I wonder whether our co-participant Mitch decided to deport himself to the
JFK Assassination forum, where he normally hangs out. Perhaps he and
Duncan decided to become exclusive? :-)
Previous-Subject: Strangers in the night, exchanging roses ...
Even before my days at MIT (*) I was aware of the tremendous pressure
therein. No, I am not talking about the well known saying:
“Getting a degree at MIT is like drinking water out of a
firehose”
I am referring to pressure of a more dangerous nature: that of the mind.
Divorces are rather common (including mine), there is a very active
suicide line, etc.
Back in Venezuela, as a teenager, I was already reading about the area.
Route 128/95 -Tony will explain the dichotomy- was called “The
Golden Horseshoe” since so many fortunes have been made in the
birthplace of LAN, minicomputers, the Media Lab (current employer of Sir
Timothy John Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web), BBN, et
cetera.
I know I keep on saying: “MIT, Stanford, numbers, numbers,
numbers”. As if that is the only discipline that matters. Well, I
was partially wrong: The emotional aspect is an inseparable component.
Mental health specialists should be invited to join this common endeavor.
For my first Christmas there (1987) my wife and I were invited to the
Course I Department party. It was held in Endicott House, which was
donated by the family that made their fortune in shoes (those same
machines were later adapted to assemble printed circuit boards). The
similarity with the movie “Jumanji” is uncanny, it is
simply unbelievable. Endicott House portraits heads of African animals on
the walls.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113497/?ref_=nv_sr_2
Some of the techniques suggested (by Harvard psychologists, of course) to
lower the stress were like these two:
- While a professor went -much like JFK Numbers in the Alec Baldwin
banquet- “Equations this, and formulas that, blah, blah,
blah”, one of his students, Barbara, was between her boss and
the audience, facing us, pulling out signs like “He is
lying”, "Am I the only one getting bored?", etc. We of course,
LOLd.
But this was the best. Ignacio Rodriguez Iturbe is one of the most
prominent scientists from Venezuela, he used to “commute”
back and forth between teaching at Simon Bolivar University (every country
has an MIT) and teaching at Cambridge. The demand from the mob audience
(his tortured students) at Endicott House was this:
- "Ignacio and Dennis (McLaughlin, my boss) will dance and exchange a
rose between their teeth"
Ignacio was clearly nervous, not because his partner's embrace was too
tight or anything like that. He kept on looking Jackie and I (only Latinos
present) out of the corner of his eye. You see, Latin America is not
Greece, two men dancing is not very orthodox. He had been recently
humiliated, tried to run for USB university's president and was badly
defeated. A comment that he was interchanging saliva in the US, spread at
Internet speed to Caracas, was probably not high on his list of How to
Improve Your Reputation (Not that he needed it!).
What is the purpose of this post, you ask?
It is a response to Mitch Todd's demands. Look, Mitch: I can pretty much
do whatever logical, reasonable action that The People demand from the
Notable Doctors of the CT persuasion. That said, I doubt that they will be
willing to perform that dancing exchange, just for your amusement. If you
like dancing bears and a circus act, you have to talk to the Trumpsters.
Other than that undulating mano-a-mano, what exactly do you want them to
do? Just write it down, let's debate it.
I will be happy to forward your request to them. The more signatures the
better. In fact, rest assured that they will read this post. Is McAdams an
acceptable witness?
-Ramon
JFK Numbers
(*) Where I did not graduate or attend. In fact, I did not take a single full course. What I got from "Mens et Manus" was much better than a diploma, specially given my current journey/quest.
See explanation bellow, in the comments under the videoclip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1vAdyLFtm0