Below the cartoon is the email sent by Foster in total outrage over the cartoon I drew on Chen Chen, poet of the establishment, anointed by the establishment as one of "10 Poets Who Will Change the World." Now, how not to satirize that?! The email of course inspired me to sketch the cartoon below. I am well aware that in the very near future, such a cartoon will be prohibited and result in a fine or even incarceration. And of course in that Brave New World, the Fosters will finally be happy.
From: Foster <claire.rudy.foster@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2020 5:25 PM
To: todslone@hotmail.com <todslone@hotmail.com>
Subject: American Dissident
Hi Tod,
It's been brought to my attention that you disseminated a racist cartoon of a friend of mine to my friend and his colleagues at Brandeis. Apparently you are offended by my friend's presence in academia and his recent essay about universality. Your bizarre, groundless comments about "Community Chinese apparatchiks" is racist and vile. You should be ashamed of yourself for pursuing such a low and valueless line of thought. You are quick to tout your PhD, but with actions like these, one wonders how smart you really are.
Your immature little prank is not criticism, satire, or humor. You aren't funny. In addition to being in bad taste, your harassment of my friend calls your intellect into question. You are not a rebel; you represent a vast and disgusting demographic of half-baked, armchair brains who think it's "edgy" to perpetuate xenophobic and homophobic stereotypes. Punching down just to get a reaction is a cheap move: any bully can do it. If that's the only way you know how to get attention, I feel really sorry for you. Maybe if you put that energy into crafting an original thought, you'd come up with something worthwhile?
I am glad that my friend has taken steps to protect himself. I am not a member of the academic establishment, nor do I have a reputation to preserve, so I feel fine telling you to go fuck yourself.
Go fuck yourself.
Sincerely,
Foster
38 comments:
Didn’t see the letter, but to call Chen an apparatchik was also untrue and weird.
The reason people get mad or hurt by your stuff is that the actual bigots, racists etc. have an overlap in tone and content with you.
Mme X,
Well, you and others don't seem to be able to focus on precisely what was written. NEVER did I call Chen an apparatchik. But he is definitely an establishment cog, which is quite akin to an apparatchik. The letter figures below. Nothing was changed. Foster somehow came to the same false observation as you. Only she wrote "community," whereas I wrote Communist. Not quite sure what your last sentence even means. And AGAIN you FAIL to present one example to back your claim. And obviously NOT EVERYONE gets mad or hurt when I criticize them. Some people actually still have backbones. Enjoy the evening!
To Chen Chen, Visiting Poet-in-Residence, English Department, Brandeis, University:
You have my permission to introduce your students to my criticism with your regard and the sad state of affairs of poetry in general. For the cartoon I sketched on you, see https://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2020/11/chen-chen.html. For my criticism of tons of other establishment poetasters like you, simply examine my blog site. Please do introduce the site to your students... and colleagues! BTW, I am a fervent advocate of free speech and vigorous debate, two cornerstones of democracy despised not only by Communist Chinese apparatchiks, but also by apparatchiks of the American Academic/Literary Establishment, where silence is always golden...
Hi George (is it George or Tod?)
I think the community/communist switch was a phone-keyboard autocorrect error; if you make a typo sometimes it gets corrected to the wrong word. And I was taking Foster’s statement as what you really said, but now after being able to see the letter, I see you are not necessarily talking about him at all. However, after making a critical cartoon of a person, it is easy for an observer to think this too is meant as a further statement re: Chen. Since you match the country with where he was born. If you really want, tomorrow I will find you a few examples on Twitter (by link) of people making your same previous points from our other conversations who then also believe in white supremacy & are fans of WWII fascism & are anti gay. Remember, I am not saying you’re actually like those guys, I am saying you’re being confused with them because the tone and *a portion* of the content is almost identical.
Also, if you cannot tell that you’ve made Foster mad because Chen is their friend, and you’ve attacked him, and they interpret the nature of the attack to be much more disgusting than what you (likely) intended to say, because of the overlap with the people I mentioned above, idk what to tell you.
Until tomorrow, good night.
In essence, criticize a gay person, then be compared with WWII fascists. How convenient for the gay person! Again, I believe in equality, not protected groups. Always the tone! Did you not read my poem, "The Tone Is the Message Is the Tone"? it is still quite mind-boggling that you canNOT grasp the egregiously obvious point in the Chen cartoon! Absolutely mind-boggling... and no doubt quite revealing! Always the need to deflect from the message. Wrong tone! The outraged women's message is a simple one, made by a rather simple-minded teenager: "How dare you!" Well, Mme X and outraged Chen women, I dare!
But I do understand the cartoons, it’s just that my response to the main message is simply, ‘ok... fine, I see.’ It’s not deflection to have not much to say about these notes on academe & groupthink that (paradoxically? or not) hundreds of people have already brought up. So then to actually have further comment, it will be comment on the nonessential ambiguous elements you throw in, that some get offended by. As for the ‘how dare you’, dare away😄, dare on😄 (although of course I don’t *like* when it hurts the feelings of others but yes, it is free speech, and they can speak right back). About the wwii fascism, that parallel (re: some of the statements) was about your general race comments in the other thread, not to do with Chen or whatever. This is what I meant by other conversations. But yes, some people do over-associate the things in your cartoons with the fascist tropes. Which I thought was false until I saw the other stuff about ’losing whiteness’. I will write more about that on the other thread to reply to your comments there. The most in the letter was it looked like you were saying he was a traitor or something but that’s not what you meant (I assume). Strange to quote Greta when she is talking about the physical ramifications of climate inaction, not some offensive statement. You accuse *me* of deflection when I have been almost exclusively trying to answer your remaining questions/statements and rarely even add on another new item!
Now, could you perhaps point me to just one of the 100s of other cartoonists or essayists that actually criticizes as I do precise poets and even professors? You of course belittle me by making that statement... and that's fine, but back it up with precise examples, something you tend not to do. People whose feelings are so easily hurt by mere words and images ought, as I previously stated, get the hell out of the limelight. Democracy canNOT possibly survive when citizens suffer constantly from hurt feelings. We need to bring back the old adage, Sticks and Stones...
Again, how easy it is to kill the message via epithet, as in fascist trope or whatever. That has become a left-wing tactic, far more than a right-wing tactic.
Please focus on what I wrote: SOME (not all!) black people are pushing this tanning of America thought in a hopeful effort to eliminate white skin and thus solve, once and for all, the racism problem. By evoking that fact, how the hell does that make me a fascist? Mind-boggling.
Greta's "how dare you" really means how dare you question what she states to be a reality. It is an absurd comment. Now, I suppose it could also imply how dare you pollute... and yet many globalists are heavy polluters with their mansions and jets. But the "how dare you" in the cartoon clearly encapsulates the poet's mindset, as in how dare you criticize another poet, especially when he's my friend. Well, it is strange that I find myself trying to explain the egregiously evident. Alas.
That’s true about rich polluters of all political stripes, and that’s why Greta is disgusted with them; she finds them to be hypocrites and ‘all talk no action’. She lives all of her beliefs at least. As for the ‘hundreds’ I meant mostly in general terms, and mostly text & not cartoons, (though we can find some Ben Garrison or other cartoons which will be about specific people- interesting that people nowadays use the cartoon format if they’re being personal, maybe verbal polemic is seen as passé). It is true that you ‘name names’. To me this doesn’t really add much to your general point, but sure, it is braver. It is however too much to expect people not to defend their friends or people they admire, especially if more insult is read into it than was intended, that is the confusion that the personal introduces. Just be aware that’s what’s happening, is all.
Now, the tanning thing (based on the root article I found) seemed like a way for marketers to think about changing demographics and capitalize on it. Well, I hate all marketing, but that sounds different than what you said.
Ok, so here is 1 cartoon this one is full of over-the-top philosophy/literature references, all of which are misleading😄 and the vibe is very odd 😂, but you get the idea: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/badphilosophy/comments/g5o381/ben_garrison_celebrates_the_contributions_of_sein/
And here are 2 essays (these come from a pretty centrist perspective, there are others in which the right calls academe ‘The Cathedral’ and other histrionic overreach, but certainly plenty sane people care about freedom of speech, so I chose a couple of those):
https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/why-safe-spaces-at-universities-are-a-threat-to-free-speech-94547
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nationalreview.com/corner/how-groupthink-is-harmful-in-academia/amp/
Oh, here’s another (more general) over the top Ben Garrison cartoon for you (can’t believe I sought this out online, usually this stuff comes to me on Twitter after other people comment on it or whatever.😂) You probably have more sensible general views than him of course.
https://mobile.twitter.com/GrrrGraphics/status/867790376249077760
Some of the people he is championing there are rather shady, for example Gavin McInnes leads the Proud Boys, a rather violent right wing group (their ambition near as I can tell seems to be to become modern brownshirts) It is a shame that such guys drape themselves frequently in the mantle of free speech.
Well, I have a feeling your Greta is now wealthy. Can you not perceive the absurdity in both of us chatting about Greta, who does not even have an education in climate science? How do you know Greta is disgusted with jetsetter polluters Gore and DiCaprio and the billionaires at Davos?
Naming names is a definite form of quality control. Insult will always be read into criticism, no matter how valid the latter... unless of course we're dealing with a rare person with spine and open-mind!
Well, I did NOT make up this anti-white racist "tanning" thing. You need to research more on it. And clearly it does make sense for the minds of those who are anti-white, as in white privilege, white fragility, and all the other absurd stereotypes the left comes up with.
Well, that cartoon you suggest is very general and thus very innocuous. Not sure why you chose that one. And I'm not really sure if I even get the idea, nor am I compelled to study the cartoon to get it. BTW, I have also criticized cartoonists, who seem to be quite content attached to their newspaper corporation leashes.
Yes, the safe space essays are quite common. What is NOT quite common are professors who openly criticize their own institutions with that regard and especially when they are not tenured. I fell into that category.
Garrison seems like a typical career cartoonist... ever playing it safe, never biting the hands feeding him. Why did you choose him to compare with me? I do not get paid for my cartoons. I do bite the hands that feed.
Also, I am still perplexed as to why you are so fearful about coming out of your safe-space of anonymity??? Are you afraid I might do a cartoon on you? I could promise not to do one.
Uh, were the Proud Boys responsible for all the VIOLENT mass looting and rioting? If so, I'm not aware of that. Comparing me to McInnes or whoever else is simply a typical kill-the-messenger-avoid-the-message tactic. Just look at how far away we've gotten in our dialogue from the precise messages in the two cartoons I sketched. Yes, it is/can be quite an effective tactic...
Here are a few items I did related to the "tanning" thing, which I suspect you are in favor of: https://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/search?q=The+Root
Greta has criticized the people in Davos to their face (saying ‘you’ have done this and that) for their climate inaction/hypocrisy in a speech (I will find it for you if you like). She often repeats a line about ‘a few people destroying the world so they can keep making unimaginable amounts of money’. And she’s not wealthy, she knows that would hypocrisy, besides she seems to like a minimalist eco-friendly lifestyle. And I keep tabs on both her Twitter and those of numerous climate & other scientists. Greta is a sort of Joan of Arc figure in that no one *should* need her, for them to take action, but people do seem to need such figures. She is frustrated with it herself I think (she sometimes says ‘I shouldn’t need to be here’ in speeches, & mocks the adult leaders saying ‘but even this, you leave to the children’). The powerful have ignored the scientists in terms of actually acting.
Next point, ‘white privilege’ is real to the extent that different assumptions get made about people and whether they ‘belong’ somewhere, based on race. This doesn’t mean there aren’t poor white people. But the poor should really blame the rich/ the hierarchy for the blameable parts of their situation, not other races (white or non white). Well? One solution is to help the 99% of all colors in a new deal (make it a Green New Deal). About Garrison, I chose it because the tone/ideas are similar. But yes, you do name names. He did too with the first one but it was *extremely* convoluted as you saw😄; we cannot say *that one* was for a mass audience even though he is very popular on the right. I prefer not to drop my anonymity at the moment, & after all I never fully do, on the Internet. As it is I have to start replying just 1-2 times a week I think, as I need to spend more time on other things again. I never said Proud Boys had a *monopoly* on violence, though their main activity is to instigate street fights as they did in Kalamazoo, MI (my sister lives there). My point is that they are street fighters with the support of the current president, who wish to report to him, and he acquiesces. So that part reminded me somewhat of the SA in Germany. The communists had street fighters back then too. But you cannot say that they were all quite equivalent.
Lastly, we already talked about the messages of your cartoons, fully.
See you Thursday,
Christine/ Mme X
Hm, well I can’t find those Tracey Ross articles, & you seem to say they were taken down. The Eugene R.-written article, I don’t find objectionable or relevant. All kinds of people commit crimes; whether the system gives equal justice or investigation/punishment is the current question. There was a link in the first cartoon/letter to a M. Dawkins HuffPo article, in which tanning is about both demographics and trying to level the terrain of inequality that was left over from previous generations (similar to my previous posts about that, in spirit). I am fine with M. Dawkins & E. Robinson’s perspectives. T. Ross may’ve said something incendiary I’d disagree with, but cannot find that.
As I reflect, what if I were a card-carrying member of The Proud Boys… or, for that matter, Antifa? How would that possibly change facts and accurate observations? It would not. Again, your modus operandi really does seem to be one of kill the messenger.
Per usual, you fail to address uncomfortable (narrative-contrary) facts. THE RIOTS!!! The P Boys did not RIOT and LOOT the shit out of a number of cities. Left-wing ideologue BLM and Antifa did that!
Again, Greta is a child, NOT a climate scientist, a number of whom do NOT believe in the stuff she, AOC, and Gore spew. How will someone as famous as her NOT become wealthy?
BTW, I used to be a prof at Fitchburg State. Isn't that in the vicinity of where you live? Don't worry, I'm not hunting you down, oh dangerous man, me! You ignored my entire retort with that regard also!
Hi again George (tell me if you do prefer Tod or G.),
To answer in order:
- If you were a card carrying member of whatever, it would not change the point, sure. [You would not get any card from Antifa, though, as it’s not an organization, but a concept/movement. If you see a card, it’s fake! 😄] I just strongly disagree that racial/cultural mixing should be treated as a threat, and I don’t perceive it that way. The history of our country (as a country, so I do not include the issues of the original colonial conquest in this point) has witnessed a blending that (contrary to the opinion of the Boston Brahmins) has worked out just fine, in my view (that is, if we assume modern-style countries should exist). The problems through history have been from people trying to do segregation or play favorites with immigration. ‘Nativists’ (how contradictory a concept in the US!) complain that people don’t assimilate and forget that it always has taken at least 1 generation. I don’t at all ‘kill the messenger’, it is not unfair to point out a few parallels in language and views. I am allowed to think tribalism, (even if you don’t call it that) is bad, especially among the more-powerful majority, in terms of actual impact.
- About these riots; a common pattern I saw in videos was that people would peacefully protest, as it broke up at night the police would gather and violently move in, meanwhile (in other parts of the city) opportunistic people would damage/loot shops, and the police were nowhere to be found. I don’t think you can blame the demonstrators except in cases where it was the same people; I saw people destroy the Minneapolis PD building but I dare say that’s a different thing. I also saw 1 video where an unidentified person was breaking windows, wouldn’t respond to the demonstrators who were telling him to stop and left; he was later found out to be a right-wing provocateur. So, I know this is not proof, but I am just saying we probably need to find out the real context. As for why there are random opportunists or people suffused with rage who come out and use a demo for there own purposes, those people are usually poor. Look at all past political demonstrations and the spontaneous violence that often surrounded them, which did not negate the larger message.
Continued:
-Greta *is* a child (17); she often uses the irony to savage effect. Understand what was going on with Joan of Arc, why that whole thing resonated; I think it’s an apt comparison. She won’t be wealthy because she actively rejects all opportunities for co-option; she only focuses on getting the message heard. She just uses her ‘fame’ as a weapon to further apply pressure. Say what you want, that girl is a sincere activist. Climate scientists now almost unanimously (like 99/100 or more) believe the same things she is summarizing. There’s no longer ambiguity and in fact they often understate things. All the positive feedback loops with permafrost & ice melt etc. that they were worried about 5 years ago are now happening, and in an accelerated way. Mentioning Gore is dated; he was simply one of the first to start talking about the science back in the 80s. AOC and Bernie simply are acting on the scientific consensus (including the IPCC reports), as is Greta. But most politicians are breaking their own already too-weak commitments on climate.
PS, I never said you yourself were going to hunt me down; yes, I would be quite surprised! It’s just my general policy for anything on the Internet, which is public. Fitchburg is still like an hour away from Greenfield, but you’re in Barnstable anyway, right? Btw, I saw your travel stories from Canada; they were cool.
Christine/ Mme X
PPS: Not that you should necessarily care, or that it really matters, but if you want to know how Greta Thunberg got into this, she first heard about climate change as a child, just as I did, but she actually looked at the papers intensively (she is on the autism spectrum and hyper focus is part of that, I probably am on that spectrum too to some degree, but idk) and became increasingly upset people were not following what claimed needed to be done. She became depressed and wasn’t eating properly. Finally she got into activism as a way to combat the depression and kind of forced her parents to follow her same lifestyle (give up flying, etc). And doing something to live up to one’s beliefs is always healthy for a person.
She understands that living as an example is important, that’s why she sailed across the Atlantic with those people on solar sailboats, rather than flying, why she always takes the train in Europe, why she tries not to buy new clothes, etc. But anyway before the publicity she got involved in actual protest and decided to do the school strike on her own as something that had impact; then people joined her. I saw it happen in real time on Twitter (photos and videos from kids and adults across the world, posting), how more and more people got active with her as an inspiration.
Not sure how this debate got 100% climate changed. Well, last week I watched an interesting video on climate. It sledgehammers your 97% climate-alarmist slogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewJ6TI8ccAw. Check it out if ye dare. Greta really doesn't interest me, certainly no more than DeCaprio or Gore or Obama. Yes, I know, that must mean I'm a racist nazi climate denier. Ainsi soit-il. Not sure where you saw my travel articles because most of them are NOT on the internet. Thanks for the kudos with their regard. I wish people would start protesting against noise pollution, which concerns me at least as much as climate pollution. Trucks and weedwackers. I'm reading Slanted by Sharyl Attkisson (sp). Quite interesting. She does evoke the climate change hysteria in the book. Bonne nuit, Mme X.
Hi George,
I saw your articles linked on the bottom left on the main AD page. The links go to Downhome magazine. 😊 Noise pollution is indeed important. It has detrimental impacts on people’s health as well as on animals. All of these are priorities to me; whatever will preserve/restore a sustainable natural world. Minimizing further climate change and mitigating or undoing what has already happened will be the sine qua non (related to along with preserving/restoring habitat).
As for that climate video... ‘if I dare’ again... you should perhaps compensate me to sit through such as this was 😄. They even misused Ravel’s Bolero and some Beethoven symphonies; I cannot abide it! 😂 First thing: CDN (Climate Discussion Network) that posted this, does not say where their seed money comes from and claims not to know who their crowdfunded donors are (which is interesting, since I give my name to all the crowdfunding campaigns that *I* donate to!).
Second, I am interested in what all climate scientists (people who study the earth’s climate mechanisms over thousands and millions of years) say today, not random people across various scientific fields in 2013. (‘Earth scientists’ would include oil/mining geologists btw, but that’s not really my point) The IPCC reports are put together by groups of climate scientists specifically to explore what are the causes of climate change and quantify where it’s going. Btw 99+ % is what I hear for the climate scientists now convinced we are experiencing human-caused climate change. The global temperature (especially Arctic!) and CO2 readings are very clear, and all other known factors that explain climate change over the eons would point to a slight cooling now, the beginning of a new ice age, not warming. The CO2 levels are spiking in a way never seen so rapidly before in the ice cores. CO2 and global temperatures are closely coupled; ever since our continents have been in more or less the current position (that will affect air & water currents of course), certain levels of CO2 mean certain temperatures will follow.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k5_zpjerQFo
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/
https://www.ipcc.ch/
To your visualization of what I’d say, lol, you at times seem to like imagining hypothetical insults from me to you, but instead let me simply say, you chose an unconvincing video with exceedingly trashy ads and I am a bit surprised at your lack of rigor (I find your views on free speech of a much higher quality, but then again your views on climate change seem as dubious as those on race). I hope your perspectives do not end up stuck, beyond ossified, in an odd pose like a fossilized Archaeopteryx.
Bonne Nuit, George
PS: We are still on this subject because I am replying to you. It was originally about sustainability in general (the natural world, including the human).
Btw, the idea that, ‘even if it’s happening, maybe it’s not a problem!’ from the video certainly is disingenuous. The cost of habitat becoming uninhabitable on land and sea can only end in disaster; the oceans (a sink for CO2 and heat) are acidifying, coral is bleaching, fish moving, animals and people having to move, agriculture (used to a stable climate) is becoming riskier. Weather events more extreme as longstanding patterns shift & change.
I would entertain these ‘climate skeptic’ people more if they could actually explain anything technical. I do not like that they quote Richard Feynman, the ultimate empiricist, yet cannot at all posit a alternative explanation for our current data.
PPS: All the moneyed interests are on the side of preserving the climate status quo, which is why we’ve not yet had action. They want to make someone else pay whatever costs might be entailed. Exxon had accurate studies in the 1970s of the probable effects of climate change given population, and they hid their data and embarked on a misinformation campaign in order to buy time & keep making money (similar to the cigarette companies, and even employed some of the same ad people).
Luckily wind & solar are now the cheapest sources on the market for new power, so now the it’s just about expediting the transition. But dealing with the already-occurring warming and moving to sustainable land use, etc. to avoid collapse of the biosphere is still a huge thing.
Regarding the PPS: to correct a typo and rephrase for clarity, after ‘1970s’ it should say, ‘probable effects of CO2 on temperature, with CO2 increase estimates based on population estimates and per-person emissions at the time’
Mme X/ Christine
Mme X,
And yet I have not heard any official complaints about noise pollution. Certainly not from Davos and the noisy jet setter billionaires who attend. RE the video, you did not KO any points the feller (NL dialect) made. All you did was trash the vid in a typically general fashion of deflection (e.g., bad ads). Just the same, you are far more into the climate subject than I am, so I suspect you know more than I do with its regard. My interest is far more focused on freedom of expression, a concept Antifa, BLM, and socialist-communists tend to pervert to the point of Orwellian Newspeak (e.g., hate speech is NOT free speech).
It is important in this age of extreme bias in the news to read/listen to sources that you know you will not like. I do that everyday RE The NY Times, WaPo, and The Boston Globe--sources closing in on Ebony. I also consult Journal de Montreal, La Presse, Le Devoir, The Telegram, and CBC Newfoundland/labrador. All of them tend left, especially in their blind hatred of the Donald.
How precisely am I off on the race issue? You fail to stipulate. Again, general dissing serves a purpose (kill the messenger/avoid the message).
Ah, un peu de français de ta part. Vas-y... un tantinet plus. Savoir une ou plusieurs langues étrangères peut ouvrir ton esprit a d'autres cultures. Ou t'as appris "bonne nuit"? A l'école ? Au Quebec ? T'as ben ose de laisser les deux mots sortir de ton esprit. Ca c'est bon signe ! Pardonne-moi l'absence d'accents ca et la.
De route facon, how to explain Obama and Kerry buying mansions on the shore on the Vineyard? Shouldn't they have set an example by buying their mansions inshore? And shouldn't Hollywoodites like DiCaprio declare that they will no longer fly in private jets? The hypocrisy is huge and serves to cast doubt on climate alarmists. Evidently, the hypocrites are not really concerned about any sort of imminent 12-yr threat of climate change. The big question is how much change is provoked by human activity... and why the immense silence regarding China? The response is evidently hazy. Scientists are not certain. How much is due to solar activity? Why the essential silence regarding that huge component, as well as that of volcanic eruptions? As Sharyl Attkisson says, the its the NARRATIVE stupid ! Well, she didn't put it quite that way.
How to build a solar panel? Fossil fuel!!!
What to do when there is little or no wind? Fossil fuel!!!
Again, this is not my expertise. Perhaps it is yours. Anyhow, nice chatting with you per usual.
Au plaisir,
T, uh, Dr. T (a la Jill)
Hi George (or Dr. T),
When people talk about environmental issues that affect humans, noise pollution is often in there (along with loss of pollinators, plastic waste, etc.), but I have very little idea what they talk about at Davos; it’s just a place for the rich to meet up face-to-face. Greta went there [by train] to call them hypocrites in person, basically.
Most of the points in the video are about surveys given to general people in the science field, and I just don’t want to invest time finding what they really think in 2020 when all I care about is what climate scientists think (in the video they did mention ‘97% of “climate experts” do agree but then try to negate their percent of the surveyed total and not acknowledge they might actually be expert. I just find this survey thing to be a red herring and trust that a scientific field can sort out the latest data and pull it into the IPCC. I find no scientific argument anymore that goes against this consensus. Solar and volcanic factors are accounted for (we have lots of past data to match against) and would lead currently to a cooling effect, not the drastic warming we see (and melting of ice/permafrost, and ocean acidification from the CO2). As for these politicians and wealthy people buying mansions on the coast, flying, etc. have I not made my contempt clear enough? I don’t waste my time on them. You want me to separately condemn each one? What would matter is policy action (but of course they don’t act either). The young activists and climate scientists I pay attention to online actually try to live their values. I told you already the 12 years wasn’t for the full sea level rise, it’s for staying below 1.5C with 50% probability. That ice is melting gradually. Flooding (and storms) will get more and more frequent and eventually insurance and the govt will likely stop reimbursing for some areas. I’m sure they will sell their mansions before they are too much out of pocket. Yes, it is a terrible example, they are doing harm. China is a big emitter, but their standard of living is well below ours, and historically we (the US) are the biggest emitter over all. So I just think it’s in poor taste to tell people that still have less that they need to cut back. Even if they are trying to become a bossy empire as we currently are, while savagely repressing the Uighurs.
As for what to do when wind isn’t blowing or sun not shining... it is very easy to have batteries or heat water or pump water uphill into a reservoir to go back down through turbines later... countless ways to store power for later use in homes or an electric grid. Slightly less convenient but this is not some intractable problem despite how our president sometimes speaks of it.😂 And tries to prop up the imploding coal industry as some kind of cargo cult idea of what supposedly will bring prosperity. I don’t hate the man but I think he is a child that never had to learn how to behave any differently, and thrives only in a realm of hype/bombast. He knows nothing of & cares nothing for the constitution, he is however just a symptom of the totally rotten system that enabled him and gave him his appeal.
Anyway, I do support freedom of expression, even actual horrible stuff, I agree with the ACLU on that. However, I do think people should not have to put up with being demeaned or discriminated against at work or school by their superiors, or told on the subway to ‘go back to their country’, called slurs, etc. so there’s got to be some metric for harassment. Keep in mind that people who’ve been physically attacked or harmed before by someone spewing certain language or know others who have, will be more rattled whenever such things start in again. That level of stress (which people write about so often) really does kill. I think the proper way to get minimize it is to make our society more egalitarian so people aren’t so desperate to viciously retain a place in the hierarchy. Hate gets whipped up when people are feeling materially like shit and want to assert themselves.
(2/2) So I think you are off in behaving like various minorities just get to benefit from their minority status and don’t have all this various shit to deal with, the lingering historical impacts that weren’t actually fully erased for most, and people negatively prejudging them in ways we almost never have to deal with (in my case never, to my knowledge). I will not understand why it is ‘killing the messenger’ to say I think the message is wrong. Or draw parallels. If something quacks like a duck and I say so, we each decide for ourselves what we think of the 🦆 itself...
J'ai appris un peu de français par moi-même, donc mon français est inférieur. J'ai cependant lu Stendhal, Rabelais, Camus, Simenon etc. en anglais ainsi que Rimbaud, & Baudelaire en français...
As for travel, I have been in France for about a month total over 3 European trips I took. I have been in Nice, Menton, Èze, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin & around the coast there. Also Arles, parts of Avignon and some small towns near Mt. Ventoux (Pernes-les-Fontaines, Saint-Didier, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue), Paris (mostly Montmartre and around Notre-Dame to around the Louvre & Musée d’Orsay on the Seine and bridges a lot), Lille. Passed through Marseille briefly. I’ve used the TGV, RER, SNCF, cars, buses, bikes, scooter, walking at different times. I really loved all of it obviously; let me know if you want to talk about some of these places! Btw I also love the Plateau in Montreal, the Mont Royal park and the subway system. I also like parts of Quebec City (including the old town against the hill/cliff especially the bottom side). I’ve not really been any other places in Quebec than those except to drive. I had said ‘bonne nuit’ because you did, btw.
Encore bonne nuit
Mme X/ Christine
I forgot the Paris Métro; I was going up and down all those stairs at Abbesses station a lot!
PPS: when I said China’s standard of living is below ours, what I really also meant to bring out is that their per-person emissions are far below ours and other richer-per-person countries. Rising, yes. But it is hypocrisy to tell others they should just do with less than what we have.
The key problem with global warming is its intense politicization. It has become a left-wing talking point. Such politicization inevitably ends up corrupting the science, as in if it doesn’t fit the Narrative, it needs to be ridiculed and/or buried.
Actually the video states that essentially all scientists agree that the climate is changing... as it has been doing since the beginning of time. How much of that change provoked by human activity is the real question... and the real answer is not one of consensus.
Well, you're not up to date on the ACLU, which is now a proponent of identity politics far more than one of freedom of expression... and the same goes for the European Court of Human Rights. And so you avoided using the word BUT and simply replaced it with HOWEVER. I support freedom of expression HOWEVER...
Anyhow, pour ce qui concerne la France, c'est la Bretagne qui m'intéresse toujours. Pourquoi? Et ben, parce que j'y ai passe 4 ans. Ce sont les mégalithes qui m'intéresse. J'aimerais bien y retourner pour prendre beaucoup de photos.
Pour le Quebec... Yes, those cities are interesting. But much more interesting are places further north, including Fermont (unique with its one mile long building housing everything from apartments to grocery store, PO, school, etc. Take a ferry right up the St-Laurent to Blanc-Sablon on the Labrador border. I love those little villages on the way, especially Harrington Harbour and hope to stay there for a week. It has a mile long boardwalk and no roads. Also, the islands are worth visiting, especially Anticosti.
Your interest is global warming, which is not really one of my interests. Desole...
Au plaisir chère francophile,
T
PS: Pour ton français, examine ma vignette française qui se trouve a 5 ou 6 posts de celui-ci. Check out my Quebec cartoon in French about 5 or 6 posts down. C'est la meme marde au Quebec qu'icitte aux States vis-a-vis du refus de critique.
PPS: Poetry Foundation refuses to list the American Dissident. Academy of American Poets censored my comments.
BTW, your retort regarding my comment that much poetry et al ends up in full obnubilation is nonsensical and per usual evasive, despite it’s being perhaps truthful... and I underscore perhaps.
Hi T,
On the first paragraph: Climate scientists are the ones that specifically study the effects of all these factors like volcanos, the sun, etc. etc. (and now human activity) on the overall climate over the earth’s history. And they are the ones that agree on the human cause, because they know what the impact of the non-human factors is, based on what they can measure from the past. All current science fits with the supposition of a human cause (and of severe positive feedback loops in the environment, as was feared!); I am not aware of any current data that does not point this way (including in the video- so they rely on nonsensical surveys); it’s become quite unambiguous.
As for the word ‘however’ what I meant was that my emotions will make me act in a way to try to avoid people feeling afraid if there’s some free speech (which I still want to be able to take place) that insults or agitates against them. I would intend to jump in on the bus or on the street etc. and distract (and possibly insult back etc.) the person making them feel unsafe. There is no speech without effect on opinion and reputation even in the freest society. So my ‘however’ is simply that I will counter with my own free speech and interposing action if it looks like someone’s being hurt.
Now for France😊: I have not yet been in Bretagne/Brittany, but I hope to go in the future... the music & culture seem very cool, as well as the landscape (while being perhaps a bit harsh). I forgot to mention I’d also been in Vence and St. Paul de Vence, btw. The former has Matisse’s chapel, a church with a colorful dome, and I saw an antique 1920s Bugatti there. The latter is a beautiful walled town with a nice art museum outside the wall, lots of flowers and stairs; apparently James Baldwin lived there for a while, and good for him! 😄
Next time I am able to go to Québec, I will try to visit the places you suggest; they all sound interesting. Thank you!
Mme X/ Christine
I have lost the chain of the comment this refers to and I think it was under the other cartoon.
Re: obnubilation, I think it is perhaps this idea of certainty & totality about it that is nonsensical, also melodramatic in my opinion. In our understanding of the quantum universe, information is fully conserved, and our perceived universe is the aggregate or superposition or entanglement of a bunch of quantum systems. I’m just saying that there are always unexpected ways to recapture information, and if our universe is a closed system, we have all the time in the world 😄 to do so. As the physical traces of famous & obscure poetry & poets keep on rippling outward. I think the nonsensical thing is to imagine a conscious record in history as the criterion of whether something can have an impact...
PS: I made it sound like Matisse’s chapel has a dome, but I was actually talking about 2 separate churches here.
Oui, j'ai reconnu l'argot québécois sur le panneau de la vignette... Moutons mimis...
Je vais bientôt regarder les autres.
Ciao Mme X,
Well, I am not convinced by climate alarmists at all. I know, "how dare you!" :) I am not convinced of the purported accuracy of your climate scientists, nor of their purported agreement as to how much change precisely is provoked by human activity. Lo siento! How can you believe the predictions of alarmists like Gore and AOC? In fact, if they'd been fairly correct, you wouldn't be able to believe; you'd be dead.
The problem you fail to address: when TRUTH is perceived as an INSULT and/or reason to feel UNSAFE. And that tends to be the Prog ploy to radically diminish freedom of speech and expression. It is working in Europe and Canada and certainly in most of America's universities. You, in essence, do NOT favor FREEDOM OF SPEECH, even if you might say you do.
Your nanny reaction would only serve to keep he/she, who feels unsafe by words, feeling unsafe. Instead, why not make an attempt to help the weak build backbone. You could begin by teaching them the old adage my ma taught me: sticks and stones...
Pour la Bretagne, le paysage n'est pas vraiment severe... alors que celui du Labrador est assez severe. Ce qui m'intéresse pour la Bretagne ce sont les mégalithes et l'ambiance un tantinet solitaire. Je connais pas Vence... bien que j'aie connu les Alpes.
Well, I certainly cannot agree with your quantum opinion vis-a-vis obnubilation. Again, for example, my 2017 photos taken in Lubec and PEI have been fully obnubilated, quantum or no quantum.
Le terme pour l'argot au Quebec c'est le joual. Si tu ne comprends pas l'une de mes BDs en français, laisse-moi le savoir!
Au plaisir,
T
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