Regarding the quip about the farmer with the dog named Bingo. Are we sure Bingo was the dog’s name? Could it have been the farmer’s name? Any English teachers out there?
What about the rule that pronouns refer to the immediate antecedent noun? Using that rule, Bingo is the dog. “There was a farmer had a dog, and Bingo was his name-o.”
Coffee. I don’t need a survey to know that most people love it. I loathe it. I find it disgusting Also ice cream. I wouldn’t say I loathe it. Just that I have no interest in it and don’t want to waste my calories when I could sink my teeth into a brownie. Oh and alcohol. It doesn’t do for me what it obviously does for most people. It makes you relax? Or feel for sociable? Or anything pleasant? Really? I have never experienced anything like that. Just an immediate unpleasant exhaustion with anything more than half a glass.
Agree with you on hating coffee. But I can enjoy ice cream (if chocolate) and some alcohol on occasion. An M.D. friend of mine recommends that alcohol is fine to enjoy like birthday cake -- perfectly fine for the occasional celebration but not something to have every day. Presumably ice cream would fall in that category too.
I hate cheesecake, and am mystified by people who billow away about how great it is. Everything about it from its density to its texture to its cheesy tart flavour makes my stomach turn. It also makes my teeth hurt (no other food does this).
I hate all alcoholic beverages, especially because of their kitchen cleanser like flavour, but also their effect. “Immediate unpleasant exhaustion” nails it perfectly.
I hate the mixing of any white or light coloured cream, base or sauce with one that is a darker or reddish hue, like when sour cream is plopped in a bowl of chili, or when glistening, bright orange sauce covered chicken wings or whatever are plunged into ranch sauce. Barf!!!
A funny urban legend has it that the labeling laws in Canada meant bottled water from soft drink makers (Dasani by Coca-Cola, Aquafina by Pepsi, et al) had to state the water was from treated sewage. The truth is it's just regular tap water that they then purify, and originated from the process they already had in place for making their sodas for bottling. But why let that get in the way of a good story?
“Which food do you loathe that you believe most people love?” Peanuts. So that eliminates peanut butter, Reese's candies, Snickers, etc. I'm not allergic, so peanut-containing foods are OK as long as they don't strongly taste of the icky legume.
I read once that people who hate spinach (which I love) may be genetically sensitive to the taste of oxalic acid in it. I wonder if peanut aversion is similarly heritable. My dad also hated peanuts. And when a bakery lady gave my toddler a free cookie years ago, he gleefully bit into it, made a face, and spat it out. Yup -- peanut butter cookie. He couldn't have sensed and imitated my aversion because I had thought it was a sugar cookie until he rejected it and I checked.
In regards to faith healers being frauds, I read an account of one way that some faith healers work. They would gather a tent full of people, and their assistants would see someone walking with difficulty and give them a wheelchair to sit in. Later, the faith healers would see who was sitting in one of his wheelchairs, and know that they were at least walking well enough to get part of the way in. He’d have them get out of the chair and walk.
You say that ending the Russia/Ukraine war will validate Putin’s annexation of part of Ukraine. I suppose people say the same thing about the Israeli hostages being released for more than a dozen prisoners per hostage. Doesn’t that validate taking hostages?
I would argue that is a pragmatic choice. When you combine the release of Hamas prisoners with the widespread destruction of the region which Hamas supposedly governs, then I would not say it is validation of taking hostages.
I still think there is some secret agreement between Putin and Trump that involves a lot of money (the only thing Trump ever really cared about). Whatever course Trump decides to take will be the one that puts more money in his pocket.
All of this has to do with the predictions of a MAGA letter writer. Yes it is possible the Russia-Ukraine war will end. But if it ends with Putin in charge of Ukraine, it won’t be anything to celebrate and Trump won’t have anything to do with it. What does stabilize the Middle East even mean? The Iranian people are not going to overthrow anything. Trump had nothing to do with the changes in Syria. MAGAs will celebrate destroying the environment for more crap and the reduction of national monuments and native rights. I won’t. MAGAs will somehow justify any of these predictions and give Burger Boy credit. I don’t hold out hope for the mid terms. In order for anything to change, Trump would need to get some blame for something. Anything that goes wrong the next two years will be pushed back on Biden. MAGAs are already coming up with excuses for the illegal and unreasonable things he has said and done. They simply explain away the loonier ideas like sending in troops to take over Gaza by saying that’s not what he really meant. I honestly believe the long ago comment about him shooting someone on a Manhattan street and getting away with it. Why? Because he he is justifying all the things many conservatives have felt for years but were too chicken to say in public. Whites are superior. America is blessed by God and meant to rule the world. Non Christians are second class citizens. Women should return to the kitchen. What was wrong with slavery- it’s what blacks were meant to do? All Latinos are lower class trash that should go back where they came from- even if born here. Trump is simply validating what many have felt for a long time. Now it’s okay to say it out loud. Think I’m exaggerating? I live in Trump territory and have listened to it for years.
Not a fan of Maher, but his point about the Dylan song should bring hope. The “broken world” philosophy is not about giving up — it’s about accepting our own flawed ways of manipulating the world around us. And I seem to recall the solution is found in turning our attention away from our “things” and focusing more on our relationships with fellow humans, all of whom are heading for the same mortal ending. Perhaps the takeaway is never give up on each other.
I got 8 of 10 on the Chicago News quiz. Speaking of Allison Rossati, I remember her fondly from the mid 90s. I was traveling a lot on business, and I’d get to a private terminal at Midway before 6:00am. The tv there always had her smiling face on the channel 5 news. We’re both 30 years older, but every time I watch her now I think of the old days.
I moved here in '87, and have the same fond memories of the early '90s - because local news came on at 5 AM!!! (Allison and Bob Sirott on NBC's "First Thing In The Morning")
I could not read the Trib op-ed on school choice as it is behind a paywall. Does it object to school choice generally, or only publicly funded private school choices. CPS is well down the road of school choice. GPA in middle school has high stakes for those who want to get into a top notch high school within the system. It seems to me that CPS has given up on the idea that all high schools will be adequate for the vast majority of students who seek to be high achievers.
School choice may well make people become less connected with their neighborhood, and add transportation costs, but if these are cited as problems when the idea of giving some public subsidy to private schools, then shouldn't it also be a problem with the current CPS system?
There are negatives no matter which side of the issue you're on. Public schools can be the great equalizer- when they get the job done. When they become political footballs, they often don't. Proper learning has parameters that can be highly disturbed by political limitations on what can be taught, the fights over should be at the head of the classroom, the fights over the role of parents, the amount of time taken away due to non-educational occurrences, and a ton of other things. On the other hand, private schools are unfair. They can choose who they want or don't want. It creates segregation. Even with tax credits, many poor can't afford them. Unlike public schools, they absolutely can indoctrinate their students. I graduated from a Catholic high school. But it's hard to blame parents for wanting something better for their kids if the local public schools aren't getting the job done. How can I argue when my mother switched me from a public to a private school? When the local school boundaries changed, my sisters changed schools. So how do I argue against parents wanting better for their kids? The only answer is that if the public schools want to fight private and charter schools, they need to do better. The CTU is hurting their own cause. When they fight charter and private schools, they simply piss people off. When they try to keep schools open with less than 200 students, they bewilder people. Are they more concerned about kids or protecting the jobs of their members? I will give credit to CTU for pushing more things like nurses, librarians, arts teachers, and social workers. Who pays for them? In the mean time, they need to do better with the available resources.
I agree with all of your points. Would you agree that the selective high schools with no attendance area have the same negative effects on public schools? That is they do not have to take all-comers leaving the more challenging students to the attendance area schools, and siphoning off the most motivated students, and the logistical challenge of getting them to their school.
FWIW, I do think the optimal education system is to have strong attendance area public schools. But that does not exist everywhere.
As to your last point, I agree. That's why my mother moved her kids. My arguing against parents that support private schools and tax credits would make me a hypocrite. I don't regret moving from my public high school that had severe racial problems and classes with up to 40 kids. My sophomore year saw 6 different English teachers. Was my future worth possibly sacrificing to protect equal educational justice? My mother, also a teacher, obviously didn't think so.
Regarding not liking eggs, my dad hates eggs. His older brother would never eat chicken. I think their parents may have taken them to a butcher or a farm when they were young.
Regarding the news and views item on the curse removal fraud. I absolutely agree that anyone claiming access to or influence on anything supernatural is a fraud. But how does organized religion get a pass? Churches of all sorts collect immeasurable wealth from the people they "serve" and have legitimate standing only, it seems like, because they are more widely recognized.
There really isn't a fundamental difference between them and the psychic in the story. I think her only mistake was charging such a huge amount, otherwise she was just providing the service that the "victim" requested consistent with her beliefs, no different than any church or temple in the neighborhood.
Religious communities of every variety (Hindu, Jewish, Islamic, the countless varieties of Christian, and many more) seem from the outside to have one purpose: proving a place for worshipping one or more gods in hopes that those gods will respond to believers' prayers by making their lives or the lives of their loved ones better: divine intercession, if you will. It's hard to distinguish that from the palm reader in the second floor nook above the florist on countless commercial strips all over Chicago.But religious communities--not all, but most--do much more. Providing community, and a multigenerational one at that, in an increasingly atomized society is one of the most appealing. It's hard to argue that growing isolation is doing our country much good. Initiating and providing services that government can't or won't to the needed degree, most without requiring that recipients subscribe to the tenets of the host institution's faith is another: soup kitchens, food banks, immigrant and refugee housing, literacy tutors, child care space, after-school drop-in space, spaces where community meetings can take place, and so on. Those are worthy, generally decentralized services that the wider community pays for not via taxes but via foregone tax revenue. If taxed, many if not most congregations would soon need to close. Elmer Gantry and other money-grabbing clergy notwithstanding, most congregations barely make ends meet, and yet continue serving their wider communities as best they can. Our communities, and the neediest within them, would be worse off without the community services and stability they provide. Are all of them perfect and community-serving? No. Are most of them the equivalent of a palm reader? Again, no. To simply dismiss them as such is, frankly, a sign of ignorance.
I understand the importance of communities, my objections are that 1) religious communities are centered around non-truth - belief in the supernatural 2) they are by definition exclusionary 3) they have undue influence on governmental matters that affect wider communities.
I would much prefer a tax-funded community center with a gym, a space for lectures, clubs, meet ups, and support groups, that would welcome people of all worldviews.
Not all fit your description. Mine doesn't, for instance, expressly proclaiming that it does not require adherence to any particular belief or set of beliefs, but supports certain values: respect for one another, for instance. Nothing supernatural about it.
I asked a kid from a non-church-going family what a church was. They replied "It's a place you go to and give money." I saw no reason to argue with them.
Elmer-Gantry-type churches are like that. A great many are not. We each have the choice of deciding to learn more about people, institutions, the natural world, and on and on, or to decide that a first impression is good enough and walk away from the topic. I might say my grocery store or my dentist's office or the ballpark of my favorite yet hapless ball club is a place I go to and give money, as well. But that seems to me an incomplete observation, asserting that nothing of worth is being received. And unlike the store or office or park, how much and whether I give my church is entirely up to me.
Reading Eric in the Tribune over the years, I've gotten the (possibly mistaken) impression that, concerning the question of God's/gods' existence, he regards himself as an agnostic rather than an atheist. So his adamant statement, "No one has psychic powers," seems uncharacteristically presumptuous.
Both theists and a-theists profess great confidence about whether the deity they envision does or does not exist. Agnostics, in contrast, may hold a private opinion one way or the other, but acknowledge that either assertion is impossible to demonstrate conclusively. Agnostics don't feel obliged to declare an unsupported belief as fact. The universe is full of surprises as humans discover fresh ways of investigating it -- quantum theory, for example, is far from intuitively obvious. Today's everybody-knows truth may become tomorrow's discovery overturning or revising it.
So it is wiser not to declaim with certainty that any human phenomenon that cannot be reliably reproduced under laboratory conditions is necessarily fraudulent. Actually, I can't think of any emotional phenomena that DO reliably manifest in laboratories, yet we don't dispute the reality of courage, altruism, trust, etc.
The thing is that, not only has there never been a single instance of someone providing any actual irrefutable evidence of psychic powers, but we know the exact technique that is employed that enables “psychics” to pull off their cons. There may be different names and variations of the methodology, but the most common name for it is “cold reading”. It amounts to a fairly simple manipulation game that consists a of asking leading questions and yielding expectant answers that might give the impression that the “seer” possesses some sort of clairvoyant power, but of course, they don’t. That’s why your suggestion that rational people should keep an open mind about such claptrap is just silly.
It’s like the common magic trick where an illusionist puts his scantily clad assistant in a coffin like box and appears to saw her in half. Would you argue that it’s being presumptuous to assume that this is a trick and that maybe, just maybe, she really was sawn in two because it REALLY looked like she was?
It must be nice to be omniscient enough about the history of human experience to declare "there never been a single instance of someone providing any actual irrefutable evidence of psychic powers." Has there ever been "irrefutable evidence" that someone has dreamed about, say, riding a horse? The only evidence is the dreamer's word -- hardly irrefutable -- yet I doubt you would challenge it.
Yes, psychic readings provide vast opportunity to con the gullible by the method you describe, Steven K., and fraudulent practitioners no doubt abound. Your logic error lies in deciding that because it is possible for someone to deceptively claim atypical sensory powers, everyone who claims them therefore is deceptive. That is analogous to saying that because movie special effects can duplicate video transmissions from the Apollo moon landings, that demonstrates that those landings were faked and no one ever landed on the moon, or could.
For what it's worth, I once went to a highly-recommended psychic just to see what the experience would be like. I had resolved not to answer any leading questions, and so was impressed that he didn't ask any. He took my hand and concentrated, offered a few innocuous specific statements that were correct and would have been hard to research about me, and finally apologized that he couldn't perceive any more. He suggested I come back another time in case one or both of us just was having a bad day. (I later did so, with the same outcome.) He also declined any payment for his effort, and advised me never to pre-pay for a psychic reading, but only pay for accurate results. That doesn't align with your blanket condemnation, does it?
Real science-minded folks accumulate evidence before drawing sweeping conclusions, and willingly modify those conclusions if enough contradictory evidence shows up. Some genuine serious research has been done about these woo-woo subjects -- Gary E. Schwartz's "The Afterlife Experiments" is a good example -- by people who want to learn about reality (whatever that turns out to be) rather than just assert what everyone else believes because it's "obvious."
Besides declining payment when he couldn't produce, but meeting me twice to try? That itself is an unproductive way to run a con.
This psychic had been recommended by my sister, to whom he had made some apparently unprompted specific, accurate comments about our childhood. She had let me listen to a tape of their second session (a record I doubt frauds would allow), and I didn't hear him ask anything leading there. He volunteered individual details about our parents' personalities and our family life, rather than generic remarks like "Your parents love you very much," Such specifics are not in public records and thus would be very hard to research, but after so many years I don't recall examples.
My sister and I have different last names and I never mentioned her to the psychic at my session months later, so I have no reason to believe he connected us. One of his first observations to me was that he perceived around me a close male relative, a brother figure whom I may not have known, who had died at a tragically young age. Did I recognize this reference? Well, our parents' first child, a boy, had died hours after birth, so I counted that as a hit. I'm guessing the man's words would be true for less than 10% of mid-20th-century Americans. My sister, of course, is one; he had made a similar observation to her.
What little else the psychic said before giving up was unverifiable, which could mean he was wrong, or that I didn't recognize what he perceptions referred to. I'd like to think he was tuned into some cosmic frequency I don't know how to access, but who knows?
I AM convinced HE honestly believes he has heightened senses for detecting actual phenomena. I won't discount that he may. A bloodhound can track a lost child across a field by scent. I can't do it, but that doesn't make scent-tracking a trick or a con or even a miracle. The child's shed scent molecules are real enough, but we're not all equally sensitive to what perhaps is right under our noses.
I think we all hold beliefs without proof. Psychic powers violates our understanding of how the world generally works, and many people who have claimed psychic powers have been exposed as liars. The case for believing in psychic powers seems like wishful thinking to me. My mother, who has been a widow since 2007 once went to see a psychic and claimed that my father spoke to her through the psychic. As far as I know she did not go back. Since she is very tight with money, I was not worried about her getting taken advantage of beyond that single session.
While it is not proof, the rational belief is to think psychics are liars.
I call myself an indifferent agnostic— I don’t know I don’t care if there’s a God because it is very clear to me that no one has any real idea what if any outside (supernatural) forces control the universe, what those forces value, if anything, and no one has demonstrated any ability to harness or direct those forces.
Ahem. I should have made clear that the preceding "Amen!" refers only to your God comments.
If some people have perceptive abilities that others don't -- isn't that what "psychic" would mean? -- those would be natural rather than a supernatural forces. I'm personally nearsighted and only can carry a tune some days, but that doesn't make me doubt that other folks may have lifetime 20/20 vision or perfect pitch.
Well, I am a shade past atheist because I have no being that I don't believe in. Where others imagine a god or spirit or ? I have nothing... I have been a disbeliever since I was 5. There are times when it would be very something to believe in Hell and imagine that the Orange Menace would end up there. But, no luck on that front.
Does everyone here see the dilemma? We have no definitive proof of anything. One side says we don't have any proof of psychic ability. The other side says we have no proof it doesn't exist. What's the solution? Any of us that have never seen it or experienced it doubt the views of those that claim they can prove it. Those that believe in religion claim they can prove it by the existence of holy script or real phenomena they can't explain. More than a few of us are Jewish. Did God really tell Abraham to kill his son and then stop him? Did Moses part the Red Sea and then receive the Ten Commandments directly from God? If we accept the above, do we have the right to question the miracles of Jesus and his status as the son of God? What would we accept as proof? The ultimate religious question is about faith. Are we really supposed to simply accept that we are not meant to understand the purpose of God and to simply accept his role in our lives? That strikes me as pretty similar to whether or not one believes in psychics.
I think that you’re making this murkier than it actually is. Yes, religion is a con job, but the con is far less clear cut than what we’re talking about with psychics. The people of the cloth (priests, pastors, ministers, imams, etc.) that ply religion are generally not claiming to have mystical powers that can be tapped into on a per customer basis via cash transaction. They only claim to offer their interpretation of a holy writ or scripture from a deeper theological perspective and from a position of leadership. Crucially, most of them (though certainly not all) buy into their doctrines and believe what they are teaching.
Psychics, seers, palm readers and the like are a whole other matter. Their con involves a specific calculus and methodology that can be pinpointed and deconstructed as precisely as the craftwork of a stage illusionist, and rests upon fraudulent claims to powers that are known to be as fantastical as the existence of ghosts, vampires and unicorns. That is why what they engage in is clear cut fraud, and their profiteering should be subject to criminal penalty.
Returning again to the comparison with stage magicians, there is this distinction: when Penn and Teller, Doug Henning or David Copperfield weave their magic, they don’t really expect anyone to believe that they are pulling off miracles; Copperfield never thought that anyone would really think that he made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Their financial success is not predicated upon a lie. John Edward, Uri Gellar, and other assorted frauds do rely on such gullibility, and have been richly rewarded for their con artistry.
I don't really disagree with you. I actually thought about that as I wrote it. My purpose was not so much to compare the two as to show followers' belief in something they can't prove. The obvious difference, in simple terms, is that many religious providers believe in what they talk about while psychics work on their ability to con people into believing in the supposed ability of the psychics. I still say they are similar in their ability to get people to believe in something they cannot see or touch and therefore need faith to believe they are real. I had no intention of insulting anyone that truly believes in God and his power. That would make it pretty hard for me to claim to be Jewish. Unlike others, I mock neither atheists or agnostic.
Regarding Canada repackaging a weeks old plan and our president falling for it. This reminds me of the business teacher who told me about the rule of the bigger fool. “You may be a fool to buy that stock, but if you can find a bigger fool to sell it to then go ahead”. Our president knows (I think) that he has bigger fools that he can sell his plans to. The American people.
“We will be energy-dependent again.” Not sure if that typo was Bob Shea’s or our illustrious host’s, but as Eric pointed out, we’ve been a net exporter of oil since before Trump’s first term.
I caught that too and was similarly confused. Perhaps a Freudian slip meaning that we'll be burning so much fossil fuels we'll be dependent on them again? Who knows
The smell of yogurt is repulsive to me; I can't bear to be near it, much less eat it. Pizza is fine by me but only with minimal cheese, all of it baked enough that it's not gooey, stretchy, or similarly fluid: triggers my gag reflex otherwise.
On the other hand, I love broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and black licorice, so if you don't, I'll happily take them off your hands
Broccoli & black licorice are fine, I buy out all the Good & Plenty at Walmart every couple of months. Brussels sprouts are acceptable, but they do smell bad when cooking.
I set them up to steam for 8 minutes. Low tech: turn on heat at the stove, set the microwave's kitchen timer to 8:00, and go to a distant room until the timer goes off. All of the flavor, none of the smell.
They are like a different food when roasted. When i served them at a meal, a friend who was gobbling them up asked what he was eating. They were chopped and roasted til caramelized so not totally identifiable. He insisted the could not possibly be Brussel sprouts which he 'hated'
Yogurt. I hate it. The smell makes me gag. When I have to feed it to my grandchild I have to hold my breath! This child’s mother loves to leave a giant bowl of the homemade stuff in the fridge so I have to see it!
Thank you for continuing to call out psychics and others claiming supernatural ability, and for highlighting the great work of James Randi. I'm am surprised and aghast how often I can be talking to an otherwise reasonable and intelligent person who then professes a belief in such nonsense.
Mushrooms and any organ meats are on my "nope" list. Have hated mushrooms my whole life, canned ones are especially nasty. A doctor friend once pointed out that she would never eat filtering organs and I can never unhear that. No liver, no kidney, no heart - that last one from unfortunate experience as my mother in the 1980's used ground beef heart in dishes that called for ground beef. A diet program she followed called for beef heart as lower in fat. Think about it - the heart beats constantly the cow's entire life, that muscle gets a serious workout. It's gamey and tough and just icky. I actually can't even cook with ground beef at home because I'm still traumatized.
I can't imagine life without eggs. No replacement works well in baked goods and I don't work well without baked goods in my life. Banana bread, cakes, brownies, bread pudding, cheesecake - none are quite the same without eggs. I can understand avoiding some preparations of eggs (for instance, my dad will eat nearly raw sunny-side up eggs but cannot stomach hard boiled eggs; I can understand scrambled's texture not being everyone's cup of tea) but cannot imagine just not eating eggs at all (part of the reason I can never be vegan)
Regarding the quip about the farmer with the dog named Bingo. Are we sure Bingo was the dog’s name? Could it have been the farmer’s name? Any English teachers out there?
It's the reader's choice, as it can be either.
What about the rule that pronouns refer to the immediate antecedent noun? Using that rule, Bingo is the dog. “There was a farmer had a dog, and Bingo was his name-o.”
More evidence that English is a fickle mistress
If the name was intended to refer to the farmer, why mention the dog at all? Distinguish the farmer from those without dogs? Try and find one!
Coffee. I don’t need a survey to know that most people love it. I loathe it. I find it disgusting Also ice cream. I wouldn’t say I loathe it. Just that I have no interest in it and don’t want to waste my calories when I could sink my teeth into a brownie. Oh and alcohol. It doesn’t do for me what it obviously does for most people. It makes you relax? Or feel for sociable? Or anything pleasant? Really? I have never experienced anything like that. Just an immediate unpleasant exhaustion with anything more than half a glass.
Same for me with coffee — can’t stand the nasty aftertaste.
Agree with you on hating coffee. But I can enjoy ice cream (if chocolate) and some alcohol on occasion. An M.D. friend of mine recommends that alcohol is fine to enjoy like birthday cake -- perfectly fine for the occasional celebration but not something to have every day. Presumably ice cream would fall in that category too.
I just have no interest in either alcohol or ice cream. it's not about being healthy, I just don't like these things.
I hate cheesecake, and am mystified by people who billow away about how great it is. Everything about it from its density to its texture to its cheesy tart flavour makes my stomach turn. It also makes my teeth hurt (no other food does this).
I hate all alcoholic beverages, especially because of their kitchen cleanser like flavour, but also their effect. “Immediate unpleasant exhaustion” nails it perfectly.
I hate the mixing of any white or light coloured cream, base or sauce with one that is a darker or reddish hue, like when sour cream is plopped in a bowl of chili, or when glistening, bright orange sauce covered chicken wings or whatever are plunged into ranch sauce. Barf!!!
I do like ice cream, though.
i love cheesecake. vive la difference!
My least favorite dessert is Flan! Bland, nasty texture, etc. Even if covered in burnt sugar.
I am glad to read some of these comments. For years, I got used to the idea that I was the only one in teachers lounges not drinking coffee.
I dislike Disani water. Other folks must because it is everywhere.
A funny urban legend has it that the labeling laws in Canada meant bottled water from soft drink makers (Dasani by Coca-Cola, Aquafina by Pepsi, et al) had to state the water was from treated sewage. The truth is it's just regular tap water that they then purify, and originated from the process they already had in place for making their sodas for bottling. But why let that get in the way of a good story?
“Which food do you loathe that you believe most people love?” Peanuts. So that eliminates peanut butter, Reese's candies, Snickers, etc. I'm not allergic, so peanut-containing foods are OK as long as they don't strongly taste of the icky legume.
I read once that people who hate spinach (which I love) may be genetically sensitive to the taste of oxalic acid in it. I wonder if peanut aversion is similarly heritable. My dad also hated peanuts. And when a bakery lady gave my toddler a free cookie years ago, he gleefully bit into it, made a face, and spat it out. Yup -- peanut butter cookie. He couldn't have sensed and imitated my aversion because I had thought it was a sugar cookie until he rejected it and I checked.
In regards to faith healers being frauds, I read an account of one way that some faith healers work. They would gather a tent full of people, and their assistants would see someone walking with difficulty and give them a wheelchair to sit in. Later, the faith healers would see who was sitting in one of his wheelchairs, and know that they were at least walking well enough to get part of the way in. He’d have them get out of the chair and walk.
You say that ending the Russia/Ukraine war will validate Putin’s annexation of part of Ukraine. I suppose people say the same thing about the Israeli hostages being released for more than a dozen prisoners per hostage. Doesn’t that validate taking hostages?
I would argue that is a pragmatic choice. When you combine the release of Hamas prisoners with the widespread destruction of the region which Hamas supposedly governs, then I would not say it is validation of taking hostages.
I think that the current administration also views ending the war in Ukraine and maybe letting Russia keep a bit is a pragmatic choice.
Going back to the original topic, would you say it validates Russia's aggression to Ukraine?
I still think there is some secret agreement between Putin and Trump that involves a lot of money (the only thing Trump ever really cared about). Whatever course Trump decides to take will be the one that puts more money in his pocket.
Pragmatic for us, maybe. I seriously doubt Ukranians see it that way.
All of this has to do with the predictions of a MAGA letter writer. Yes it is possible the Russia-Ukraine war will end. But if it ends with Putin in charge of Ukraine, it won’t be anything to celebrate and Trump won’t have anything to do with it. What does stabilize the Middle East even mean? The Iranian people are not going to overthrow anything. Trump had nothing to do with the changes in Syria. MAGAs will celebrate destroying the environment for more crap and the reduction of national monuments and native rights. I won’t. MAGAs will somehow justify any of these predictions and give Burger Boy credit. I don’t hold out hope for the mid terms. In order for anything to change, Trump would need to get some blame for something. Anything that goes wrong the next two years will be pushed back on Biden. MAGAs are already coming up with excuses for the illegal and unreasonable things he has said and done. They simply explain away the loonier ideas like sending in troops to take over Gaza by saying that’s not what he really meant. I honestly believe the long ago comment about him shooting someone on a Manhattan street and getting away with it. Why? Because he he is justifying all the things many conservatives have felt for years but were too chicken to say in public. Whites are superior. America is blessed by God and meant to rule the world. Non Christians are second class citizens. Women should return to the kitchen. What was wrong with slavery- it’s what blacks were meant to do? All Latinos are lower class trash that should go back where they came from- even if born here. Trump is simply validating what many have felt for a long time. Now it’s okay to say it out loud. Think I’m exaggerating? I live in Trump territory and have listened to it for years.
Not a fan of Maher, but his point about the Dylan song should bring hope. The “broken world” philosophy is not about giving up — it’s about accepting our own flawed ways of manipulating the world around us. And I seem to recall the solution is found in turning our attention away from our “things” and focusing more on our relationships with fellow humans, all of whom are heading for the same mortal ending. Perhaps the takeaway is never give up on each other.
I got 8 of 10 on the Chicago News quiz. Speaking of Allison Rossati, I remember her fondly from the mid 90s. I was traveling a lot on business, and I’d get to a private terminal at Midway before 6:00am. The tv there always had her smiling face on the channel 5 news. We’re both 30 years older, but every time I watch her now I think of the old days.
I moved here in '87, and have the same fond memories of the early '90s - because local news came on at 5 AM!!! (Allison and Bob Sirott on NBC's "First Thing In The Morning")
I could not read the Trib op-ed on school choice as it is behind a paywall. Does it object to school choice generally, or only publicly funded private school choices. CPS is well down the road of school choice. GPA in middle school has high stakes for those who want to get into a top notch high school within the system. It seems to me that CPS has given up on the idea that all high schools will be adequate for the vast majority of students who seek to be high achievers.
School choice may well make people become less connected with their neighborhood, and add transportation costs, but if these are cited as problems when the idea of giving some public subsidy to private schools, then shouldn't it also be a problem with the current CPS system?
There are negatives no matter which side of the issue you're on. Public schools can be the great equalizer- when they get the job done. When they become political footballs, they often don't. Proper learning has parameters that can be highly disturbed by political limitations on what can be taught, the fights over should be at the head of the classroom, the fights over the role of parents, the amount of time taken away due to non-educational occurrences, and a ton of other things. On the other hand, private schools are unfair. They can choose who they want or don't want. It creates segregation. Even with tax credits, many poor can't afford them. Unlike public schools, they absolutely can indoctrinate their students. I graduated from a Catholic high school. But it's hard to blame parents for wanting something better for their kids if the local public schools aren't getting the job done. How can I argue when my mother switched me from a public to a private school? When the local school boundaries changed, my sisters changed schools. So how do I argue against parents wanting better for their kids? The only answer is that if the public schools want to fight private and charter schools, they need to do better. The CTU is hurting their own cause. When they fight charter and private schools, they simply piss people off. When they try to keep schools open with less than 200 students, they bewilder people. Are they more concerned about kids or protecting the jobs of their members? I will give credit to CTU for pushing more things like nurses, librarians, arts teachers, and social workers. Who pays for them? In the mean time, they need to do better with the available resources.
I agree with all of your points. Would you agree that the selective high schools with no attendance area have the same negative effects on public schools? That is they do not have to take all-comers leaving the more challenging students to the attendance area schools, and siphoning off the most motivated students, and the logistical challenge of getting them to their school.
FWIW, I do think the optimal education system is to have strong attendance area public schools. But that does not exist everywhere.
As to your last point, I agree. That's why my mother moved her kids. My arguing against parents that support private schools and tax credits would make me a hypocrite. I don't regret moving from my public high school that had severe racial problems and classes with up to 40 kids. My sophomore year saw 6 different English teachers. Was my future worth possibly sacrificing to protect equal educational justice? My mother, also a teacher, obviously didn't think so.
Regarding not liking eggs, my dad hates eggs. His older brother would never eat chicken. I think their parents may have taken them to a butcher or a farm when they were young.
Regarding the news and views item on the curse removal fraud. I absolutely agree that anyone claiming access to or influence on anything supernatural is a fraud. But how does organized religion get a pass? Churches of all sorts collect immeasurable wealth from the people they "serve" and have legitimate standing only, it seems like, because they are more widely recognized.
There really isn't a fundamental difference between them and the psychic in the story. I think her only mistake was charging such a huge amount, otherwise she was just providing the service that the "victim" requested consistent with her beliefs, no different than any church or temple in the neighborhood.
Religious communities of every variety (Hindu, Jewish, Islamic, the countless varieties of Christian, and many more) seem from the outside to have one purpose: proving a place for worshipping one or more gods in hopes that those gods will respond to believers' prayers by making their lives or the lives of their loved ones better: divine intercession, if you will. It's hard to distinguish that from the palm reader in the second floor nook above the florist on countless commercial strips all over Chicago.But religious communities--not all, but most--do much more. Providing community, and a multigenerational one at that, in an increasingly atomized society is one of the most appealing. It's hard to argue that growing isolation is doing our country much good. Initiating and providing services that government can't or won't to the needed degree, most without requiring that recipients subscribe to the tenets of the host institution's faith is another: soup kitchens, food banks, immigrant and refugee housing, literacy tutors, child care space, after-school drop-in space, spaces where community meetings can take place, and so on. Those are worthy, generally decentralized services that the wider community pays for not via taxes but via foregone tax revenue. If taxed, many if not most congregations would soon need to close. Elmer Gantry and other money-grabbing clergy notwithstanding, most congregations barely make ends meet, and yet continue serving their wider communities as best they can. Our communities, and the neediest within them, would be worse off without the community services and stability they provide. Are all of them perfect and community-serving? No. Are most of them the equivalent of a palm reader? Again, no. To simply dismiss them as such is, frankly, a sign of ignorance.
I understand the importance of communities, my objections are that 1) religious communities are centered around non-truth - belief in the supernatural 2) they are by definition exclusionary 3) they have undue influence on governmental matters that affect wider communities.
I would much prefer a tax-funded community center with a gym, a space for lectures, clubs, meet ups, and support groups, that would welcome people of all worldviews.
Not all fit your description. Mine doesn't, for instance, expressly proclaiming that it does not require adherence to any particular belief or set of beliefs, but supports certain values: respect for one another, for instance. Nothing supernatural about it.
I asked a kid from a non-church-going family what a church was. They replied "It's a place you go to and give money." I saw no reason to argue with them.
Elmer-Gantry-type churches are like that. A great many are not. We each have the choice of deciding to learn more about people, institutions, the natural world, and on and on, or to decide that a first impression is good enough and walk away from the topic. I might say my grocery store or my dentist's office or the ballpark of my favorite yet hapless ball club is a place I go to and give money, as well. But that seems to me an incomplete observation, asserting that nothing of worth is being received. And unlike the store or office or park, how much and whether I give my church is entirely up to me.
Reading Eric in the Tribune over the years, I've gotten the (possibly mistaken) impression that, concerning the question of God's/gods' existence, he regards himself as an agnostic rather than an atheist. So his adamant statement, "No one has psychic powers," seems uncharacteristically presumptuous.
Both theists and a-theists profess great confidence about whether the deity they envision does or does not exist. Agnostics, in contrast, may hold a private opinion one way or the other, but acknowledge that either assertion is impossible to demonstrate conclusively. Agnostics don't feel obliged to declare an unsupported belief as fact. The universe is full of surprises as humans discover fresh ways of investigating it -- quantum theory, for example, is far from intuitively obvious. Today's everybody-knows truth may become tomorrow's discovery overturning or revising it.
So it is wiser not to declaim with certainty that any human phenomenon that cannot be reliably reproduced under laboratory conditions is necessarily fraudulent. Actually, I can't think of any emotional phenomena that DO reliably manifest in laboratories, yet we don't dispute the reality of courage, altruism, trust, etc.
The thing is that, not only has there never been a single instance of someone providing any actual irrefutable evidence of psychic powers, but we know the exact technique that is employed that enables “psychics” to pull off their cons. There may be different names and variations of the methodology, but the most common name for it is “cold reading”. It amounts to a fairly simple manipulation game that consists a of asking leading questions and yielding expectant answers that might give the impression that the “seer” possesses some sort of clairvoyant power, but of course, they don’t. That’s why your suggestion that rational people should keep an open mind about such claptrap is just silly.
It’s like the common magic trick where an illusionist puts his scantily clad assistant in a coffin like box and appears to saw her in half. Would you argue that it’s being presumptuous to assume that this is a trick and that maybe, just maybe, she really was sawn in two because it REALLY looked like she was?
It must be nice to be omniscient enough about the history of human experience to declare "there never been a single instance of someone providing any actual irrefutable evidence of psychic powers." Has there ever been "irrefutable evidence" that someone has dreamed about, say, riding a horse? The only evidence is the dreamer's word -- hardly irrefutable -- yet I doubt you would challenge it.
Yes, psychic readings provide vast opportunity to con the gullible by the method you describe, Steven K., and fraudulent practitioners no doubt abound. Your logic error lies in deciding that because it is possible for someone to deceptively claim atypical sensory powers, everyone who claims them therefore is deceptive. That is analogous to saying that because movie special effects can duplicate video transmissions from the Apollo moon landings, that demonstrates that those landings were faked and no one ever landed on the moon, or could.
For what it's worth, I once went to a highly-recommended psychic just to see what the experience would be like. I had resolved not to answer any leading questions, and so was impressed that he didn't ask any. He took my hand and concentrated, offered a few innocuous specific statements that were correct and would have been hard to research about me, and finally apologized that he couldn't perceive any more. He suggested I come back another time in case one or both of us just was having a bad day. (I later did so, with the same outcome.) He also declined any payment for his effort, and advised me never to pre-pay for a psychic reading, but only pay for accurate results. That doesn't align with your blanket condemnation, does it?
Real science-minded folks accumulate evidence before drawing sweeping conclusions, and willingly modify those conclusions if enough contradictory evidence shows up. Some genuine serious research has been done about these woo-woo subjects -- Gary E. Schwartz's "The Afterlife Experiments" is a good example -- by people who want to learn about reality (whatever that turns out to be) rather than just assert what everyone else believes because it's "obvious."
What did this guy say that made you think he was kosher? It doesn’t sound like much.
Besides declining payment when he couldn't produce, but meeting me twice to try? That itself is an unproductive way to run a con.
This psychic had been recommended by my sister, to whom he had made some apparently unprompted specific, accurate comments about our childhood. She had let me listen to a tape of their second session (a record I doubt frauds would allow), and I didn't hear him ask anything leading there. He volunteered individual details about our parents' personalities and our family life, rather than generic remarks like "Your parents love you very much," Such specifics are not in public records and thus would be very hard to research, but after so many years I don't recall examples.
My sister and I have different last names and I never mentioned her to the psychic at my session months later, so I have no reason to believe he connected us. One of his first observations to me was that he perceived around me a close male relative, a brother figure whom I may not have known, who had died at a tragically young age. Did I recognize this reference? Well, our parents' first child, a boy, had died hours after birth, so I counted that as a hit. I'm guessing the man's words would be true for less than 10% of mid-20th-century Americans. My sister, of course, is one; he had made a similar observation to her.
What little else the psychic said before giving up was unverifiable, which could mean he was wrong, or that I didn't recognize what he perceptions referred to. I'd like to think he was tuned into some cosmic frequency I don't know how to access, but who knows?
I AM convinced HE honestly believes he has heightened senses for detecting actual phenomena. I won't discount that he may. A bloodhound can track a lost child across a field by scent. I can't do it, but that doesn't make scent-tracking a trick or a con or even a miracle. The child's shed scent molecules are real enough, but we're not all equally sensitive to what perhaps is right under our noses.
You made me think of the song For My Next Trick I’ll Need A Volunteer by Warren Zevon. The lyrics include:
“I can saw a woman in two,
But you won't want to look in the box when I’m through.
I can make love disappear.
For my next trick I'll need a volunteer.”
I think we all hold beliefs without proof. Psychic powers violates our understanding of how the world generally works, and many people who have claimed psychic powers have been exposed as liars. The case for believing in psychic powers seems like wishful thinking to me. My mother, who has been a widow since 2007 once went to see a psychic and claimed that my father spoke to her through the psychic. As far as I know she did not go back. Since she is very tight with money, I was not worried about her getting taken advantage of beyond that single session.
While it is not proof, the rational belief is to think psychics are liars.
From Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1, Act III Scene 1:
GLENDOWER: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
I call myself an indifferent agnostic— I don’t know I don’t care if there’s a God because it is very clear to me that no one has any real idea what if any outside (supernatural) forces control the universe, what those forces value, if anything, and no one has demonstrated any ability to harness or direct those forces.
Amen, Brother!
Ahem. I should have made clear that the preceding "Amen!" refers only to your God comments.
If some people have perceptive abilities that others don't -- isn't that what "psychic" would mean? -- those would be natural rather than a supernatural forces. I'm personally nearsighted and only can carry a tune some days, but that doesn't make me doubt that other folks may have lifetime 20/20 vision or perfect pitch.
nick gillespie of Reason mag on a podcast described himself as an 'apatheist' - sounds like how you're describing your religious belief.
Well, I am a shade past atheist because I have no being that I don't believe in. Where others imagine a god or spirit or ? I have nothing... I have been a disbeliever since I was 5. There are times when it would be very something to believe in Hell and imagine that the Orange Menace would end up there. But, no luck on that front.
Does everyone here see the dilemma? We have no definitive proof of anything. One side says we don't have any proof of psychic ability. The other side says we have no proof it doesn't exist. What's the solution? Any of us that have never seen it or experienced it doubt the views of those that claim they can prove it. Those that believe in religion claim they can prove it by the existence of holy script or real phenomena they can't explain. More than a few of us are Jewish. Did God really tell Abraham to kill his son and then stop him? Did Moses part the Red Sea and then receive the Ten Commandments directly from God? If we accept the above, do we have the right to question the miracles of Jesus and his status as the son of God? What would we accept as proof? The ultimate religious question is about faith. Are we really supposed to simply accept that we are not meant to understand the purpose of God and to simply accept his role in our lives? That strikes me as pretty similar to whether or not one believes in psychics.
I think that you’re making this murkier than it actually is. Yes, religion is a con job, but the con is far less clear cut than what we’re talking about with psychics. The people of the cloth (priests, pastors, ministers, imams, etc.) that ply religion are generally not claiming to have mystical powers that can be tapped into on a per customer basis via cash transaction. They only claim to offer their interpretation of a holy writ or scripture from a deeper theological perspective and from a position of leadership. Crucially, most of them (though certainly not all) buy into their doctrines and believe what they are teaching.
Psychics, seers, palm readers and the like are a whole other matter. Their con involves a specific calculus and methodology that can be pinpointed and deconstructed as precisely as the craftwork of a stage illusionist, and rests upon fraudulent claims to powers that are known to be as fantastical as the existence of ghosts, vampires and unicorns. That is why what they engage in is clear cut fraud, and their profiteering should be subject to criminal penalty.
Returning again to the comparison with stage magicians, there is this distinction: when Penn and Teller, Doug Henning or David Copperfield weave their magic, they don’t really expect anyone to believe that they are pulling off miracles; Copperfield never thought that anyone would really think that he made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Their financial success is not predicated upon a lie. John Edward, Uri Gellar, and other assorted frauds do rely on such gullibility, and have been richly rewarded for their con artistry.
I don't really disagree with you. I actually thought about that as I wrote it. My purpose was not so much to compare the two as to show followers' belief in something they can't prove. The obvious difference, in simple terms, is that many religious providers believe in what they talk about while psychics work on their ability to con people into believing in the supposed ability of the psychics. I still say they are similar in their ability to get people to believe in something they cannot see or touch and therefore need faith to believe they are real. I had no intention of insulting anyone that truly believes in God and his power. That would make it pretty hard for me to claim to be Jewish. Unlike others, I mock neither atheists or agnostic.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
– Bill Watterson, “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip
Regarding Canada repackaging a weeks old plan and our president falling for it. This reminds me of the business teacher who told me about the rule of the bigger fool. “You may be a fool to buy that stock, but if you can find a bigger fool to sell it to then go ahead”. Our president knows (I think) that he has bigger fools that he can sell his plans to. The American people.
“We will be energy-dependent again.” Not sure if that typo was Bob Shea’s or our illustrious host’s, but as Eric pointed out, we’ve been a net exporter of oil since before Trump’s first term.
I caught that too and was similarly confused. Perhaps a Freudian slip meaning that we'll be burning so much fossil fuels we'll be dependent on them again? Who knows
I got 10 out of 10 on the news quiz.
As food I hate, like Ringo Starr, I've never eaten pizza & never will. The thought of melted cheese is revolting to me!
I also don't drink because everything with alcohol tastes flat out awful to me.
News quiz: Just 8 of 10.
The smell of yogurt is repulsive to me; I can't bear to be near it, much less eat it. Pizza is fine by me but only with minimal cheese, all of it baked enough that it's not gooey, stretchy, or similarly fluid: triggers my gag reflex otherwise.
On the other hand, I love broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and black licorice, so if you don't, I'll happily take them off your hands
Broccoli & black licorice are fine, I buy out all the Good & Plenty at Walmart every couple of months. Brussels sprouts are acceptable, but they do smell bad when cooking.
I set them up to steam for 8 minutes. Low tech: turn on heat at the stove, set the microwave's kitchen timer to 8:00, and go to a distant room until the timer goes off. All of the flavor, none of the smell.
I don’t care for steamed Brussels sprouts, but they can be tasty when roasted.
Good idea! I keep meaning to try it. Next batch, for certain.
They are like a different food when roasted. When i served them at a meal, a friend who was gobbling them up asked what he was eating. They were chopped and roasted til caramelized so not totally identifiable. He insisted the could not possibly be Brussel sprouts which he 'hated'
I like the frozen Brussels sprouts in butter sauce by Green Giant that only take a few minutes in the microwave.
If you roast them, not boil them, they taste better and don't smell bad either.
Yogurt. I hate it. The smell makes me gag. When I have to feed it to my grandchild I have to hold my breath! This child’s mother loves to leave a giant bowl of the homemade stuff in the fridge so I have to see it!
Thank you for continuing to call out psychics and others claiming supernatural ability, and for highlighting the great work of James Randi. I'm am surprised and aghast how often I can be talking to an otherwise reasonable and intelligent person who then professes a belief in such nonsense.
Mushrooms and any organ meats are on my "nope" list. Have hated mushrooms my whole life, canned ones are especially nasty. A doctor friend once pointed out that she would never eat filtering organs and I can never unhear that. No liver, no kidney, no heart - that last one from unfortunate experience as my mother in the 1980's used ground beef heart in dishes that called for ground beef. A diet program she followed called for beef heart as lower in fat. Think about it - the heart beats constantly the cow's entire life, that muscle gets a serious workout. It's gamey and tough and just icky. I actually can't even cook with ground beef at home because I'm still traumatized.
I'm with you on organ meats... My folks loved liver. Our dog got as much as I could get away with.
I can't imagine life without eggs. No replacement works well in baked goods and I don't work well without baked goods in my life. Banana bread, cakes, brownies, bread pudding, cheesecake - none are quite the same without eggs. I can understand avoiding some preparations of eggs (for instance, my dad will eat nearly raw sunny-side up eggs but cannot stomach hard boiled eggs; I can understand scrambled's texture not being everyone's cup of tea) but cannot imagine just not eating eggs at all (part of the reason I can never be vegan)