Saturday Miscellany

First, the Vigilant Fox offers a few words of wit and wisdom from Senator John Kennedy:

Sen. John Kennedy says Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are “about as popular as chlamydia.” That’s a line no one will forget. “No honest person whose IQ is above his age believes that biological sex doesn’t exist. But they do.”

Second, most of the people who have been vandalizing Teslas are transgendered or non-binary. 

Elon Musk asks the relevant question:

What are the statistics on trans violence? The probability of a trans person being violent appears to be vastly higher than non-trans. Hormone injections cause extreme emotional volatility. That is simply a fact.

Third, Mark Penn used to work for Bill Clinton. He was Clinton’s pollster. He has always offered sane and sensible analysis of the passing political scene.

Recently, he said this, to Martha MacCallum, regarding the chance that AOC will challenge Chuck Schumer in the primary elections before the 2028 senatorial election:

“I don’t think she’s going to challenge Schumer, but if she does, I mean, already the Democratic ratings are down to 29%. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Penn said. “That means the left base is with the Democratic Party and the moderates are all leaving the party. So AOC taking off Schumer, wow, that could finish this party off. This could put it into the wilderness the way the Labour Party was for a decade.”

Fourth, there is only one state in our United States where student math scores are better now than they were four years ago-- i.e., during the school shutdowns.

Can you guess which state it is?

The answer is: Alabama.

NPR has the story:

At a time when President Donald Trump is working to close the U.S. Department of Education in order "to move education into the states," Alabama's math turnaround shows states already have control of their educational destinies….

While many districts across the country saw math achievement tumble during the pandemic, scores in DeKalb County improved by the equivalent of nearly a full grade –its highest since at least 2009, according to the recent Education Recovery Scorecard, a joint venture between researchers at Harvard and Stanford Universities.

In fact, the Scorecard's authors were so impressed, they highlighted DeKalb in their national report, saying the county "has become a model for how districts can accelerate student learning in math and recover from pandemic learning loss."

The first and easiest explanation for DeKalb's success is that students returned for in-person learning in the fall of 2020, well ahead of schools in most places across the country. Research has found larger learning gaps for students who spent more time learning remotely.

But, if you ask DeKalb school leaders, they have another theory:

"We wanted to bring math alive," says Julie West, who was hired during the tumult of the pandemic to lead a districtwide math makeover.

Fifth, a few words from Argentina. How well is the Milei chainsaw working? Glad you asked:

Argentina’s economy grew 4.3% quarter on quarter between July and September 2024, a greater-than-expected rebound after three quarters of contraction. Signs of recovery continue to surface. Wages have surpassed  inflation since April, job growth is slowly  picking up, and private estimates indicate poverty is declining after spiking when Milei took office.

Sixth, can we blame it on DEI? Why not? Nonetheless, Harvard University, which was sued for discriminating against certain non-minority candidates, has found itself needing to offer remedial courses in math. Apparently, more than a handful of matriculating students cannot do basic algebra.

Nellie Bowles reports for The Free Press:

Harvard created a new introductory math course to address a lack of basic algebra skills among its freshmen students. The new class is taught alongside Harvard’s standard, foundational classes but meets every day. Daily remedial math. For context, Harvard’s acceptance rate is less than 4 percent, which means they are selecting for something that’s just not traditional intelligence. It’s more like a vibe thing, and the vibe is “trigonometry wasn’t my strong suit.” And maybe they’re right. 

Maybe math skills don’t matter. Maybe being a triple legacy hot lacrosse boy is a better indicator of future success than raw IQ. Maybe being a savvy Latinx lesbian (call me!) means a brighter future than some loser with a good SAT score (me).

Seventh, very few cultures are as obsessed with happiness as we are. Who knows why, but the facts are the facts. Now, according to the United Nations, America counts as one of the most unhappy countries.

The data comes to us from 2023, that is, from the previous presidency. The reason, they aver, is that we spend too many of our meals alone.

It’s not bowling alone. It’s eating alone.  Social isolation is toxic. We ought already to have figured out that children have improved psychological and emotional development when they are provided with family dinners.

Newsmax reports:

The United States fell to 24th place, its lowest score since the report was first published in 2012, when it recorded its highest showing at number 11.

"The number of people dining alone in the United States has increased 53% over the past two decades," the authors said, noting that sharing meals "is strongly linked with well-being."

In 2023, roughly one in four Americans reported eating all their meals alone the previous day, the report said.

"The increasing number of people who eat alone is one reason for declining well-being in the United States," it said.

It also noted the United States was one of few countries to see a rise of so-called "deaths of despair" — from suicide or substance abuse — at a time when those deaths are declining in a majority of countries.

Eighth, political violence is bad. If you did not know it before, you discovered it when Democrat operatives railed against the Trump administration for promoting political violence.

Sad to say, but political violence has broken out across America. The signature on these acts is-- leftism, the anti-Trump forces.

Karol Markowicz reports in the New York Post:

Tesla dealerships are being firebombed and shot at, while Tesla vehicles are vandalized and their owners assaulted.

Trump-supporting influencers are getting “swatted,” set up for dangerous police encounters by opponents who phone in hoax distress calls.

Relatives of Trump-aligned public figures — including the sister of US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Elon Musk’s brother — are receiving bomb threats.

The most striking part, Markowicz explains, is the silence of the American left. Not a single major leftist politician has stepped forward to denounce this political violence.

Could it be that they do not consider it violence when it is directed against Trump supporters? Perhaps, in those cases, they do not consider it to be violence, but they see it as righteous.

Finally, I now have several open consulting hours in my life coaching practice. I consult in my private office in midtown Manhattan or via Skype. If you are interested write to me at StuartSchneiderman@gmail.com.