About Penn and its culture:

I shall begin by stating that within my nuclear family we have a total of eight Penn degrees including three doctoral degrees and Penn faculty experience totaling twenty-four years. This may qualify me to make a few statements.

First, three out of the last five presidents of the University were Jewish, a far cry from its Jewish-quota days which extended well into the 20th Century. If any of these three or even four Presidents had been faced with this question there would have, I am certain, been an unequivocal repudiation of all anti-Semitic tropes and statement with associated punishments. This is the University that threw fraternities off the campus for denigrating women and minorities. There was always a great protection of the individual during my tenures there, including but not limited to the safety of that individual.


All that being said, there was always a revolutionary undercurrent pervading the University which sought to grossly undermine the status quo. I’m not referring to the usual interest groups but what most who were present did not realize is that there is an enormous amount, an inconceivable amount of money passed in, around, and through that institution via interest groups and individuals. There was a fraternity there whose members were all sons of the billionaire’s club. Denzel Washington’s son was a member due to his father’s fame, but was by far, the poorest person in the frat.

And there is the foreign money which pours in, funding professors and departments and buildings. The campus layout is positively jaw-dropping compared to where it was fifty years ago when I arrived. It is like something out of a Sci-fi movie with the glass skyscrapers rising one after another

Which brings me to a story: in the early 1980s I was treating a gentleman who was a member of the board of overseers of the university. He was a friendly sort, no youngster, and we would have many spirited, fun conversations about Penn where he was one of the principlal behind the scenes. His best friend was Walter Annenberg, to give you an idea of the circles in which this man traveled. One day, when I was working on a large temporary bridge for him, I made a remark which included the phrase “50 year plan“. He sat up from his chair and asked me “how do you know about that?“. I replied that I didn’t know much about anything of the sort, that I just came up with it serendipitously. He gave me this sidelong glance, which I will never forget. A few years later, upon reflection, I realized that one mission of Penn, among others, was appropriate the land from the Schuylkill river out to 52nd St. And from Market St., South to Lombard or below in West Philadelphia. This is a gigantic plot of land under control of one entity. Obviously I had inadvertently used a phrase as though it was something out of a spy novel. They obviously had planned to do this secretly at least at the beginning from the 1960s and in fact it has taken about 50 years to come to fruition. (Cleverly, they began by gentrifying by giving faculty very low interest loans to purchase residential properties for themselves and their families. This worked and in fact there is an elementary school, the Penn Alexander school in West Philly that is the envy of every other public school in the city. And it’s much more complicated than you think it may be. )

This is how Penn thinks, it is the biggest of big business, and all the academics and tutelage is a supporting structure for research and development involving enormous profitability and prestige. I will leave you with the story of the two scientists who were ridiculed for years for their study of mRNA, and who are now heralded, as changing the face of infectious disease and vaccination. This after their entire department laughed at them behind their backs - not laughing now.. Many of us suffered this way within Penn if we were on the wrong side of the cool club. My stories about that aspect, which are trivial compared with what is going on now, might be fun to tell at some future point.

This is a very serious time and I believe it some in America have now received a primer in their education of how things work at the level within corporate academia.

Liz Magill resigns from Penn

I would suggest to all

To find and watch (or rewatch if you’re one of us older folk) the film Ship of Fools. This Stanley Kramer film takes place on a ship sailing between Mexico and Germany in 1933 and was nominated for eight Academy Awards. I’m not going to go into the many plots, but there is one line in the film which I’ve never forgotten and will paraphrase: Germany has been good to the Jews and the Jews have been good for Germany. There are a million of us, what are they going to do…kill us all?

The film is generally regarded as brilliant, it wasn’t popular because it was considered “too long“ for people’s attention spans back then. See it if you can. You’ll never forget it.

Oh yes…Michael Dunn breaks the fourth wall at the beginning and the end. Talk about a remarkable human being.

I'm on a Caribbean cruise right now...

I would say the average age is well over 70 and when I look around I recall Phil Spector’s remark which caused him to be banned from domestic airline flights when he arose from his seat prior to takeoff and uttered: “Typical crash victims “. Or so the story goes….

I will relate a story:

Upon boarding, staterooms are not available until about 3 P.M. so a long lunch is in the cards. Sitting at a table for two, the couple next to us introduces themselves and enquires eventually where we’re from. Our reply: Pennsylvania, although recently relocated to the Jersey Shore. The gentleman exclaims PENNSYLVANIA! What do you think of that Fetterman guy? Our response: he’s wonderfully fresh and often funny, with a whole different approach than you normally see. The response: Yeah, well maybe for a clown show. We reiterate our support for the Senator but gently, and this fellow goes off on a Limbaugh-sequence rant. Meanwhile his wife is now sneering at us.

Upon the completion of his oratory, wordless, I smile and turn away from them as does Mrs.Intern.

This ship is loaded, and I mean loaded with Trump voters. When polls show him leading, incomprehensibly, among those over 65, you can believe it. And there’s no convincing these people of anything. The hate that flared in this guy’s face was virtually the same as when you’d refer to the Japanese or Germans to someone who fought in WWII.

A the T-shirts: American and Proud, Taking America Back, Don’t tread on me, and some weird stuff too. It’s disconcerting and depressing but this is a fair portion of the America which has been given license to hate and proclaim their loyalty to fascism.

They fired the shit heard round the world...

Yes I’ve used it before. Still funny, IMO.

I am NOT leaving DU...

so I do not require any reminders that “this is not an airport so departures do not need to be announced.”

I have essentially stopped posting since November 11 because as a committed Zionist who lost my entire extended family on both sides in the Holocaust, I ardently defended Israel’s right as a sovereign nation to defend herself against the inhuman terrorism which has plagued the nation since its inception but most notably in the 1970’s and thereafter. I had the temerity of doing in this forum, of which I have been a member in good standing since 2004.

As a veteran poster, I knew exactly what was going to occur here and it did so, exceeding my expectations. There is no need for me to explain. My posts were alerted upon routinely and several juries found me guilty of violating DU rules. Fair enough: this is the system whose precepts I agreed to when becoming a member so I am willing to accept the punishment meted out.

I was informed by a few old-timers here, one through a PM, others via email that I was on the brink of, shall we say, having a possibly very serious problem here. I fully intend to avoid having such a problem for a whole variety of reasons.

Therefore, until the hostilities in the Middle East reach a conclusion, my participation in this forum will be limited to recommending posts with which I wholeheartedly agree.

I thank you for your time and your understanding.

PC

Remember when the Israelis took out the Iraqi reactor?

The worldwide outrage including by virtually the entire Reagan cabinet was gigantic.

Only Alexander Haig prophesied that soon, everyone would thank Israel for their actions, and truly, the militaries of the world were amazed. Minimal casualties resulted, the attack did not disperse the nuclear fuel stored nearby, and that was that for Saddam’s nuclear program. Perfection.

They prevented a worldwide catastrophe but not without the usual condemnations later followed by kudos.

My guess is that there’s going to be some big surprises before this is over, including but not limited to much lesser casualty figures from Gaza, since they have been relying upon terrorist numbers. The fogging by the anti-Israel forces is extreme. In the end, the truth will out.

"But...but...but what about Biden???"

So this is apparently going to be the next 4-5 months of media coverage of the 2024 “live free or die“ campaign for the presidency.

These outright morons in the press, and I am only saying that they’re not imbeciles because they to an extent can read and write, are going to give us the equivalent of the “red wave” for the foreseeable future. How people like Jonathan Lemire and his cohorts on supposedly liberal MSNBC will be telling us about the inevitability of the Democrats flaming out and the near-certainty of the Trump return to autocratic power.

On the one hand, they decry the felonious behavior of this pure sociopath, but on the other hand, they are thrilled by it because it gives them unending material and controversy. For them the problem with the Biden administration is that there’s not been enough red breaking news chyrons on the bottom of their screens, and thus less viewership. Ya gotta stop pressing that channel change button when you see that red there!

Oh, here’s the best part: after Biden wins, from my lips to G-d’s ears, after the initial “shock“ they will begin to discuss his lame duck presidency, and how this is a perfect opportunity for Republicans to retake all three branches of government. That clearly, Biden was the last real Democrat, and the rest are just amateurs, and although you have to hand it to him for winning, it’s a last gasp. I virtually guarantee you this will be the order of business with these idiots.

As an aside, I was associated with a professional sports team in Philadelphia as their “official“ dentist, because the individual who purchased my practice paid a fortune annually for this “privilege“. When someone makes the remark “it’s all about the money“, that’s not quite true. It should read: “it’s ONLY about the money, and absolutely nothing else.“ And when I say, only, I mean only…. nothing, and I mean nothing else matters in these arenas. I believe that’s how it is in media and advertising dollars are everything, and I mean everything. they have to figure ways of obtaining viewership, and they have a plan… The question is, will this plan work this time? Lucy and the football.




.

When "Dewey beat Truman" (sic) in 1948,

The NBC radio host (I believe) spent most of the night stating that although Truman was leading by a wide enough margin, Dewey would overtake him when “the rural precincts come in”.

Well, they’re still waiting for those “rural precincts”, aren’t they? Fuck these media assholes, then and now.

Now I found this funny...

Steve Kornacki made the statement that the “Decision Desk stated that Andy Beshear is leading in the race.”

Like I couldn’t figure out that his number under his photo was bigger than his opponent’s. Good thing I had help…from the Decision Desk.