Just two quibbles: First, a person refers to an elected official by his highest office title for the rest of his life, so Governor Leland Stanford is not "elitist". Second, while the Stanford-Binet IQ test may have originally been used by the US military to "assure low IQ cannon fodder", I can say that ONLY college students/grads in my basic training cycle (Ft Polk, summer 1969) were assigned 11B (Infantry) AIT.
Hey John! Thanks for your close reading and thoughtful quibbles. Much appreciated.
If I'm gathering correctly, your second point is that the "low IQ cannon fodder" (good summation) practices were no longer in use by the 60s? I know there was a lot of push back on the tests during the Civil Rights Movement. I'm glad you got out alright!
Re your other point, one piece of context that's missing from the transcript but included in the audio is that Stanford was later a US senator, too, which I believe is technically a higher office than governor (at least when a governor is outside of their state? The semantics are a little maddening, and no one would mistake me for an expert.). So Stanford could've gone by senator instead, and the should-be-better-worded joke is directed at Stanford's choice to still go by governor, especially given his short and ignominious tenure.
That US Senators are of a "higher" position than Governors is something that bumfuzzles me: there are always TWICE as many Senators as Governors, so...? As we can observe in Texas and Florida, Governors can operate as mini-tyrants, but the only thing one Senator can do is be a jerk ( witness Manchin, Paul, and Sinema).
Thank you, Skipper for this much needed corrective to screedster Gary Kamiya's rabid excoriation of "Palo Alto" in the NYT book revenge (sic) section. Kamiya should be forced to listen to this interview a la the Ludovico Technique of re-edumacation.
Re Substack Notes: If you're "still getting the hang of it", you can imagine the difficulty a Luddite like I (sic) had. I just gave up , knowing I'll never be hung :)).
Just two quibbles: First, a person refers to an elected official by his highest office title for the rest of his life, so Governor Leland Stanford is not "elitist". Second, while the Stanford-Binet IQ test may have originally been used by the US military to "assure low IQ cannon fodder", I can say that ONLY college students/grads in my basic training cycle (Ft Polk, summer 1969) were assigned 11B (Infantry) AIT.
Hey John! Thanks for your close reading and thoughtful quibbles. Much appreciated.
If I'm gathering correctly, your second point is that the "low IQ cannon fodder" (good summation) practices were no longer in use by the 60s? I know there was a lot of push back on the tests during the Civil Rights Movement. I'm glad you got out alright!
Re your other point, one piece of context that's missing from the transcript but included in the audio is that Stanford was later a US senator, too, which I believe is technically a higher office than governor (at least when a governor is outside of their state? The semantics are a little maddening, and no one would mistake me for an expert.). So Stanford could've gone by senator instead, and the should-be-better-worded joke is directed at Stanford's choice to still go by governor, especially given his short and ignominious tenure.
That US Senators are of a "higher" position than Governors is something that bumfuzzles me: there are always TWICE as many Senators as Governors, so...? As we can observe in Texas and Florida, Governors can operate as mini-tyrants, but the only thing one Senator can do is be a jerk ( witness Manchin, Paul, and Sinema).
Ha yeah it bumfuzzles me a bit too
Thank you, Skipper for this much needed corrective to screedster Gary Kamiya's rabid excoriation of "Palo Alto" in the NYT book revenge (sic) section. Kamiya should be forced to listen to this interview a la the Ludovico Technique of re-edumacation.
Re Substack Notes: If you're "still getting the hang of it", you can imagine the difficulty a Luddite like I (sic) had. I just gave up , knowing I'll never be hung :)).
Thanks, Vincysoisse. I heard about the review in the NYT! I haven’t read it and I don’t think I need to...