This is true, but the neighborhoods that are put up where there used to be orange groves have a lot of orange trees. But, it’s not quite true, there’s at least one small commercial-ish orange grove in the SF Valley. It’s a remnant of a large commercial orchard and the houses in the neighorhood almost all have at least one orange tree.
It’s cargo cultism thinking that therefore having more books in the house will help. A large number of books is a proxy for having parents who value reading and learning. While there were plenty of books in the house growing up, a lot of what I read came from frequent trips to the library - but guess what, if your parents don’t value reading, you don’t get taken on frequent trips to the library either.
Similarly, outside-the-mainstream schools like Waldorf or Montessori all have better educational outcomes for children than mainstream schools. It’s not that their methods are necessarily better, it’s that there’s a selection bias. The only parents who send their children to such schools are parents who have a strong concern with their child’s education.
One of my favourite factoids is that the highest-IQ people in America, broken down by religious affiliation, are atheists. But in Japan, it’s Christians. In both cases it’s not your conclusion which matters, an outside-the-mainstream belief is just a marker for being someone who thinks independently a lot.
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I kept my poker bankroll, such as it was, in the preface of The Phenomenology of Spirit. The analysis of the text section at the end of that edition is actually intelligible and not a bad read.
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I never did get a car with retractable headlights.
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I didn’t think a correlation/causation disclaimer was needed, though it would obviously apply.
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I had a TR7 for a short time when I was about 19 years old. The headlights did not retract on their own and I had to reach under them and turn a little knob that took like 5 minutes to make them go up or down.
https://twitter.com/EveDunbar/status/1277292870416904193
I guess twitter is doing this tonight.
I guess for me it was any legitimate restaurant where you had to use manners and behave and “not embarrass your mother” - which I know now were mostly very middle of the road places. Annie’s Santa Fe (a chain Mexican place in KC), The Spaghetti Factory, Stephenson’s Apple Farm, Noah’s Ark outside St. Louis. They had a giant ark with a salad bar in it. It doesn’t get any classier than that.
Signals of richness in a rural suburb of Seattle in the late 70’s:
- Being tan in the winter
- Bundle of ski lift passes hung on your jacket zipper pull
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Oh yeah, in Jr. High/HS in Portland (Beaverton really) skiing was def something I thought of as rich. The first time I went skiing was in my senior year of HS.
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Ski lift passes was definitely a Northeast thing too.
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I remember when cable TV was high class.
Heck, I remember when having a TV remote was high class.
Even in KC (Blue Springs, suburb) you’d see ski passes. On the same kids who wore Ocean Pacific t-shirts, Jordaches and $40 Nike Cortez’s.
I could only get Hobie, Sassoon on sale and $20 Nikes. At the beginning of 8th grade I had Pro Keds. It was like you might as well send me to school in my underwear mom, that’s how bad I’m going to get made fun of.
Golf. I’ve never been golfing for real. I know it’s not that expensive for an adult on a public course, but it was not something I could have done as a kid. (and we were certainly not poor)
Country clubs too obviously, but when my parents were growing up most of them wouldn’t let my people in and I wouldn’t join one if they paid me.
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How did that even become a thing? You were in flyover country while I was inland New England, and we both had youth cultures fetishising some random SoCal surf wear company. The Swatch fad at least addressed some dumb part of our actual lives.
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How was “ Critique of Pure reason “?
The section on not wearing masks is eye-opening.
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It’s quite good. My original copy, highligted in four colors with much marginalle, was unfortunately pilfered by a friend of a friend I had loaned it to. I bought another copy but have made limited use of it. It’s the Norman Kemp Smith translation (1920s?), though I gather there’s a hot “new” translation that’s popular.
That was an absolute dog of a car. The one to get was the TR6, now a collectors item worth tons.
I had a Nissan 200SX with retractable headlights that was a joy to drive from here via Brussels to Italy and back.
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