Here’s why I now support Marco Rubio for president:
Republican presidental candidate Marco Rubio, a graduate of the University of Florida, took a playful shot at rival school Florida State University this past week while discussing football on an Iowa sports radio station.
“Look, I don’t have anything against Florida State,” he told KXNO-AM in Des Moines. “I think there has to be a school where people that can’t get into Florida can go to college. And that’s why we have Florida State.”
BOOM! The Trump-Rubio ticket can cross off the Florida Panhandle.
Speaking of colleges, did anyone catch President Obama’s remarks on Monday about the so-called scourge of campus political correctness? It sounds like he may not be in favor of “trigger warnings:”
It’s not just sometimes folks who are mad that colleges are too liberal that have a problem. Sometimes there are folks on college campuses who are liberal, and maybe even agree with me on a bunch of issues, who sometimes aren’t listening to the other side, and that’s a problem too. I’ve heard some college campuses where they don’t want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative or they don’t want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women. I gotta tell you, I don’t agree with that either. I don’t agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view. I think you should be able to — anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with ‘em. But you shouldn’t silence them by saying, “You can’t come because I’m too sensitive to hear what you have to say.” That’s not the way we learn either.
He almost sounds like Cole. Open thread!
Baud
I’m confused. I thought trigger warnings were warnings, not outright bans, which is what the President seemed to be talking about.
Humboldtblue
Way to go, Betty, talk about trigger warnings.
Mustang Bobby
I turned 63 today. BFD.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Right Arm!
Steeplejack
@Mustang Bobby:
Happy birthday, youngster!
Nancy
“Triggering” was a useful therapeutic concept, suggesting that situations might bring on painful memories, overwhelming traumatic flashbacks, and automatic behavioral responses in those suffering from PTSD.
“Trigger warnings” on campus may become all-purpose censorship tools to protect people from hearing an idea that might cause discomfort.
I think the Prez is right. Maybe even John Cole.
Hmmmmm.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
Happy birthday!
WereBear
Hey, whatcha gonna do.
I agree that college, of all places, should be an area for free speech… and then, the evaluation.
cosima
I’m glad that neither Mr. Cosima nor I have any particular rabid feelings about our alma maters. That seems a waste of emotional energy to me… And I’d have liked to see a Rubio vs. Trump match in FL.
However, as this is an open thread and there are heaps of pet mums/dads/etc on this thread — our little lab has, according to the local vet, signs of having ruptured cruciate ligaments in one of her hind legs. Mr & daughter were walking her, she was running around, gave a yelp, started limping. That’s the extent of my knowledge as to how this happened. The local vet did an x-ray, some manipulation, and more or less all I got out of her was “x/y/z looks to be wrong with her leg, we don’t handle that, I can refer you to a veterinary ortho surgeon in Dundee, Glasgow Uni or Edinburgh Uni.” And that was it. When I collected Lola after the x-ray she didn’t even come out to speak with me, not even to tell me about the meds (that I found out about when reading the discharge paperwork in the carpark, and had to return to the surgery to say “WTH?”).
So. Lola is 4+ months old — far too young for the conventional knee ligament surgeries that are done, given that she will roughly double in size before stopping growing. This is not something the local vet told me, it is something that seems logical to me, so I’ve come to the conclusion on my own. We have a second opinion appointment with a different veterinary practice this evening, and an appointment with the vet ortho surgeon in Dundee on Friday (8:30 a.m., 150 miles away). I’m hoping this vet will be more forthcoming.
My question for BJers: has anyone had any experience with “conservative management” of this sort of injury in their pet? Conservative management being a non-surgical intervention, and basically a lot of bedrest (crate), limited walks on lead, some PT, ice & heat, etc. We’ve basically been following that protocol during our nearly two week wait for results, consults, etc., and I think it is making a difference, but then if she weren’t so young I’d probably have booked the surgery already, because I generally lean toward medical intervention, less holistic approach, for both humans & pets.
Anyone?
Gin & Tonic
@Mustang Bobby: Congrats and best wishes. Two more years until that sweet gubmint health care, eh?
MomSense
@Baud:
He isn’t describing trigger warnings especially since trigger warnings do not mean you never read or view the content. It just gives people a heads up so they can prepare themselves or ingest the content later.
Cervantes
Fickle.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: Condolences.
Cervantes
@Mustang Bobby:
Happy birthday!
Here’s wishing you a great day and an even better year to come.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Don’t know about collage, my nephew mentioned nothing, but I’ve seen “triggers” used that way on line. Heck, “trigger” has been used to prove the speaker is just like Hitler or a rapist.
Elizabelle
@Mustang Bobby: Happy b-day, Mustang man.
@cosima: No clue, but good luck to you and Lola. Plz keep us apprised.
OzarkHillbilly
@cosima: I can say with certainty that you need a new vet. But you already knew that, didn’t you.
Betty Cracker
@cosima:
If you wish to examine a granfalloon,
just remove the skin of a toy balloon.
— Bokonon
I’ve got no advice on your doggie, but I hope she’s okay.
debbie
To conservatives, the concept of trigger warnings is right up there with handing out trophies to kids just for participating. I don’t have a problem with either and objecting to them shows a lack of empathy.
Did Liberty U. students get trigger warnings before Bernie Saunders showed up?
Marc
@MomSense: Except, in practice, A does tend to imply B. If you buy the idea that reading classical poetry is trauma-inducing for students, for example, what right does a professor have to assign required traumatic readings? Here is the text of the demand for trigger warnings in a recent Columbia student editorial:
““Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ is a fixture of [the class] Lit Hum, but like so many texts in the Western canon, it contains triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom,” wrote the students, who are members of Columbia’s Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board. “These texts, wrought with histories and narratives of exclusion and oppression, can be difficult to read and discuss as a survivor, a person of color, or a student from a low-income background.”
This is the sort of broad and sweeping claim that trigger advocates actually use, not just requests for warnings. It really does come across as a demand to be shielded from “offensive” materials. The UCSB student who authored the student resolution calling for mandatory trigger warnings did so because she wanted to walk out of class and not have to watch a film that she deemed offensive.
The Oberlin guidelines can be summarized as follows:
“Oberlin College has published an official document on triggers, advising faculty members to “be aware of racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and other issues of privilege and oppression,” to remove triggering material when it doesn’t “directly” contribute to learning goals and “strongly consider” developing a policy to make “triggering material” optional.”
This sure sounds a hell of a lot like censorship to me. There is a reason why this is controversial if you look at the actual proposals that it is based on, not some abstract idea to slap warning stickers on curriculum. It really is tied to demands that students not have to read or watch certain class materials.
Jado
“…But you shouldn’t silence them by saying, “You can’t come because I’m too sensitive to hear what you have to say.” That’s not the way we learn either.”
I think it’s more the $100,000 speaking fee taken from the student fund that people object to. I am sure they would care a lot less if it wasn’t for the giant fees associated with Condoleeza Rice or Alberto Gonzales spouting lies and justifications for destroying a country for no legitimate reason.
Cervantes
@debbie:
Actually, attendance at his event was mandatory:
Take that, Oberlin.
Geeno
@Humboldtblue: The first rule of Trigger Warnings is you don’t talk about Trigger Warnings.
@Nancy: You think the president might even be John Cole? That’s a scary thought.
Nancy
@MomSense: Yes. That’s part of the point I was aiming at. Thanks for adding it.
David Koch
So tonight’s debate is 3 fucking hours long?!!?
No way Christie will be able to stand on his feet that long.
Remember the time Christie took a helicopter to his kid’s little league game on the taxpayer’s dime. The worst part was he refused to walk the extra hundred years from the copter to the stands, so he had a state automobile drive him the tinny, tiny short distance.
Mike E
@Mustang Bobby: Heh, many happy returns.
In my family, you’d be #3 in age order but #1 son…my sisters would’ve definitely racked up the miles with you. I meant, smiles!
Betty Cracker
@debbie: As usual, conservatives are projecting when they screech about trigger warnings. They can’t even hear “Happy Holidays” without curling up into the fetal position.
I think there are legitimate objections to the concept of trigger warnings that do not require a lack of empathy on the part of the objector. The post below yours provides an example.
It’s a complex issue with no simple answer. As usual in complex scenarios, the most tempting recourse is to assume that all those who disagree are all heartless villains. And some are, no doubt!
My view is that folks could compromise on both sides to reach a reasonable accommodation that doesn’t stifle learning and doesn’t needlessly traumatize students. I also suspect the issue is blown out of all proportion, but I am decades removed from being a student and don’t work on a campus, so I could be wrong about that.
Nancy
@Geeno: Now I’m all over that one! Yes! Does West VA state citizenship automatically disqualify Obama-Cole at this last date?
raven
@Betty Cracker: How about “We were spit on”? I want smack the fucker that says that every time!
Nancy
@Jado: That makes sense to me. I’d be willing to have Condoleeza Rice speak at Whatsit Univ for free or cost. It is the massive speaking fee paid out of student funds . . . to a war criminal.
beltane
@Marc: College students are adults. If Ovid’s Metamorphosis causes them trauma, how on earth will they be able to navigate the world outside their $60,000 a year campuses. As humans, we fail to grow when cloistered inside an emotional and intellectual safe zone. In any case, if trigger warnings should be applied, they should be applied universally, since all works of art or literature are capable of causing emotional distress to someone.
Nancy
@MomSense: @Nancy: “at this late date” have I had too much coffee this morning?
Nemo_N
Where did these thin skinned “progressives” come from anyway? It’s disturbing how conservative they look when they go around finger-wagging people about the proper way to talk/dress or what is the correct music to listen/games to play/books to read.
Did they finally internalize all the conservative bullshit and found a less lame (i.e. less conservative) way to express it?
gene108
@Mustang Bobby:
Happy Birthday!
Betty, I though you lived in the Florida panhandle area and you hate FSU. I therefore thought like minded people were in the majority.
Learn something new everyday.
beltane
A group of wingnut parents in my town are very upset that the moment of silence for 9/11 was held too late in the day for their liking. None of them experienced the events of the day except via television, but they are very, very upset. The rallying cry for 21st century America should be “I am fragile. Don’t drag me from my safe bubble.”
By sheltering ourselves, we reduce our ability to feel empathy for others.
Joel
The “trigger warning” stuff makes me have a handful responses:
1) This is clearly overblown — a few isolated incidents blown up for public consumption
2) In those instances, forcing a “warning” is about establishing control. It’s always about control, especially for radicals.
3) FOX viewers have butthurt over ten smaller bits of cultural minutia every fucking day.
beltane
@Nemo_N: It’s very similar to the way a common ground exists between leftish anti-vaxxers and the Chrisitan home-schoolers. Both sides of the political spectrum can be heavily invested in a “Me, me, me, me” way of thinking.
Bobby Thomson
@Nancy: nope.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/08/trigger-warnings-do-not-suppress-speech
Danack
You missed the best part:
OzarkHillbilly
@beltane: Empathy? Never had any. What’s it taste like?
Bobby Thomson
@Jado: I don’t object to them ranting. I object to paying for it. I also object to them making money instead of doing hard time.
Thoughtful Today
hehe
Debbie: “Did Liberty U. students get trigger warnings before Bernie Saunders showed up?”
Jado: “I think it’s more the $100,000 speaking fee taken from the student fund that people object to.”
^ Both of you: STOP READING MY MIND ;)
Paul in KY
@Mustang Bobby: Hope you have a Happy Friggin Birthday :-)
Thoughtful Today
More seriously:
“Liberty University students react to Bernie Sanders.” … ““I think he did a good job of not offending,” junior Emily Murphy said. “I think he said what he believes in, but he didn’t put us down, so I respected that.””
Paul in KY
@cosima: She may limp for rest of life, but can have a fulfilling one.
Betty Cracker
@gene108: Nah, I live in peninsular FL, about half way down on the west coast. FSU is in the Panhandle. University allegiances tend to be pretty mixed in FL, though the Panhandle strongly favors FSU due to proximity and the northern interior favors UF for the same reason. I’ve worked side-by-side with Seminoles throughout my career. We yap about it a lot, but it’s all in good fun. Well, except around Thanksgiving, when things get snarly.
WereBear
@cosima: There’s a difference between injuring the ligament and requiring a surgical repair. And what you are doing can’t hurt, so I’d keep doing it.
In a dog that young, it could easily be something else. I had a complete rupture in a four year old dog and spent half of my liquid assets in the world, at the time, to fix it. Afterwards, no one could tell anything had ever happened, but it was so worth it. And this was for a dog I knew I’d have to rehome soon, and I did.
But he was never going to get a new home as a three-legged dog who needed an operation.
Good luck!
Starfish
What he is saying is something that extends beyond trigger warnings. Certain students like to protest people who are going to be speaking at their school. I know that Berkeley likes to protest speakers so I looked up Berkeley protest to find out that they protested Bill Maher as a commencement speaker. Here is a list from last year of various speakers that were protested. And the speakers all seem fairly wealthy and probably get large speaking fees for speaking at commencement so I could see getting all worked up over the amount of student debt that students have just to hear some wealthy asshole speak. But the students typically frame it as protesting some policy by some wealthy asshole.
This is a completely different thing than the comment on the internet that I saw yesterday that told someone to stop using the word “Derp” because “It is ableist language that makes fun of the sound developmentally disabled people make.”
Benw
@OzarkHillbilly: salty, like tears.
Thoughtful Today
(inside joke:)
I need a trigger warning to know I’m going to be reading a Jonathan Chait article.
I’ll click into a random NYMag article, forget to check the writer’s name, start reading the article, and then angrily think, “who is this idiotically offensive jackass?”
But if I know I’m reading Jonathan Chait, I’m prepared for whatever offensive idiocy he’s pushing this week.
;-)
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I totally agree with everything you’ve said. Trigger warnings are the latest iteration of peoples’ need to maintain their own sense of victimhood (totally ignoring the actual victimhood of rape victims, for instance).
OT: By the way, I’m about 130 pages into Franzen’s Purity. I’m embarrassed for him and his publisher.
Betty Cracker
@Starfish: I’m sympathetic to the argument that wealthy assholes and/or war criminals shouldn’t collect huge speakers, money that could be better used to alleviate student debt. But I can easily see how that argument could be used as a political cudgel. Maybe the answer is to stop paying people huge fees to speak at colleges. Surely there are interesting people with provocative ideas who would be willing to show up for reasonable expenses only?
OzarkHillbilly
@Benw: Needs more pepper, eh?
Elizabelle
TCM has Jean-Luc Goddard movies tonight. Breathless at 8.
In a foreign language.
For those who don’t want to watch the Ronald! Reagan! Trumpathon!
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Haven’t read the article.
What’s reference to the 100K speaking fee?
Betty Cracker
@debbie: I’m about a third of the way through “Purity,” and I agree that it sucks so far. I’ll finish it. But if it was any good, I’d have finished it more than a week ago. I read “Freedom” in about two days.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
For some speakers — human-rights activists, for example — honoraria are often a significant part of their income. They do not ask for a huge sum: four figures, usually, in my neck of the woods.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Pick any Presidential candidate.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I don’t think speaking fees were addressed in the article, but some folks in this thread brought them up as a non-political objection to speakers. I read somewhere that GWB charges $100K per speech, and his former minions also collect hefty fees.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: That’s a good point. Maybe the answer is to set a reasonable baseline figure. It does seem ridiculous and obscene that someone like GWB or WJC (or anyone, really) can make about twice the average annual income for a US household for a single night’s performance. But of course it’s also ridiculous and obscene that A-Rod makes $29M a year or that HP paid Carly Fiorina $42M to go away, etc., etc.
WereBear
@Starfish: Sigh. Yes. This.
I mean, some things are CRAZY. And saying someone has such behavior does not belittle the mentally ill.
Likewise, a friend with depression should get help. I would never call this person crazy, though. They are actually behaving utterly logically for someone with depression.
Brother Dingaling
Trigger warnings do not mean you don’t have to read the material. It’s just giving you a heads up about what’s in there so you’re not blindsided by it. It is the book equivalent of those TV ratings for violence, language and sexual content in the corner of your TV screen.
Let me put it this way: when I was a kid, we read Huckleberry Finn in class. Before we started, however, my teacher gave a little speech to the class noting that there was a lot of usage of a certain word in it. He noted that we don’t use that word now, that it is extremely offensive, and that even so, we were going to read the book and note the time in which is was written and talk about how some things had changed since then. This was the 1980s, and that is a trigger warning. He didn’t do it to satisfy the PC police; he did it because he’s not an asshole.
I have no idea why so many idiots think it’s the end of the world to give rape victims a heads up that they are about to read about someone getting raped. Feel free to pull your head out of your ass and stop taking your cues from Rush Limbaugh. Jeez
Betty Cracker
@Brother Dingaling: I agree it’s common courtesy to give people a heads-up such as in the example you cited, particularly for children. But take a look at Marc’s comment here, which cites a couple of real-world examples where the trigger warnings concept appears to have evolved into actual censorship of academic material intended for adults. Maybe it’s not as simple as “stop taking your cues from Rush Limbaugh” or “stop listening to the PC police.”
J R in WV
@raven:
This! I was in from 1970-73 and never got anything but respect from everyone. Recently a guy who was a vet was profiled in the local newspaper, and referred to personally having been spat upon as a vet.
Mrs J and I were driving from one duty station to another in a 1961 Plymouth towing a little U-haul and broke down, in 1972. The local Chrysler dealer sent a tow truck, and rebuilt the distributor and sent us on our way for $19. I think that was the parts cost. And everyone was like that, except right at the bases, where they were intent on taking as much money as possible from the enlisted folks.
I’m just not believing it. Not here, not anywhere.
I’m too lazy and have too much else to do to look up this meme and see when it first appeared, but I’m betting it was during the Raygun administration, when the new reality of conservatives first appeared. The reality where serving military weren’t respected, and Raygun was a real hero in some war that only existed in his (failing) mind.
MCA1
I just love that Marco Rubio, who, long before he eventually graduated from Gainesville, started his collegiate academic career on a “football scholarship” at a college in the middle of Missouri with a grand total of maybe 400 students, which closed up shop two years after he arrived, after having been caught fraudulently handing out federal loan money to people they literally picked up off the streets, which unsurprisingly led to a loan default rate amongst its “students” of close to 80%, then spent a year or two at a community college, is now picking on Florida State on the basis of its academics. There’s nothing wrong with a tiny liberal arts school in the middle of Missouri, and there’s nothing wrong with a community college, but you know, I don’t think Rubio’s terribly entitled to the mantle of academic snobbery based on his own history.
Brother Dingaling
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, there’s a lot of heads up a lot of asses in America, what else is new? Oberlin can “strongly consider” a policy change all they want, but trigger warnings are not censorship in and of themselves, it’s just being considerate. If you want to go find examples of students making ridiculous demands, it’s not hard to find, although since I went to school in the South, I mostly heard it from Christians who didn’t want to learn about evolution (and yep, my geology prof made her little speech warning the Christians they were gonna have to learn about stuff that may offend their beliefs). But your problem is not with trigger warnings, it’s with censorship, and that should be made clear. Conflating the two is directly out of Rush’s playbook, and you know this.
BTW, I also have no problem with students not wanting to spend their student activities budget to have Dick Cheney come speak at their graduation, while we’re at it, even if the president disapproves.
Betty Cracker
@Brother Dingaling: Ignoring real-world evidence that doesn’t support your preexisting notions and seeing every issue in starkly black and white terms is also straight out of Rush’s playbook. But you knew that.
SWMBO
@Mustang Bobby: Happy Birthday! And many more!
SWMBO
@cosima: We have had several dogs over the years that have blown out various leg parts/nerves. We never had to have the surgery done. Every time we were told it was going to be necessary, we waited it out and it usually resolved itself in less than 6 weeks. Our dogs (and our daughter’s dogs) have blown out knees. You might want to ask the vet about vet wraps for the weakened part. Sometimes support can keep things in proper alignment while it heals. Having said that, you can’t leave them on all the time. Wraps have to be redone fairly frequently. Ask the vet about hydrotherapy as well. Sometimes swimming can be a useful therapy keeping stress off of joints while keeping strength in the rest of the body. Since she is so young, she will need something to help her maintain muscle strength while “resting” her weak spot.
smintheus
@Jado: Exactly. Obama’s comments piling on to that heaping pile of misrepresentation were appalling and trollish. Students aren’t on the whole coddled or demanding protection from ideas they don’t share. They’re just sick of intellectually dishonest right-wingers being give a free pass on the gravy train.