Sunday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. OzarkHillbilly says:

    From Elizabeth Holmes tried to ‘flee’ US with one-way Mexico ticket, prosecutors say

    The new filing comes as part of prosecutors’ argument that Holmes, who is currently pregnant with her second child, should start serving her prison sentence instead of living on a California estate with an alleged monthly upkeep of over $13,000, prosecutors claim.

    First off, $13,000 a month????
    Secondly, where the F is that money coming from? I’m sure the Theranos investors would like to know.

  2. Sleeping Dog says:

    Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

    Microsoft is seemingly getting out of the metaverse, while Apple keeps kicking the can down the road and of course, there is Meta, where Zuckerberg appears to be gambling the whole company on virtual reality being the next big thing. Given that Meta’s VR efforts are floundering, Apple is non-committal and MS is out of the sector, VR looks more like a niche product. After all, who wants to spend hours wearing a goofy headset, while interacting with cartoon characters that lack legs?

    Consider this, would the OTB comments section be greatly enhanced if we were a bunch of goofy cartoons?

  3. BugManDan says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    Consider this, would the OTB comments section be greatly enhanced if we were a bunch of goofy cartoons?

    Well a sleeping dog is pretty boring….

    1
  4. Kylopod says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    Consider this, would the OTB comments section be greatly enhanced if we were a bunch of goofy cartoons?

    I already visualize most people I run across online as cartoons. I’ve done this ever since I started using the Internet in the mid-’90s.

    2
  5. Sleeping Dog says:

    @BugManDan:

    Zzzzzzzzz…..

  6. Mikey says:

    Just another Saturday night in America.

    10 people killed in mass shooting near Los Angeles after Lunar New Year celebrations

    LOS ANGELES — At least 10 people were killed and at least 10 more injured in a mass shooting in Monterey Park, Calif., late Saturday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.

    “Investigators are working every lead on this case,” Capt. Andrew Meyer from the department’s homicide division said at a news conference early Sunday, adding that they were reviewing CCTV footage from near the scene at a ballroom dance club.

    “We have 10 that are deceased at the scene,” he said, adding that he believed at least 10 people had been taken to hospital with “critical to stable injuries.”

    The mass-murderer who doubtless bought his AR-15 legally is still at large.

    Monterey Park is 65% Asian and the dance club was full of people celebrating Lunar New Year. Now they get to “welcome” the Year of the Rabbit by burying their friends and loved ones.

    1
  7. MarkedMan says:

    @Sleeping Dog: Apple is taking a different approach and appears to be betting on augmented reality. They could be wrong but it is fundamentally different than Meta’s virtual reality play. On the Apple side think about having the heads up display some have in their car but on your glasses, so you can use it in any car or even in a taxi or while walking. Or repairing the popular DIY videos on YouTube but overlaid on the the thing in front of you. I’m not predicting whether they will be successful or not but it really isn’t the same thing as the Metaverse.

  8. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Sleeping Dog: Wait…??? Y’all ain’t a bunch of goofy cartoons?

  9. Mr. Prosser says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: Why yes, yes I am.

  10. gVOR08 says:

    Tha tha tha tha that’s all, folks.

  11. Michael Reynolds says:

    I have put my father in a home. Memory care, in fact. Now I’m in endless text threads where my sister and I and various spouses are making decisions for him.

    It seemed to happen suddenly. He’s had dementia for a while, short term memory effectively non-existent, long-term memory increasingly unreliable. But he remains charming, he has a sense of humor, etc… His wife was coping but now she’s got health issues that required her to be in hospital for some time. Then he got Covid and subsequent pneumonia and started to spiral down into hallucinations.

    We’d been hoping he could be in assisted living, but they’re moving him straight from the hospital to memory care. Hospice is coming in to manage his meds. In the blink of an eye he lost his wife, his home, his dog, everything normal. He’s lost all control over his own life. His decisions which had been made by his wife are now being made by a text chain.

    We aren’t close, never really were, and that’s entirely on me. He’s not my biological father as a glance at the two of us would make clear, and we are very different people, but he never treated me as a step-son. My 22 year disappearance didn’t help, and my stand-offish personality doesn’t help. So, I’m doing what I conceive of as my duty, essentially playing banker and staying as far from the nitty gritty as I can, dumping most of it off on my sister. My bank account allows me to keep my distance, do the minimum, use others, and still be seen as doing my part. Which is, um, bullshit, I’m doing what’s easy for me.

    Of course he’s already gone in many ways. Once you don’t know who you are, are you anyone? Fucking dementia. My wife’s mother, my sister’s father-in-law, now one more. The home seems pretty nice. Considering it for myself in a few years.

    5
  12. MarkedMan says:

    @Michael Reynolds: Sympathies. It comes to us all. I’ve been through end of life with four parents (mine and my wife’s) with four different ranges of dementia (none, mild, moderate, severe). I don’t have much advice since all circumstances are different except perhaps this non-intuitive piece: the most important thing you and your siblings are doing right now is setting up how you will interact with each other once the people that held you together are gone. And you are attempting to do it when a) you don’t realize that’s what you are doing and b) everyone is an emotional wreck. So cut yourself and everyone else armloads of slack.

    2
  13. CSK says:

    @Michael Reynolds:
    Very sorry to learn this. For about a year before her death, my mother had mild dementia.

    @MarkedMan:
    That’s good advice.

    1
  14. Jen says:
  15. CSK says:

    So…what happened to that “major political speech” Trump was supposed to make last night?

    1
  16. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    The first thing that struck me about her letter is that her command of grammar, spelling (except for “raindeer”), and punctuation is far superior to Donald Trump’s.

    2
  17. SC_Birdflyte says:

    @Michael Reynolds: It runs in my wife’s family. That scares the hell out of me.

    1
  18. Mikey says:

    @Michael Reynolds: Dementia took my dad, too. It is hard for everyone. You will not agree with your sister and assorted in-laws all the time. Your dad may not even be aware of his situation, which is merciful for him but awful for everyone else as they watch the decline.

    But just from what you’ve written here, I can tell you will all do your best for him and that’s what matters most. I am sorry you have to deal with this.

    1
  19. JohnSF says:

    @Michael Reynolds:
    Sorry to hear that.
    Even my limited experience of something similar, with my mother towards the end, which was more delirium than dementia, was pretty hard to cope with. And that only lasted a little while.
    Us humans are such fragile things in a hard edged universe.
    Best wishes.

    1
  20. Flat Earth Luddite says:

    late to the party today, but in the “leaves a bad taste in your mouth…*

    scores of child asylum seekers kidnapped from Home Office hotel

    Ugh. Just ugh.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/21/revealed-scores-of-child-asylum-seekers-kidnapped-from-home-office-hotel

    *Hey, give me a break, just because I can’t tell the difference between the Sunday references until my second pot of coffee…

  21. Just nutha says:

    @CSK: What? Did I miss an earlier announcement?

  22. CSK says:

    @Just nutha:
    Oh, he blathered something about having a major announcement or speech to be made Saturday night. It turns out he spoke to some rich supporters at a closed door event at his Doral golf club.

  23. CSK says:

    @Mikey:

    The shooter’s been found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 72, and his name was Huu Can Tran.