tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post8995875169663083181..comments2024-03-28T10:11:40.572-04:00Comments on VISUP: Paddy Chayefsky and the Wonders of the Invisible World Part IReclusehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13510266038933358020noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-27655952346133486352017-02-22T05:56:32.059-05:002017-02-22T05:56:32.059-05:00thanks so much for this man!! one of my all time f...thanks so much for this man!! one of my all time favorite movies, i could tell there was something deeper going on. Im sending you an email momentarily and i urge you to contact me . <br /><br />PS!!!... have you ever viddied either of my other favorite Occult based movies ??? The Holy Mountain (jodorowsky), True Stories (david byrne, a super weirdo alien), or the VVitch: a new england folktale?<br /><br />i look forward to more superb articles from you :) keep it upAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02787395864286667078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-53795734500510848572013-09-01T16:40:43.281-04:002013-09-01T16:40:43.281-04:00R.E.-
Thanks for the tip and thank you.
-Reclu...R.E.-<br /><br /><br />Thanks for the tip and thank you.<br /><br /><br />-RecluseReclusehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13510266038933358020noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-41606702621833298842013-08-27T21:29:26.274-04:002013-08-27T21:29:26.274-04:00Re: Eugenics. Try Lothrop Stoddard's The Revo...Re: Eugenics. Try Lothrop Stoddard's The Revolt Of The Underman to understand why eugenics. Nice essay.R.E. Prindlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06176381004681168618noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-30203836141804833742013-07-21T00:20:10.532-04:002013-07-21T00:20:10.532-04:00Erin-
Yeah, I've long heard that Christine C...Erin-<br /><br /><br />Yeah, I've long heard that Christine Chubbuck partly inspired "Network" but I was unable to confirm it. Strangely, Network's fictional UBS also echoed the rise of FOX somewhat --Fox first made a name for itself in the mid-1980s with envelop-pushing comedies such as "... Married With Children" and "The Tracy Ullman Show" as well as one of the earliest (and most successful) reality shows, "Cops." They also have the whole yellow journalism thing going on as well.:) <br /><br />One of the first major proponents of <a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/01/assessment.aspx" rel="nofollow">standardized testing in the United States was H. H. Goddard</a>, a psychologist and prominent eugenicist. According to John Taylor Gatto in "The Underground History of American Education" Goddard believed that standardized testing would be "a way to make lower classes recognize their own inferiority" (pg. 59). <br /><br />From my own experience with standardized testing, I would have to question how effective they would even be for reading comprehension. When I was younger I struggled with multiple choice questions because they had a tendency to make me over think my answers. Finally, in the eight grade, a teacher pointed out to me that most of my initial answers on two-thirds of the question I had ultimately gotten wrong on a recent test had been correct --I had latter gone back and answered them wrong after becoming confused by the several of the other possible answers. <br /><br />From there I learned to always go with my initial answer to questions on multiple choice exams and my testing improved greatly. Certainly my struggles did not stem from comprehending the material I had read and more than a few people I've known over the years had similar problems with standardized tests. But you are correct, many schools have begun to de-emphasis the importance of standardized tests in recent years in relation to other academic achievement for such reasons as my case. <br /><br />I did not mean to imply that eugenics is scientific, which is why I initially put scientific in quotes when I mentioned "scientific" racism. In general, eugenics was almost solely driven by politics and not science --It was effectively a way for the elite to justify the conditions they had subjected the poor to as well as legally sanctioning population control against said class (a practice the state of California apparently hasn't totally given up on if the recent sterilization of female inmates is any indication).<br /><br /><br />-RecluseReclusehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13510266038933358020noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-4277249004025022792013-07-19T16:35:57.184-04:002013-07-19T16:35:57.184-04:00If you read the Wikipedia entry for Christine Chub...If you read the Wikipedia entry for Christine Chubbuck, it says that Paddy Chayefsky's 'Network' script was inspired, in part, by Chubbuck's 1974 on-air suicide. Unfortunately, the link to the source cited for this "fact" is a dead link (no pun intended), so it's tough to tell if this is based on Chayefsky's own statement or not. <br /><br />Historically, the first widespread use for standardized testing was for job placement within the U.S. military. Standardized tests can measure one particular kind of intelligence - the kind based on reading comprehension and memory. They can't tell an institution such as the military or a school much about an individual's overall intellectual capacity (they can't, for example, tell how creative you are, and a creative genius may score poorly), but they do have a LIMITED usefulness for placement. They can tell a middle school, for instance, whether an eighth grader should be placed in the high school prep reading class or whether she might benefit from a more remedial class - or an advanced placement class. <br /><br />Like any tool, a standardized test has the potential to be abused, but overall they're fairly benign. I think most college administrators, for example, realize how limited their usefulness actually is. <br /><br />From the point of view of science, "race" doesn't exist. Race is a sociological idea; biologically, all human beings are just human beings. Any fertile male can reproduce with any fertile female. So any "scientific" data on differences "between races" will be inherently flawed. <br /><br />Eugenics was always terrible science anyway. Of course, they didn't know the structure of DNA back then. Now we know that genetic diversity isn't just nice, it's necessary for a species to survive. Any widespread use of eugenics would lead to a genetic bottleneck that would cause the species to become first inbred, and then eventually instinct. The right to reproduce freely should be a universal human right just in justice terms (because hey, we're people, not someone's lab animals), and science only CONFIRMS why we need that right. <br /><br />...Not that this would stop evil people from doing evil things anyway. It should, but it won't. Erin O'Riordanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14829574740027964039noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-11637353574063469242013-07-18T00:01:44.440-04:002013-07-18T00:01:44.440-04:00Anon-
I've loathed standardized tests for ye...Anon-<br /><br /><br />I've loathed standardized tests for years as I always struggled with them in school (I was always a much better essay/speech-type student). Intelligence can manifest in so many different ways in human beings that attempting to standardize it seems like folly. I suspect these tests have their origins with the same fascist ideologues behind things like the Pioneer Funds as a means of separating the "wheat from the chaff." <br /><br />I've actually been toying with the idea of writing a blog on the West Memphis Three for a while now as the Robin Hood Hills killings have a lot of personal significance to me: I came of age right around the time the "Paradise Lost" documentaries were starting to come out and was a metalhead all throughout high school(and still am:), so I identified very strongly with the kids. Several of my friends were quite obsessed with them as well --a very good friend of mine even wrote one of them a letter while she was in high school. <br /><br />And yes, there are a lot of strange instances of twilight language around the Robin Hood Hills murders. <br /><br />I'm not familiar at all with "Mad Men" but I'm interested now that you've told me the main character is named Draper and after reading that its a period piece set during the 1960s on the Wiki entry for the Don Draper character. It definitely sounds very curious. <br /><br /><br />-Recluse Reclusehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13510266038933358020noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-18316912446372782362013-07-16T21:24:45.461-04:002013-07-16T21:24:45.461-04:00I enjoyed this blog. I remember the controversy ov...I enjoyed this blog. I remember the controversy over the book "The Bell Curve" when it came out, but never delved into the history. I learned something new here about the Pioneer Fund and the Colonel. <br /><br />It seems strange though, that some black (and liberal white) educators/activists/theorists, seemed to unintentionally or indirectly support the Pioneer Fund theories by complaining how standardized tests (SAT's, etc.) and civil service exams favored whites at the expense of blacks. While these complaints were largely based on cultural differences (as far as I can remember), just the mere mention of a supposed testing or intelligence bias based on "differences" leaves the door open for the genetic theorizing.<br /><br />As an aside, in terms of onomatology, your mention of the names Robin Hood and Draper, makes me wonder what Downard would have thought of the "Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills," and the huge popularity of the character "Don Draper" from "Mad Men."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com