“E.D. Kain gets dropped from the masthead and suddenly Matoko-chan shows up again. COINCIDENCE ? ! ?”
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(Just kidding.)
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This post is in: Absent Friends, Open Threads
“E.D. Kain gets dropped from the masthead and suddenly Matoko-chan shows up again. COINCIDENCE ? ! ?”
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(Just kidding.)
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(I hope.)
Comments are closed.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
The absence was lovely, while it lasted. I hope everyone has a pleasant weekend.
Omnes Omnibus
I simply presumed m_c had been given a time-out after she got completely out of control. I presume ED had taken an adjunct status here?
Uloborus
So we would be losing one libertarian who thinks like a liberal and gaining one liberal who thinks like a libertarian.
We are not winning that trade.
jwb
Has David Koch showed up to announce that he’s unleashed his lethal left blog killing machine, matoko_chan II?
OMINOUS TRAILER VOICE: This time she’s not coming just for EDK.
WaterGirl
What did I miss? Where did E.D. Kain go? Inquiring minds want to know…
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
RISE OF THE SOCKPUPPETS.
In related news, I want to marry whoever is bringing us Sarah, Plain & Tall.
Gustopher
I am so very, very cold. This is the second flu-like illness that I’ve had this season, and it doesn’t seem fair since I got my flu shot.
I’m pretty sure that the Republicans are the root cause, but that I am too fuzzy headed to figure out how.
Carlo
Huh? What happened to ED? Did I miss something? (In other words, what WaterGirl said).
jwb
@WaterGirl: He posted at BJ earlier today. But I think he’s decided to put in only an occasional appearance now that he has the new gig at Forbes.
jwb
@Carlo: m_c was filling up threads earlier today wondering why EDK is no longer listed among the front pagers.
WaterGirl
@jwb: Thanks for the info! No goodbyes, no explanation? Just disappears from the list of bloggers? Gosh, you can’t even take a day off around here without missing something.
Edit: uh,oh. please tell me that my comment did not sound like m_c.
jwb
@WaterGirl: Yes, well, m_c was more or less complaining that EDK hadn’t said a proper good bye and Cole hadn’t announced EDK’s departure. So as is her wont, she jumped to the conclusion that there was some super secret conspiracy to purge EDK while not admitting that that is what happened.
suzanne
Awww. I have missed m_c, as she provides me the opportunity to point and laugh without ever having to leave my couch, but I was actually beginning to really enjoy E.D. The more (relatively) sane Arizonans, the better.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
[Deleted for extreme redundancy.]
WaterGirl
@jwb: I think we all have a pretty good idea of what the EDK is leaving or the goodbye from EDK thread would have looked like. I’m going with a mix of “I never liked him anyway” and “Oh, I was just starting to like his stuff” and “He was my favorite front-pager”. If I had a new gig at Forbes, I don’t suppose I would want the goodbye post either.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Not just run of the mill redundancy? :-)
Loved your post about your universal remote on one of the earlier threads. Your last line made me laugh.
jwb
@suzanne: She’s always come back in the past. This obsession with EDK has been getting very tiresome, however. I wish she’d go back to obsessing about the Wikileaks revolution. Almost all of her best lines came out of that.
jwb
@efgoldman: Some cats just gotta sing.
While I’ve had many cats, I’ve never had one who was even close to that vocal.
piratedan
@efgoldman: catnip on a scratching post…. has the desired effect of making said cat drunk and sleepy (in most cases, ymmv). My guess the constant “talking” is due to the need for attention from the previous environment. Rewarding the little furball with attention while there are moments of quiet may have a desired effect as well as the cat will “hopefully” associate the affection with the lack of meowing.
Nutella
Hey, our friend David Brooks has written a novel! It’s called “The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement” and is reviewed by PZ Myers here.
A quote from the review:
Nutella
More good quotes from the review:
and
Donut
I have not one bit of motivation to read Forbes’ web site. Sorry ED. Good luck.
hamletta
Oh, Lord, there’s a reason why I don’t participate in my church’s “Contemporary Issues” study group. Our church’s statement on worker’s rights couldn’t be more clear, but the “lesson plan” from this stupid “Christian” site is Broderella all the way.
Fucking wankers. The one time I went to the class, it was about some nutbar praying against his “enemies,” the ACLU, for petitioning the court on separation grounds.
This one asshole (who’s a member of the local Sons of Confederate Veterans) said, “separation of Church and State isn’t in the Constitution!” and I just instinctively said, “Don’t give me that shit.”
Never went back. Sorry! Choir practice! La-la-la! Do-re-mi!
Luthe
I’m sorry, all I saw matoko_chan talking about was pie. Did I miss anything?
jwb
@Nutella: David Brooks has found his reason for existence: so PZ Myers could write this review, which is a thing of beauty. Now, Brooks can die happy, his purpose in life fulfilled.
something fabulous
But! Anne Laurie, you are fanning the fires by bringing it up again on the front page! I say, you thus reveal yourself to be m_c AND ED AND UCT!
You must be exhausted.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
A cat that’s busy chasing after one of these doesn’t have enough breath for meowing. Plus a good play session right before human bedtime will wear him out and make it more likely that he’ll sleep through the night.
Also, too, some cats are just more vocal than others. They’re probably going to have to put up with a certain amount of chatter from the cat, but it won’t be as stressful once they convince him to stop waking them up.
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman:
Those last two sentences may be related. Cat comes from a large ‘community’ of other cats, lots of feline-feline interaction, busy all the time. Spends some time in a shelter — also lots of stimulation, busy-ness, activity. Gets picked out of the lineup because (I’m guessing) he’s a friendly, human-interaction-seeking, hi-howareya kinda guy. Suddenly… he’s living in the feline equivalent of a MONASTERY. No other cats, humans gone most of the day, and then not interested in “sharing” for many of those precious rare hours when they are around. Is it really surprising Cat’s literally crying out for more interaction?
Solution, depending on how long he’s been living with your relatives: If it’s only been a couple weeks or less, give him as much attention as they can possibly spare & a chance to settle down. If it’s been longer than that, especially if he’s getting more needy / noisy… are they in a situation where they can bring in another cat? Because another playmate, the same age or younger, and preferably of the opposite (fixed) sex, would give Cat enough of an outlet that he wouldn’t have to make his humans crazy any more.
hamletta
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen: Fancy a threesome?
Sarah, Plain and Tall is hilarious. I miss a lot of comment threads (because I have a job! I am so lucky!) so I didn’t get the “tweens” reference.
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: Not sure how many people see these late night threads, so if you don’t get all the ideas you need, I would suggest going to WereBear’s website for information. I have yet to find anything kitty that WereBear doesn’t know. She also has a ‘dear pammy” link on the contact page so you can ask her a question. Good luck!
Crashman
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen: Been catching up on comments and holy crap… whoever’s behind that sock puppet is super talented. I’d pay for that kind of comedy.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@hamletta: Move over. It’sa four-way now.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Take pictures, that’s all I ask.
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
I’ve actually had a lot of luck with neutered males getting along. They really seem to become bestest buddies (assuming their personalities mesh, of course). Two females can get problematic, though.
Mnemosyne
On another topic, I don’t know how I managed to fuck up my bad knee, but I’m now icing it for the third time tonight prior to going to bed with a handful of ibuprofen. Damn it.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano:
My eyes played a trick and made me see this as part of the same post.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): +?
Martin
@Mnemosyne: Probably true outside of cats, too.
hamletta
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Great minds think alike!
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano:
+4, but from Thursday night. I am such a lightweight it takes me a full 24 to recover.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Heh. You’re gonna have an interesting time on the road. Sobriety is a hard condition to maintain playing in bars and such.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano: We have a strict no drinkie before the show policy. And the drummer gets tight on one beer. He can drive.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Percussionists should never be allowed behind the wheel of a vehicle. Evah. I know of which I speak here.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Yutsano: Non? Porquois?
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): It seemed like the drumline when I was in college was famous for wrecking their cars. I swear like once a month one of them would be in an accident. Even the cymbal players. I never trusted their driving skillz since.
Allan
m_c is a syphilitic nutwagon, and if she’s not banned for life, Cole can go fuck himself with a chainsaw.
plato451
The 1st day of Mardi Gras weekend and I have stayed far from da quarter. Tuesday, however, I will be in the middle of it costumed, masked, and havin a blast….
Yutsano
@Allan: Meh. I’m agnostic about her. She’s just a gadfly with an easily spotted nom de Internet that I can easily ignore at whim.
Allan
@Yutsano: Once she appears, every thread becomes about her. It’s either her vomiting streams of random characters onto the screen, or people pointing and laughing, or worse, engaging with her.
It’s disgusting and disrespectful to the actual human beings who try to have any kind of discourse. Hell, I’m an asshole, but I’m an ON-TOPIC fucking asshole.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
Yutsano: there are some trolls that just seem to get under people’s skin. m_c doesn’t bother me much either. Wyldpirate OTOH, makes me mental for some reason.
Away to the perfumed feathers. I have to teach at an ungodly (for me) hour.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): There are names that, when I see them, I go into instant glance by mode. I’m just well-trained enough by now to do that. And fortunate that I can count that list on one hand.
asiangrrlMN
@efgoldman: White noise machine for the humans while they sleep. It helps.
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Both chap my flat ass, which is why I use the pie filter generously.
@Yutsano: How you be?
Mark S.
@Nutella:
That describes Brooks better than anything I’ve ever read. He gives psuedo-intellectuals a bad name.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Tired but haz mass of purring kitteh fur next to me so can’t really bitch. How’s you hon?
asiangrrlMN
@Mark S.: I resent the implication I am inferring from perusing your cogent remark. It appears to me, good sir, that you are maligning people with prolific vocabularies, such as myself (pretentious red alert, using myself in this fashion). I demand that you rescind your inflammatory remark posthaste, or I shall have to take more drastic measures.
@Yutsano: Awwwwww! Kittehs make everything moar better.
I am logy, depressed, and fuxxored in my sleep. Same as it ever was!
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: You are, however, motherless. Which means you didn’t annihilate each other. Which means whatever she wanted this time you once again resisted. So neener.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: I am, indeed, motherless. And, you are right that we did not annihilate each other. Came close, though, thus my current state. It always takes me a few days to shake off a visit.
matoko_chan
EDK showed up to link-whore here with a bunch of “free market solutions” for education reform recycled from the Glibertarian Nation (TAS).
Please, do go read him at Forbes and LoOG.
I swear on the Necronomicron that you will never see me at either place.
And I just thought John Cole finally gave him the hook.
Anne Laurie….so you dont think Forbes is a glibertarian rag?
The magazine for Free Market Evangelicals everywhere.
Like I asked you before….is LoOG promo week still on? Because Mistermix and DougJ have neglected
promotingpimping some posts at theapes discussing philosophyconservatives discussing science blog.I particularily enjoyed Yearning for Distributed Jesusland.
Cole gave me a time out to work on my sentence structure.
I knew he was a teacher but I didn’t realize he taught english.
>:(
matoko_chan
And I thought From Same Sex Marriage to Marrying Farm Animals; the Elusive Slippery Slope was fantastic as well.
:)
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: You’ll be fine. And you just got some delicious pie too! Don’t turn it off, you’re just missing a whole bunch of obsessive gibberish.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Nom nom nom. Blueberry pie is good. So is apple. I love a good berry pie.
matoko_chan
You see….I have argued against free market solutions for education reform for 2 years with Dr. Manzi in mails. I could do it in my sleep.
Do you know, for example, Anne Laurie cher, that NCLB is a freemarket solution?
School funding is tied to test scores.
Ah, the Invisible Hand of the Market.
It guides us all.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Yesh and yesh. And I’m at my limit tonight. I think I’ll do better tomorrow after muchas snoozing and such. Enjoy the pie goodness!!
MikeJ
@efgoldman:
Are you discussig ED Kain’s new gig at Forbes?
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Night, hon. I’m on my way out, too.
@MikeJ: SNORT.
matoko_chan
@jwb:
I expect he will just drop by to link whore occasionally because DougJ and Mistermix have inexplicably stopped linking his glibertarian free market bullshytt at Forbes and the LoOG.
You guys are just pissy because EDK scammed you.
He has been a free market evangelical all along.
Peter
Is that the Dr. Manzi IN FRANCE, matoko?
matoko_chan
And you juicers should be glad I didn’t comment on the EmilyEsther/ABL thread.
You would not have liked what I had to say.
gnomedad
@jwb:
.
Evacuate now, in his moment of triumph?
matoko_chan
@gnomedad: Like I said, I predict he will only drop by to link whore now. DougJ and Mistermix have stopped linking him for some occult reason.
He’s off the masthead.
Isn’t anyone else curious?
jwb
@matoko_chan: Can’t you go back to talking about wikileaks? Even your dumb IQ schtick was better than this.
Just Some Fuckhead
@matoko_chan:
Maybe a tiny bit bi-curious.
matoko_chan
@jwb: Why are you resisting the truth? Because you are invested in the EDK Conversion Mythology? EDK is a free market evangelical. The free market solutions for education reform come right from TAS. He is linking Manzi and Millman.
I have argued about this shit for two years.
Empirically it cannot work. They ALL know it.
Yet they keep vomitting it out.
I unnerstand this is all fresh to you juicers. But this is what the glibertarian wankstahs have been churning out for the past two years at TAS.
Try to get your pointy little head around this—there are 30 years of actual documented correlations between school and student performance and the SES and involvement of parents….. and free market solutions (like EDK is pretending to explore) are EMPIRICALLY incapable of ever addressing those problems.
EDK knows this.
BJ is a just a set of fresh marks that haven’t seen this sideshow before.
gnomedad
@matoko_chan:
For a pound, I’ll leave this
sketchthread completely uninterrupted.Peter
Why is it that whenever matoko claims that something is certain empirically, it never is? Not that I’m a fan of free market education solutions. But I am also a fan of using words correctly.
matoko_chan
@jwb: A Sully reader
The way to reform our education system is social justice. EDK and the rest of the glibertarian wankstahs will simply never acknowlege this.
They are free market evangelicals.
matoko_chan
@Peter: Oh? Do tell me how free market solutions can address social justice issues.
Pardon, I thought that was fairly obvious.
PurpleGirl
@hamletta: I knew right away before I clicked your link that it was ELCA. I was a member of a Lutheran congregation for a decade back in the mid-80s. (I remember the tsouris of the time and ELCA’s founding.) They are good people who mean well but, yeah, you could die from the extreme seriousness and length of their statements.
Mark S.
@matoko_chan:
Really, what were you planning on saying there?
matoko_chan
@Mark S.: wallah, im a muslimah. trust me. you dont want to know.
matoko_chan
There are only two sides to education reform. There are the free marketeers, like EDK, Manzi, Millman etc, and there are the social justice reformers…like our Very Own President
BarakBlack Obama.The last thirty years of EMPIRICAL data support the social justice reformers.
So why are we even talking about anti-empirical free market solutions?
Because that is what glibertarians do.
And they will keep it up until people start calling them on it.
stuckinred
@matoko_chan: Noodle doodle!
arguingwithsignposts
head/desk m_c
Angry Black Lady
@matoko_chan: like that’s ever stopped you before.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@matoko_chan:
Yet another poorly punctuated and ungrammatical screed no doubt. Oh, I know, actually being comprehensible is for old people.
Seriously, dear, have you considered getting some of those different colored glasses that epileptics wear? It might help with your typing issues.
Not much help for your brain, I suspect.
I suppose you fit in quite well in whatever sheltered workshop you spend your time, sticking together matchsticks and macaroni into pretty pictures. Perhaps it would assist with your tendency to crap the bed.
Mrs Jenkins in the next room sounds just like you when she speaks. However, she’s 94 and only has half her skull, so at least she has an excuse.
I’m not a doctor though, so what do I know?
ETA: Silly me. I’ve just realized it’s not epileptics who were those funny glasses. It’s dyslexics. Epileptics wear those funny hats with the propeller on top.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
@hamletta:
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
@Crashman
I was going to thank you all for your kind words, but then you started talking about threesomes and such filth, so I won’t.
My husband Keith and I never had a threesome, unless you count the time that Senator Barry Goldwater slept between the two of us in our bed when he was passing through Idaho during the 1964 primaries.
This was about the time he was having financing problems because Nelson Rockefeller had paid off every Republican party official in the entire potato belt.
I went straight to sleep, so I can’t say for sure whether Barry and Keith got up to anything naughty, except for an odd squelching noise I heard around 3am when I woke up for a glass of water.
I certainly had Ida May scrub those sheets the next day.
Ann B. Nonymous
@matoko_chan:
Somebody, somewhere!
In the heat of the night
Looking pretty dangerous
Running out of patience!
Tonight in the city
You won’t find any pity!
Hearts are being twisted!
Another lover cheated, cheated!
In the blogs and the cafes, passion!
In the message boards and alleys, passion!
A lot of pretending, passion!
Everybody searching, passion!
Donut
I’m only posting this because I dumped the cache on my iPhone. Move along please.
dmsilev
I’ve finally realized what matoko_chan reminds me of. The venerable Emacs program has a whole bunch of strange modes and functions buried inside of it. Two in particular are a Zippy The Pinhead text generator and an implementation of the ELIZA computer psychologist. And then there’s M-x psychoanalyze-pinhead, which feeds the output of the former into the latter. That’s matoko.
dms
Phyllis
Weekend Today is doing a story about Charlie Sheen that has been running for six minutes so far. Featuring Gloria Allred. How the f*ck is this news?
ETA: I’ve had the teevee muted the entire time. I’m apparently the loser here-why am I paying for this sh*t?
polyorchnid octopunch
@matoko_chan: Actually, this is not really addressed to you, m_c. This is for everybody else talking on this thread.
I want you all to go read this particular post again (turn off the pie filter if you have to) and try to tell me she’s wrong about this.
Seriously. Your education system is designed to create an aristocracy disguised as a meritocracy, and it’s done a very good job.
alwhite
No ED? Hey, this place just keeps getting better and better! MC back *SIGH* into every blog a little rain must fall.
THE
polyorchnid octopunch
She’s right about a lot of things PO.
Not everything by a long shot, but a lot all the same.
The reference is to James J. Heckmanis’ paper here (pdf file)
h/t Andrew Sullivan, Kevin Drum, matoko_chan
Omnes Omnibus
@polyorchnid octopunch: The problem with her comment is that it is directed at ED Kain. I just read through his Forbes education blog posts and I do not see him advocating a free market, competitive approach to education policy. Her antipathy toward Kain has reached a point where she is fighting with an imaginary Kain who seems to exist only in her mind rather than reading and addressing the actual Kain of today. I find it interesting that someone who claims to have been a Bush supporting Republican, as she does, cannot accept that someone else may take a journey leftward. As someone who has always been at least left of center, I can say that it is pretty rich to watch a recent convert denigrate the conversion of another. I have now spent too much time taking m_c seriously, but I thought your comment was worth a response.
scav
@polyorchnid octopunch: The rightness or wrongness of any single position espoused by m_c (insofar as anything so coherent can be determined from her, um, textual output) is irrelevant. dmsilev @ 90 has got it. She’s a microcephalic with a photographic memory that introduces buzzwords and misspellings to an otherwise random meme-stream. One can see patterns and read deep meaning into the images of television static but you’re gazing into the abyss.
matoko_chan
@Omnes Omnibus: Omnes….the whole approach is wrong.
“Fixing” the “teacher problem” can empirically do nothing to fix the education problem. Because the education problem is the parent problem, parental SES and parental involvement.
EDKs favorable links all go to the glibertarian nation at TAS. Manzi and Millman. ALL those guys talk about is free market solutions. I have known them for years.
Doing anything about teachers to reform education is EXACTLY like bailing out banks to create jobs. There is no linear relationship.
The glibertarian wankstahs all know this. They never acknowledge it, they just keep spinning. It is what they do.
I loathe EDK for the same reason I loathe Douthat. They cloak anti-empirical free market solutions in a fog of pretty language and fake reasonableness in the name of “discussion”. EDK developed a formula here.
EDK used his formula of “run a conservative meme up the flagpole, get ass kicked in comments, rinse, repeat” until he hit pay dirt with the unions and the teachers.
So now he can front as a “reasonable libertarian/liberal-tarian” and churn out free market chum larded with a few bits of BJ sanity at the Forbes bullshit mill.
That would be BJ sanity that he stole from you guys. :)
You see ……it doesnt come natural to EDK. That is why is was so incredibly hard for him to give up on fetus=slave. He doesnt really see anything wrong with it.
For example…..
Glibertarian playbook page 21….snark about something Obama once said. Make it about Obama.
You see…..EDK doesnt have any integrity of his own….so he had to borrow some from you….long enough to a get a column at Forbes.
Forbes has to have “reasonable” libertarians to give cover to the endless stream of trickle-down-free-market-innovation-supply-side wankery that they pump out.
And EDK is just the ticket.
A lot of people here seem to be emotionally invested in EDK.
I’m sorry but I’ve known him for years…..he hasnt changed. He is still a free market evangelist.
And free market solutions can never reform education.
NCLB is a free market solution. Did you know that? School funding is based partly on test results. Has NCLB worked?
We know the answer to that.
matoko_chan
Look. Im aspergers positive.
I have difficulty with social interaction. I get obsessed with detail.
Part of the reason Cole gave me a timeout was to force me to write in sentences, a concept I normally scoff at.
He said he cant understand what I am saying.
I am trying.
Although not required for diagnosis, physical clumsiness and atypical use of language are frequently reported.
My parents enrolled me in twelve years of ballet.
Cole is making me write in sentences.
jinxtigr
@MikeJ:
Cole IS a hoarder. Of frontpagers :)
matoko_chan
I should have said glibertarian hivemind at TAS.
That is a much better description.
Dr. Manzi will love it.
;)
matoko_chan
@Angry Black Lady: I’m trying to cut back.
See above.
THE
If ever you’re looking for a peaceful, quiet, thoughtful space on the Web to spend some time, you know where to find it m_c.
matoko_chan
@Ann B. Nonymous: I don’t know how much clearer I can make this.
EDK is an intellectual whore.
We could never hook up because of my morbid fear of cyberSTDs.
suzanne
@matoko_chan:
Color me shocked.
jinxtigr
@matoko_chan: Keep trying. Slow down. I understand completely, because I have a whopping dose of Asperger’s myself, at least as much as you.
I have old books in the field I work in, which have the margins filled with commentary just as intense as yours. Twenty years later, some of it turned out to have merit… all of it was presented with the same rage and passion, whether or not it turned out too blindered and obsessed.
I’ve always had an ability to read through surface social stuff to the secret motivations of a situation, rather like a dog picking up on the undertone of a conversation while remaining incapable of understanding the conversation itself. Once I got flipped out completely by a social situation that was, on the surface, totally innocuous, only to be told later that one of the people present was a woman who’d stayed with the guy who abused her daughter…
You’re doing the same thing with Kain, but you don’t understand that people get to OVERRIDE their deepest levels. You simply can’t go around insisting, “Kain used BJ but didn’t learn humility and still thinks he knows best!”. First, nobody cares, and second, if he’s learned some new behaviors, it doesn’t matter as much what he feels in his heart- we all strike a balance between our raw id and the learned behaviors we put on to appease society.
Well, except you, but I swear it’s a useful and common trick :) I recommend it heartily! It even makes you a more effective social actor, certainly more influential.
Here, have some music as token of my sincerity, which clearly cannot have been created by a normal mind (and also benefits from years of obsessive aspie focus on things like sound engineering) :)
Nice to see you back, and even I enjoy reading your posts better when you take more effort to construct them more coherently. Even if I completely understand the other ones, they’re just more work to follow.
Think of it as like this: in order to read your post, the person must take the same mental steps to reconstruct your sentences as you did constructing them. If you’re dancing around hitting points with artistic sparseness, or grinding away little steps half an inch apart, it’s tiring to reproduce. Relax, allow simpler statements that are less exact.
kdaug
(I may regret this, but): m_c – Push. Think. What is the solution to education policy? Seriously. Ultimate solution. What should we do? Not magic wands. Take into account vested interests. Textbook publishers. Unions. Endowments. What do you do?
Maximize education obtained for maximum people in the most cost-efficient methods.
What does this look like? Describe.
matoko_chan
@jinxtigr: wow…shukran.
I see your point. Unpacking info-dense statements takes many joules of brain energy.
Cole said it is like im writing haiku sometimes.
very nice musiks.
matoko_chan
@kdaug: social justice. There are only two sides to any argument in america.
social justice vs free market wankerery.
And free market wankery is anti-empirical.
kdaug
@jinxtigr:
Ah, there’s the rub.
The rest of the world is here to be appeased, whilst your special in-group of (X) needs only be taught how to tolerate them.
That line of thought has led to some very bad places, my friend.
matoko_chan
lawls….I just did it again didnt I?
kdaug, I will craft a sentence structured response that doesn’t require decryption.
Back later.
Much later.
kdaug
@matoko_chan: And achieved how?
matoko_chan
@kdaug:
like in X-men?
jinxtigr and I are mutants, right?
matoko_chan
@kdaug: right. :)
I have to make that translation.
THE
We are all mutants matoko.
Variation is the fuel of evolution.
matoko_chan
I’ll be back.
;)
polyorchnid octopunch
@scav: Clearly, you didn’t read the post that I was referencing. Completely coherent from beginning to end.
JMC_in_the_ATL
@matoko_cudlip: The word you’re looking for is “voila,” not “walla.” I am surprised that it was never auto-corrected by the French authorities during your two year long email correspondence with Dr. Manzi.
matoko_chan
@JMC_in_the_ATL: lawls.
wallah is arabic for AMG! I’m a revert.
matoko_chan
@Angry Black Lady: and….how become you are the only chick that gets to be ANGRY around here?
could it be…..nah.
I wont say it.
;)
/jk
jinxtigr
@kdaug: Everybody has to be appeased. Me and m_c included. Just because we are prone to acting so weird that we can be safely mocked, doesn’t mean we can’t be appeased.
With m_c simply making an effort to listen and follow the reasoning is hugely appreciated (and leads to lots more THEORIES OMG, so it kinda backfires). Me, I just holed up in Vermont and don’t talk to people, but I think I’m a bit older than Matoko.
I think it’s a good thing to consistently make some effort to appease people you don’t understand, and one hopes it’s a little bit reciprocal.
I say ‘understand’ because everybody’s got motivations, and if you’re not making any concessions- if you’re not failing to get some of your point across, if you’re not a little bit disappointed and frustrated- you’re not appeasing anybody.
The whole point is that people will not entirely agree, or entirely comprehend each other, and we’ve gotta get along in spite of that.
You CANNOT construct any set of behaviors or expectations that are really the ‘default’ ones, and point at the ‘special in-group’, and say, how dare you call it ‘appeasing’ us, as if you are special and perfect and you have to sully that by meeting our needs.
To take such an attitude only proves that you’re mainstream enough that you don’t have to think about ‘appeasing’ anybody. (may or may not be true for kdaug…)
I prefer the whole ‘appeasing’ thing because, like liberalism, it’s defining the world as splinter groups in which everybody generally has to give some ground in order to cooperate. There is no platonic ‘way to be’ where, if everyone just straightened out and did that, there would be no conflict ;) no, there’s a lot of ways to be, so there are a lot of conflicts and you gotta keep jockeying for position, and ‘appease’ so that you can be appeased in turn, and everybody should come out more or less okay.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Omnes Omnibus: It wasn’t addressed to EDK. It was addressed to the blog at large. EDK is mentioned in it, but it’s not addressed to him.
The key point being… addressed to the blog at large, and pointing out that the extreme pressures on working poor, blue collar, and middle class families are doing far more to damage their children’s education and future than any number of problem teachers. You can’t fix the education problem in this country by fixing the education system; you need to fix the context the education system functions in.
The right’s focus on problem teachers is there to distract all those people from the real problem, which is that they have been *at best* treading water for the last thirty years while the waves grow around them. A few days back there was a reference to a lecture given by Elizabeth Warren at UCB about why the middle class is going away, with a very detailed analysis of what’s gone wrong and how government statistics are being manipulated to hide the true cause so the middle class may be blamed for their “failures” and “shortcomings”. You should watch it, and when you go look at the red columns climbing out of sight about forty minutes in, keep in mind that those are all the categories that have been excluded from the basket of goods used to calculate consumer inflation. It is absolute MUST SEE education for anyone who’s trying to figure out what the hell went wrong with the middle class over the last thirty years.
jinxtigr
Goddamnit. “With m_c, simply making an effort”. Balloon Juice locked up and I couldn’t edit the post.
Peter
@matoko_chan: I’m not saying that it can. Or that I know one way or the other; I am not an expert in the field by any means. In fact, I said that in the very post you responded to. If ‘responded’ is in fact an accurate description of what you do, it seems much more like you respond to a strawman that says whatever argument you are prepared to knock down that day.
However, I do know this: It is logically impossible to prove a negative empirically.
You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
eemom
John Cole. Why the fuck did you let her back in here??
Tell the truth — you really DON’T want there to be actual discussions, consisting of coherent, temperate exchanges of substantive, well-reasoned ideas to be going on on this blog, do you?
Corner Stone
EDK was a scam from the beginning. Anyone who can’t see that needs to take a step back and reevaluate. Cole traded him front page space in return for repeatable clicks.
I for one am deeply suspicious of his contorted “conversion”, and his mile a minute change of direction once he decided that would work best for him.
Someone please tell me how a young man who has no displayable credentials in the field becomes an “education” blogger at Forbes?
Corner Stone
@polyorchnid octopunch:
It’s what a lot of the modern day Church preach as well. Joel Osteen and the Wealth Effect and Success. If you are righteous then the Lord will reward you. And if you are already rewarded then obviously it’s because you are righteous.
And if you’re not rewarded? You’ve failed the Lord in your duty at some point.
Peter
@polyorchnid octopunch: Here’s the thing, though: that wasn’t her point. The thesis of that comment was, in fact, about EDK. She scraped off a comment by someone else to use as a club so she could bash on EDK with it some more.
Its accuracy or validity are irrelevant: she’s not arguing in good faith, or arguing at all, when she starts going on about EDK. She’s just looking for excuses to call him a ‘free market evangelical’ and other ways of making him look bad.
soonergrunt
@Uloborus:
There is nothing liberal about howling insanity.
matoko_chan
@jinxtigr: @jinxtigr:
@polyorchnid octopunch: and there is 30 years of data that the glibertarians willfully ignore.
The most significant correlate with student educational performance over the last 30 years of measurement is parental involvement. And that means jobs, education, civil rights and civil welfare for the parents. The most significant correlate with school performance over the last 30 years is SES of the parents in the district. Again that means jobs, education, civil rights and civil welfare for the parents.
The destruction of the middle class is the major cause of the degradation of our education system.
And EDK wanking about teachers is just more glibertarian radar chaff.
Josh
goldman, we rescued a cat from a traumatic environment and she spent a lot of time demanding reassurance, day and night. None of the activities we tried really worked, and we ended up having to give her Prozac every other day, which helps a lot.
Omnes Omnibus
@polyorchnid octopunch: Virtually all of her comments are addressed at EDK either directly or indirectly. Nevertheless, a focus on social justice and ensuring that children have proper nutrition, a good home life, and a perception that they can succeed if they try is an absolute necessity for a proper educational system. Unfortunately for m_c, the wheat of her valid points is too often lost in the chaff of her Kain vendetta. Moreover, her prescription, while valid, is so vague that it is little more than platitudes. Who of good heart is could be against it? It would be like being opposed to puppies.
Edited for improved clarity.
cyntax
@eemom:
Actually this post by m_c from the teaching thread seems to have everything you’re asking for:
Though I do disagree with her assessment of Race to the Top, since it continues in the high-stakes funding vein of NCLB.
matoko_chan
@soonergrunt: I’m not howling insane, I’m aspergers positive. Like I explained.
@Peter: Lie. In that comment I’m refuting the entire glibertarian hivemind argument that freemarket solutions can fix our education system.
THIS comment is my personal attack on EDK.
I loathe EDK for the same reason I loathe Douthat. They cloak anti-empirical free market solutions in a fog of pretty language and fake reasonableness in the name of “discussion”. EDK developed a formula here.
EDK used his formula of “run a conservative meme up the flagpole, get ass kicked in comments, rinse, repeat” until he hit pay dirt with the unions and the teachers.
So now he can front as a “reasonable libertarian/liberal-tarian” and churn out free market chum larded with a few bits of BJ sanity at the Forbes bullshit mill.
That would be BJ sanity that he stole from you guys. :)
You see ……it doesnt come natural to EDK. That is why is was so incredibly hard for him to give up on fetus=slave. He doesnt really see anything wrong with it.
For example…..
Glibertarian playbook page 21….snark about something Obama once said. Make it about Obama.
You see…..EDK doesnt have any integrity of his own….so he had to borrow some from you….long enough to a get a column at Forbes.
Forbes has to have “reasonable” libertarians to give cover to the endless stream of trickle-down-free-market-innovation-supply-side wankery that they pump out.
And EDK is just the ticket.
A lot of people here seem to be emotionally invested in EDK.
I’m sorry but I’ve known him for years…..he hasnt changed. He is still a free market evangelist.
And free market solutions can never reform education.
NCLB is a free market solution. Did you know that? School funding is based partly on test results. Has NCLB worked?
Peter
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ah, thank you for defining what was bugging me about that. When people ask what you suggest as an alternative and all you say is ‘social justice’…you’re not really saying much of anything, are you? I, too, am a fan of social justice, but it’s a pretty damn broad term. Just saying that without further qualification or practical steps is pretty useless.
Omnes Omnibus
@Peter: I wish you had waited until I edited before quoting me. Oh well.
Peter
@matoko_chan: Being asperger’s positive doesn’t actually excuse you from being an incoherent mess. It just provides an explanation for it.
And yes, that comment was an attack on EDK, and I don’t see how you can reasonably deny it. Of the three sentences that you actually supplied for that comment, one was directed at Kain and the other two were leadins to that one.
scav
@polyorchnid octopunch: Covered by the photographic memory part of my comment. It somehow missed her usual scramble sub-routine. Well, actually, that bit’s almost her main block of code.
matoko_chan
@cyntax:
ok…it is a hybrid then. I see Obama doing this a lot, giving the right a few crumbs to secretly push his agenda.
Like the Bush taxcuts. The guy is a pragmatist.
He always buys half a loaf when he can’t afford the whole thing.
The only exception, the only place where I dont understand Obama is Wikileaks…I think…the poor guy is just trying to slow the non-linear systems collapse of America with patching and hotfixes.
soonergrunt
@polyorchnid octopunch: Stopped clocks, law of averages, etc.
soonergrunt
@jinxtigr: That’s ironic on many levels.
matoko_chan
@Peter: i told kdaug I’m workin’ on it.
I suppose lies and platitudes and general glibertarian hivemind wankery are superior to what I said in your esteem?
What do you not understand about this?
Wanking about teachers is a “free market” solution.
Dig Cornerstone.
cyntax
@matoko_chan:
I think that’s a fair assessment of what his general approach is. However, in this case, I think that he’s taking a fundamentally free-market approach; for more on that, check this link.
matoko_chan
@Omnes Omnibus: I defined my position.
EDK is for free market solutions. Fixing teachers is a free market solution.
I SAID we need to address civil rights, jobs, civil welfare and education FOR PARENTS. That is social justice. That is the theory. We need to address the practice.
EDK and the glibertarian hivemind wanking endlessly about anti-empirical “free market” solutions is like trying to fix jobs creation by bailing the bankstahs.
Is is simply spin and misdirection.
matoko_chan
@Corner Stone: Someone please tell me how a young man who has no displayable credentials in the field becomes an “education” blogger at Forbes? By farming the BJ commentariat for enough stolen nuggets of sanity to dress up the endless stream of glibertarian bullshytt that Forbes pumps out.
He got the job the same way Douthat got the NYT gig.
A token “reasonable” voice on the right.
matoko_chan
@cyntax: I totally agree with you….but Obama’s description of Race to the Top as a grassroots system in his education speech is just more half the loaf. It is orders of magnitude better than NCLB.
I dont think people quite understand….NCLB has been as horrifically damaging to our education system as the 8 year Bush admin has been to our foreign policy and our economy.
Corner Stone
“Race to the Top” is rebranded NCLB with a couple tweaks. The premise is the same, that teachers are the problem and need to be fixed and we can do that by further standardizing test results.
Allan
@matoko_chan: Quoting Cornerstone doesn’t actually help your argument.
Now go clean out your ear-wax with a chainsaw, you disgusting freak.
matoko_chan
@Corner Stone: hmm….ok Im wrong ;)
I think RtT is probably just patching NCLB now that you put it that way.
Like COIN is just patching the Bush Doctrine.
@Allan: relly? Cornerstone just made the same argument. How does that not support my position?
David Brooks (not that one)
@Mark S.:
Hey, I resemble that remark! Apposite adumbrations, associated with pertinent polysyllablic persiflage, are quintessential elements of a coruscatingly perfervid prefuckingfrontal cortex. MitchDanielsMitchDanielsMitchDaniels.
Allan
@matoko_chan: I just sent my email to John about your continued infestation of his comments. Please don’t talk about me when I’m gone, which will be until you are banned forever, or you drink a gallon of battery acid, whichever comes first.
Corner Stone
@matoko_chan: Allan is saying he’s a yipping, ankle biting little Pomeranian who apparently has nothing.
matoko_chan
@Corner Stone:
The same way McMegan got hired at the Atlantic. The same way Suderman got hired at Reason.
The same way Douthat got hired at NYT.
Need more?
Oh…that was a rhetorical question, wasn’t it?
;)
Chris Grrr™
I’m glad people get nth chances to rejoin the nuttery here. It’s become quite easy to skip over posts when I see certain names, but the reaction they cause is occasionally informative.
matoko_chan
@Peter: EDK IS a free market evangelical.
Read the fucking link.
“Fixing” teachers is a free market solution. “Fixing” schools is a free market solution. “Fixing” students is free market solution.
Nutella
@Corner Stone:
It’s like becoming the business and economics editor of the Atlantic. Their daddies must have something on somebody important.
matoko_chan
@kdaug: And achieved how? How to put theory into practice? Obama has pointed the way. Do you know the term bricolage?
It means also to utilize existing structures for a new purpose, or to canabilize existing structure to make something new.
Like Obama has done with junior colleges and the early graduation program.
You see…not everyone needs a 4-year lib arts degree. But trade school is lower social capital. So how do you make trade school equivalent in social capital to a 4year college degree?
Obama is bricolaging junior colleges into cool vo-tech schools….trade schools.
Its pretty genius. That is an example of bricolaging an existing educational structure– junior colleges.
So I would look for ways to bricolage existing structures to bootstrap parents.
Ways to bricolage social justice. ;)
Any suggestions?
matoko_chan
@Nutella: not in EDKs case. He used Balloon-juice for his fake conversion narrative so he could get a token “reasonable” voice on the right position.
matoko_chan
@kdaug: The existing structures in the American system were actually set up for free market capitalism, supported by White Patriarchy Social Cohesion Model. So those structures need to be retooled or bricolaged or cannibalized for parts to support regulated market capitialism and Social Democracy Cohesion Model.
WPSCM crashed when blacks and women got the vote. Social Democracy has been evolving ever since.
Social Democracy Cohesion Model is the delivery vector for social justice, where free market capitialism is the delivery vector for survival of the greediest.
As we just witnessed in the Econopaplypse That Ate Americas Jobs.
Dr. Squid
What I want to know is how Peter Cudlipp feels now that his name is being used as an insult, and by a PC cop, no less.
matoko_chan
@Dr. Squid: its not from there.
Cuplip is from Black Man/Thirteen.
The book is titled Black Man in the U.K.
Thirteen in the US, because we are racists.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Omnes Omnibus: There’s a world of difference between ketchup is a vegetable in a school meal, and making sure that the parents can have a life that permits them to devote a little time actually raising their kids instead of just barely managing to house, clothe, and feed them.
matoko_chan
@Corner Stone:
I really dont think this is true…John Cole was just being Lincolnesque.
I was very biased against EDK in the beginning, and Cole persuaded me to give him a chance.
Eventually I realized the whole thing was a scam on EDK’s part and lost patience with the whole deal.
But John Cole is an honestly good man.
It is just that EDK is not.
matoko_chan
@Omnes Omnibus: you know Omnes, that is what the right always does. They try to deflect arguments against them by saying it is personal. And they try to destroy the character of the person making the argument like EDK saying he rejected an essay of mine and that I was a racist.
I am saying ALL EDKs argument is glibertarian standard free market boilerplate gussied up with a fake conversion narrative.
And EMPIRICALLY it looks like I am correct, doesn’t it?
THE
It’s not out of the question you only experienced the first one. Brent is back above $110/bbl
matoko_chan
/sigh
It is always about love. I love you guys.
This Tim F post changed my life.
The scales fell from my eyes.
I was a hereditary republican.
Guns, dogs and ponyclub. The first time i voted i voted for Bush. My family had a fucking party.
But Sarah Palin convinced me otherwise.
I worked on Obama’s campaign as an Obamican. I was still a registered republican when I voted for him..
I just couldn’t bear to see EDK running his shell game here week after week.
It was unbearable.
Sorry.
Omnes Omnibus
@polyorchnid octopunch: No disagreement from me on that point.
chopper
@dmsilev:
oh jesus, that’s a flashback. and it makes absolute perfect sense.
matoko_chan
I guess I should say loved.
Once upon a time.
;)
matoko_chan
haha.
I cant resist this.
Where is my hattip, you useless glibertarian wanker?
Do you want to see how its done?
Behold how a glibertarian turns Heckman’s social justice for early childhood poverty premise into More Glorious Free Market Solutions.
“Fix the schools” is a free market solution. That can simply never work, because the problem is parental SES and parental involvement.
And the only fix for those problems is social justice.
thalarctos
@Allan: I posted this yesterday, but it doesn’t seem to have made it in. FYWP.
I love your last sentence, and want to marry it.
E.D. Kain
I’m not gone. I’m just focusing more on my solo-blog.
matoko_chan
@E.D. Kain: then respond to my fisk, you useless glibertarian free market evangelist grifter.