Problematic Pallor, Part 362
I want to share with people why I didn’t know I was white. Because I think a lot of people don’t know they are white.
I bring thrilling news from academia:
Professor of education and human development at George Washington University, explains how she needed “somatic embodied training” to “learn that she was white”.
These people are responsible for training new teachers. pic.twitter.com/yXBv2KV7VW
— Mythinformed (@MythinformedMKE) October 18, 2021
The speaker quoted above is Dr Julia Storberg-Walker, an associate professor of education at George Washington University. A teacher of teachers, of those who will in turn shape young minds, or try to, anyway. Our educator’s realisation of her own “whiteness” – and thus innate wrongness – was, we’re told, a result of “somatic, embodied training,” which is essential, apparently. In order to struggle with one’s “positionality” as a White Devil, a doer of “harm,” a devourer of souls.
Dr Storberg-Walker’s academic biography tells us,
Her activist/scholar work…
Because one can’t not be an activist, obviously.
is generative and aims to develop equitable and compassionate frameworks, models, and processes for the purpose of catalysing whole planet interdependence and flourishing.
Whole planet flourishing. Goodness. This feat is to be achieved by drawing on,
quantum field theory, and wisdom traditions spanning diverse cultures and historical moments.
Readers are invited to speculate as to exactly how quantum field theory might bear upon such topics as “critical race activism,” or “colonised words,” and how it might inform “deep learning” about the seemingly endless pathologies of being pale. Alas, Dr Storberg-Walker remains coy on the subject, merely teasing us, and instead offers the following:
I see my contribution as an [sic] leadership studies educator grounded in the the [sic] wisdom of the feminine—a voice long submerged and whose time is now.
And,
I have started to find more and more people who share this type of perspective,
An encouraging development, I’m sure.
and I see more and more people yearning for the profound, the wise, and the eternal.
Okay, then. So, the words intersectional woo are entirely inappropriate and should be banished from your minds, you doubting heathens. If racially neurotic women and pretentious ethno-masochism are your thing, we’ve poked this particular bag of crazy before. More than once. 
Quite the profound discovery. First thing I thought of…
https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1971/07/15
And I notice Prof. Storberg-Walker has a possessive pronoun too. Has she realized she’s Cis yet?
and I see more and more people yearning for the profound, the wise, and the eternal.
It’s all whitey’s fault.
Readers are invited to speculate as to exactly how quantum field theory might bear upon such topics as “critical race activism,”…
See Deepak Chopra and “Quantum Healing”.
You can sell any stinking shit to liberals if you dress it up with fancy words. Sometimes even without fancy words.
Quite the profound discovery. First thing I thought of…
I’d forgotten that cartoon, thanks.
As one of the Twitter responses said: this is the voice of a cultist.
and I see more and more people yearning for the profound, the wise, and the eternal.
Back in the day, people like that just got religion.
On second thought, they still do, except the gods are just plain old humans. Kinda like cult leaders.
a voice long submerged
And from the looks of things the last 100 years or so, probably for a damn good reason. Her drivel being just one of the more benign examples.
Word salad. The ravings of the deranged. And yet universities view it as erudition to throw in “quantum” and they give such nitwits tenure. When you throw out all standards, this is what you get instead of scholarship.
Isn’t “drawing on wisdom traditions from diverse cultures” called cultural appropriation? Of course the conceit that people living a stone age lifestyle have wisdom to share is simply bonkers.
quantum field theory, and wisdom traditions spanning diverse cultures and historical moments.
Nope. Just nope.
Nope. Just nope.
It must be strange to inhabit an environment in which your peers won’t call you out on even the most eye-widening horseshit.
Lest the favour be returned, presumably.
Hang on!
Suppose I do draw upon wisdom traditions spanning diverse cultures. How do I avoid cultural appropriation™?
Sometimes even without fancy words.
It sounds better in the original Italian.
No comments allowed on the Youtube video. *shocked face*
It must be strange to inhabit an environment in which your peers won’t call you out on even the most eye-widening horseshit.
Lest the favour be returned, presumably.
This is more or less what is happening:
All these “Studies” departments are staffed with charlatans whose “scholarship” cannot meet the standards for publication in an honest scholarly journal. Therefore, they all founded new journals staffed with people just as dishonest as themselves. Then they all cite each other’s garbage “research” in an endless round-robin of fraud.
Prof. Storberg-Walker appears to have mastered the art of gobbledygook.
The professionally ignorant do have an inordinate fondness for terms they do not, & likely can not, understand.
The prof down the hall from me in grad school had a poster up that said “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull”–he meant it as a joke but modern academics have embraced this ancient wisdom.
In similar vein, I saw a clip of a fellow from Iran claiming that Muslims had developed quantum theory 1000 years ago. hahaha no.
I saw a clip of a fellow from Iran claiming that Muslims had developed quantum theory 1000 years ago.
We waz
kangscaliphs an sheet!“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, …
I had a high school AP history teacher who would tell us the same thing. While I did find it amusing, it kinda turned me off from anything non-STEM.
“somatic, embodied training,”
I see the words, know the individual definitions, and have no clue what she is babbling about. Looking it up:
Is Julia trying to tell us she discovered her “whiteness” through dance?
Geez, the years of snake oil and fake goldmine conmen seem transparently quaint compared to these grifters.
These days, one is frequently reminded of the following…
Dole Office Clerk: Occupation?
Comicus: Stand-up philosopher.
Dole Office Clerk: What?
Comicus: Stand-up philosopher. I coalesce the vapors of human experience into a viable and meaningful comprehension.
Dole Office Clerk: Oh, a *bullshit* artist!
Quantum field theory? I’d like to sit her down in a chair and say, “you have sixty seconds to explain why the creation and annihilation operators are examples of a graded Grassmann algebra or I’ll shoot you in the head.” There’s gonna be some spatter.
Instalanche!
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/479993/
“you have sixty seconds to explain why the creation and annihilation operators are examples of a graded Grassmann algebra or I’ll shoot you in the head.”
I have read that in Classical Rome bridge builders were required to stand underneath the bridge when the temporary supports were removed. If the bridge collapsed they got what they deserved. Strong motivation for careful work.
I would like to require that those who push Diversity, Equity and Inclusion be required to get life-critical services and products *only* from people who got their degrees and jobs through quotas.
Instalanche!
Hide the good drinks! Put away the breakables and lay down extra sawdust.
People won’t take you seriously if you claim that something is magical. But you can say the same thing by invoking quantum theory. The only differences are: (1) Quantum theory sounds scientific, so it must be legit. (2) Nobody wants to admit that they don’t know what quantum theory is, so they just smile and nod.
But in cases like this, it means exactly the same thing. For the same reason, all the charlatans who called themselves palmists or fortunetellers when I was a kid are now calling themselves psychics. What they do hasn’t changed at all; they just found a new and fancier word for it.
Instalanche!
[ Sounds of document shredder kicking into overdrive. ]
I just see an academic trying to stay one step ahead of the campus Mao-lings who would roast her on a spit for the slightest provocation.
It’s like a hostage video the way she’s mouthing all the platitudes.
This is an affluent, privileged white woman swearing, “I’m one of you!” before the students in her classes declare, “She’s one of them!”
Change one word and see how it sounds.
“It’s all whitey’s fault.”
Whitey’s on the moon.
(Via Ace) Recognizing you have a problem is the first step: “I have to figure out why I’m such a defensive miserable bitch…Everything feels racist, everywhere we go…”
The original tweet has been deleted, but you can find it on the internet Archive Wayback Machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210914002100/
Will this hyperlink display correctly? It looks badly mangled in the preview window.
Perhaps it would have been easier and quicker for her to have discovered her whiteness if she had merely established her positionality in front of a mirror.
No such luck. David, do you know why this is a problem, and if there is a solution that commenters can use?
David, do you know why this is a problem, and if there is a solution that commenters can use?
No idea, sadly. With Wayback links, it’s generally better to just paste in the url, but that didn’t work this time.
$3 billion for “tree equity” in Biden’s budget: I seem to recall this coming up in decades past, and reformers were surprised to discover that an important cause of “tree inequity” was behavior in “marginalized communities” that tended to kill trees.
No idea, sadly.
I suppose the wise course then is to post the original link along with a link to the Wayback Machine.
I wonder how long she would entertain such thoughts if she looked out her kitchen window one morning to see enemy tanks, followed by infantry, rumbling across the fields toward her town.
Kenyan citizens didn’t wait to find out if he was turning his life around: Escaped child killer who drank blood of victims is beaten to death by mob.
“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, …”
As my graduate advisor at GWC in Chicago used to say ‘You can slice boloney a thousand different ways, but it’s still boloney in the end’.
From “didn’t happen” to “highly ethical” in a microsecond. You can guess what variations of this the left will give us in the near future.
But nobody on the left ever explains how “building an open society” requires protecting criminals, dark-skinned racists, and violently intolerant Muslim fanatics.
Readers are invited to speculate…
It’s all meaningless words making the right animal noise. It is nothing. These people are nihilists, David.
With Wayback links, it’s generally better to just paste in the url, but that didn’t work this time.
Using tinyurl.com to turn the Wayback Machine link into a, well, tiny url generally works.
.
Is Julia trying to tell us she discovered her “whiteness” through dance?
More likely through realizing like all white people that she has no rhythm and can’t dance.
What I always find humorous about “academics” who put themselves into debt earning useless credentials is how aware they are that parroting airheaded lefty platitudes is the only way to break into the club and earn a living. The more “hot” your take against capitalism/patriarchy/systemic racism/etc. is, the better your chance of competing for a lucrative paycheck in a mostly useless endeavor. I would like to think there’s a wink-wink awareness of the irony as well as a sense of comfort that no “radical” ideas from the academy are ever going to actually shake the “system.”
In Philadelphia, spouting trendy left wing bullshit and being armed with a PhD will get you tenure at Ivy League Penn, a sweet Victorian home near campus, and enough disposable income to send your kids to a toney upper-class private Quaker school. Meanwhile you’ll never have to do jack shit to lift a finger a sacrifice a minute or a dime to lift up the working class and poor black communities within spitting distance of your leafy campus. It’s the feels and the BS word salad that count and nothing more.
“why the creation and annihilation operators are examples of a graded Grassmann algebra”
Ah…. 4?
“…I didn’t know I was white.”
When a “professor” is too stupid to figure out how to use a mirror, you probably shouldn’t waste your time and money attempting to take her class.
“I want to share with people why I didn’t know I was white. Because I think a lot of people don’t know they are white.”
Rereading that quote, I was struck by the realization that she’s using the word “white” to mean “evil.” She’s saying that she didn’t know she was evil, and she thinks a lot of people don’t know they are evil, either.
If that is what she meant, then she is correct. But not for the reasons she thinks.
Because one can’t not be an activist, obviously.
Lol. It’s mandatory now.
an environment in which your peers won’t call you out on even the most eye-widening horseshit
This is possibly the most concerning aspect of this and one that goes even beyond her immediate peers.
Though I personally reject a great deal described as “systemic X”*, in a move with she and her sympathisers are no doubt generally familiar, it is the thought of not just her, but the entire institutional process, funded and/or supported by government at no small expense, a corporate culture that seems only too willing to endorse very similar ideas in their publicity and marketing campaigns that is most eye-widening.
The network that supports her unconvincing and frankly bizarre claims to have only just discovered that she’s white not to mention “quantum field theory” is really quite extensive.
* “Systemic X” is one of those woo-woo words that suggests some kind of empirical evidence underpins the claim when either there is none or, more often, what evidence is said to be for it falls apart very quickly under even the mildest scrutiny.
Lol. It’s mandatory now.
Well, as we’ve seen several times, we’ve reached a point where people can announce themselves as ‘activists’ without bothering to specify what it is they’re bothered by, or how they go about being bothered by it. And this omission isn’t questioned. In some quarters, it’s become both an occupation and oddly non-specific.
It’s the “triple A” of liberal white women: Activist. Ally. Academic.
Avoid at all costs.
[ Slides free straw along bar to Stephanie. ]
It’s the “triple A” of liberal white women…
The “Hex A” – Activist. Ally. Academic. Agitated. Addlepated. Adjustment Disordered.
Feel free to add or substitute Antisocial, Avoidant, or frequently, Addicted.
N.B. – this is not to imply that liberal men, especially “academics” are any different or better.
Rereading that quote, I was struck by the realization that she’s using the word “white” to mean “evil.”
We’ve heard that sort of rhetoric before–Germany in the 1930’s. Islam since forever.
Rereading that quote, I was struck by the realization that she’s using the word “white” to mean “evil.”
When you read “anti-racist” theory closely, you find that much of it is Marxism dressed up with a veneer of racial grievance rhetoric. This should alert us that it is merely the latest ploy by the left to gain power: The racist jargon is calculated to appeal to blacks who are already indoctrinated to hate other races who are not responsible for their problems, and to whites who are already indoctrinated to feel guilty for things they did not do.
Farnsworth: Antihuman. Acephalous.
You can take every Diversity/Inclusion/Equity training available, but at the end of it, you’re still white. And we all know what that means…
“systemic X”
We haven’t had a really good band name in a while.
Actually, sounds more like a rapper. Sorry.
This should alert us that it is merely the latest ploy by the left to gain power…
Merely one of the latest ploys. This is apparently not a joke.
OK, not an intentional joke.
…this is not to imply that liberal men, especially “academics” are any different or better.
This is because they are also women.
This is because they are also women.
When you are right, you are right.
This is because they are also women.
I’ll just leave this here, I think.
the latest ploy by the left to gain power
Unfortunately they’ve already gained power. I think what we’re seeing now is more a matter of consolidating.
This is because they are also women.
I know, regrooving. Off I go.
I’ll just leave this here, I think.
From the link: When I was about 15 years old, I said to a friend of mine, “Why must you always look at a girl’s butt?” He promptly responded: “Are you gay or something? What else should I look at, a guy’s butt?” He was already wearing the mask. He had already learned the lessons of patriarchal masculinity.
Because feminists tell us that boys should be sexually aroused by a girl’s recitations of Marxist dialectic.
This is because they are also women.
* Caitlyn Jenner – Glamour Magazine’s 2014 “Woman of the Year”.
* Laurel Hubbard – New Zealand’s University of Otago 2021 “Sportswoman of the Year”.
* Rachel Levine – 2021 First U.S female 4-star admiral.
Real women are a bit shit aren’t they?
Rachel Levine – 2021 First U.S female 4-star admiral.
I did raise an eyebrow at the line “openly transgender,” as if there might otherwise be some doubt.
* Rachel Levine – 2021 First U.S female 4-star admiral…
…of the Public Health Service.
A lot of people are getting wrapped around the axle about the admiral part, but it is not as if this person is ever going to command a fleet of so much as swan paddle boats. The USPHS started out as the Marine Hospital Service for merchant sailors hence the Naval rank stuff. The US Surgeon General is a Vice Admiral of the USPHS.
For anyone who didn’t come up through the USPHS ranks, this is really just cosplay.
When I was about 15 years old, I said to a friend of mine, “Why must you always look at a girl’s butt?”
From Take a Girl Like You by Kingsley Amis.
This is because they are also women.
Wait – bio-holes? Birthing persons, menstruating persons, breeders, bleeders, and now bio-holes. Interesting. “Bio-holes” – even that asshole admits that biology is real with that statement.
The feminists have been yammering on about The Patriarchy holding them down and whatnot, but I always thought it was a load of rubbish. The trans mafia is this patriarchy made manifest, and most of the feminists are cowed into silence. Where’s the rah rah I am woman hear me roar now? Of course, if they do speak out, they’re TERFs and it’s not a hate crime to screech “Die TERF scum!” and other such niceties. But woe to those found guilty of insufficient bowing and scraping to the new trans overlords – that’s Actual Violence donchaknow.
Rachel Levine – 2021 First U.S female 4-star admiral.
Words have no meaning anymore. Female has a very specific biological, scientific meaning. Levine is no more female than the doddering hair sniffer in the oval office. But this does illustrate how silly, stupid, and meaningless these First Female, First Black, First Whatever things really are.
First U.S female 4-star admiral.
In the Public Health Service, not the U.S. Navy.
For anyone who didn’t come up through the USPHS ranks, this is really just cosplay.
So, just like the rest of Mr. Levine’s life.
feminists tell us that boys should be sexually aroused by a girl’s recitations of Marxist dialectic.
Sailer’s Law of Female Journalism.
It’s the “triple A” of liberal white women
this is not to imply that liberal men, especially “academics” are any different or better.
This is because they are also women.
Repeal the 19th and this shit stops overnight.
Maybe off-topic but I find it amusing…so the story you may have seen about the guy getting a ticket in Bath because of his vanity license plate, etc. got me to thinking…then “reasearching”…so according to CarFax, it seems someone in Florida is driving around with the license plate of N19 93R. I wonder if they know…
In the Public Health Service, not the U.S. Navy.
Yes. Because everyone knows that. As if the whole concept itself isn’t a disgrace.
The feminists complaining about guys looking at their bodies are really upset because 1) they are lesbians, 2) they are old and guys don’t look at their butt, 3) they don’t want the “wrong sort”–ie low class, poor–to look, or all of the above. You have to read between the lies (sic).
As to men holding women down: 60% of college students are women. They lead in getting advanced degrees also. At the same time, virtually all women want to marry a guy who makes more than they do.
As to men holding women down: 60% of college students are women.
I have a STEM degree. Most of the majors were men, and we were always pleased when another woman chose that major. And we treated them just as we did the male majors, with respect and collegiality, focused on our shared interests in the fields.
quantum field theory
Cargo cult academics. The professor of Intersectional Woo looks around and thinks: “These guys speak in impenetrable gibberish and everybody gives them a lot of respect, even if they don’t understand the details. I speak in impenetrable gibberish and nobody takes me seriously, doubly so if we start getting into details. I know — I should pretend I’m part of *that* tribe!”
Not that there isn’t plenty of chicanery in Physics departments, but the difference there is that sooner or later the theoretical mathematics gets laid out on the table next to the experimental results. The easiest way to separate the wheat from the chaff (regardless of the field of study) is to see which “experts” eagerly look forward to seeing how the results of the experiment line up, and which go out of their way to insist that no real-world experiment is possible.
I should pretend I’m part of *that* tribe!
Woo and quackery does tend to follow fads in science: When magnets and electrical devices were new, we got lots of magnetic and electric quackery. When radioactivity was discovered we got lots of that, too–sometimes with deadly results. I think crystals and “vibrations” came after the introduction of quartz crystals in timepieces. (Check me if I’m mistaken.)
Not that there isn’t plenty of chicanery in Physics departments
“Fusion power is only 20 years away, if you’ll only give lots more money.” 😀
“Fusion power is only 20 years away, if you’ll only give lots more money.”
OTOH, we see an example of fusion power every time the sun rises.
All cultures are equal, and rap culture is no exception.
“Fusion power is only 20 years away, if you’ll only give lots more money.” 😀
I’ll just leave this here:
“When do you think we’ll have ignition?” [Note: the first breakthrough in fusion power]
“It’s hard to say. American and Soviet physicists have been inching forward toward it for a quarter of a century. I think they’ve almost reached it. Five years more maybe. But there are imponderables. A lucky intuition might bring it this year. Unforeseen difficulties may carry us into the twenty-first century.”
Halsted broke in. “Can we wait till the twenty-first century?”
“Wait?” said Puntsch.
“You say you are trying to have civilization last more than a generation. That sounds as though you don’t think we can wait for the twenty-first century.”
“I wish I could be optimistic on this point, sir,” said Puntsch gravely, “but I can’t. At the rate we’re going, our petroleum will be pretty much used up by 2000. Going back to coal will present us with a lot of problems and leaning on breeder fission reactors will involve getting rid of enormous quantities of radioactive wastes. I would certain feel uncomfortable if we don’t end up with working fusion reactors by, say, 2010.”
“Apres moi, le deluge,” said Avalon.
Source: “The Three Numbers,” More Tales of the Black Widowers, Isaac Asimov, 1976.
I’ll just leave this here:
As I recall, Isaac Asimov fully bought in to the global warming panic–and other eco doom bullshit. There is a special Unintentional Humor award, though, for Frederick Pohl’s book Our Angry Earth which presumably should be shelved next to Our Friend the Beaver.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read any of Asimov’s Black Widowers stories. Somewhat enjoyable, as I recall.
pst314: you recall correctly. I’ve mentioned before the 1984 edition of his Guide to Science, which was shot through with unreadable screeds of that type (by comparison with the 1972 edition, which I have, and which is mostly good sober – and forward-looking – science).
breeder fission reactors will involve getting rid of enormous quantities of radioactive wastes.
For all that I disagree with the man’s politics, his scientific knowledge was real and extensive, so I’m curious how this quote isn’t a non-sequitur. The whole appeal of such reactors is the great reduction in the volume of radioactive wastes they permit.
an associate professor of education
Ah. An intellectual then. Or at least, a wannabe intellectual.
(laughs bitterly)
For all that I disagree with the man’s politics, his scientific knowledge was real and extensive, so I’m curious how this quote isn’t a non-sequitur.
Focus instead on this passage: “our petroleum will be pretty much used up by 2000”. Such predictions were based on dishonest claims by eco fanatics, who cited proven reserves while ignoring the fact that there were plenty of fields that had not yet been “proven”, as well as the fact that there were plenty of likely geological formations that had not been thoroughly explored, and the fact that exploratory drilling continued to find more oil and gas. Remember the notorious The Limits to Growth from the Club of Rome fraudsters? Asimov and others accepted it as pretty much gospel.
To be charitable, lots of scientists who were unfamiliar with the oil and gas industry were fooled (my freshman chemistry professor certainly was.)
But on the other hand, Asimov had a duty to do proper research before pontificating–something he frequently claimed to do–but he seemed to either assume that facts became less important as one moved from theory to the real world, or else he was consciously happy to fudge (lie) in the service of his politics, something he did do on occasion.
I never got much out of Asimov. Plus he came across as a pompous ass to me. And it wasn’t just the mutton chops. I think it was reading one too many of his short stories, which I was expected to like because…well, dammit, everyone said so, that started to turn me off from science fiction. Well that at learning more science. But this is the problem with fiction in general. There’s just too damn much of it. If people would spend more time doing, be it science or business or social work or damn near anything else, and being objective about their successes and (mostly) failures, instead of sitting around reading fantasy, and let’s face it, it’s all fantasy, we would be much, much better off. The people of the generations that made the most progress in this world whilst simultaneously living with far more limited resources, couldn’t afford the Eloi lifestyle.
I never got much out of Asimov.
I liked him more when I was a kid.
Plus he came across as a pompous ass to me.
He admitted to an ego problem, and said that he started to get along better with people when I decided that it was not necessary to “correct” people every time they expressed an opinion he disagreed with.
He attributed a large part of his intellectual reputation to his phenomenal memory, and remarked that his son had his personality defects without the same intellectual gifts–and as a result was not well suited to thriving in the real world.
(The above is what I recall reading some years ago.)
He attributed a large part of his intellectual reputation to his phenomenal memory
And there you have it. Memorization is not thinking. Memorizing what rational thinkers have worked out through experiment, implication, and inference does not make one their equal. But that is where our society has traditionally placed more value. Which did make sense in the ages before inexpensive books, libraries, other access to information, and especially before all human knowledge was easily accessible from this couch I’m sitting on in what was once the middle of ass-backwards nowhere. Some sense.
And there you have it. Memorization is not thinking.
Quite true. A phenomenal memory can be a great aid to thinking, because it allows you to quickly retrieve and correlate a vast amount of data. But you still have to be able to think analytically and critically.
(And by the way, as I recall Asimov described himself as a mediocre research chemist. In the context of something to the effect of “I am a mediocre research chemist but a top flight explainer. Your university doesn’t need one more mediocre researcher, but as an explainer I will bring great credit upon you.”)
On the “proven oil reserves” thing: proven reserves is a business/stock market term. An oil company is valued based on proven reserves but adding deposits to the “proven” category requires lots of information so companies only add in oil deposits just before they start pumping from them. Using that as “all the oil there is” is nonsense on stilts.
On the “proven oil reserves” thing
Also, as I recall, or was taught…or got from some other source that could have been lying, historically only about 1/3 of a given oil well was obtainable. 2/3 could not be pumped out due to technical challenges that made it too expensive. Then as technology improved and/or became less expensive, a significant amount of that other 2/3 has since become recoverable. Anyone know if much (or any) of that was true?
his son had his personality defects without the same intellectual gifts–and as a result was not well suited to thriving in the real world.
That’s why he was arrested in the ’90s for possessing child p0rn, as reported in the LA Times.
I’ve read IA’s memoirs, and he had a strong desire to show everyone he was the smartest kid in the room. It probably helped that his father, a refugee from the Russian pograms, ran a candy store. Asimov was used to working hard, although we don’t know what kind of incentives were used to get him to work. I got the impression it wasn’t a pleasant upbringing.
His drive to excel also fueled his desire to write as many books as possible. He reached about 500 books, and it’s a mix of big researched books (his book on Shakespeare I still use), his fiction, and a lot of children’s books he could knock off in a week.
It’s sad that he died from AIDS acquired through a blood transfusion, and even more so that it wasn’t revealed until long after it was known that it was possible. It might have helped if people knew this was a thing earlier.
In her memoir, Janet (2nd wife), reported (IIRR) that he seemed confused at the end, and then his eyes cleared and he declared “I am Isaac Asimov.”
As if that was the most important thing in his life.
Anyone know if much (or any) of that was true?
Estimating oil reserves is kind of a shell game. We don’t know for sure publicly how much the Saudis are sitting on. And it is true that a lot of oil may not be economically feasible to get at. We saw this with fracking, when companies stopped pumping at certain fields when the price dropped due to increased supplies. They couldn’t afford to.
Anyone know if much (or any) of that was true?
I believe you are correct, although my memory is uncertain.
It’s sad that he died from AIDS acquired through a blood transfusion, and even more so that it wasn’t revealed until long after
As I recall, he concealed this because he did not want his fatal disease to adversely affect the public perception of gay men and of his family. He contracted AIDS in 1983 and died in 1992. I suppose the New York blood supply was especially risky due to the large number of hyper-promiscuous gay men in that city. (Thank you, Samuel R. Delany, for characterizing extreme promiscuity as a good thing.) I had a gay friend years ago who died of AIDS in the early 1990’s and I always wondered about the blood supply because he used to make extra cash by selling blood. Just one more in the sad list of people who had made bad choices.