I suppose it's refreshing in the respect that Johnson is direct and doesn't beat around the bush. He said what he means rather than the typical political double speak. That said, he is the one who comes across as the a** h***. And it doesn't appear to matter. He appears to be in place for some time as the votes seem to favor that.
Why didn't Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa just save his breath and say the real reason AH was fired...the Mayor promised the CTU he would do it. As Tupac never said, "Mess with the CTU means bye, bye you"...
“I get that, but it’s important to remember that, though it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot at stake in the lower levels of competition, these venues are where stars and winners are recognized, selected and, ultimately, advanced…..One of the lawsuits in this area involved born-female high school runners who were edged off the podium by trans girls”.
I think you misread ( accidentally?) my post Eric. I referenced “GRADE SCHOOL” sports….NOT High School. I did so for exactly the reason you say. By high school, too much is at stake as there is direct advancement from there. But the stakes are much lower in grade school. So you created a straw man argument. So, what say you to my actual argument about low level competition?
The reader who suggests that an owner of a three-flat would convert if to three condos to save about $2500 in transfer taxes has no idea of the thousands (if not tens of thousands) of dollars it would cost to do the condo conversion. And if there happened to be a $1,500,000 three-flat that could be converted to three $750K condos, that would happen in a heartbeat with or without the new transfer tax.
Many of your readers seem to think biology/genetics is destiny. I would suggest any of the books of Robert Sapolsky , professor of biology and neurology at Stanford and MacArthur "genius." I am particularly fond of Monkeyluv and A Primates Memoir.
Did a reader REALLY defend separating men's and women's chess because of... wait, let me get the quote.... "Based strictly on over five decades of personal driving experience"? Let me finish here: "When I drive around in my Fiat convertible, I see these damsels driving in literal circles — their simple minds just cannot grasp the complexities of driving an automotive transportation machine. Now excuse me whilst I refill my pipe..."
"She's not aligned with our values", according to Ramirez-Sosa. Good to know. Moderates like me and almost everyone I know are also unaligned. When your tax base bails let's see how far your self-professed moral superiority gets you.
I interpret Alderman Ramirez-Rosa's comments accusing Arwardy of being a "neoliberal"( a new term to me) meant that a true progressive believes that every human service needs to be delivered by a government employee, without any discussion of quality of care or effective outcomes. My understanding was that part of the reason for closing some mental health clinics was to be able to provide more flexible, mobile, and quality mental health care to residents without paying for bricks and mortar. Maybe we do need more clinics, but other than increasing the city workforce, complete with union benefits and pension obligations for taxpayers, the alderman and mayor should provide evidence that cutting out the private not-for-profit agencies that have been contracted, and replacing them with city employees, will improve outcomes for people. I don't see much evidence that the city provides high quality service in most areas of government responsibility, let alone mental health.
I was also particularly annoyed by the repeated use of "neoliberal" as the ultimate smear in the defense of firing Arwardy. It's not as though she was turning health care over to the for-profit sector, the way Illinois has shamefully done with the Medicaid program. She was instead directing tax dollars to local non-profits with proven track records of effective community-based health services. A legitimate argument can be made either way on whether mental health services should be stand-alone programs or incorporated into primary care, but that's not the argument Ramirez-Rosa was making.
I read with interest the discussion of trans women playing in women’s chess tournaments. I have no experience or knowledge about this topic. Reading all the comments, I gleaned the basic issue.
Is letting trans women play in women’s chess tournaments “fair” from a competition point of view?
Do these trans women with their male originated brains have an unfair advantage and if so, they should be banned from women’s tournaments. After all, we must have a fair and level playing field.
This was blowing my mind (I am an old baby boomer who uses baby boomer expressions).
So I needed a break from this and turned on Navy versus Notre Dame.
1. Live front Dublin Ireland…the fighting IRISH of Notre Dame versus navy. 30,000 ND fans have made the trip while about 8,000 navy fans are here. Hmmm, this looks like a home game on steroids for ND.
2. ND has a 24 year old transfer QB from Wake Forest starting for the first time. He comes highly rated and hopes to play in the NFL. Wait…a 24 year old super star QB could never play for navy. The navy QB is some student athlete carrying a difficult academic workload. QB is a very important position…kind of unfair.
3. In fact all of the ND players were bigger-especially in the skill positions. It looked like “semi- pro” ND players versus the student athletes of navy. This is really reeking of unfair competition.
4. My opinion ..the announcers also had an ND bias. How far can ND go this year? Can they make the playoffs? And let’s hope navy can stay on the field with ND.
5. Well, ND 42, navy 3.
Wow, that was a showcase for basic unfair competition- did not see any blowback in the media. This kind of unfair competition seemed blatant and accepted.
So back to the chess tournament issue. The arguments on banning trans women were subtle, certainly not in the realm of the ND/ navy game. So I say, let them play and if the trans women end up dominating maybe revisit the issue.
But tell me regarding future ND/navy games - do you ever expect this game to start on a level playing field? Do not think so- the unfair ND advantage will continue.
And finally, I must confess, I think Notre Dame is a fine school, but I intensely dislike their football team. Here comes my real prejudice - and when they play real semi pro teams like say..Alabama…they get get their lunch handed to them. Been a LONG time since they have won the national championship.
Eric - Thank you for your defense against the argument that a video produced by a conservative think tank can simply be refuted on its face just because. (And of course, that also applies when conservatives would dismiss information coming from a left leaning organization solely because of its origin.) Finding inaccuracy with facts presented or arguing the reasoning is totally valid, but simply dismissing something without any reference to specific criticisms is intellectually lazy. Debate facts with facts and reasoning with reasoning as opposed to labeling and name calling.
Also, I appreciated your statement "The separation of the sexes in nearly all sports makes biological sense." Biology is real - follow the science!
The Nature article you cite definitely does not even claim to refute the difference between sexes in spatial reasoning. It only qualifies that difference, saying for example it shrinks and may disappear if there is no time limit to performing the task. That what chess clocks enforce, with great anxiety if you’ve ever played competitively.
The locus of authority for deciding which activities benefit from separate spaces for females only resides in one place alone: the females participating. Not the scientists, activists, politicians, lawyers, or philosophers.
Regarding Michael M.’s suggestion: the Roku Ultra has a feature that locates its romote. The remote beeps when a button on top of the receiver is pressed. I stopped using the feature because my cats would constantly walk across the Roku.
Brandon Johnson's floor leader defends the firing of Dr. Alison Arwady
I suppose it's refreshing in the respect that Johnson is direct and doesn't beat around the bush. He said what he means rather than the typical political double speak. That said, he is the one who comes across as the a** h***. And it doesn't appear to matter. He appears to be in place for some time as the votes seem to favor that.
Why didn't Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa just save his breath and say the real reason AH was fired...the Mayor promised the CTU he would do it. As Tupac never said, "Mess with the CTU means bye, bye you"...
“I get that, but it’s important to remember that, though it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot at stake in the lower levels of competition, these venues are where stars and winners are recognized, selected and, ultimately, advanced…..One of the lawsuits in this area involved born-female high school runners who were edged off the podium by trans girls”.
I think you misread ( accidentally?) my post Eric. I referenced “GRADE SCHOOL” sports….NOT High School. I did so for exactly the reason you say. By high school, too much is at stake as there is direct advancement from there. But the stakes are much lower in grade school. So you created a straw man argument. So, what say you to my actual argument about low level competition?
The reader who suggests that an owner of a three-flat would convert if to three condos to save about $2500 in transfer taxes has no idea of the thousands (if not tens of thousands) of dollars it would cost to do the condo conversion. And if there happened to be a $1,500,000 three-flat that could be converted to three $750K condos, that would happen in a heartbeat with or without the new transfer tax.
Many of your readers seem to think biology/genetics is destiny. I would suggest any of the books of Robert Sapolsky , professor of biology and neurology at Stanford and MacArthur "genius." I am particularly fond of Monkeyluv and A Primates Memoir.
For the ongoing gender sports debate: I pretty much only care about what cisgender female athletes/competitors feel about it. It's their game.
If they're cool with more inclusivity, no problem, let's go! But if they want tighter regulations, then that should be considered.
Did a reader REALLY defend separating men's and women's chess because of... wait, let me get the quote.... "Based strictly on over five decades of personal driving experience"? Let me finish here: "When I drive around in my Fiat convertible, I see these damsels driving in literal circles — their simple minds just cannot grasp the complexities of driving an automotive transportation machine. Now excuse me whilst I refill my pipe..."
"She's not aligned with our values", according to Ramirez-Sosa. Good to know. Moderates like me and almost everyone I know are also unaligned. When your tax base bails let's see how far your self-professed moral superiority gets you.
I interpret Alderman Ramirez-Rosa's comments accusing Arwardy of being a "neoliberal"( a new term to me) meant that a true progressive believes that every human service needs to be delivered by a government employee, without any discussion of quality of care or effective outcomes. My understanding was that part of the reason for closing some mental health clinics was to be able to provide more flexible, mobile, and quality mental health care to residents without paying for bricks and mortar. Maybe we do need more clinics, but other than increasing the city workforce, complete with union benefits and pension obligations for taxpayers, the alderman and mayor should provide evidence that cutting out the private not-for-profit agencies that have been contracted, and replacing them with city employees, will improve outcomes for people. I don't see much evidence that the city provides high quality service in most areas of government responsibility, let alone mental health.
I was also particularly annoyed by the repeated use of "neoliberal" as the ultimate smear in the defense of firing Arwardy. It's not as though she was turning health care over to the for-profit sector, the way Illinois has shamefully done with the Medicaid program. She was instead directing tax dollars to local non-profits with proven track records of effective community-based health services. A legitimate argument can be made either way on whether mental health services should be stand-alone programs or incorporated into primary care, but that's not the argument Ramirez-Rosa was making.
I read with interest the discussion of trans women playing in women’s chess tournaments. I have no experience or knowledge about this topic. Reading all the comments, I gleaned the basic issue.
Is letting trans women play in women’s chess tournaments “fair” from a competition point of view?
Do these trans women with their male originated brains have an unfair advantage and if so, they should be banned from women’s tournaments. After all, we must have a fair and level playing field.
This was blowing my mind (I am an old baby boomer who uses baby boomer expressions).
So I needed a break from this and turned on Navy versus Notre Dame.
1. Live front Dublin Ireland…the fighting IRISH of Notre Dame versus navy. 30,000 ND fans have made the trip while about 8,000 navy fans are here. Hmmm, this looks like a home game on steroids for ND.
2. ND has a 24 year old transfer QB from Wake Forest starting for the first time. He comes highly rated and hopes to play in the NFL. Wait…a 24 year old super star QB could never play for navy. The navy QB is some student athlete carrying a difficult academic workload. QB is a very important position…kind of unfair.
3. In fact all of the ND players were bigger-especially in the skill positions. It looked like “semi- pro” ND players versus the student athletes of navy. This is really reeking of unfair competition.
4. My opinion ..the announcers also had an ND bias. How far can ND go this year? Can they make the playoffs? And let’s hope navy can stay on the field with ND.
5. Well, ND 42, navy 3.
Wow, that was a showcase for basic unfair competition- did not see any blowback in the media. This kind of unfair competition seemed blatant and accepted.
So back to the chess tournament issue. The arguments on banning trans women were subtle, certainly not in the realm of the ND/ navy game. So I say, let them play and if the trans women end up dominating maybe revisit the issue.
But tell me regarding future ND/navy games - do you ever expect this game to start on a level playing field? Do not think so- the unfair ND advantage will continue.
And finally, I must confess, I think Notre Dame is a fine school, but I intensely dislike their football team. Here comes my real prejudice - and when they play real semi pro teams like say..Alabama…they get get their lunch handed to them. Been a LONG time since they have won the national championship.
Eric - Thank you for your defense against the argument that a video produced by a conservative think tank can simply be refuted on its face just because. (And of course, that also applies when conservatives would dismiss information coming from a left leaning organization solely because of its origin.) Finding inaccuracy with facts presented or arguing the reasoning is totally valid, but simply dismissing something without any reference to specific criticisms is intellectually lazy. Debate facts with facts and reasoning with reasoning as opposed to labeling and name calling.
Also, I appreciated your statement "The separation of the sexes in nearly all sports makes biological sense." Biology is real - follow the science!
Dr. Arwady should be able to walk into any bar or restaurant in Chicago and not have to pay. Like politicians, pro athletes, and Mobsters.
The Nature article you cite definitely does not even claim to refute the difference between sexes in spatial reasoning. It only qualifies that difference, saying for example it shrinks and may disappear if there is no time limit to performing the task. That what chess clocks enforce, with great anxiety if you’ve ever played competitively.
The locus of authority for deciding which activities benefit from separate spaces for females only resides in one place alone: the females participating. Not the scientists, activists, politicians, lawyers, or philosophers.
Regarding Michael M.’s suggestion: the Roku Ultra has a feature that locates its romote. The remote beeps when a button on top of the receiver is pressed. I stopped using the feature because my cats would constantly walk across the Roku.