Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Saturday, September 22, 2018

Locker Room Talk

Maybe I'm naive, maybe nobody tells me anything, I dunno. But let me tell you about the world I live in, at least as far as I know.

I went to boarding school, so maybe my experience isn't typical. I don't know about Georgetown Prep, but in my high school experience -- which was in the late 1960s and early 1970s -- I never heard of anybody attacking a girl, trying to rip her clothes off, holding his hand over her mouth. I never heard of anybody doing anything like that in college either, and believe me, nobody among my friends would have been capable of any such thing and we would have been outraged if we heard of it happening. Admittedly, there were a couple of guys of my acquaintance who if you pressed me I would have to say I wouldn't put it past them, but that's what happens when a college tries to rebuild its football program.

Let me also stipulate that I have been in countless locker rooms. Throughout my high school and college career I played soccer, baseball, lacrosse, ice hockey, and I wrestled. I never heard anybody in a locker room brag about assaulting women. That is not what men do, in my experience.

It turns out that there are powerful men who are also psychos and they do disgusting things to women and they have been getting away with it. But no, it is not normal and it is not condoned by the vast majority of men. Unless, it appears, they happen to be socially conservative Republican voters. You know, family values.

Administrative note: Something has happened such that only the most recent post appears by default when you visit this site. I didn't do it and I can't find any way to change it. This seems to be a change made by Blogger, without explanation or warning. If anybody knows how to fix it, let me know, it is not my preference.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...


Yes, our families were rich enough to send us all to private boarding schools on the East coast and then on to private colleges to get advanced degrees. I mean, that's just normal, amiright?

Our parents were all professionals and were university professors or worked for the State Department or Justice and all our friends were white except for the occasional tokens here and there.

We're just regular people. I don't know why the rest of the country doesn't hold our political opinions!!

Don Quixote said...

Well role-played, "Anonymous." And you make a good point: the rich Caucasian families of the United States are full of sociopaths. It is the world of privilege, of nothing-but-contempt for people not born with golden spoons in their mouths [that the same sociopaths later fritter away, like GW Bush Jr. and DJT (a.k.a., "Shitler")].

Stories are told about GW Bush Sr. referring to "people like us"--i.e, the rest of the country, you know, the general population--as OFUs (an acronym standing for "One Fodder Unit."

Cervantes said...

I got financial aid. But that's beside the point. You are arguing that working class people approve of rape, and only elites disapprove. That is literally what you are saying. Okay then.

Education is good. It means you know more and you know how to think. That's the whole point.

Don Quixote said...

I think some irony has been missed here, Cervantes? (?)

Anonymous said...


It's probably beyond the scope of your experience, Cervantes, to know what regular people do and think.

You, like Brett Kavanaugh, like Christine Ford, Joe Biden, Barak Obama et al that all went to private prep schools and then went to private colleges and then purport to know what's good for the other 99% and how they should feel and vote.
People who have never been responsible for meeting a payroll or even having a job in the private sector.

You have no clue.

Anonymous said...


Education is good. It means you know more and you know how to think. That's the whole point.

Education IS good.

But when I hear you speak, it's as if those who couldn't attend Eastern private boarding prep schools with "Biff", "Buffy" and "Liam" and move on to Harvard, Yale, etc. don't count. As if Univ of Mich, Univ of Texas or Univ CA graduate degrees are worthless.

Really?

When the rare opportunity comes for me to make a hiring decision, I will not hire from private colleges. Those candidates seem to expect to skate on the private university pedigree. I expect performance.