Well, this was weird

I had been reading about an ad put out by the DeSantis campaign that has political observers scratching their heads in mystification. I took a look at it and it was decidedly strange. It starts with what looks like an attack on serial sex abuser Trump for saying things in the past that are supportive of LGBTQ+ rights and then veers off into some high volume, frenetic, macho imagery, and drum-like sound, interspersed with images of bodybuilders striking poses and gladiators in helmets, all the while making the point that there is no one who hates transgender people more than him and taking pride in criticisms of him for his harsh actions against them.

It is bonkers. It is so over-the-top that it could easily be mistaken for an anti-DeSantis parody ad.

I am not the target demographic for this ad so the fact that it did not appeal to me does not mean much. But I am puzzled as to which groups might find it appealing, other than virulent transphobes. This was not put out by the official DeSantis campaign but by a group supporting him and there is no sign that the campaign has tried to disassociate themselves from the ad. It is a clear sign that DeSantis thinks that his path to the nomination is to run on an even angrier, harder-line right-wing stance on hot button social issues than all the other Republicans in the field.

Charging by the mile for gas

In the US there is a tax on gasoline and the revenues from that are used to pay for road and bridge repairs and maintenance. But revenues from this tax have not been keeping pace with needs due to Congress not being willing to raise the tax to keep up with inflation coupled with more fuel efficient cars and electric cars on the road, resulting in less consumption of gas. While the latter is a good thing in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, it means that much-needed infrastructure repair is not being done.

One solution that is being proposed is to switch from a gas tax to a mileage tax where people would be charged by the number of miles driven rather that the amount of gas consumed. This requires placing of a tracking device on the car and pilot projects have begun in several states, Oregon being the leader.
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The myth of multitasking

(I came across this old post of mine from back in 2011 that I thought might be of interest to those who had not seen it.)

Since I work at a university and am around young adults all the time, I have long been aware that young people today are avid consumers of multimedia, who are adept at emailing, texting, listening to mp3 players, surfing the web, checking up on Facebook, etc. It seems like they are quite proficient at multitasking.

I have always been a poor multitasker. I cannot read or do any work that requires serious thinking if I can hear conversation or loud noises in the background. I have found that I cannot even listen to music in the background when reading. But I know people who seem to thrive on that kind of ambient sound and even deliberately go to coffee shops to do work such as grading papers or writing, things that would be impossible for me.
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A sobering analysis of what it might take to overcome vaccine skepticism

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. epitomizes the modern American success story. He has no notable achievements of his own but because of inherited family wealth and the well-known Kennedy name (he is the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy), he has the kind of influence that is so helpful in staying relevant. In fact, the ‘success’ of the entire Kennedy clan can be traced back to the ambitions of his wealthy grandfather Joseph Kennedy who paved the way to elite education and political success for his descendants.

Kennedy has now entered the contest for the Democratic nomination for president. He is a notorious anti-vaccine crusader and this will simply give him a platform to further propagate his views, while the family name will give him more publicity. Indeed his anti-vaccine misinformation got him banned from Facebook and Instagram and he used the loophole of his candidacy to get back on those platforms. He is also a hypocrite. While making all manner of outlandish and offensive claims about the dangers of vaccines, when he hosted a party at his home, he urged all guests to be vaccinated or be tested for Covid-19. He has also profited greatly from his anti-vaccine stance.
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Targeting legacy admissions

The US Supreme Court has struck down the use of race as a factor in considering applications for all colleges and universities in the US. This was not entirely unexpected given the court”s ideological leanings, but it was disappointing nonetheless.

But when it comes to elite educational institutions, there is one very large group of people who have been getting preferential treatment in admissions but the legitimacy of which has not been subject to legal review and that is the preference given to so-called “legacy admissions” (applicants whose families have attended that school) and children of wealthy donors, all of whom are able to gain admission with lower academic performances. Preferences are also given to students who have athletic or other extra-curricular success. And the overwhelming majority of such people are white, making this, in effect, affirmative action for white people.

But those preferences are now coming under greater scrutiny.
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How NOT to win friends and influence people

Yesterday morning when I opened up my email, I got this message from someone whose name I did not recognize.

Mano,

I thought you might enjoy:

Link #1

Link #2

Link #3,

Best,

(Name redacted by me)

That is not unusual. I get emails from time to time from people who think I may be interested in something. I did not click on the links (I am wary about links being used to propagate viruses) but the wording of URLs seemed to indicate that they had something to do with Shakespeare’s (or the Bard’s) sonnets, which seemed reasonable since the email arrived the day after I had two posts about the controversy over the Bard’s authorship.
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Alan Arkin (1934-2023)

The veteran actor has died at the age of 89.

Over his long career, Arkin played a huge variety of roles and was always enjoyable to watch. I have seen him in a huge number of films but particularly liked his deadpan, understated performances in comedies such as Catch-22 and The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. But also he played a menacing, convincing villain opposite Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark.

Here is a clip from The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), released during the Cold War about a Russian submarine that runs aground off the coast of a small US town due to the incompetence of its captain. Here is a synopsis.

When a sightseeing Soviet commander runs his submarine aground off the New England coast, the crew’s attempts to find a boat to dislodge them almost start WWIII! Alan Arkin leads an all-star cast–including Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, Brian Keith and Jonathan Winters–in this riotous, uproarious [and] side-splitting (Cue) comedy! Russian Lt. Rozanov (Arkin) and his crew hit the beaches of Massachusetts unaware of the panic they’re about to start. Despite the Russians’ harmless intentions, the folks in town think a full-scale Soviet invasion has been launched! What’s worse, their police chief (Keith) has left his hysterical assistant (Winters) in charge and the one man who knows the truth (Reiner) is only stirring up more chaos!

The film is an endearing comedy about how the absurdity of nationalistic antagonisms can be countered by experiencing the commonality of human interactions. It is the kind of film that I can watch again.

The seductive appeal of identical twin stories

I am sure that pretty much everyone has been amazed at stories like the following, of identical twins who had been separated at birth and then reunited as adults.

Thirteen days before the start of the Second World War, a 35-year-old unmarried immigrant woman gave birth slightly prematurely to identical twins at the Memorial Hospital in Piqua, Ohio and immediately put them up for adoption. The boys spent their first month together in a children’s home before Ernest and Sarah Springer adopted one – and would have adopted both had they not been told, incorrectly, that the other twin had died. Two weeks later, Jess and Lucille Lewis adopted the other baby and, when they signed the papers at the local courthouse, calling their boy James, the clerk remarked: ‘That’s what [the Springers] named their son.’ Until then they hadn’t known he was a twin.

The boys grew up 40 miles apart in middle-class Ohioan families. Although James Lewis was six when he learnt he’d been adopted, it was only in his late 30s that he began searching for his birth family at the Ohio courthouse. In 1979, the adoption agency wrote to James Springer, who was astonished by the news, because as a teenager he’d been told his twin had died at birth. He phoned Lewis and four days later they met – a nervous handshake and then beaming smiles.
…

Both Jims, it transpired, had worked as deputy sheriffs, and had done stints at McDonald’s and at petrol stations; they’d both taken holidays at Pass-a-Grille beach in Florida, driving there in their light-blue Chevrolets. Each had dogs called Toy and brothers called Larry, and they’d married and divorced women called Linda, then married Bettys. They’d called their first sons James Alan/Allan. Both were good at maths and bad at spelling, loved carpentry, chewed their nails, chain-smoked Salem and drank Miller Lite beer. Both had haemorrhoids, started experiencing migraines at 18, gained 10 lb in their early 30s, and had similar heart problems and sleep patterns.

Incredible, no?
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Documentary of the Shakespeare authorship question

In my earlier post on the question of the debate over whether William Shakespeare was the Bard, I forget to mention a 2012 documentary that I saw on this question called Last Will. and Testament.

It was pretty interesting. While presenting all sides of this debate in the context of the personal and political conflicts of those times, the documentary tends to take a skeptical attitude to the question of Shakespeare being the Bard and spends some time on Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and a group of authors as the most viable alternative.

Here’s the trailer.