Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Welcome to a Hump Day (“Quarta-feira de corcunda” in Brazilian Portuguese), Wednesday, July 2, 2025 and National Anisette Day, which, in its former incarnation, is said to have driven people mad but also supposedly inspired good poetry, comme ça:
Arthur Rimbaud (Étienne Carjat, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
A famous depiction by Degas: “L’Absinthe” (“The Absinthe Drinkers”), 1875-1876.
World UFO Day is dedicated to the existence of unidentified flying objects. First celebrated in 2001, it was created by the World UFO Day Organization. The day is often celebrated on June 24 and July 2, although The World UFO Day Organization declared July 2 to be the official day. June 24 marks the anniversary of one of the first UFO sightings in the United States, when Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine high-speed crescent-shaped objects near Mt. Rainier in Washington, in 1947. July 2 marks the anniversary of the Roswell UFO incident, which also happened in 1947.
The Rosewell “flying saucer” was most likely a U.S. high-altitude surveillance balloon that crashed. But the benighted are touting the existence of flying saucers even more loudly; someone has been trying to convince me of their existence for months. When I ask why this greatest story of all time has been hidden from the public, I never get a coherent answer.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 2 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Obituaries first, and today we mark the death of evangelist Jimmy Swaggart at 90. I used to watch television preachers, and he was the one I watched most often because he was mesmerizing and highly emotional (I didn’t believe any of his blather, of course: I just was amazed at his style). He was eventually brought down (but not silenced) after he was involved in two sex scandals:
Jimmy Swaggart, an itinerant Louisiana preacher who became one of the most popular and polarizing Christian televangelists of his generation before a sex scandal — etched in public memory by his tear-streaked televised confession — consigned him to relative obscurity, died July 1 at a hospital in Baton Rouge. He was 90.
His death was announced in a statement by Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. Mr. Swaggart had been hospitalized after going into cardiac arrest June 15.
Mr. Swaggart was one of a handful of televangelists who rose to global prominence in the second half of the 20th century, among them Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and Jerry Falwell.
At his peak, in the late 1980s, Mr. Swaggart reached millions of viewers in the United States and more than 100 other countries. His broadcasts generated revenue of $140 million a year with a signature combination of fire and brimstone, musical performances, and the relentless marketing of Swaggart-branded items, including Bible study manuals, T-shirts, records, tapes, mugs, plates, Roman coins and copies of Jesus’ crown of thorns. At its height, his Baton Rouge-based ministry operated the largest mail-order business in Louisiana.
. . .He preached, recorded and sold thousands of sermons. But the one that would come to define him was an emotional confession he delivered on Feb. 21, 1988, admitting to sins that he had long warned others against and begging forgiveness from his family, his followers and God.
“To the hundreds of millions that I have stood before in over a hundred countries of the world, … I have sinned against you, and I beg you to forgive me,” he said.“And most of all to my Lord and my savior, … I have sinned against you, my Lord.”
His forgiveness sermon is below (he sinned again three years later and eventually was booted out of his denomination). It starts with his weepy confession:
*On the heels of Zohran Mamdani’s surprise victory in the Democratic mayoral primary for NYC, River Page at the Free Press explains “How the Yuppies became socialists.” with the subheading, “Fifty years ago, the professional managerial class swung right. Today, in America’s biggest cities, they’re voting for leftists like Zohran Mamdani. Here’s why.”
Held at an upscale waterfront bar in upper Manhattan, the [Mamdani watch party] was hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which was handing out a postcard-sized pamphlet titled “TRANS RIGHTS – CLASS FIGHT,” which detailed the efforts of the DSA to pressure hospitals to facilitate gender transitions for children, among other efforts. I have read the pamphlet several times and am still not sure how “trans rights = class fight.” But I am sure which class I found myself in that night, as Andrew Cuomo conceded, and the young, fashionably dressed crowd cheered for their mayoral candidate, and the news reported that Mamdani had performed worst among the very poor and very rich, but won voters making between $75,000 and $150,000 per year.
I was among the young professional managerial class. When you hear about the laptop class—the people with AirPods, college degrees, and “good” jobs that require them to have three roommates in their thirties—this is them. They’re the most privileged class of workers ever produced by capitalism, and they want to end it. Voting for Mamdani won’t do that, but it at least shows you’re trying.
. . .Somewhat disturbed by the GOP’s alliance with the Christian right, the worldly and secular professionals spent the next several decades [after 1989] focusing almost solely on social issues, turning the Democratic Party, from Bill Clinton forward, into a socially progressive party that embraced the so-called “neoliberal” consensus on economic issues: deregulation, free trade, open markets and borders. It made sense. The transition from a manufacturing economy to a service-based one might have killed blue-collar factory jobs, but it created professional managerial class careers in finance, education, and tech, among other fields.
That is, until it didn’t. Job prospects for the professional managerial class began to sour in the wake of the Great Recession, and we entered into an era defined by what the political scientist Peter Turchin calls elite overproduction, or the “discomfiting hypothesis that societies go haywire when the number of wannabe elites outstrips the number of truly elite jobs,” as Reihan Salam pointed out in our pages this week. Even those lucky enough to get the elite jobs still find themselves in a precarious position. If the Great Recession, Covid-19, and the specter of an artificial intelligence-assisted “white collar bloodbath” has taught the professional class anything, it is that their credentials cannot save them. This insecurity, compounded by the outrageous cost of living in many large cities, has pushed the PMC’s anxieties to the breaking point. Add that to the triumph of identity politics in professional class institutions like universities, corporate C-suites, non-governmental organizations, and media—itself a byproduct of inter-elite competition as many have observed—and what you have is the modern left.
Therefore, it shouldn’t be any surprise that Mamdani-esque socialism is sprouting up in the places where the PMC is at its most precarious. There are, after all, college professors and lawyers in, say, Des Moines, Iowa. The difference is that they can buy a house and raise children on their six-figure salaries, while those in San Francisco and New York cannot. It’s no great exaggeration to say that the history of American leftism (of the DSA type Mamdani represents) since Bernie Sanders ran for president in 2016 has been one of PMC revolt, largely concentrated in cities such as San Francisco; Portland, Oregon; D.C.; and New York, where having a low six-figure job does not easily—or even conceivably—translate into the former mainstays of a middle-class life, like homeownership and good public schools.
In other words, Mamdani is supported by “downwardly mobile yuppies” who think their prospects are grim in New York, and, as Page argues, “Socialism beats neoliberalism in the new Democratic Party, just as nationalism beats neoconservatism in the new Republican Party.” Well, it’s a simile, but, as someone said about another untested theory, “All this is as good as anything else.”
*Well, as I predicted (anybody could have predicted that!). the Senate passed Trump’s Big Beautiful Budget Bill. But it was a squeaker: Vice-President Vance had to cast the tie-breaking vote, giving the final result 51 ayes and 50 nays.
The Senate passed President Trump’s signature tax and domestic policy bill on Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tiebreaking vote after three Republicans broke ranks and joined Democrats in opposition. It goes back to the House, where deep cuts to Medicaid and the $3.3 trillion it would add to the national debt have unnerved some Republicans.
The three rank-breaking Republican Senators were Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
. . . House Republican leaders are still hoping to vote on Wednesday to approve the Senate’s version of their domestic policy bill, which would slash taxes and social safety net programs. Speaker Mike Johnson has acknowledged that the timeline could shift, especially as lawmakers who returned to their districts over the weekend are now grappling with canceled flights in the face of storms on the East Coast.
Some lawmakers from both parties have said that their return flights have been canceled, and they have vowed to make overnight road trips so they can make it to Washington for a potential vote.
The bill is under debate in the Rules Committee, a key procedural hurdle before the legislation can go to the floor. For hours, House Democrats have been offering hundreds of amendments to change the text. Those efforts are all but certain to fail, but Democrats are using the hearing to criticize the bill’s cuts to Medicaid, nutrition assistance and other government programs.
My prediction? (Who cares?) The bill will pass, but squabbling among House Republicans will result in amendments, none of them substantial. After reconciling the House and Senate bills, the final bill will go to Trump, who will sign it into law. Given its effect on the national debt and the huge allotment to keep immigrants out while cutting Medicaid, I’m not a fan of the BBBB.
Congress is nearing a decision on how close its tax-and-spending megabill can get to President Trump’s promise of “no tax on Social Security.”
Trump is still saying Social Security benefits won’t be taxed. The reality is that the tax break under discussion is a temporary bonus senior tax deduction whose size depends on which version of the bill makes it into law. The version that passed in the Senate on Tuesday includes a $6,000 per person deduction, compared with the House-passed $4,000 deduction.
The tax savings for a married couple with $100,000 of income could be about $1,600 a year under the Senate plan. It amounts to a bit less than half of the savings if there were no income tax on Social Security benefits. Under the House bill, they would save about $1,200.
Under the Senate proposal, 88% of people 65 and over wouldn’t pay income taxes on Social Security, the White House said Monday. Currently 64% don’t pay. Neither group includes Social Security recipients 64 and below, who wouldn’t get a tax break.
Some voters said they were disappointed the bill doesn’t eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits. Others, like Frank Reuter, an 86-year-old retired aerospace engineer in San Antonio, were forgiving, and pleased with the Senate’s proposed $6,000 deduction.
“That’s a pretty good deal for most of your seniors,” he said. “I know you start with your best shot and come down to reality.”
Well, given that the government doesn’t contribute to Social Security (it’s just your money held in trust and given back to you when you’re older), it’s a mitzvah that it’s not taxed for most people. In fact, it should be taxed as part of your post-retirement income if you make more than a certain amount. And it is, but there’s that bonus. I have no beef with that, because if you’re old and impecunious, you do deserve a break. I’m just putting this up to let our older readers know that they may be getting a tax break.
It was a surprising statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi as the Trump administration promises to release more files from its sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein: The FBI, she said, was reviewing “tens of thousands of videos” of the wealthy financier “with children or child porn.”
The comment, made to reporters at the White House days after a similar remark to a stranger with a hidden camera, raised the stakes for President Donald Trump’s administration to prove it has in its possession previously unseen compelling evidence. That task is all the more pressing after an earlier document dump that Bondi hyped angered elements of Trump’s base by failing to deliver new bombshells and as administration officials who had promised to unlock supposed secrets of the so-called government “deep state” struggle to fulfill that pledge.
The Associated Press spoke with lawyers and law enforcement officials in criminal cases of Epstein and socialite former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell who said they hadn’t seen and didn’t know of a trove of recordings like what Bondi described. Indictments and detention memos do not reference the existence of videos of Epstein with children, and neither was charged with possession of child sex abuse material even though that offense would have been much easier to prove than the sex trafficking counts they faced.
AP correspondent Julie Walker reports mystery surrounds the Jeffrey Epstein files after the Attorney General claims there are ‘tens of thousands’ of videos.
One potential clue may lie in a little-noticed 2023 court filing — among hundreds of documents reviewed by the AP — in which Epstein’s estate was revealed to have located an unspecified number of videos and photos that it said might contain child sex abuse material. But even that remains shrouded in secrecy with lawyers involved in that civil case saying a protective order prevents them from discussing it.
The filing suggests a discovery of recordings after the criminal cases had concluded, but if that’s what Bondi was referencing, the Justice Department has not said.
Epstein’s crimes, high-profile connections and jailhouse suicide have made the case a magnet for conspiracy theorists and online sleuths seeking proof of a coverup. Elon Musk entered the frenzy during his acrimonious fallout with Trump when he said without evidence in a since-deleted social media post that the reason the Epstein files have yet to be released is that the Republican president is featured in them.
During a Fox News Channel interview in February, Bondi suggested an alleged Epstein “client list” was sitting on her desk. The Justice Department after that distributed binders marked “declassified” to far-right influencers at the White House, but it quickly became clear much of the information had long been in the public domain. No “client list” was disclosed, and there’s no evidence such a document exists.
Given Bondi’s previous flop, I’m not taking her word here too seriously. And, at any rate, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of people other than Epstein committing sex crimes, which would be the really newsworthy part. Since Epstein killed himself in prison rather than face the certainty of life without parole, the matter seems moot anyway: a trove of videos for voyeurs.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili wants a nosh (as usual):
Andrzej:No point in sitting on the porch thinking – let’s get back to work. Hili: Maybe we should eat something first?
In Polish:
Ja; Nie ma co tu siedzieć i myśleć, wracamy do roboty.
Hili: Może najpierw coś zjemy?
Masih is still quiet, but JKR gets a bit of Schadenfreude:
Stephen Ireland, who targeted me with endless abuse on here because I oppose the chemical castration of children and the removal of protected spaces for women and girls, has just been sentenced to 30 years in jail for child rape. pic.twitter.com/0HHctRocB4
From Malcolm, who suspects that I wouldn’t want to try this Chinese treatment for insomnia:
In the city of Shenyang, China, a very unusual method is being used to treat insomnia: people are hanging from their necks with a belt and gently swinging for a few minutes.pic.twitter.com/j5Ku3T2g42
Cornell has been caught with its pants down; breaking the law (Title VII, to be exact) to engage in race-preferential hiring. You can read about Cornell’s sneaky hiring practices at this link or in the thread that follows this tweet.
DOCUMENTS: At Cornell, search committees that were hiring biomedical scientists had to pass four “checkpoints” to make sure their pools were “sufficiently diverse.”
“That certainly looks like a Title VII violation,” one legal expert told me when discussing the program.
— Dudes Posting Their W’s (@DudespostingWs) June 30, 2025
From Luana. I wrote the other data about the new field of Queer Archaeology, and perhaps this is an examples (not that there’s anything wrong with being gay):
In case you’ll die in a volcano eruption, remember to sit apart with your friends … or the archeologist will call you gay centuries later. pic.twitter.com/otKNtLo5sd
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, a bird mystery solved:
There's news on the Nechisar nightjar (Caprimulgus solala), named for a single wing found in Ethiopia in 1990. DNA analysis – as yet unpublished – shows that it's a previously unreported thing among Old World nightjars… a hybrid! http://www.aba.org/has-the-nech… #ornithology #birds #nightjars
I suspect the rise of the socialist managerial class has more to do with what they were taught than what they’ve experienced.
Jimmy Swaggart was related to Southern musicians Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilly. I always like to work “The Killer” into a story if I can.
The Free Press (Mr. River’s) analysis of Zohran’s win is spot on. I know some of the young professional mgt class* and he describes it well. I feel quite sorry for these kids, despite their insane voting preferences and leeerve of Pawestine… but expanding tertiary education so widely has consequences. And AI will ‘eff their careers in unknown ways.
AI terrifies me, jobs wise. Not just white collar stuff but also things like truck drivers.
I started as a stock broker, became a trader, then lawyer and all of these jobs now are under some threat from AI replacement.
I’m relieved that at 54 I had my success a few decades ago and like all childless people all my money is discressionary. Except dog toys, gotta keep my boy happy and AOC chew toys don’t come cheap 🙂
Turchin is wrong about a whole lot but the “elite overproduction” idea of his is on the money I think.
D.A.
NYC
*I’m pretty sure a friend and fellow writer at my column space, the lefty DemocracyChronicles was at that exact Zohran win party. Those “victory” parties look fun. I worked for Hillary’s campaign but was too terrified to go to her party. Didn’t turn out well I heard.
OMG, I gotta find some AOC chew toys! 😅
Also featured story in the Free Press:
“This Supreme Court Term Proves the System Still Work”
Bari Weiss’ publication seems an odd mixture.
“Cornell’s sneaky hiring practices…”
I’ve chaired half a dozen hiring committees and served on many more. Every search included the kind of checks that you describe as “sneaky hiring practices,” and I am unaware of any major university at which similar policies and procedures were not in place — usually to conform to administration rules and guidelines, often to the frustration of faculty. I am not sure why Cornell is being singled out for a practice and policy that was certainly standard and routine in academic hiring up to 2023. There was nothing “sneaky” about it.
I hesitate to generalize from the cases in which I was directly involved, but our usual dilemma was kind of the reverse of what is implied in this instance: sometimes the top one or two candidates were White males, and to make sure that our short list passed muster with our affirmative action office we would add one or two ‘minority’ candidates…..
Gee, I love the expertise and experience of WEIT readers. Thanks Barbara.
How was your experience opposite to the (universal) Cornell algorithm, Barbara? It seems to me this is just what one would do to prevent finding oneself with two white males on the short list to the grim frowns of the administrators. Instead of having to parachute in some black candidates at each step, only to winnow them at the next, one would instead just carry the black stalking horses all the way through to the finish line. And did you really submit your proposed hires to vetting by on-campus black pressure groups who might have known absolutely nothing about the content expertise or personal qualities of the preferred candidate and who would therefore have nothing to contribute except racial animus against him? What an ordeal for the poor candidate that must have been! Private practice in Orchard Park would be looking pretty good by then.
Seems like a lot of effort. In Canada we just say in the ad that preference will be given to women (if they’re still considered oppressed, not sure they are*), indigenous, black, homosexual, disabled, trans-gender, and two-spirit candidates. A sample of hiring results can then be measured against the ads to see if preference really was given. For some postings, the funding rules say the successful candidate must tick one (or more!) of those boxes. All perfectly legal.
At least in America you are trying to stamp this out by exposing it.
(* Just before our recent election, the federal Human Rights Commission was internally floating a proposal to ask Parliament to remove women as a protected class from the Human Rights Code that governs federally regulated industries and the federal civil service. The provinces all have their own Codes. Under the proposal, it would be illegal to discriminate against transwomen under gender identification but not against women as such. When Rights Collide, book title by Alan Borovoy, something has to give.)
“How was your experience opposite to the (universal) Cornell algorithm, Barbara?”
It was not. It was virtually identical. That was my point.
“And did you really submit your proposed hires to vetting by on-campus black pressure groups…”
Of course not, and I saw nothing in the Cornell process that would have required something like that.
I guess I read “reverse of” different from how you meant it.
And the final check on the algorithm Cornell used in 2021 was to engage with on-campus diversity groups to make sure Checkpoint #4 passed, just before the offers were to be made. It says so right in the tweet. Who would these diversity groups be? I’m glad to know you didn’t submit your candidates to that, but Cornell says it did, at least for its diversity hires.
This hasn’t been my experience on university hiring committees. The requirements to demonstrate “diversity” and get approval of candidate lists from a DEI bureaucrat at several steps in hiring new colleagues are ~all new since the Great Awokening.
However, we do engage in truly race-based hiring. And for that we can get a variance on the human rights laws that would otherwise make it illegal to hire a university professor based on xir ethnicity.
“The requirements to demonstrate “diversity” and get approval of candidate lists from a DEI bureaucrat at several steps in hiring new colleagues are ~all new since the Great Awokening.”
I’m not sure what your timeline is here. “Diversity” has been pushed by university administrations in the U.S. at least since Bakke (1978) and was routine after Fisher v UT in 2016 — If your experience refers to Canadian universities, it is simply not relevant to the U.S. policies.
Ok thanks for clarifying the scope of the conversation on this website.
This is from long ago – i.e., 1970’s. An in-law was on the search committee of a hard science department of a highly ranked public university. They decided the two finalists – one male, the other female – were equally qualified. They wished they could hire both, but there was only one opening. They were about to flip a coin when one of them said that the way things were going, when the next position opened up, they would probably be forced to hire a female, so they went with the male and hoped the female would still be available when the next opening occurred. [Or maybe they were just male chauvinist pigs, but that didn’t describe my in-law. After he retired he ended up marrying the ex of the University’s football head coach. I would have like to have met her – never did – to find out what it was like going from the ultimate jock to the ultimate nerd. Yes, like me, my in-law was a real nerd.]
I’ve occasionally wondered if it’s possible to be a “football nerd.” Would that be someone who, for example, analyzes in exquisite detail and waxes rhapsodic about football statistics and rules?
Hard to say if the Free Press analysis of Zohran’s win is accurate, but I would say that there are way too many humanities and social sciences PhD’s out there with too little to occupy themselves—except for occupying the campuses that pay them, of course. That part of the Free Press analysis—a surplus of highly educated people—is probably correct.
We have a long term friend in academia, and one of her relatives is a young man who just graduated with a PhD in Medieval History. There is worry.
At least Medieval History is a non-BS subject with a real object. And hopefully the old-time Liberal Education skills (deep reading, effective writing, dealing with controversies, rational thought, etc.) will still be of use, somewhere.
Perhaps he will encounter and be influenced by another such grad, Andrew Doyle.
Look at it this way Norman. Taking 30 years ago as a reference point, then 20% of people were graduates, now it is more than 1/3rd.
There is also data to suggest that the average IQ of new (arts) grads has declined from 110 to 100. *I’ve noticed this anecdotally, controlling for age obviously.
It is simple dilution to a very average… average. Further, in the last three decades a whole raft of BS majors happened.
heheh BACK IN MYY DAY… (1992 grad, U. Melb and Georgetown U.) the only “studies” about were Women’s Studies (that I remember… the chicks ;-).
Subsequently: fat, queer, black..sorry Black, etc. indigenous studies and magic… there are many and it might just be me but I’m not sure those majors are attracting the top students.
Also… the much discussed hard left sweep of the professoriate and enormous “admin” hiring (DEI, mainly).
The kind of environment I remember from uni, and moreso you’ll remember being a few summers older than I, is long gone.
respect,
D.A.
NYC
There was a fascinating documentary piece on NPR about how in the ’70s there was a minor uprising among the Humanities students at what I think was UC Berkeley. Or one of the other UC’s. Anyway, the issue was that the Humanities was overwhelmingly about European and North American history, language, art, culture, and Western religion. But the students were from everywhere, and they were not seeing anything about other histories, language, etc, and they could see how biased this was as they were paying tuition for subjects that was of less importance to them. I think they happened to be right.
After semi-closing down classes, and getting some significant push-back from the administration who were very conservative (by today’s standards, certainly), there was agreement to broaden the Humanities curriculum. New departments, new hires. All that started back then, and it spread to everywhere. It was so interesting that I thought it would make a good documentary movie.
Now I think the criticism back then was correct in that there needed to be a broader distribution of studies. But as things do, that pendulum has swung too far in terms of all-encompassing de-colonization. This is why I think it would be great if the heterodox movement could infiltrate campuses, where funding and grants could prioritize a more even distribution of subjects. There will be much wailing and bashing of teeth on Blue-sky and elsewhere, but eventually it will become the new normal with trust in academia being slowly restored.
That small uprising led to the dismantling of Western Civilization and Great Books courses and programs across the country. And you’ll never guess which university has retained its Western Civ/Great Books program. The irony is palpable… Columbia University.
Winning typo of the week: bashing of teeth.
In the current climate this is likely more apt than the (presumed) intended text.
I would watch Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s show from time to time, since Tammy was such a trip. There is the movie The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which is a biography about her life. I highly recommend it as it is fascinating, and by the end you will wind up rooting for her in a very big way.
My favorite televangelist was Eugene Scott. He would sit there babbling for hours about how the pyramids foretold World War II, or some such nonsense, then say “I don’t hear no phones ringin. I guess nobody’s listenin’.” Then he would sit there scowling at the camera for several minutes until enough viewers called in with pledges. I would watch him for hours; not planning to, but he was so damn entertaining.
Brother Love’s Travellin’ Salvation Show.
Yea Brother!
When Neil Diamond’s hit song came out, I mis-heard the line as “Pack up your babies and crabby old ladies,” in classic Lady Mondegreen style.
Now I can’t un-hear that! 😅
And it’s bad advice, since many crabby old ladies would strongly resist being packed up.
And some of us bite!
Does this remind you of anyone? “… and the relentless marketing of Swaggart-branded items, including Bible study manuals, T-shirts, records, tapes, mugs, plates, Roman coins and copies of Jesus’ crown of thorns.”
I’m 77. Social Security is NOT your money held in trust and given back to you: This is a common mis-understanding. If it were, the SSA could invest the money while it’s in trust and pay you back with interest, and/or there would be no problem with SS going bankrupt: The investment growth would cover payouts as do private pensions/annuities. SSA takes in money from current employees and pays it out to the retired. When started, there were many more paying in than collecting, and the age of death was much nearer 65 than it is today. Now, the ratio of workers paying in to retirees receiving is about 3:1, and age of death is much, much later. These are the reasons that SS will crash soon after (probably) I die.
Thank you. I was severely tempted to comment on the common misconception that “the government doesn’t contribute to Social Security”. I accept that the creative accounting dodge of having a government Trust Fund™ whose sole assets are bonds (i.e. debt) of same government was well-intentioned at the time, to forestall outcries of “Socialism!!”, but it’s a blatant sham.
In my opinion, intelligent life could exist on other planets in other solar systems. Could UFOs be a consequence? Possibly. Are all ‘UFO sightings’ legitimate? Hardly. Are some? Not so clear. The Roswell incident (1947) has (still) not been adequately explained (as I see it). Navy fighter pilots have taken videos of possible UFOs. Have they been explained?
UPenn to ban trans athletes after probe stemming from swimmer Lia Thomas
A win for Trump (I don’t like him but I’ll take the win).
Also he has been stripped of his medals. So the winners have been rightfully restored.
Looks as though cheating men are not going to win after all.
It’s great news!
Ah but no, it was a win for women.
Absolutely!
With respect, Professor Ceiling Cat, it was absinthe that Rimbaud drank, and absinthe that supposedly caused insanity. Not anisette; both drinks are anise-flavored, but otherwise they’re quite different. There’s wormwood in absinthe, and wormwood was the supposed culprit.
Many countries banned absinthe for decades. The ban was lifted in the 2000s (in 2007 in the US), after it was found that the drink’s reputation was undeserved.
Miss Wormwood was Calvin’s long-suffering first-grade teacher. I think she was a good influence on him, despite his best efforts to thwart her. I’ll bet she kept a bottle of absinthe in her desk, though.
Televangelists were brutally satirized in what is probably the best post-Peter-Gabriel Genesis song (or—sacrilege!—maybe their best song overall). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35K6vQRt67g
IMO it’s mediocre music but indeed excellent snark. I paused the video at the various magazines etc., and some of the items are borderline libellous . Jolly good.
I suspect the rise of the socialist managerial class has more to do with what they were taught than what they’ve experienced.
Jimmy Swaggart was related to Southern musicians Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilly. I always like to work “The Killer” into a story if I can.
The Free Press (Mr. River’s) analysis of Zohran’s win is spot on. I know some of the young professional mgt class* and he describes it well. I feel quite sorry for these kids, despite their insane voting preferences and leeerve of Pawestine… but expanding tertiary education so widely has consequences. And AI will ‘eff their careers in unknown ways.
AI terrifies me, jobs wise. Not just white collar stuff but also things like truck drivers.
I started as a stock broker, became a trader, then lawyer and all of these jobs now are under some threat from AI replacement.
I’m relieved that at 54 I had my success a few decades ago and like all childless people all my money is discressionary. Except dog toys, gotta keep my boy happy and AOC chew toys don’t come cheap 🙂
Turchin is wrong about a whole lot but the “elite overproduction” idea of his is on the money I think.
D.A.
NYC
*I’m pretty sure a friend and fellow writer at my column space, the lefty DemocracyChronicles was at that exact Zohran win party. Those “victory” parties look fun. I worked for Hillary’s campaign but was too terrified to go to her party. Didn’t turn out well I heard.
OMG, I gotta find some AOC chew toys! 😅
Also featured story in the Free Press:
“This Supreme Court Term Proves the System Still Work”
Bari Weiss’ publication seems an odd mixture.
“Cornell’s sneaky hiring practices…”
I’ve chaired half a dozen hiring committees and served on many more. Every search included the kind of checks that you describe as “sneaky hiring practices,” and I am unaware of any major university at which similar policies and procedures were not in place — usually to conform to administration rules and guidelines, often to the frustration of faculty. I am not sure why Cornell is being singled out for a practice and policy that was certainly standard and routine in academic hiring up to 2023. There was nothing “sneaky” about it.
I hesitate to generalize from the cases in which I was directly involved, but our usual dilemma was kind of the reverse of what is implied in this instance: sometimes the top one or two candidates were White males, and to make sure that our short list passed muster with our affirmative action office we would add one or two ‘minority’ candidates…..
Gee, I love the expertise and experience of WEIT readers. Thanks Barbara.
How was your experience opposite to the (universal) Cornell algorithm, Barbara? It seems to me this is just what one would do to prevent finding oneself with two white males on the short list to the grim frowns of the administrators. Instead of having to parachute in some black candidates at each step, only to winnow them at the next, one would instead just carry the black stalking horses all the way through to the finish line. And did you really submit your proposed hires to vetting by on-campus black pressure groups who might have known absolutely nothing about the content expertise or personal qualities of the preferred candidate and who would therefore have nothing to contribute except racial animus against him? What an ordeal for the poor candidate that must have been! Private practice in Orchard Park would be looking pretty good by then.
Seems like a lot of effort. In Canada we just say in the ad that preference will be given to women (if they’re still considered oppressed, not sure they are*), indigenous, black, homosexual, disabled, trans-gender, and two-spirit candidates. A sample of hiring results can then be measured against the ads to see if preference really was given. For some postings, the funding rules say the successful candidate must tick one (or more!) of those boxes. All perfectly legal.
At least in America you are trying to stamp this out by exposing it.
(* Just before our recent election, the federal Human Rights Commission was internally floating a proposal to ask Parliament to remove women as a protected class from the Human Rights Code that governs federally regulated industries and the federal civil service. The provinces all have their own Codes. Under the proposal, it would be illegal to discriminate against transwomen under gender identification but not against women as such. When Rights Collide, book title by Alan Borovoy, something has to give.)
“How was your experience opposite to the (universal) Cornell algorithm, Barbara?”
It was not. It was virtually identical. That was my point.
“And did you really submit your proposed hires to vetting by on-campus black pressure groups…”
Of course not, and I saw nothing in the Cornell process that would have required something like that.
I guess I read “reverse of” different from how you meant it.
And the final check on the algorithm Cornell used in 2021 was to engage with on-campus diversity groups to make sure Checkpoint #4 passed, just before the offers were to be made. It says so right in the tweet. Who would these diversity groups be? I’m glad to know you didn’t submit your candidates to that, but Cornell says it did, at least for its diversity hires.
This hasn’t been my experience on university hiring committees. The requirements to demonstrate “diversity” and get approval of candidate lists from a DEI bureaucrat at several steps in hiring new colleagues are ~all new since the Great Awokening.
However, we do engage in truly race-based hiring. And for that we can get a variance on the human rights laws that would otherwise make it illegal to hire a university professor based on xir ethnicity.
https://www.sfu.ca/dashboard/faculty-staff/news/2023/07/b-c–human-rights-commissioner-approves-sfu-s-plan-to-hire-black-faculty.html
“The requirements to demonstrate “diversity” and get approval of candidate lists from a DEI bureaucrat at several steps in hiring new colleagues are ~all new since the Great Awokening.”
I’m not sure what your timeline is here. “Diversity” has been pushed by university administrations in the U.S. at least since Bakke (1978) and was routine after Fisher v UT in 2016 — If your experience refers to Canadian universities, it is simply not relevant to the U.S. policies.
Ok thanks for clarifying the scope of the conversation on this website.
This is from long ago – i.e., 1970’s. An in-law was on the search committee of a hard science department of a highly ranked public university. They decided the two finalists – one male, the other female – were equally qualified. They wished they could hire both, but there was only one opening. They were about to flip a coin when one of them said that the way things were going, when the next position opened up, they would probably be forced to hire a female, so they went with the male and hoped the female would still be available when the next opening occurred. [Or maybe they were just male chauvinist pigs, but that didn’t describe my in-law. After he retired he ended up marrying the ex of the University’s football head coach. I would have like to have met her – never did – to find out what it was like going from the ultimate jock to the ultimate nerd. Yes, like me, my in-law was a real nerd.]
I’ve occasionally wondered if it’s possible to be a “football nerd.” Would that be someone who, for example, analyzes in exquisite detail and waxes rhapsodic about football statistics and rules?
Hard to say if the Free Press analysis of Zohran’s win is accurate, but I would say that there are way too many humanities and social sciences PhD’s out there with too little to occupy themselves—except for occupying the campuses that pay them, of course. That part of the Free Press analysis—a surplus of highly educated people—is probably correct.
We have a long term friend in academia, and one of her relatives is a young man who just graduated with a PhD in Medieval History. There is worry.
At least Medieval History is a non-BS subject with a real object. And hopefully the old-time Liberal Education skills (deep reading, effective writing, dealing with controversies, rational thought, etc.) will still be of use, somewhere.
Perhaps he will encounter and be influenced by another such grad, Andrew Doyle.
Look at it this way Norman. Taking 30 years ago as a reference point, then 20% of people were graduates, now it is more than 1/3rd.
There is also data to suggest that the average IQ of new (arts) grads has declined from 110 to 100. *I’ve noticed this anecdotally, controlling for age obviously.
It is simple dilution to a very average… average. Further, in the last three decades a whole raft of BS majors happened.
heheh BACK IN MYY DAY… (1992 grad, U. Melb and Georgetown U.) the only “studies” about were Women’s Studies (that I remember… the chicks ;-).
Subsequently: fat, queer, black..sorry Black, etc. indigenous studies and magic… there are many and it might just be me but I’m not sure those majors are attracting the top students.
Also… the much discussed hard left sweep of the professoriate and enormous “admin” hiring (DEI, mainly).
The kind of environment I remember from uni, and moreso you’ll remember being a few summers older than I, is long gone.
respect,
D.A.
NYC
There was a fascinating documentary piece on NPR about how in the ’70s there was a minor uprising among the Humanities students at what I think was UC Berkeley. Or one of the other UC’s. Anyway, the issue was that the Humanities was overwhelmingly about European and North American history, language, art, culture, and Western religion. But the students were from everywhere, and they were not seeing anything about other histories, language, etc, and they could see how biased this was as they were paying tuition for subjects that was of less importance to them. I think they happened to be right.
After semi-closing down classes, and getting some significant push-back from the administration who were very conservative (by today’s standards, certainly), there was agreement to broaden the Humanities curriculum. New departments, new hires. All that started back then, and it spread to everywhere. It was so interesting that I thought it would make a good documentary movie.
Now I think the criticism back then was correct in that there needed to be a broader distribution of studies. But as things do, that pendulum has swung too far in terms of all-encompassing de-colonization. This is why I think it would be great if the heterodox movement could infiltrate campuses, where funding and grants could prioritize a more even distribution of subjects. There will be much wailing and bashing of teeth on Blue-sky and elsewhere, but eventually it will become the new normal with trust in academia being slowly restored.
That small uprising led to the dismantling of Western Civilization and Great Books courses and programs across the country. And you’ll never guess which university has retained its Western Civ/Great Books program. The irony is palpable… Columbia University.
Winning typo of the week: bashing of teeth.
In the current climate this is likely more apt than the (presumed) intended text.
I would watch Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s show from time to time, since Tammy was such a trip. There is the movie The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which is a biography about her life. I highly recommend it as it is fascinating, and by the end you will wind up rooting for her in a very big way.
My favorite televangelist was Eugene Scott. He would sit there babbling for hours about how the pyramids foretold World War II, or some such nonsense, then say “I don’t hear no phones ringin. I guess nobody’s listenin’.” Then he would sit there scowling at the camera for several minutes until enough viewers called in with pledges. I would watch him for hours; not planning to, but he was so damn entertaining.
Brother Love’s Travellin’ Salvation Show.
Yea Brother!
When Neil Diamond’s hit song came out, I mis-heard the line as “Pack up your babies and crabby old ladies,” in classic Lady Mondegreen style.
Now I can’t un-hear that! 😅
And it’s bad advice, since many crabby old ladies would strongly resist being packed up.
And some of us bite!
Does this remind you of anyone? “… and the relentless marketing of Swaggart-branded items, including Bible study manuals, T-shirts, records, tapes, mugs, plates, Roman coins and copies of Jesus’ crown of thorns.”
I’m 77. Social Security is NOT your money held in trust and given back to you: This is a common mis-understanding. If it were, the SSA could invest the money while it’s in trust and pay you back with interest, and/or there would be no problem with SS going bankrupt: The investment growth would cover payouts as do private pensions/annuities. SSA takes in money from current employees and pays it out to the retired. When started, there were many more paying in than collecting, and the age of death was much nearer 65 than it is today. Now, the ratio of workers paying in to retirees receiving is about 3:1, and age of death is much, much later. These are the reasons that SS will crash soon after (probably) I die.
Thank you. I was severely tempted to comment on the common misconception that “the government doesn’t contribute to Social Security”. I accept that the creative accounting dodge of having a government Trust Fund™ whose sole assets are bonds (i.e. debt) of same government was well-intentioned at the time, to forestall outcries of “Socialism!!”, but it’s a blatant sham.
In my opinion, intelligent life could exist on other planets in other solar systems. Could UFOs be a consequence? Possibly. Are all ‘UFO sightings’ legitimate? Hardly. Are some? Not so clear. The Roswell incident (1947) has (still) not been adequately explained (as I see it). Navy fighter pilots have taken videos of possible UFOs. Have they been explained?
UPenn to ban trans athletes after probe stemming from swimmer Lia Thomas
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4yy4dv2dyo.amp
A win for Trump (I don’t like him but I’ll take the win).
Also he has been stripped of his medals. So the winners have been rightfully restored.
Looks as though cheating men are not going to win after all.
It’s great news!
Ah but no, it was a win for women.
Absolutely!
With respect, Professor Ceiling Cat, it was absinthe that Rimbaud drank, and absinthe that supposedly caused insanity. Not anisette; both drinks are anise-flavored, but otherwise they’re quite different. There’s wormwood in absinthe, and wormwood was the supposed culprit.
Many countries banned absinthe for decades. The ban was lifted in the 2000s (in 2007 in the US), after it was found that the drink’s reputation was undeserved.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/86/i18/Absinthe-Myths-Finally-Laid-Rest.html
Miss Wormwood was Calvin’s long-suffering first-grade teacher. I think she was a good influence on him, despite his best efforts to thwart her. I’ll bet she kept a bottle of absinthe in her desk, though.
Televangelists were brutally satirized in what is probably the best post-Peter-Gabriel Genesis song (or—sacrilege!—maybe their best song overall). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35K6vQRt67g
IMO it’s mediocre music but indeed excellent snark. I paused the video at the various magazines etc., and some of the items are borderline libellous . Jolly good.