At his substack (https://tinyurl.com/38f26frc), Arnold Kling links to a long essay by a teacher who writes as educationrealist. Back on April 4, 2022, she published “The Real Reason for School Closures” (https://tinyurl.com/56xx4veh), and the results of her research are surprising.
Please read the whole thing.
Educationrealist takes a close look at data for school closures and finds democracy is to blame, and race can explain. Sounds like Benjamin Crump, but that’s not it. The decision to open schools or use remote learning was largely made at the local level, by local school districts, which are heavily influenced by the desires of local parents. Did parents want their schools open or closed? Across the country, there was lots of variance. Why? Educationrealist patiently sifts through the data, and she finds that the answer is race. White parents wanted schools open at much higher rates than did black, hispanic, and asian parents.
Having found these surprising results, educationrealist doesn’t ask the next big question. Why did black, hispanic, and asian parents support remote learning longer and more strongly? I scanned the comments to her blog post, and a few people were brave enough to suggest an explanation: personal experience. The pandemic did not strike people equally. Everybody knows that old people have suffered the most from the virus. But very few people have talked about the racial disparities. A rough rule of thumb: darker the skin, worse the infection. Of course, Marxists attribute this to evil white males who dominate medicine and politics, and who used the pandemic to oppress black people. Yawn. I’m not qualified to understand the racial differences in the expression of covid-19, but I’d start by looking at how they correlate with vitamin D deficiencies. Whatever the underlying explanation, people with dark skin experienced the pandemic differently. If they weren’t badly ill, they knew someone who was. Many of them had friends or family who developed severe cases, or who died. This was less true of white people. This personal experience drove their desire to keep schools closed.
Meanwhile, it’s hard to maintain one’s sense of equilibrium when considering that such a person as this is a heartbeat or two away from becoming POTUS:
“As Taiwan Warns Chinese “Maritime & Aerial Blockade” Ensuing, Pelosi Says Real Issue Is ‘I’m A Woman’ “— https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pelosi-departs-taiwan-after-president-tsai-bestowed-highest-medal-china-preps-largest
Not that the current POTUS is good for anyone’s peace of mind—ditto for the VP…
…not to mention that it might be nice if the Democratic party just bites the bullet and offers a reasonable definition of the word, “woman”….
Cornflour: that was fascinating.
Superficially I would have thought–
Hispanic and Black parents might have non online jobs and would not want kids home alone.
Asian parents value education highly and would push back against distance learning because lower amounts of learning were happening (plenty of anecdotal evidence of this attitude in my school district btw).
But if the data is accurate the VitD and personal experience of Covid severity would be an interesting starting point.
Dems/media encountering headwinds in setting public attitudes.
Polls are often garbage these days; this one has good and bad news for both sides.
Russia and J6: yawn
Abortion, gun control, governance, inflation: notable interest
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/poll-finds-only-1-americans-see-russia-major-problem
A new Gallup poll has found that a mere 1 per cent of Americans view Russia as a major problem, with far more concern expressed about inflation, bad governance and the state of the economy.
…
In contrast, 17 per cent of Americans see inflation as the most important problem right now, along with 17 per cent who say it’s bad government and 12 per cent concerned about the economy in general.
In fact, Russia doesn’t even break into the top 10, with Americans seeing crime, immigration and gun control all as more important matters.
8 per cent of Americans believing abortion to be the most important issue also represents a new record since Gallup began tracking it in 1984.
Notably, COVID-19, the January 6 hearings and climate change all fail to make the top 10 most important issues despite relentless media coverage.
In regard to the Biden crime family, Jonathan Turley thinks that Hunter may be made to take one for the team: “After years of burying the [Hunter Biden] story, the media is now attempting an even more precarious exercise. It is called controlled demolition: the implosion of a scandal to limit any blast effect on nearby structures or individuals. Like those buildings dropped between other structures, it takes precision and, most importantly, cooperation to pull off. Specifically, this controlled demolition will require the perfect timing of the media, Democratic politicians, and most importantly, the Justice Department.”
Related (Vitamin D deficiency in Blacks):
“Vitamin D Deficiency Might Be Overdiagnosed in Blacks, Study Suggests”— https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=175313
Key grafs:
‘…[O]n balance, black and white adults had similar levels of “bioavailable” vitamin D — the kind that their bodies can actually use.
‘And just like in past studies, black adults typically had greater bone mass and higher calcium levels than their white counterparts.
‘Why the discrepancy? Thadhani said that gene variations appeared to explain most of the difference in people’s levels of the vitamin D-binding protein. Most blacks adults carried a gene variant linked to lower levels of the protein, while fewer than half of whites did….
‘…”We’ve known for a long time that blacks have lower levels of total vitamin D, but don’t seem to show the consequences,” said Dr. Michael Holick, a vitamin D researcher at Boston University Medical Center who wrote an editorial published with the study.
‘ “This study may give us an explanation,” Holick said.
‘ But he added that as far as testing for and treating vitamin D deficiency, “it’s not clear yet what it all means.”…’
I suspect that the pressure on Hunter Biden (with the obvious connection to good old dad) is the reason why “Biden” is red-lining the RPMs of the Jan. 6 Kangaroo Court.
Distraction. Concealment. Decoy.
(This would go equally for the need to distract from any of the current “Biden”-engineered crises the country is facing. In the same vein, DISTRACTION is the likely reason for the al-Zawahiri hit, and perhaps even the reason for the Pelosi bungle in the jungle.)
JimNorCal, from studies I’ve seen, about half of the people who think abortion is the most important issue are anti-abortion, so that issue is probably an electoral wash.
(If so, wonder which distraction “he”‘ll use as a smokescreen…)
More on the abortion/transgender issues: physicsguy’s governor just suspended the Florida State Attorney: “Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended State Attorney Andrew Warren on Aug. 4, 2022, pointing to comments Warren has made that he would not enforce any current or potential state laws regarding abortion or transgender health care. . . . ‘State Attorneys have a duty to prosecute crimes as defined in Florida law, not to pick and choose which laws to enforce based on his personal agenda,’ DeSantis said in a news release. ‘It is my duty to hold Florida’s elected officials to the highest standards for the people of Florida.'”
I don’t know Arnold Kling or EducationRealist, but Kling did such a sloppy, maddening hit job via blockquotes declaiming against those skeptical of SSRIs and the serotonin imbalance theory of depression that I wouldn’t trust anything else he had to say without checking thoroughly.
The issue is that “Nature,” a premier science journal (not without its problems), published an article debunking the conventional view on serotonin and depression:
_____________________________________
The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations. Some evidence was consistent with the possibility that long-term antidepressant use reduces serotonin concentration.
There’s not much science in the criticism. Mostly character attacks against skeptics and much harrumphing that the Wrong Question was being asked and Strawman Attacks!
Kling’s conclusion is basically “The Authorities know what they are doing, so shut up”:
_________________________________
I am willing to bet Bryan that over the next three years, the most credible, high-quality research on depression helps to justify and support pharmacological treatment for it.
_________________________________
Sure, Arnold. Prozac (fluoxetine) was introduced in 1987. They’ve had plenty of time to make their case, but somehow they haven’t gotten around to it. But it’s a lock within three years.
Meanwhile, 13% of Americans have taken an antidepressant in the past month, and usage of antidepressants has increased by 64% from 1999 to 2016: (Antidepressants are mostly SSRI drugs.)
Since suicide is often the result of depression, one might suppose that putting one out of eight Americans on antidepressants would reduce, not increase, the suicide rate.
OTOH, suicide is listed as a potential risk of antidepressants. Hmm.
huxley:
I think anti-depressants have been overused. But the fact that they don’t seem much more effective than placebo is true of many many drugs. However, antidepressants do seem to work somewhat better than placebo, generally – although, as with a lot of medical research, it’s hard to design a good experiment and really the jury is still out.
As far as the risk of suicide goes, that’s very hard to examine, too (see this). And more people are depressed to begin with, especially young people.
huxley:
I don’t think we should look to Arnold Kling’s substack for advice on the efficacy of fluoxetine, but neither do I think that his comment discredits everything else he’s ever written. In fact, my impression is that most of his posts are uncommonly clear and carefully composed.
It sounds as if you’ve already made up your mind about fluoxetine and other SSRIs, but if you’re curious about the current standard medical consensus, then you might want to look at the Cochrane Review article entitled “Fluoxetine versus other types of pharmacotherapy for depression” (https://tinyurl.com/2p92bbnj).
The Cochrane Review article makes very modest claims, but accurately assesses current treatment options. On the other hand, if you’ve rejected all pharmacological treatments for depression, this article probably won’t interest you.
P.S. For what it’s worth, my own personal, unscientific view is that fluoxetine is wildly over-prescribed. This has nothing to do with my original comment on the relationship between school closings and race. Unless you’ve found my remarks depressing. You wouldn’t be the first.
Um, but what if they’re NOT “messing up”?
That is, what if they’re “messing up” intentionally?
That is, what if there’s a reason to this seeming “madness”, a purpose for this seeming “incompetence”?
…which questions are certainly nothing new…falling, as they do, under the by-now-well-known rubric of “When is a ‘conspiracy theory’ NOT a conspiracy theory?….
Back to the video that is the subject of this post – I found it fascinating to see the different sources of plurals, and the comments were interesting enough that I spent an hour reading them before calling it quits.
Will listen to his next post soon, as it seems germane to some of our current controversies.
John McWhorter’s “Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue” is a great book about how English got so many of its irregularities stripped off by successive waves of conquerors, especially the Scandinavians. English is a weird mix now of Latin, Greek, French, Celtic, and Teutonic roots.
neo:
Been handling car trouble…
Yes, I’ve run across that reasoning before. I suppose it has its merits, but I ask a cost-benefit-risk question. Does a few points better than placebo justify the costs of the treatment, the many known side-effects — some substantial — and the risks of long-term usage, for which SSRIs were never tested nor were intended?
I know people who’ve been on SSRIs since the 90s. They’ve given up trying to get off them. I think that counts for something.
If SSRIs worked for depression as well as antibiotics do for infections, that would be a different calculation. But they don’t.
I’m reminded of the all the masking and social distancing for Covid. Sure, there are studies showing they are marginally effective. But the larger questions of trade-offs were mostly not asked and those who did ask were often stigmatized.
I don’t believe the science is nearly as settled as SSRI advocates portray.
Cornflour:
Too many “You this’s” and “You that’s.” I am not the subject here. Rather than speculate about what I think, I suggest asking me, if necessary. However, I would prefer an impersonal exchange of ideas.
I find this to be a standard ploy when I express skepticism about antidepressants. The issue shifts away from antidepressants to the more crucial questions of how open-minded I am and what my issues are.
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“Biden” ‘s STASI DOJ doing what it does best: intimidation, threats and lies:
“DOJ Sues Navarro Over White House Emails”—
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/doj-sues-peter-navarro/2022/08/04/id/1081700/
(And no, STASI is not the plural of STASUM…)
Just another open-thread, off-topic comment.
At his substack (https://tinyurl.com/38f26frc), Arnold Kling links to a long essay by a teacher who writes as educationrealist. Back on April 4, 2022, she published “The Real Reason for School Closures” (https://tinyurl.com/56xx4veh), and the results of her research are surprising.
Please read the whole thing.
Educationrealist takes a close look at data for school closures and finds democracy is to blame, and race can explain. Sounds like Benjamin Crump, but that’s not it. The decision to open schools or use remote learning was largely made at the local level, by local school districts, which are heavily influenced by the desires of local parents. Did parents want their schools open or closed? Across the country, there was lots of variance. Why? Educationrealist patiently sifts through the data, and she finds that the answer is race. White parents wanted schools open at much higher rates than did black, hispanic, and asian parents.
Having found these surprising results, educationrealist doesn’t ask the next big question. Why did black, hispanic, and asian parents support remote learning longer and more strongly? I scanned the comments to her blog post, and a few people were brave enough to suggest an explanation: personal experience. The pandemic did not strike people equally. Everybody knows that old people have suffered the most from the virus. But very few people have talked about the racial disparities. A rough rule of thumb: darker the skin, worse the infection. Of course, Marxists attribute this to evil white males who dominate medicine and politics, and who used the pandemic to oppress black people. Yawn. I’m not qualified to understand the racial differences in the expression of covid-19, but I’d start by looking at how they correlate with vitamin D deficiencies. Whatever the underlying explanation, people with dark skin experienced the pandemic differently. If they weren’t badly ill, they knew someone who was. Many of them had friends or family who developed severe cases, or who died. This was less true of white people. This personal experience drove their desire to keep schools closed.
Meanwhile, it’s hard to maintain one’s sense of equilibrium when considering that such a person as this is a heartbeat or two away from becoming POTUS:
“As Taiwan Warns Chinese “Maritime & Aerial Blockade” Ensuing, Pelosi Says Real Issue Is ‘I’m A Woman’ “—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pelosi-departs-taiwan-after-president-tsai-bestowed-highest-medal-china-preps-largest
Not that the current POTUS is good for anyone’s peace of mind—ditto for the VP…
…not to mention that it might be nice if the Democratic party just bites the bullet and offers a reasonable definition of the word, “woman”….
Cornflour: that was fascinating.
Superficially I would have thought–
Hispanic and Black parents might have non online jobs and would not want kids home alone.
Asian parents value education highly and would push back against distance learning because lower amounts of learning were happening (plenty of anecdotal evidence of this attitude in my school district btw).
But if the data is accurate the VitD and personal experience of Covid severity would be an interesting starting point.
Interesting “development” in Florida:
“DeSantis Suspends ‘Soros-Backed’ State Attorney For ‘Violating Oath’ “—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/desantis-suspends-state-attorney-violating-oath-refusing-enforce-laws
Dems/media encountering headwinds in setting public attitudes.
Polls are often garbage these days; this one has good and bad news for both sides.
Russia and J6: yawn
Abortion, gun control, governance, inflation: notable interest
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/poll-finds-only-1-americans-see-russia-major-problem
A new Gallup poll has found that a mere 1 per cent of Americans view Russia as a major problem, with far more concern expressed about inflation, bad governance and the state of the economy.
…
In contrast, 17 per cent of Americans see inflation as the most important problem right now, along with 17 per cent who say it’s bad government and 12 per cent concerned about the economy in general.
In fact, Russia doesn’t even break into the top 10, with Americans seeing crime, immigration and gun control all as more important matters.
8 per cent of Americans believing abortion to be the most important issue also represents a new record since Gallup began tracking it in 1984.
Notably, COVID-19, the January 6 hearings and climate change all fail to make the top 10 most important issues despite relentless media coverage.
In regard to the Biden crime family, Jonathan Turley thinks that Hunter may be made to take one for the team: “After years of burying the [Hunter Biden] story, the media is now attempting an even more precarious exercise. It is called controlled demolition: the implosion of a scandal to limit any blast effect on nearby structures or individuals. Like those buildings dropped between other structures, it takes precision and, most importantly, cooperation to pull off. Specifically, this controlled demolition will require the perfect timing of the media, Democratic politicians, and most importantly, the Justice Department.”
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/08/03/the-art-of-scandal-implosion-the-political-and-media-establishment-prepare-to-drop-hunter-biden-in-a-controlled-demolition/
Related (Vitamin D deficiency in Blacks):
“Vitamin D Deficiency Might Be Overdiagnosed in Blacks, Study Suggests”—
https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=175313
Key grafs:
‘…[O]n balance, black and white adults had similar levels of “bioavailable” vitamin D — the kind that their bodies can actually use.
‘And just like in past studies, black adults typically had greater bone mass and higher calcium levels than their white counterparts.
‘Why the discrepancy? Thadhani said that gene variations appeared to explain most of the difference in people’s levels of the vitamin D-binding protein. Most blacks adults carried a gene variant linked to lower levels of the protein, while fewer than half of whites did….
‘…”We’ve known for a long time that blacks have lower levels of total vitamin D, but don’t seem to show the consequences,” said Dr. Michael Holick, a vitamin D researcher at Boston University Medical Center who wrote an editorial published with the study.
‘ “This study may give us an explanation,” Holick said.
‘ But he added that as far as testing for and treating vitamin D deficiency, “it’s not clear yet what it all means.”…’
I suspect that the pressure on Hunter Biden (with the obvious connection to good old dad) is the reason why “Biden” is red-lining the RPMs of the Jan. 6 Kangaroo Court.
Distraction. Concealment. Decoy.
(This would go equally for the need to distract from any of the current “Biden”-engineered crises the country is facing. In the same vein, DISTRACTION is the likely reason for the al-Zawahiri hit, and perhaps even the reason for the Pelosi bungle in the jungle.)
JimNorCal, from studies I’ve seen, about half of the people who think abortion is the most important issue are anti-abortion, so that issue is probably an electoral wash.
Wonder if “Biden” will in fact decide to trade Zelensky for Griner….
“Brittney Griner Sentenced To 9 Years In Russian Prison Colony”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/russian-prosecutors-request-9-12-year-sentence-brittney-griner
(If so, wonder which distraction “he”‘ll use as a smokescreen…)
More on the abortion/transgender issues: physicsguy’s governor just suspended the Florida State Attorney: “Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended State Attorney Andrew Warren on Aug. 4, 2022, pointing to comments Warren has made that he would not enforce any current or potential state laws regarding abortion or transgender health care. . . . ‘State Attorneys have a duty to prosecute crimes as defined in Florida law, not to pick and choose which laws to enforce based on his personal agenda,’ DeSantis said in a news release. ‘It is my duty to hold Florida’s elected officials to the highest standards for the people of Florida.'”
https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/politics-issues/2022-08-04/desantis-suspends-state-attorney-andrew-warren-enforce-abortion-laws
This will cheer you up, this woman loves to sing. They are Greek, listening to her speak, even not understanding the language, is infectious.
Speakeasies Swing Band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQLRcPwXstU
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2022/08/03/floridas-vile-new-dont-tread-on-me-license-plate-stirs-controversy-media-says/
across the pond
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11076011/Bristol-Harbour-festival-white-middle-class.html
Are you partial to Militia Violent Extremism?
Apparently legit FBI training docs tell you what to look for.
US history, approval of the Constitution heavily represented in the lists …
https://twitter.com/Stambo2A/status/1554569384324104193
https://twitter.com/Stambo2A/status/1554569594450452490
Cornflour:
I don’t know Arnold Kling or EducationRealist, but Kling did such a sloppy, maddening hit job via blockquotes declaiming against those skeptical of SSRIs and the serotonin imbalance theory of depression that I wouldn’t trust anything else he had to say without checking thoroughly.
The issue is that “Nature,” a premier science journal (not without its problems), published an article debunking the conventional view on serotonin and depression:
_____________________________________
The main areas of serotonin research provide no consistent evidence of there being an association between serotonin and depression, and no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations. Some evidence was consistent with the possibility that long-term antidepressant use reduces serotonin concentration.
–“The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrella review of the evidence”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0
_____________________________________
There’s not much science in the criticism. Mostly character attacks against skeptics and much harrumphing that the Wrong Question was being asked and Strawman Attacks!
Kling’s conclusion is basically “The Authorities know what they are doing, so shut up”:
_________________________________
I am willing to bet Bryan that over the next three years, the most credible, high-quality research on depression helps to justify and support pharmacological treatment for it.
_________________________________
Sure, Arnold. Prozac (fluoxetine) was introduced in 1987. They’ve had plenty of time to make their case, but somehow they haven’t gotten around to it. But it’s a lock within three years.
Meanwhile, 13% of Americans have taken an antidepressant in the past month, and usage of antidepressants has increased by 64% from 1999 to 2016: (Antidepressants are mostly SSRI drugs.)
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/11/numbers
Yet, the US suicide rate from 2000-2018 increased by 35% (with a modest reduction of 2% in 2019):
https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2022/us-suicides-are-stagnant-or-on-the-rise-among-many-groups/
Since suicide is often the result of depression, one might suppose that putting one out of eight Americans on antidepressants would reduce, not increase, the suicide rate.
OTOH, suicide is listed as a potential risk of antidepressants. Hmm.
huxley:
I think anti-depressants have been overused. But the fact that they don’t seem much more effective than placebo is true of many many drugs. However, antidepressants do seem to work somewhat better than placebo, generally – although, as with a lot of medical research, it’s hard to design a good experiment and really the jury is still out.
As far as the risk of suicide goes, that’s very hard to examine, too (see this). And more people are depressed to begin with, especially young people.
huxley:
I don’t think we should look to Arnold Kling’s substack for advice on the efficacy of fluoxetine, but neither do I think that his comment discredits everything else he’s ever written. In fact, my impression is that most of his posts are uncommonly clear and carefully composed.
It sounds as if you’ve already made up your mind about fluoxetine and other SSRIs, but if you’re curious about the current standard medical consensus, then you might want to look at the Cochrane Review article entitled “Fluoxetine versus other types of pharmacotherapy for depression” (https://tinyurl.com/2p92bbnj).
The Cochrane Review article makes very modest claims, but accurately assesses current treatment options. On the other hand, if you’ve rejected all pharmacological treatments for depression, this article probably won’t interest you.
P.S. For what it’s worth, my own personal, unscientific view is that fluoxetine is wildly over-prescribed. This has nothing to do with my original comment on the relationship between school closings and race. Unless you’ve found my remarks depressing. You wouldn’t be the first.
“Fauci and other health ‘experts’ are messing up monkeypox just as they did COVID, Ebola and AIDS”—
https://nypost.com/2022/08/04/fauci-messing-up-monkeypox-just-like-covid-ebola-and-aids/
H/T Instapundit.
Um, but what if they’re NOT “messing up”?
That is, what if they’re “messing up” intentionally?
That is, what if there’s a reason to this seeming “madness”, a purpose for this seeming “incompetence”?
…which questions are certainly nothing new…falling, as they do, under the by-now-well-known rubric of “When is a ‘conspiracy theory’ NOT a conspiracy theory?….
Back to the video that is the subject of this post – I found it fascinating to see the different sources of plurals, and the comments were interesting enough that I spent an hour reading them before calling it quits.
Will listen to his next post soon, as it seems germane to some of our current controversies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKaVI-IStNE
“Why doesn’t English have genders? Well… it did!”
John McWhorter’s “Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue” is a great book about how English got so many of its irregularities stripped off by successive waves of conquerors, especially the Scandinavians. English is a weird mix now of Latin, Greek, French, Celtic, and Teutonic roots.
neo:
Been handling car trouble…
Yes, I’ve run across that reasoning before. I suppose it has its merits, but I ask a cost-benefit-risk question. Does a few points better than placebo justify the costs of the treatment, the many known side-effects — some substantial — and the risks of long-term usage, for which SSRIs were never tested nor were intended?
I know people who’ve been on SSRIs since the 90s. They’ve given up trying to get off them. I think that counts for something.
If SSRIs worked for depression as well as antibiotics do for infections, that would be a different calculation. But they don’t.
I’m reminded of the all the masking and social distancing for Covid. Sure, there are studies showing they are marginally effective. But the larger questions of trade-offs were mostly not asked and those who did ask were often stigmatized.
I don’t believe the science is nearly as settled as SSRI advocates portray.
Cornflour:
Too many “You this’s” and “You that’s.” I am not the subject here. Rather than speculate about what I think, I suggest asking me, if necessary. However, I would prefer an impersonal exchange of ideas.
I find this to be a standard ploy when I express skepticism about antidepressants. The issue shifts away from antidepressants to the more crucial questions of how open-minded I am and what my issues are.