ISTM you have a humor deficiency - you might want to seek help for that. . .
ISTM that you have an illogical mind, but viva le difference!
It never fails to astonish me how an innocent remark these days can set
off fireworks. Mention that you like the cut of George Bush's jib, and
some people will denounce you as a fascist. Say that the worst thing
that can happen to Cub fans is for their team to end the 60-year World
Series drought, and half of Chicago will hurl curses at you. Let a
university president – someone such as Harvard's Lawrence H. Summers –
suggest that perhaps females simply aren't wired for science and math,
and the ladies go after him with torches and pitchforks.
What's the big deal? If it's not in the wiring, what is it?
It probably isn't fair to point out that two-time Nobel Prize winner
Marie Curie heads up a very short list of women who have made their
marks in either of those fields. After all, an argument could be made
that for a long time women were discouraged from pursuing such careers.
But at a time when women far out-number men in colleges and
universities, what's the excuse? Today, women are free to do whatever
they want. And, as the numbers prove, what they want is to avoid science
and math!
When my class graduated from high school nearly half a century ago,
everyone, boys and girls alike – except Phil Spector, who had his eye on
music, money and madness – was headed for Stanford, Cal Berkeley and
UCLA. Only the boys, though, went to Cal Tech.
It certainly wasn't because the girls in our class were dumber than the
boys or had been precluded from taking advanced algebra, calculus and
trigonometry at Fairfax High. They just weren't interested. Heck,
neither was I.
So, why does President Summers get lambasted for merely suggesting the
obvious?
Let us consider the facts. In general, women are not as big and strong
as men. They tend to be more emotional. They also tend to be more
sensitive to the subtleties in human dynamics, more aware of subtext,
and certainly more aware of the nuances of language – both body and
verbal. So, why is the notion of their brains being wired differently so
threatening to them? I suspect it's because some of them believe that
when a man points out differences between the sexes, he's really saying
that men are somehow better than women. That irks them no end because
even though these women will insist that they're really the same as men,
and only wish to achieve true equality, down deep they really think
they're superior, and that the only thing men are good for is getting
stuff down from high shelves and opening ketchup bottles.
And in some ways, women are superior. Just not when it comes to science
and math.
I had a friend, Roger Price, who devoted much of his life to the study
of women. As part of his research, he married four of them. One of them
was a Japanese woman who spoke no English. So amicable were the four
divorces that Roger never paid a single dollar in alimony. Although
Roger, creator of "Droodles" and author of "In One Head and Out the
Other," had a reputation as a satirist and a curmudgeon, he was
extremely fond of women, and never made a secret of the fact that he
found them more interesting than men. And what's more, he would add,
they smell better.
One day, when Roger was getting up in years, he confessed to me: "When I
was young, I kept women around for sex. Now, I have sex with women in
order to keep them around."
I can not imagine a woman saying such a thing. And until I hear of one,
I will continue to believe that there are major, unfathomable
differences between the genders. And, furthermore, I will be convinced
that any person – man or woman – who denies those differences exist is
simply lying through her teeth.
ISTM that it's nothing more than a big pile of Google droppings.
Who knows - Don may decide to create an "explanation" of Tracker's "V3 engine".
That should be good ;-) - I've heard of V2, V4, V6, V8, V12, V16
cylinder engines, but I've never heard of a V3 engine - well at least
not 'til now. ;-)
