Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Sunday, February 18, 2024
·
17 comments
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
2024 keeps getting weirder and weirder: Could the pubic wig usher in a flourishing of the female bush?
Did not have that on the 2024 Commentary Bingo Card.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. From Kevin Drum:
@OzarkHillbilly: Or maybe it’s just a pubic nuisance?
@MarkedMan: I mean, maybe.
I think that his characterization of 2016 is accurate, as it was reflected in the actual election results.
But, on balance, the opposite has been reflected in each election cycle from 2018 onward.
It seems to me that a lot of liberals (I am unwilling to make quite the sweepingly certain claims that Drum is) are both fretting about age but also will be anything but tepid when they have to choose between Biden and Trump in November.
Unsurprising headline of the day: Conman doesn’t like to be conned.
I finally got around to reading this article in WaPo (gift link) about Dr. Jackson’s feelgood clinic at the White House, and I finally get why what he did is different from earlier iterations. He basically took the idea of having a convenience (think, the WH version of the school’s nurses’ office) and dialed everything to 11, while also removing minor inconveniences like requiring a prescription, or requiring someone to actually be working at the WH. So yeah, definitely bad.
Delta Lady
Leon Russell
I saw Leon Russel twice. The second time was at a Blues Festival at the WPA era Band Shell in Riverside Park in Murphysboro, Illinois.
The sports headline of the day- Boxer Manny Pacquiao, 45, can’t compete at Paris Olympics
@MarkedMan:
Our problem is that we believe in reality. When confronted with an unpleasant reality we are helpless to ignore it. Intellectual integrity can be a (short term) weakness when dealing with people who lie as easily as they breathe.
@Steven L. Taylor: Drum is specifically talking about the Democratically aligned chattering class. It doesn’t matter what we say here in the comment section, but those appearing on TV and other forms of media who wring their hands and moan about “perception” are sending a message of weakness and lack of decisiveness and determination, which gets picked up by the people who’s political awareness doesn’t extend beyond “But is he strong? Can he get pushed around?”, ie 70%+ of the electorate.
Drum goes further on his rant against the Democratic chattering class fecklessness, this time on the Fani Willis non-story
This is exactly the mealymouthed nonsense that drives me crazy. She did nothing wrong, but do her allies defend her against the bought and paid for attacks? No! They bow and scrape and tug their forelocks (that one was for WR) and mewl about bad judgement. Disgusting.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had gotten diagnosed with ADHD and was starting Strattera. Two things to know about Strattera. 1. It’s a NON-stimulant med. 2. I just found a Reddit thread that dubbed it “the med from hell.” DK asked for a follow up in a month. I didn’t make it a month.
I started on 25 mg on a Monday. 25 being the starter dose. Non-stimulant my ass. I’m glad I’ve had some experience with drug drugs. I took the 1st dose with breakfast. About an hour or so later I was at my desk when I suddenly got nauseous. Then I got a real bad wave of anxiety. I realized what was happening about 5 minutes before I launched into space. Friend, I spent the next 10 hours high out of my mind. I was nauseous, I was tweaking, I had all the motivation in the world, zero focus. I sorted and folded 1000 socks.
For the next 11 days I dealt with nausea, lack of appetite, dizziness, dry mouth, grinding my teeth and being high for 8-10 hours a day. But I was able to function in a way I never had before. Oh, and intense insomnia. Like, can’t fall asleep, can’t stay asleep, sleep is just poor.
Per Dr’s orders I doubled my dosage after 11 days to 50mg. I was less high but I had all the other side effects. After consulting with the Dr. I dropped down to 40 mg. Lasted a little more than a week. By this past Wednesday it was barely working, but I had all the negative side effects. Then, while doing some work, the suicidal thought started creeping in. Now, I’m a suicidal person so it was more wtf experience because nothing had set me off. By Friday it got worse. I had a minor inconvenience which caused me to explode, full on mushroom cloud followed by intense suicidal thoughts. I was an absolute wreck on Friday. Dr. Told me to immediately stop.
Went out and danced to house music with lesbians and got wrecked Friday night. By Saturday evening, other than the hangover, I was back to normal.
Now we have to wait a bit for it to fully clear my body and then we’re gonna talk stimulant meds. So, Strattera is a hard no. Very much the drug from hell.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had gotten diagnosed with ADHD and was starting Strattera. Two things to know about Strattera. 1. It’s a NON-stimulant med. 2. I just found a Reddit thread that dubbed it “the med from hell.” DK asked for a follow up in a month. I didn’t make it a month.
I started on 25 mg on a Monday. 25 being the starter dose. Non-stimulant my ass. I’m glad I’ve had some experience with drug drugs. I took the 1st dose with breakfast. About an hour or so later I was at my desk when I suddenly got nauseous. Then I got a real bad wave of anxiety. I realized what was happening about 5 minutes before I launched into space. Friend, I spent the next 10 hours high out of my mind. I was nauseous, I was tweaking, I had all the motivation in the world, zero focus. I sorted and folded 1000 socks.
For the next 11 days I dealt with nausea, lack of appetite, dizziness, dry mouth, grinding my teeth and being high for 8-10 hours a day. But I was able to function in a way I never had before. Oh, and intense insomnia. Like, can’t fall asleep, can’t stay asleep, sleep is just poor.
Per Dr’s orders I doubled my dosage after 11 days to 50mg. I was less high but I had all the other side effects. After consulting with the Dr. I dropped down to 40 mg. Lasted a little more than a week. By this past Wednesday it was barely working, but I had all the negative side effects. Then, while doing some work, the suicidal thought started creeping in. Now, I’m a suicidal person so it was more wtf experience because nothing had set me off. By Friday it got worse. I had a minor inconvenience which caused me to explode, full on mushroom cloud followed by intense suicidal thoughts. I was an absolute wreck on Friday. Dr. Told me to immediately stop.
Went out and danced to house music with lesbians and got wrecked Friday night. By Saturday evening, other than the hangover, I was back to normal.
Now we have to wait a bit for it to fully clear my body and then we’re gonna talk stimulant meds. So, Strattera is a hard no. Very much the drug from hell.
@Beth: I really think the medical establishment is not nearly aware enough of suicidal ideation as a side effect of medication as they should be. We lost a friend of our kids, daughter of some close friends of ours, who started taking (? And I don’t want to bring this up to ask my wife, but if anyone wants to know I’ll find out) as an antidepressant. A few days later her boyfriend went to the store and by the time he got back she had committed suicide. It was actually listed as a potential side effect, and any responsible prescriber should have warned about it and cautioned not to be alone during the first week or so.
@MarkedMan:
I’m sorry for your loss. I’m kinda shocked by it. My provider did warn me about them, but I kinda laughed him off. It was like how it’s easy to laugh at pharmaceutical commercials when they mention it as a side effect. The first time it popped up was kinda funny. The second absolutely was not. I’ve done a lot of work around being suicidal so I had an idea of how to keep myself safe. Without that I could see how it would get bad fast.
@OzarkHillbilly: Thoughts, yes I have them:
1) Thank you for the vocabulary word of the day. Now I know you can buy t-shirts that say things like “workin’ in my merkin” and “make a merkin great again.”
2) I believe in egalitarianism in general, but I think we’re getting closer to achieving that by more male grooming rather than less female grooming.
3) Hmm, the rest is better left unsaid.
@Beth: That’s good to know, thank you for checking back in! And I’m glad you know how to keep yourself safe from those thoughts! When you first started talking about it, I was like “Hmmm…non stimulant….I actually have 1,000 socks that need matched, so I’d actually be doing something constructive…” But I think I’ll pass.