The world according to Andrew
Comments on college sports, the fascination of science, the psycho-babble that infects our relationships, and science meets the transgender phenomenon.
College Sports: Back to Basics
Since play-for-pay and unionization have entered college sports there’s been a free-for-all in players switching teams - all in search of spots that that will vault them into an offer from a professional team. Big name coaches are quitting because they can’t count on building teams in such a fluid situation. The NCAA rules have been changed to favor the players and not the team, and certainly not the schools. One solution to this evolving situation is to create two tiers of college sports : colleges that offer sports scholarships and those that do not. Those that don’t can still offer academic scholarships to athletes in such related disciplines as nutrition, sports communications, sports management, fitness etc. However students would have to meet the minimum academic standards to keep playing, as in any extra-curricular activity. Also the academically-focused schools coukd play in regional leagues, minus the wear-and-tear of big time national programs. The season would end with two NCAA national tournaments in each sport. And I bet professionals will emerge from both groups.⚽️🏀🏈⚾️
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I coulda been somebody -maybe a scientist
This is an exciting time to be a scientist because great leaps are being made in all fields. I would have become an archeologist, except in those days one had to load up on basic science course before entering the major. But today the seeds of scientific knowledge are broadcast throughout the culture, often while in the theory stage. One of the reasons I went into journalism was to report on developments prdpceding events. For instance, how does a tornado work and what are its warning signs or how many boxcars of cranberries must one ear before any included carcinogenic scan hurt you. I was quite surprised to learn the other day that the moon is shrinking. That’s because as the molten core cools the surface capsule begins to collapse on itself . That can’t happen on earth, because our tectonic plates move with the irregular cooling of the core, and in fact their motion might create the friction to slow down the cooling. So much that happens on earth’s surface depends on the molten core and tectonic plates and the resultant volcanos lava flows. If I were a scientist, I would want to explore the theory that no planet could sustain like without a molten core and tectonic plates rather than a single hard shell surface.🌍
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The passive-aggressive myth
I had lived more than 80 years before the words “passive-aggressive” were ever sent my way, but I can’t vouch for the whisperers among us. So I decided to look into this in case such behavior had been a factor in some of life’s less happy moments. According to Daniel K. Hall-Flavin, M.D. Passive-aggressive behavior is a pattern of indirectly expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing them. There's a disconnect between what a person who exhibits passive-aggressive behavior says and what he or she does. However, Wiki reports that “the American Psychiatric Association dropped it from the list of personality disorders in the DSM IV as too narrow to be a full-blown diagnosis and not well enough supported by scientific evidence to meet increasingly rigorous standards of definition.” I think that “passive aggressive” is a more a rhetorical style used to bypass more hurtful “overt aggression” in the hopes that the listener will get the message. My favorite charged word in is “whatever.” I usually use it when I don’t want to talk about a subject anymore and release you to do as you will. “Yep, okay” is one ot those phrases than can go two ways - so there can be a difference between what is meant and what is heard. Given that dichotomy, I believe the concept is way overplayed and wrongfully used as a psychological cudgel by a person harboring deeper grievances. If someone tells me something that has a double meaning, I don’t react in an accusatory way. I might preface my remark with “Do you mean that … .”🫠
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Transgender explained
This link to a Ted talk is the first scientific explanation of transgender that caught my attention:
https://www.ted.com/talks/karissa_sanbonmatsu_the_biology_of_gender_from_dna_to_the_brain?user_email_address=448e561451412fc087090344a6c0744c
I’ve also looked askance at the claims, saying it’s “all in the head.” Turns out this boy genious English major was right. According to the video, it’s all a matter of epigenetics and timing regarding the changing of stem cells into specific functions, making it seem that the brain-genital connection is hard wired. Forty-percent of transgenders try to kill themselves. That’s not good. Most turn to therapy to resolve the mind-body connection. My question is, “Can’t therapy work in reverse to correct the maladjustment?” I know I will get an earful from my wife, a Ph.D neuroscientist well versed in the functioning of epigenetics. The epigenetics process is what turns genes on and off. Apparently, epigenetics at an early age, environmentally influenced, can turn on the wrong cluster brain cells, thereby disgendering a person. That’s why it is important to protect children and their malleable brains from exposure to transgender behavior or even getting them to talk about it. If transgender manifests itself in a child, it is not too late to set up the proper epigenetic situation to make the mind-body connection synchronous. The moral component dictates the right thing to do.😇
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