Woke-ism and its effects

I saw this tweet and wondered what it was about:

The explanation was here:

In a nutshell, Dawkins said this and :

She responded by “denouncing this clown” for supporting genetics….and of course, he did nothing of the sort.

This reminded me of the old anti-steroid campaign where, in order to discourage steroid use, a poster claimed that “steroids didn’t work.”, which was ludicrous.

Now this woman is not stupid; she wouldn’t be a scientist at a top ranked university if she were. But she IS woke, (check out her twitter feed) and one characteristic of wokes is to attack people, not on what they actually said, but to attempt to draw some indirect inference on what they “must” believe given that they spoke on a subject in a “non-approved” way or didn’t want to discuss something else.

Here is another example:

You see…it must be one of those two reasons and not any of a multitude of other reasons!

For what it is worth, here are mine:

  1. I am tired of liberals telling me how I am supposed to feel and react to certain things and
  2. Such discussions usually devolve into slogan spouting and applause lines.

Frankly, I have better uses of my time; I have no desire to hear some Dean tell me how wonderful they are.

Yes, it is an important issue, but it is a complex issue and a nuanced issue and one that can’t be solved by bumper stickers and catch phrases.

But I digress.

And there is the whole wokeness thing:

And…well, no.

“Wokeness”, at least to me, means stuff like what is described in this long thread.


It is kind of a “Princess and the Pea” in being pure enough to be offended by, oh, non Indian people eating Indian food or doing yoga (cultural appropriation), claiming that the concept of “biological female” has validity, blah, blah.

Effect on entertainment

I finally watched Glengarry Glen Ross:

(NSFW language and slurs)

Now such a movie would not be made in the US today; the action involves only straight white male characters…and, while dropping the f-bombs is ok…I guess..there ARE stereotypes, slur words, etc.

Nevertheless, the movie has an interesting plot and makes some interesting commentary on the human condition, and involves commentary on personal skills, yes, love, jealousy, envy, back stabbing and just plain vindictiveness and meanness. And yes, it made me glad that I didn’t do that for a living or work with them…it did not make the lifestyle look appealing in the least.

I am glad that I watched it, loud f-bombs and all.

Could this movie worked with a more inclusive cast? Well, I am out of my lane here; I do wonder if homogeneity was a necessary part of the set..I could see the story working with an all Black, all Asian cast and yes, all female would work too.

My reasoning: backstabbing and conflict were a part of the story, and lack of homogeneity would make you wonder if the backstabber was merely bigoted or prejudiced.

snow day…

Of course, I didn’t teach today, but it was still a snow day. And I have a bit of time to review a uniqueness theorem I want to discuss in class, though, to be fair, I probably won’t get to it.

These things take time.

What I did was:

  1. shovel snow while taking breaks to get 10 sets of 5 pull ups. These were not great pull ups.
  2. Weight workout described below
  3. Shoveled Tracy’s drive and sidewalk.
  4. Academic stuff
  5. Reshoveled when the plows buried our sidewalks..of course..all the plows do on the residential streets is move lose snow to the sidewalks; they really don’t make the streets more driveable.

This.

Ok; the workout was 10 sets of 5, not so great pull ups

bench: 10 x 134, 3 x 184 (not that bad), 3 sets of 5 x 165; last one with good pauses.

rows: 3 sets of 10 x 134

shoulder press: 3 sets of 10 x 92 barbell.

push ups: 40, 30, 10 on the trap bar.

Then to Tracy’s house.

Lying to myself ..

Though I want to get stronger, sometimes my ego will take over and let me think that I am stronger than I really am.

Today: I did some deadlifts and tried some with low handles…I haven’t pushed myself with low handle stuff and it showed.

10 x 134

10 x 184

3 x 224

1 x 260 (OMG…way harder than I anticipated)

1 x 255 (still too hard)

3 sets of 5 x 244 (decent reps, but challenging; my second set is shown)

5 x 274 high handle: not that hard but..well…now I see why.

There is a 4 inch difference in handle height and I am surprised it makes this much difference: 30 lbs or so!

Then a relatively easy walk to finish:

Not much glute pain.

Lifting: wearing my Valentine’s Day gift…and it sure applied.

260…way too hard. NSFW language at the end.

255: still way too hard.

244 x 5 (second set); ok…a bit of a challenge

5 x 274 high handle: not that bad, but…

Brrrr…

Kind of a boring task to do…lots of cards to write and light, fluffy snow to shovel in 3F conditions.

weights:

pull ups; 3 sets of 10 (ok, not great sets…one had 2 singles, 4 sets of 5…hip hikes, rotator cuff

bench: 10 x 134, 2 x 184, 2 x 184, 5 x 165, 5 x 165, 5 x 165

rows: 4 sets of 10 x 134

shoulder: 3 sets of 10 x 44 dumbbell, 10 x 92 barbell.

push ups: 40, 30, 10 inside, and headstand. First set of pull ups: last 2 reps sucked.

first set of 2 x 184

It isn’t as if I am not trying…

LOL…pull ups: got them in; it was cold, but a baseball jersey kept my fat gut inside.

pull ups: 8 sets of 5, one set of 10 singles, alternating grips; usual rotator cuff, hip hikes

bench press: 10 x 134, 10 x 150

dead lifts: 10 x 134, deficit: 10 x 134, 10 x 184, high handle: 10 x 224

shoulder press: 5 x 109, 4 x 109, 3 x 109, 10 x 92 barbell, 10 x 44 dumbbell

rows: 4 sets of 10 x 134

plank: 2:30

This took about 85 minutes; it appears that I need more recovery time between reps than I once did.

At first glance I thought “shallow reps” but my elbows get way below parallel.

Why profs are viewed as idiots by the public

First: my walk on the treadmill…still 5K.

some discomfort but not much. The piriformis takes forever to heal.

I was on Twitter and read this ..interesting Tweet:

Now I am getting what he is trying to convey: to a poorly prepared, low aptitude student, college algebra can be as difficult as, say, real analysis is to a better prepared, stronger student.

But the statement “all math is advanced maths” is stupid; for one it renders the adjective “advanced” irrelevant and for another: most anyone in the general public can tell you that most things come in various levels, some are which are more advanced than others (e. g. NBA > D1 college > general college > high school, etc)

But he wants to do away with “advanced” because:

And on we head to the euphemism treadmill... again, because some academic thought that someone’s feelings might be hurt.

The way to say the point is “tread students with respect, regardless of level.” For example, my yoga teacher is kind to beginners but she doesn’t pretend that there aren’t more advanced levels.

This is just stupidity….and why we professors are widely viewed as idiots who happen to have some very narrow, specialized knowledge.

And given that higher education is under attack, that is not a good thing.

Busy day..

More zoom than my usual non-teaching day. But that’s ok.

I still had time for an 80 minute lifting workout. Yes, it was 6 F for my outdoor pull ups (sets of 5..10, some chins)

And I finished with push ups indoors on my trap bar.

And yes, I underestimated my 195 (97.5 percent of max) bench press…it was a grind and where I though my butt kept contact with the bench…I saw..some daylight…red light. Well…maybe that pink was the towel and not daylight?

Still, that is what happens when you don’t take a heavy single with the respect it deserves.

pull ups: 10 sets of 5; hip hikes and rotator cuff indoor. My bands (for the grip) were icy when I brought them inside!

bench press: 10 x 134, 1 x 195 (seen), 3 sets of 5 x 165

trap bar deadlifts (form) 4 sets of 10 x 134, with the 4’th at a deficit. I need to do those again.

rows: 4 sets of 10 x 134

shoulder press: 3 sets of 10 x 44 dumbbell, 1 set of 10 x 92 barbell.

push ups: 40, 30, 10

Being a closer..

No, I am not talking about selling real estate (though it certainly fits there) or being a relief pitcher in baseball.

But ..in that last bit of a marathon..or when struggling with a heavy (for me) deadlift..or bench press…..or nearing the end of a 5K swim…FINISH THE JOB.

So…there is hopeful news with respect to COVID..at least nationally:

We are back to pre-Thanksgiving levels of new cases per day…still pretty high but down a bit.

So..when I see that I think “ok, now is the time to finish COVID off once and for all.”

But many others think “well, we can loosen up!”
I see an opportunity to finally get that win but…well, I am getting sick of the behavior of others and have started to unfollow people that I used to follow closely.

The way I view others and the way I view certain types of places has changed ..permanently.

On being accurate above all else

Yes, I got the walk in…sort of a bad mood due to snow, cold, etc. Modest tingles…some back stiffness (sleeping? deadlifts yesterday?)

Socially, or …should we say “in terms of social views”, I really don’t fit in..not with the conservatives and, increasingly, not with the strident liberals. Why?

I think this is really it: a group that places values such as “a good person believes X, Y and Z” does not value accuracy; it values conformity to group norms. And I’d rather be correct than accepted;

Conservatives would not accept me because I view COVID as serious and mask wearing as a civic duty.

Liberals do not accept me because I do not believe in a “Blank slate” for humans; I really think that there IS a human nature; much of our behavior is genetically determined and that seeing EVERYTHING in terms of “privileged” vs. “non-privileged” is dumb.

I also believe that humans …most of us anyway, naturally want to better ourselves and achieve things.

7 Feb: Brr

-7 when I woke up.

Fluffy snow. Socially distant Sunday visit with Tracy. ESPN3 Bradley Basketball (our cut outs are boxed in yellow)

And yes, deadlifts and a 5K walk.

Deadlifts: learned (or relearned) the lesson about how trying a 100 percent single can set you back a bit.

10 x 134, 10 x 184, 1 x 224 low

high: 1 x 274

Two misses at 319 (not even close; I did get 314 late last year but those 2 2.5 lb. plates must be made of neutron star stuff)

1 x 279 (hard!)

5 sets of 3 x 274 (reasonable)

10 x 224 low handle.

Then the walk..then shoveling. No pain.

Miss at 319

3 x 274 (set 5)