Ho-sanna hey-sanna sanna sanna ho!
Apr. 9th, 2006 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cincinnatus_c
High today, here: 9. Dewpoint then: -1. High dewpoint: -1.
High today in TO: 11. Dewpoint then: -2. High dewpoint: -2.
Low today on the balcony: -3. High: 9.7. Currently: 3.8.
Looks like I've got a reasonable, if long, shot at the brass thermometer (though L. suggests I go for the electronic one and set it up at her parents' place)--supposed to be 18 on Saturday, though it's also supposed to be 18 on Wednesday, so the clock could stop there, too. On the other hand, there's nothing at 20 or above in the accuweather two-week forecast, so the winner could well be in May. Looking at who's got what slots, you'd have by far the best shot of winning if you took a slot in the first week of May, because so few people took slots then--but then, it's one of those express lanes / collector lanes dilemmas: if everyone switches to the collectors, then everyone should've stayed in the express, in which case everyone should've switched to the collectors.
Which reminds me of a paper I read, or rather mostly skimmed, today, by Elizabeth Harman, which is concerned to counter the argument that, since you're glad you weren't aborted, and there's nothing special about your case, no one should be aborted, by way of countering the argument--hotly contentious in its own right--that since (certain) deaf people are glad their deafness wasn't remedied in early childhood, no one's deafness should be remedied in early childhood. Harman construes the form of those arguments as, whatever you will have grounds to prefer later, you have grounds to prefer now. The line she takes is that the fact you will prefer outcomes later is irrelevant to what you should choose now if those outcomes will make you a substantially different person. To me, a counter-argument she summarily dismisses--that you might just as easily be glad of the opposite outcome down the line, it that happened to be what you chose--is much more convincing, if, though because it's, not so philosophically interesting.
But that's not why I bring this up. Why I bring it up is, firstly: Elizabeth Harman is the daughter of Gilbert Harman, who is, within the world of moral philosophy, famous (which means that, within the world of anglophone philosophy generally, he's very well known, and that, within the world as a whole, he's completely unknown); secondly: there is a directness, openness, and ease to her style which I strongly suspect may be more than accidentally related to her having an academic parent, and hence growing up with it being normal to be an academic. The same thing strikes me about Jenny Strauss Clay's UVa department page: what she says, and how she says it, evidence a remarkable self-assurance, for an academic.
Now, of course, you can easily imagine having an academic parent--especially a very successful one--producing the opposite effect: you're oppressed by the comparison, and that makes you defensive. It wouldn't surprise me--well, it wouldn't surprise me much--if an equal number of second-generation academics went that way. It's something I'd love to see studied: are second-generation academics generally more or less successful than first-generation academics, by whatever measures? Another factor is, you'd expect the bar to be set lower for children of academics, who are born into a ready-made network of contacts--and its just being known who you are always helps. That factor you'd expect to produce less successful second-generation academics. My hunch, though, is that growing up with a sense of ease in an academic environment would just overwhelm all other factors, because I'm convinced that self-assurance is the single most important element in academic success.
(Another, similar study I'd like to see would be on second-generation baseball players. It seems fairly obvious that a hugely disproportionate number, not just of major league baseball players, but of excellent major league baseball players, are sons of major league baseball players. Bonds, of course, tops the list; the Boons also come immediately to mind, and the Alomars. The Alous. I see Cal Ripken, Sr., never actually played in the bigs, and I also see that Earl Weaver managed the Orioles for two years in the mid-'80s which I have no recollection of, and that Earl Weaver--namesake of the greatest baseball video game of all time (I mean, I'm guessing--as far as I was concerned, the next generation of games was worse, and I assume they've gotten worse still since)--once said this, which is beautiful: "You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all." (But that's not the only reason why.))
More wacky Americans on immigrants: 47% of respondents to a recent poll support the bill currently before the House that would, among other things, make it illegal for churches to provide food and medical care to illegal immigrants; 70% of respondents to the same poll say that they are either very or somewhat sympathetic toward illegal immigrants and their families. Which means (again, assuming there's not some mathematical thing I'm missing here) that at least 17% of respondents feel that they are sympathetic toward illegal immigrants, but are not in fact so sympathetic as to think it should be legal to keep them from starving to death. Meanwhile, another poll finds that 36% of Americans favour building a fence along the Canadian border to keep illegal immigrants out.
Finally, closing one can of worms, opening another: a piece in the Washington Post argues that there is no general "boy crisis" in American education, but rather a crisis of poor and/or black/Hispanic boys--in Boston, white boys graduate from high school at virtually the same rate as white girls while black girls graduate at a much higher rate than black boys, and so on.
High today in TO: 11. Dewpoint then: -2. High dewpoint: -2.
Low today on the balcony: -3. High: 9.7. Currently: 3.8.
Looks like I've got a reasonable, if long, shot at the brass thermometer (though L. suggests I go for the electronic one and set it up at her parents' place)--supposed to be 18 on Saturday, though it's also supposed to be 18 on Wednesday, so the clock could stop there, too. On the other hand, there's nothing at 20 or above in the accuweather two-week forecast, so the winner could well be in May. Looking at who's got what slots, you'd have by far the best shot of winning if you took a slot in the first week of May, because so few people took slots then--but then, it's one of those express lanes / collector lanes dilemmas: if everyone switches to the collectors, then everyone should've stayed in the express, in which case everyone should've switched to the collectors.
Which reminds me of a paper I read, or rather mostly skimmed, today, by Elizabeth Harman, which is concerned to counter the argument that, since you're glad you weren't aborted, and there's nothing special about your case, no one should be aborted, by way of countering the argument--hotly contentious in its own right--that since (certain) deaf people are glad their deafness wasn't remedied in early childhood, no one's deafness should be remedied in early childhood. Harman construes the form of those arguments as, whatever you will have grounds to prefer later, you have grounds to prefer now. The line she takes is that the fact you will prefer outcomes later is irrelevant to what you should choose now if those outcomes will make you a substantially different person. To me, a counter-argument she summarily dismisses--that you might just as easily be glad of the opposite outcome down the line, it that happened to be what you chose--is much more convincing, if, though because it's, not so philosophically interesting.
But that's not why I bring this up. Why I bring it up is, firstly: Elizabeth Harman is the daughter of Gilbert Harman, who is, within the world of moral philosophy, famous (which means that, within the world of anglophone philosophy generally, he's very well known, and that, within the world as a whole, he's completely unknown); secondly: there is a directness, openness, and ease to her style which I strongly suspect may be more than accidentally related to her having an academic parent, and hence growing up with it being normal to be an academic. The same thing strikes me about Jenny Strauss Clay's UVa department page: what she says, and how she says it, evidence a remarkable self-assurance, for an academic.
Now, of course, you can easily imagine having an academic parent--especially a very successful one--producing the opposite effect: you're oppressed by the comparison, and that makes you defensive. It wouldn't surprise me--well, it wouldn't surprise me much--if an equal number of second-generation academics went that way. It's something I'd love to see studied: are second-generation academics generally more or less successful than first-generation academics, by whatever measures? Another factor is, you'd expect the bar to be set lower for children of academics, who are born into a ready-made network of contacts--and its just being known who you are always helps. That factor you'd expect to produce less successful second-generation academics. My hunch, though, is that growing up with a sense of ease in an academic environment would just overwhelm all other factors, because I'm convinced that self-assurance is the single most important element in academic success.
(Another, similar study I'd like to see would be on second-generation baseball players. It seems fairly obvious that a hugely disproportionate number, not just of major league baseball players, but of excellent major league baseball players, are sons of major league baseball players. Bonds, of course, tops the list; the Boons also come immediately to mind, and the Alomars. The Alous. I see Cal Ripken, Sr., never actually played in the bigs, and I also see that Earl Weaver managed the Orioles for two years in the mid-'80s which I have no recollection of, and that Earl Weaver--namesake of the greatest baseball video game of all time (I mean, I'm guessing--as far as I was concerned, the next generation of games was worse, and I assume they've gotten worse still since)--once said this, which is beautiful: "You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all." (But that's not the only reason why.))
More wacky Americans on immigrants: 47% of respondents to a recent poll support the bill currently before the House that would, among other things, make it illegal for churches to provide food and medical care to illegal immigrants; 70% of respondents to the same poll say that they are either very or somewhat sympathetic toward illegal immigrants and their families. Which means (again, assuming there's not some mathematical thing I'm missing here) that at least 17% of respondents feel that they are sympathetic toward illegal immigrants, but are not in fact so sympathetic as to think it should be legal to keep them from starving to death. Meanwhile, another poll finds that 36% of Americans favour building a fence along the Canadian border to keep illegal immigrants out.
Finally, closing one can of worms, opening another: a piece in the Washington Post argues that there is no general "boy crisis" in American education, but rather a crisis of poor and/or black/Hispanic boys--in Boston, white boys graduate from high school at virtually the same rate as white girls while black girls graduate at a much higher rate than black boys, and so on.
