31 Comments

Re the book recommendation: The Satanic panic is important to understand -- among other reasons -- for what it tells us about how very prone we fallible humans are to falling for extreme bullshit. Remember during the Satanic panic most people really took it at face value and believed it was going on. There were entire conferences dedicated to discussing the "research." Psychologists made entire careers on this thing which didn't happen and which destroyed lives.

Among others, Diane Ehrensaft wrote in 1992 about Satanic child sex abuse stuff. https://archive.org/details/ehrensaft-1992/mode/2up You might think she would have lost her professional credibility after that, but no. She's moved on to today's junk diagnosis and is ruining lives anew.

Ehrensaft is now the (incomprehensibly) highly regarded clinician at UCSF who is pushing for transing children in the new (and not evidence-based) model of all affirmation, all the time, even of preschoolers (who, as anyone who's taken even an introductory class in developmental psychology is aware) are as likely to say they are dinosaurs or dogs as the opposite sex.

Ehrensaft is the person who has made the famous claim that boy babies who unsnap their onesie to form a "dress" or girl babies who rip the barrettes out of their hair are telling us about their gender. Yes she really said it, she really implied that infants have a concept of gender, and she really meant it.

With her history and her beliefs, she should have no position of authority, anywhere, related to children.

As much as we can look back on history and weep at how many lives were ruined with the Satanic panic, we need to look at the blind, deeply unscientific transing and sterilization of kids right now and weep at that.

Ehrensaft was wrong about the Satanic panic way back when, she's wrong about gender nonconforming kids now, and yet she's an associate professor of pediatrics and enjoys a position of considerable authority at one of the most esteemed medical schools in the world. Her Grand Rounds are well attended and have an air more of church services than of professional events. The questions from the audience are screened so no difficult questions -- no real questions -- even are asked of her.

We can weep at the past but we can also be motivated to open our eyes to the same stuff (in different form) happening around us right now.

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"I Can Please None of the People All of Time".

But they keep coming back, that's how you know you are doing well.

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Thank you for the Philip Glass

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Ah, I hope my comment about genre books didn’t get you down. I literally pay you money to hear you talk, so I will happily read whatever you want.

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RE: Well, people already don’t like the choices for the next book club. Oh well.

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The books looked miserable to me, but I’ll give the selected one a try. One of the best things about reading groups is trying something out of my usual.

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Regarding the comment of the week, I remember being horribly disillusioned when I realized it was not physically possible to sing along to many of my favorite songs, and that this was a problem with The Used's self-titled first album. I was even more disappointed with their later, even more heavily produced albums.

I have had my revenge on the music industry though. A favorite video game soundtrack that I was sharing with my wife features a real live flute soloist, and I expressed my deep appreciation for their phrasing as a former highschool saxophone player. She had no idea what I was talking about, so I showed her each audible breath that was captured on the soundtrack. Horrified, she wishes to return to the time where she had never once heard a breath on mic.

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Re Satanic Panic: Now the mainstream media is going after Elizabeth Loftus:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/05/how-elizabeth-loftus-changed-the-meaning-of-memory

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It's insane that stardestroyer.net still exists! I remember reading their Star Wars vs Star Trek articles as a middle schooler.

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"Forgetting the Fundamentals of Conservatism" is insightful. The forgetting has only accelerated since.

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Was that particular Phillip Glass composition used in any films? It sounds so familiar but I can't place it.

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Loved the Braque piece. Nice to see something besides his cubism.

I look forward to hearing the Ruby Ridge talk. I'm not inclined to make Randy Weaver any sort of folk hero but, fuck, what an awful situation he went through. I can understand where others would take up his fight and influence their anti-government views.

Yeah, I'm not crazy about the choices either, but I'd of never read the last two books and they turned out well. So I' m trusting you and the group and will read what is chosen.

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