anyway.
Her “Chelsea Girls” album is a strange, wonderful, moody miracle of all the ingredients coming together at just the right place at the right time. Hard to believe Jackson Browne was one such ingredient.
I read a biography of her which was quite dispiriting.