I get a flu shot every year, hoping, thereby, to stave off the flu. Haven't we been told ad nauseam that the shot itself can't give you even a mild case of the flu? Well, I've been under the weather all evening and all day after getting my flu shot yesterday afternoon. My body temperature is 99.9º. (It's normally 97.5º.) I canceled today's bike ride and have been taking short naps. I should be fine for tomorrow's lectures. Just warning you.
Addendum: Now they tell me.
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To the Editor:
Re “The Cubs Reach the Promised Land” (Op-Ed, Oct. 25):
Rich Cohen wonders how Chicago Cubs fans like him will cope with the bizarre feeling of no longer backing a losing team but a winning one. I do not consider myself a typical Boston Red Sox fan because, perhaps to my discredit, I take notice only when they make the playoffs, and do not contract even a mild bout of Sox Fever until they are in the World Series.
So I can’t speak for any hard-core Bosox devotees. But when the Red Sox won the championship for the first time in 86 years, I, too, felt the lifting of the curse. Now that they’ve repeated the feat twice, I no longer really care where they are in the standings. It’s now back to being just a game, and if the games are reasonably exciting and played with spirit, that’s all I ask.
If the Chicago Cubs win the World Series this year, maybe Cubs fans—the most loyal and longest suffering sports-team supporters in history—will attain a Buddha-like serenity, purged of more than a century of anxiety and disappointment. I hope so. They certainly deserve it. Go, Cubs!
DAVID ENGLISH
Somerville, Mass.
Note from KBJ: Do Cubs fans deserve a World Series victory more than Indians fans? Is the length of the wait (1908 versus 1948) all that matters? I maintain that the Cubs sealed their fate with their excessive celebration in the NLCS. The baseball gods frown on such behavior.
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Hillary Clinton is 69 years old today. Donald Trump turned 70 in mid-June. I'm guessing that this is the oldest pair of presidential candidates in history.
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Yours truly in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow. Click to enlarge.
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Fan-held sign in Cleveland's ballpark:
BARTMAN
for
PRESIDENT
Ya gotta love it.
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This is on Barack Obama's head. Will progressives hold him responsible for it?
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The statistics we have presented here do suggest a real unfairness in philosophy texts, and no doubt conservative academics and students have a right to feel they are being denied equal air time. But the deeper point here is not just about making sure that yet another interest group gets its "fair share." Contemporary moral problems presented in anthologies and logic textbooks reflect a deeply disturbing view that goes beyond any particular political opinion. The preponderance of authors and editors seem to think that reason establishes the truth of liberalism; that, correlatively, conservative views result largely from shoddy reasoning. Conservative opinions are implicitly or explicitly labeled unreasonable. The textbooks suggest that anyone who thinks properly about the issues will reach liberal—in some cases it seems fair to say radical—conclusions.
To teach students that is to convey an unfortunate message indeed. For it denies that rational people can reason correctly about many difficult moral and political issues and still reach different conclusions. It denies that we can make progress on such issues by reasoning cooperatively together. And, by failing to distinguish between logical and political considerations, it discourages students from developing a critical distance on their own convictions. The political bias we found is objectionable not merely because it disadvantages a certain body of opinion, but because it betrays the goals of both rationality and justice.
(Daniel Bonevac and Robert Koons, "Partisan Logic: An Analysis of the Content of American Philosophy Texts," Academic Questions 3 [fall 1990]: 23-34, at 33 [italics in original; endnote omitted])
Here.
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Scott Adams now endorses Donald Trump for president—and believes (as I do) that Trump will win the election in a landslide. More people have become conservatives because of progressive thuggery and violence than from any other cause. Keep it up, progressives. Your unbounded zeal—your willingness to do whatever it takes to accomplish your goals—will destroy yourselves and your movement.
Addendum: My wife Katherine reports that the line for early voting here in North Texas is "long," with "lots of old people." The silent majority is voting for Trump, I assure you. They have had it up to their necks with Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, the Democrat Party, ObamaCare, fecklessness abroad, progressive thuggery at home, political correctness, and insults. A new day is about to dawn on America, and not a moment too soon.
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Here.
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