Fauci Feedback

Yesterday I published a reader contribution summarizing what Dr. Fauci said on a virtual call with some Dartmouth doctors ... see: Reader Contribution. I am not trying to be disrespectful of this doctor ... but I do have some questions about what he said ... the following:

1) Fauci says the the ratio of asymptomatic cases to diagnosed cases in 2:3 (40%). But previous studiies in California, New York and Florida put the ratio at 10:1, 20:1 or even higher. Perhaps our increased testing has changed things ... but this much?

2) Fauci says all ages get infected at the same rate, Take a look at what has happened in California ... see: California Department of Public Heath. No quite the same Anthony!

3) Fauci says that all vaccines were started from virus samples from China. I’m not sure that, if I were a drug company ready to make this huge investment, I would trust China for such a starter sample.


There was some happy news however — Fauci said that a vaccine may be approved by October! Will this be the October surprise by the Republicans? And will the Dems use scare tactics against such a vaccine breakthrough? Watch and see!

STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Reader Contribution

On a Zoom call this morning a classmate had to break out early for another virtual meeting with Dr. Fauci. The following is his promised report of what transpired. We thank Rick for this first-hand info:

Per my promise to share the Fauci call and the college's latest communication to students:

Fauci had personal/professional links with all the half dozen Dartmouth Drs who asked questions ... - Main takeaways (answers to questions):

1. Microbal world will continue to interact with human world so this will not be the last pandemic - it is unusual in that it is demographically broad (unlike HIV), not subtle - and has shut the world down.

2. Masks are critical but rejected by the young who don't take the virus seriously and by politics.

3. Opening schools needs to use national guidelines and experiences but ultimately be based on local situations eg low incidence of virus ok to open, high no, teachers protected like others at high risk eg  masks/face shields ok.

4. All ages seem to get infected at about the same rate - 40% of carriers are asymptomatic - young are now becoming more worrisome as carriers as they are showing a higher load of the virus in their nasal passages than adults. (Grandkids have always been little petri dishes...)

5. There are 165 vaccines in development world wide, 127 are in various stages of testing; the speed with which these are being developed is because of the ability with new technologies to rapidly process, grow and analyze the virus once samples came from China - allowed getting to phase one in 3 months versus 18 months previously; some of the stage 1 tests have produced responses as good as getting the disease, so should get some final results in about 3 months.

Cheers -

Rick

Headlines

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China’s currency is sending a warning signal about the trade war

Biden race to the middle

Candice Owens: Big tech trying to ‘subvert a mass awakening’

Austrian government collapses over Russian scandal

A tight labor market is holding small businesses from expanding in this hot economy

Australia prime minister holds onto power ... Polls got it WRONG ...

Trump spox: Trump has said he is for three exceptions to abortion

U.S. warns airlines flying in Persian Gulf amid Iran crisis

It costs $76,623 to go to Dartmouth — here’s how much students actually pay

FOXNEWS surprising poll result: Mueller more trusted than Trump and  Barr ...

[Biden] ... Equates Trump to ‘tyrants and dictators’

Headlines

After trading barbs for a year, Trump and Newsom meet at California fire zone

Hit hard by trade war, automakers hoping Trump will hold off on next round of tariffs

Trump offers [Pelosi] help securing [speakership] votes ...

Michelle Obama memoire sells 725,00 copies on first da

Trump schedules Mississippi rallies to boost Hyde-Smith [candidancy]

Billionaire banker issues stark warning on brewing debt crisis: 'There's a lot of leverage out there'

Day 10: Stacey Abrams ends run foe [GA] governor ...

Dartmouth students sue three professors for sexual harassment, assault

House conservatives protest LGBT protection in Mexico-Canada trade deal

Fire-plagued California won't let insurers 'cram' through big rate rate hikes n 2019: state regulator

Foreigners dump U.S. treasuries, stocks ...

Another 3,000 caravan migrants arrive in Tijuana ... Mexican protestors grow violent

R.I.P.

When a man with such business talents, love of life and living, devotion to his friends, family and college ... chooses to stop living, one must pause to catch one's breath. I have had many interactions with Joseph Asch over the years ... mostly over his Dartblog postings and his running for Dartmouth trustee. He was an intense person with sharp elbows ... and plenty of detractors. But I never found his observations too far off the mark. He brought a needed balance to the insanity of today's educational myopia. Dartmouth (and I) will miss his critical mind.

To possibly understand why Joe  is no longer with us, see what might have been his farewell missive: 10/10/18 Dartblog Entry.

R.I.P.

A Jackass Bray

You might have noticed on this blog that I am not a fan of ANTIFA, that fascist group that is claimed "anti-fascist" ... running around shutting down free-speech demonstration in their black masks and outfits carrying various weapons. Well it seems that the inspiration for this vile group of Soros-funded goons and misguided snowflakes is a summer history lecturer at Dartmouth by the name of Mark Bray.Mark  wrote this terrorist group's manifesto and was instrumental in its organization. He suggests that this gang resist anything that they don't cotton to (read Trump & Co.) "through whatever means that seems fit" which they appear to be doing very effectively ... with the tacit encouragement of much of the "resistance" left.

To his rare credit, Dartmouth's president, Phil Hanlon wrote a letter disapproving of Dr. Bray in somewhat predictably tepid terms. And, also predictably, 12o Dartmouth faculty members have signed a letter supporting this jackass ... see: Dartblog Entry. Hopefully, President Hanlon can show Jackass Bray the door and then sit down with these 120 faculty members (and backed by the Dartmouth Trustees) to explain, in no uncertain terms, just who this boob is and why he is not to be revered. But perhaps I am asking too much of Phil and the Dartmouth Trustees ... given their lack of spine of late?

MOOCs

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is a difficult subject because it is so relatively new. Clearly, if we are to heve any real productivity improvements in education, they will need to come from some type of automation. However, there are still those who disparage this on-line learning movement toward automating higher education primarily because it eliminates the classroom experience. For one such cynical argument, see: Dartblog Reader Response to President Phil Hanlon. If you actually want to see what Dartmouth's Prexy Hanlon said to elicit this response go to  Phil's Own Words: Education.

I myself have previously dealt with this MOOC subject in a previous blog post ... see: A Pedagogical Prediction. Having used some current software with students in on-line Internet courses during my recent gigs as a high school tutor, I can testify to its disappointingly poor quality ... thus I can understand the reader response referenced above. But believe me, when this technology of MOOC catches up to its potential, it will make what we are using today seem like a Model-T Ford relative to a BMW i8. In 5 or 10 years, the eventual MOOCs will meld the best of a 3-D classroom reconstruction with personal interaction with the artificial intelligence of a virtual professor.

Then, if student loans have not already sunk our economy, the next generations of our children will have it a lot easier (and cheaper) time of higher learning.

GWP ... GWP Not

I just discovered that my initials, GWP, stand for Guilty White People ... see: Dartblog Posting. The author of this snippet on race relations at Dartmouth, Joe Asch, a man whom I respect for his continued attempts to keep our alma mater from sinking into the current cultural swamp, therein makes a poignant point. And that is that the constant acceding to the whining wished of Hanover's people of color does them no service. In fact it is condescending to create new deans and departments as a token (albeit expensive) show of diversity sensitivity and inclusive symbolism when one is unwilling to engage in open debate regarding the real reasons for their feelings of inferiority. Endorsing these feelings is, ironically, an affirmation of this GWP prejudice. Mr. Asch expresses it better than I can when he writes:

Just why is it that at an institution ostensibly devoted to learning, nobody from President Hanlon on down is willing to debate the charges thrown at the College. What a sorry, cowed bunch of leaders we have. But they are more than cowed; in point of fact, they are condescending to students of color in not engaging them in any kind of principled debate about the merits of the charges that they hurl at Dartmouth. Does the administration think that these kids are too stupid, too uneducated, too fragile, to withstand an argument that puts forward disagreement with their narrative of Concentration Camp Dartmouth?

Wouldn't it be nice to see the kind of open forum that a liberal arts education promises? Needless to say, much as I wish those famous "character content" words of Martin Luther King to be finally realized, I do not qualify as a guilty white person.

Durgin Park

The Boston Globe has had a contest to describe a uniquely Boston experience in 50 words. Two of my talented friends have had their submissions accepted. But mine, I think, sits on the cutting room floor ... possibly because of my un-PC reference to Indian pudding. Therefore, I have decided to reproduce this 58 year-old Boston memory here and the Globe be damned:

Very long ago a bunch of us Dartmouths road-tripped to Boston for Wheaton dates. But first we dined at Durgin Park ... with its surly waitresses and thick prime rib. Starving and poor, I could only afford the halibut, called "poor-man's lobster." I ended with Indian pudding. Delicious! Wheaton was diminished.

I just checked Durgin Park's menu on-line. It no longer offers Indian pudding.

Diversity

From whence came this religion of forever-expanding "diversity?" When I was younger and attending an all-male college, diversity then was defined mostly in geographic terms ... since the majority of my classmates were middle- to upper-class whites ... religious diversity (particularly in regard to Judaism) having been a previously-enacted reform. The next push at my alma mater was for ethnic diversity ... primarily African-American, Native-American, Hispanic  and Asian. This, of course, automatically helped the college also effect improving economic-class diversity. Then, in the early 1970's, the College on the Hill decided that women were needed to round out its diversity menu. When admissions were opened up to females, it was promised that they would never total more than 30% of the undergraduate population. It is now over 50%.

Having eliminated all these obvious demographic profiles, the college's administration could not contain themselves ... next came a push for sexual-orientation diversity ... gays and lesbians needed to be represented in the student body at least as they existed in the general population ... and, of course, the college's curriculum needed to be revamped to accommodate these new hooking-up preferences. Aha, you think that now we are done with this remake. But no, you narrow-minded bigot. There is still the notion of gender-identity to accommodate. So if you are a woman in a man's body or vise versa, you are now the newest required diversity target. So now the undergraduate body has been fully Balkanized beyond reason ... to the point where it has become almost impossible to represent all these diverse pigeon-holes of our population in the next entering Freshman class ... given that there seems also a modest desire to maintain a least some modicum of academic standards.

But, there is still one diversity cross-section that has been ignored in both the pedagogical and student populations ... and that is political diversity. How about it Dartmouth ... can you take this one last and logical step in completing your pathological pandering to diversity?

Afterward: This obsession with diversity is not just at the college level. It also seems to have permeated our governance ...  witness a seeming national requirement for representation of all these diverse categories in our political leaders. That is why the more of these diversity boxes candidates can check, the more likely their election ... political persuasion and administrative competence be damned. This clearly is a sign of the times and one on which Hillary Clinton seems to be relying.

Gobbledygook

Professors and other hanger-ons in higher education communicate in tongues ... they have an unique way of forming ideas that are full of erudite phraseology but carry actual meaning only in the befogged minds of these pedagogues. Paul Mirengoff of the Powerline blog has uncovered a set of mission statements for a number of new professors hired at Dartmouth College that can do nothing but support this gobbledygook notion ... and should bring you, dear readers, a good bit of mirth. Here's a teaser sample:

How is queer intellectual design an intrinsic part of transnational knowledge production in the cultural sphere?

Enjoy this sidetrack into the ivy-covered ivory towers and see if you can actually decipher what these newly-hired liberal (but with a big L) edu-twits are actually saying ... see: Powerline Blog.

Afterward: My wife's comment ... "and for this many parents are spending $60,000+ a year?"

Bile Green

Can Dartmouth sink any lower? For a rarity at the college on the hill, a conservative was invited to speak to the undergraduates. Apparently the college Republicans had invited Rick Perry, outgoing governor of Texas, to speak at an open event and he drew a number of anal-sex questions from the audience ... some of which were printed on a flyer that was passed out by a sophomoric sophomore, Ben Packer. A typical example was, "Do you [Rick Perry] dislike bootysex because the peeny goes in where the poopy comes out?"

Another green weenie in the audience, senior Emily Sellers, asked the governor if he might engage in anal sex for a large campaign contribution. Wow … such disrespect from seemingly liberal artists! And freshman, Timothy Messen, snidely queried if Rick Perry thought that homosexuals were equivalent to alcoholics. Obviously not everyone in the audience was so crass, but to read more of the details of this sour event see: Breitbart Story.

Because of a recent similarly scatological story coming out of Harvard ... see: UK Daily Mail Story, and an overwhelming vote of the Dartmouth faculty to abolish fraternities and sororities, I was commenting to my wife that college professors must live in a parallel universe ... and she agreed. They must have dispatched pedagogical space ships to bring some of their more naively insipid students along with them.

Obviously, the Dartmouth administration cannot and should not punish these miscreant students like it once attempted to stifle campus conservatives for "vexatious" speech. But it surely would be appropriate to embarrass them (and a few of the more notorious faculty members) in some public way.

Afterward: Here is a link to a related article: Powerline Piece.

Post Trauma

Amazon's founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, recently personally bought the Washington Post newspaper.  The expectation was that he would continue or expand its liberal editorial positions. Surprise! Surprise!  His newspaper has just created a partnership with the Volokh Conspiracy … a popular conservative blog that deals primarily in legal and public policy issues … see: Tumblr Story.  And he also has given the thumbs down to financing that uber-liberal, Ezra Klein for his independent website … and thus severed a longstanding relationship with him … see: Politico Story.

In times past I had a very loose interest in the Volokh Conspiracy (see: Volokh Conspiracy Blog) in that one of its contributors, Todd Zywicki, had good things to say about one of my blog sites, Dartmouth Traditions.  Todd Zywicki is a Dartmouth graduate, a famous lawyer, and a former trustee of the college on the hill.  A number of years ago, I occasionally visited his blog .,. but have gotten out of the habit.  I intend to remedy this lapse and will now regularly view it … and I recommend it to you.

On-Line Education

Dartblog author Joseph Asch is a tiny bit of a Luddite in his comments about on-line education at Dartmouth. In referencing a New York Times article in his recent blog, he points out, as does the Times, the repeated current failings of this new approach to education … see: Dartblog Opinion.  I, myself, have often seen shortfalls in the massive open on-line course's (MOOC's) approach whilst tutoring at a high school west of Boston.  However, I believe that MOOC is an economic necessity and must eventually win out as the preferred mode of pedagogy.

For this to occur, I believe that the following wrinkles need to be ironed out:

-        The courses need to be better attuned to the potential of the on-line environment.  This includes instructive animations/videos, hyperlinks to vetted sources, and oral questions and feedback responses.

-        There also needs to be better paced instruction, peer-reviewed content, and testing that stays within the boundaries of the course material.

-        I also believe that Skype-like and even social-network-like interactions with the instructors and other students will greatly increase the learning potential.  These interactions can be in real-time or even on a scheduled-delay basis.

-        The use of celebrities and well-known-experts (ala Sesame Street and Jeopardy) to capture the imagination of the on-line student might bring greater focus to the subject at hand.

-        A feedback mechanism for MOOC students need to be more obvious.  Perhaps a running ranking of a given student versus his/her peers?  Or a monetary reward in the form of a scholarship for outstanding achievement?

-        MOOC courses also should be constructed with the intent to encourage students to strike out on their own to do independent research or make real-life connections with a view toward a career (even in such things as the traditional manual trades).

-        And lastly, there also needs to be a face or fingerprint type recognition system to verify exactly who is on the receiving end of this on-line instruction.  Otherwise there is too much opportunity for fraud

And there will be other improvements that evolve here.  Much of on-line instruction that I have experienced has been class-room instruction shoe-horned into a MOOC environment … and this has often been very frustrating … to both the tutor and the student.  Too much of MOOC today is just going through the motions by those after a fast buck.  But, Joe, don’t give up on the potential of this on-line educational environment.  This does seem to be clinging to the past … in my opinion.

Born to Hang

If you are born to hang, you will not drown -- Old Polish Adage

My wife and I recently attended a celebration of our collective 75th birthday for my graduating class at Dartmouth,  It was a generally joyous series of well-planned events, but with the specter of death overhanging things ... as a fraternity brother had just passed and another classmate, who had originated these celebrations, had just entered a hospice.  I myself suffer from a myriad of age-related maladies the have slowed me down considerably.

And so, a retired doctor and fraternity brother just sent me an e-mail, giving me some sage advice about how I should try to restore my cardiovascular health given my other problems.  He said, "it is a cycle: hurts to move, not move, decreased physical capacity, harder to move, move less, gain weight, lose strength and cardio condition, body does not work as well, lungs not work as well, hurts to move, harder to move, not move as much,  more deconditioning, gain more weight, harder to move, etc."  However kind and well-meaning this advice was, I know that I will have difficulty following the specifics of his suggestions.  "You cannot teach an old dog ..."

Almost 15 years ago I wrote a piece anticipating my declining years ... see: Upon Reaching Sixty.  In this forecast I pretty much nailed how things might transpire and marveled how I had actually lived so long, given that my father had died at age 42.  Yes, I want to live beyond age 80 and, I suppose, actuarial tables suggest that I might.  But I doubt that I will have the will-power and courage to do all the things that my fraternity brother has suggested that I do.

(Short story ... a man who lived to age 96 was asked how he had lived so long.  He replied that every morning he had taken a half-hour ice-cold shower.  As it turned out, this was the equivalent of spending the last three years of his waking hours standing under gelid running water.  Moral of the story -- quality of life or life style also counts.)

And so my life style has served me for all these many years ... until it doesn't.