Joke of the Month

Why is there no customer service on a ghost ship? Because it only has a skeleton crew.

#MeToo: Children Following the Bad Example Set by Adults

Children are now imitating the adults they see on TV in the destruction-by-accusation craze.

https://fundly.com/defense-fund-for-keith-bailey-1

 

Additional information about the case:

 

https://gazette.com/education/colorado-springs-area-eighth-grader-arrested-in-what-father-claims/article_e3fa3ec8-cc0e-11e8-bebe-67ec51720a6f.html

 

https://www.dangerous.com/49605/boy-13-arrested-cuffed-and-dragged-from-school-over-metoo-allegations/

 

 

We Only Have the White

Yesterday I asked someone serving me coffee for Splenda. She apologized, saying, "We only have the white." I resisted making a joke about the Jem'Hadar.

Disneyville

The other day I finished reading 2010: Odyssey 2. It suggested this commercial:

"David Bowman, you've just travelled thousands of times further from Earth than any human being before you and returned as a being of pure energy! What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to Disneyville!"

Being Heard About Abortion

Yesterday I got to participate in a "deliberative forum" co-sponsored by Temple and Carnegie Mellon Universities, to which I was invited by BeHeardPhilly.com. It was an exercise in listening and exchanging views on a controversial topic in a civil fashion based on the principles of conflict resolution, where the objective is primarily to understand others' perspective and not necessarily to come to agreement.

In this case the topic was the regulation of abortion clinics. Since it soon became apparent that all the participants at my table were pro-choice but also saw it as desirable to minimize the number of people who feel compelled to choose abortion, much of the discussion focused on ways to provide alternatives to abortion and to prevent unwanted pregnancies. This gave me the opportunity to advocate for single-payer health insurance as well as a constitutional amendment to turn all large companies into public enterprises which any citizen could join at will -- both measures that would reduce financial motives for choosing abortion.

The question my table put to the panelists -- "What are the most effective methods of social influence for persuading morally conservative people to refrain from trying to impose their morality on others through law?" -- unfortunately didn't get a good answer because none of the panelists was a psychologist or behavioral scientist. But I wrote the title of my recent blog post where I attempted a partial answer to this question on the back of a card with this blog's address on it and gave it to the two panelists who'd attempted a response, as well as a couple of the people at my table.

On the whole it was a rewarding experience. I'd encourage others in this area to sign up with BeHeardPhilly.

Breaking the Silence Comes to Penn

Flyers posted around Penn's campus announce that a talk on "Breaking the Silence: An Israeli Soldier on the Israeli Occupation" will be given 4pm Monday, 8 October, at the Perry World House Global Policy Lab (3803 Locust Walk), by a member of that group, which consists of Israeli soldiers speaking out about the realities of the occupation.

Strangely, I can't find anything about this event on PWH's website; perhaps they're trying to avoid interference from Zionist trolls. But here's an article about Breaking the Silence:

http://aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2010/February/14%20o/Breaking%20the%20Silence%20Women%20Israeli%20Occupation%20Soldiers%20Speak%20Out%20By%20Stephen%20Lendman.htm 

And here's the group's Website: https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/

 

Exciting Discussions at Mythcon V

https://quillette.com/2018/09/24/amidst-the-youtube-junkies-of-mythcon-i-witnessed-a-new-kind-of-radical-centrism

This sounds like a fascinating meeting and I wish I could have been there. My only quibble with the article would be that, while perhaps the label "centrist" fits most of those who attended, it's perfectly possible to be far from the political center and still be for liberal intellectual values and against ideological tribalism. That is my own position as a libertarian Marxist and I know I'm not alone in it.