Valere and Marc, I so agree with you both ! I discovered Joyce a few years ago soon after I read and article by Preet Bharara which had let me entranced. My goodness Joyce is such a treasure on so many different aspects. But her kindness and humor is perhaps what delights me the most. I loved President Carter, and thought it was so unjus…
Valere and Marc, I so agree with you both ! I discovered Joyce a few years ago soon after I read and article by Preet Bharara which had let me entranced. My goodness Joyce is such a treasure on so many different aspects. But her kindness and humor is perhaps what delights me the most. I loved President Carter, and thought it was so unjust that Ronald Reagan took all the benefit of the release of hostages in Iran when it was all due to president Carter.
We are, as Valere said, surrounded by wonderful people, the courage of jack Smith, his team and Fani Willis. I know deep inside that our democracy will survive, we are the majority and so many to work for this. Absolutely let us get everyone we know to visit this Substack which is so great !!
We shall win, dear friends, and then we shall be so happy to celebrate.
Flo, You hit the nail on the head: many years ago the leaders of the gifted and talented community who taught future teachers at university and graduate level, decided to have special conferences and discussions around the topic of 'is there a common denominator for the gifted children among us?' They all knew kids who had giftedness in one or more areas such as logical-mathematics, verbal-linquistics, visial-spatial, musical, musical-rhythmic, and Howard Gardner added to the areas with his identifications that included the above plus interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic and bodily-kinesthetic. But these educators thought there was something intangible that tied them all together: what besides extraordinary brightness and intelligence existed as a common denominator in these gifted kids? So after lots of time, over several years, they came up with something that everyone of the identified kids had: they were kind. I think Barbara Clark may have published this as a study, but I know she lectured it. So the trait that Joyce has that shows when she stays up late, or gets up early to make sure we are informed, and never criticizes us when we go off the legal path to a hare-brained tangent on why Trump eats fast food and drinks 12 diet colas every day, is that she does not criticize us. No matter that she has just finished synopsizing a complicated event in 10 exquisitely written paragraphs that the press corps from CNN, MSNBC and WaPo will pilfer for their first editions in the morning, and we bother her with the basic of basic kinds of legal questions, she is kind to us. She never jerks us back on topic as we ramble through the ethers, and she never says "I just wrote that in the preceding article to these comments." So we never feel 'inferior' to her to not be lawyers, or lesser than's. Her response is kindness and always patience. It is innately in her being to be patient and kind to us. She probably has any number of identified intelligences such as verbal-linguistics; certainly logical. (I disagree with Gardner when he lumps logical with mathematical. One can be logical off the chart without having mathematical ability and one can have high mathematical ability and be completely illogical but be able to be trained in analytics to be able to do computational analysis of data but not be able to construct a theoretical construct from the data or devise a logical method to conduct a decent study - so analytical and logical are not the same. They are on two opposite ends of a spectrum: analytical could be on the left end of the spectrum, with answers gained through a cognitive thought process that works in a sort of scientific method process of gathering information/data and logical on the other end, can be arrived at through intuition: things have to make 'logical sense' and all the presentations of data in the world may not make sense if one's gut tells one it is not correct data or information. But having enough 'correct' data helps one make logical sense - and the 'gifted logic' sifts through all of the data in a lightening speed mode. The whole makes sense (or not). In my view, analytical and mathematical are stand-alones and 'logical' belongs with Howard's newly defined area 'existentialist'). [Sorry Joyce, just a tad bit off track for the existentialists and logicals on the site]. Anyway, Joyce is gifted off the chart in logical, analytical, interpersonal (we're all in this together) and kindness is imbedded as the overwhelming common denominator with all of our gifted friends who excel in their domains (like knitting or growing plants or cooking/feeding their families or keeping the neighborhood 'together.')
I so agree Valere with everything you said, beautifully ( And humorously). I had a dad who was a genius in economy and became well known at his time in france, but at the dinner table if my siblings or I would say of someone, 'well he is not that smart', ( in French you say, he didn't invent the powder, lol ) he would lift his finger and say, 'yes, but he is a gentle one". Gentleness or kindness, though he was brilliant, would for him override everything.
I love it that your dad knew the difference. And you do as well. Joyce’s
substack is unique in that lots of bright people show up, but as a general rule, they don’t have egos out of control and there’s really no sniping to other members. Interloper appear, but they don’t stick around. We really are here to learn, and to share that knowledge as much as possible. There is an undercurrent of fear because a few people think Trump could be reelected. I’m not one of them. I think he does post significant danger because of his control over his followers who are cult members. There are factors that make me Think he’s not going to be in good shape for very very long. everyone has free will and could certainly turn behaviors around (including diet ). We have a deeper worry than him, and it’s that there is an element of right wing Christian evangelicals, who have a co-opted our legislative branch through their revisionist history, claiming that the constitution was written by founding fathers who were ‘ ‘Christian.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. None of the founding fathers were even close to being Christian Evangelicals. They were Unitarian if they had a church membership but by and large they were Unitarian. Some were atheist. They belonged to Presbyterian and a few belong to the Congregational church. But by and large they were deists who believed God created the Earth, and then left it alone for them to run. And it’s for that reason God is not mentioned in the constitution. They did not think one needed to be religious to be moral and a patriot and they said so. So it is odd to me that the revisionist historians among the Supreme Court members and the Congress leave this important fact out of their story. Many of the laws that have affected us socially have been done with the wrong view that: “This is what the Founding Fathers wanted” and “This is what the Founding Fathers meant.“ so far as I can determine, the Founding Fathers made a social contract when they created the founding documents (The writers were generally wealthy, educated, business owners, lawyers, editors, and they represented people who didn’t have a voice or the wherewithal to take months off to work on the governing documents. Thus the founding fathers understood very clearly that they had a social contract with people who were not able to participate in the document preparation. And they left God out of it. The evangelical right wing Christian movement is imposing their beliefs on the rest of us, and Trump selected only Christian evangelical justices for the Supreme Court. I for one and pretty tired of it. They hide behind this façade of. protecting their right to religious freedom, but where is my right to not have their religion crammed down my throat? I’m hoping Biden will expand the Supreme Court to get this ship back on course.
I’m going to bed now so rest well and it’s very nice to talk to you for a few minutes. I hope I meet you again.
Flo, thank you for chiming in here on this thread (“Bienvenue!”😉). You are spot-on about Carter; if his ordered raid to rescue the Iran hostages had been successful then one could fairly posit that he might have won a 2nd term.
The only President that could actually get Arabs and Israelis to sit down and talk and negotiate a peaceful coexistence. Back when extremists on both sides weren’t in charge. But Sadat paid the dearest price from power hungry extremists who could not abide.
Getting back to your other thoughts: I concur completely. I firmly believe the good people of this country will not ever again let the MAGA minority get back in power except in isolated Red state pockets. But we must collectively get the “don’t buy into GOP/MAGA propaganda” message out there and get another Big Blue Wave 🌊🌊🌊 in ‘24.
Thank you Mark, I am humbled by such nice comment. Yes, weren't we lucky to have had Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat ?
We won't let MAGA people win, we just need to pay attention to legal shenanigans going right now and later. And perhaps pay attention to our little Vladimir Putin's discreet actions too.. But we shall do all this 😉
Valere and Marc, I so agree with you both ! I discovered Joyce a few years ago soon after I read and article by Preet Bharara which had let me entranced. My goodness Joyce is such a treasure on so many different aspects. But her kindness and humor is perhaps what delights me the most. I loved President Carter, and thought it was so unjust that Ronald Reagan took all the benefit of the release of hostages in Iran when it was all due to president Carter.
We are, as Valere said, surrounded by wonderful people, the courage of jack Smith, his team and Fani Willis. I know deep inside that our democracy will survive, we are the majority and so many to work for this. Absolutely let us get everyone we know to visit this Substack which is so great !!
We shall win, dear friends, and then we shall be so happy to celebrate.
Flo, You hit the nail on the head: many years ago the leaders of the gifted and talented community who taught future teachers at university and graduate level, decided to have special conferences and discussions around the topic of 'is there a common denominator for the gifted children among us?' They all knew kids who had giftedness in one or more areas such as logical-mathematics, verbal-linquistics, visial-spatial, musical, musical-rhythmic, and Howard Gardner added to the areas with his identifications that included the above plus interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic and bodily-kinesthetic. But these educators thought there was something intangible that tied them all together: what besides extraordinary brightness and intelligence existed as a common denominator in these gifted kids? So after lots of time, over several years, they came up with something that everyone of the identified kids had: they were kind. I think Barbara Clark may have published this as a study, but I know she lectured it. So the trait that Joyce has that shows when she stays up late, or gets up early to make sure we are informed, and never criticizes us when we go off the legal path to a hare-brained tangent on why Trump eats fast food and drinks 12 diet colas every day, is that she does not criticize us. No matter that she has just finished synopsizing a complicated event in 10 exquisitely written paragraphs that the press corps from CNN, MSNBC and WaPo will pilfer for their first editions in the morning, and we bother her with the basic of basic kinds of legal questions, she is kind to us. She never jerks us back on topic as we ramble through the ethers, and she never says "I just wrote that in the preceding article to these comments." So we never feel 'inferior' to her to not be lawyers, or lesser than's. Her response is kindness and always patience. It is innately in her being to be patient and kind to us. She probably has any number of identified intelligences such as verbal-linguistics; certainly logical. (I disagree with Gardner when he lumps logical with mathematical. One can be logical off the chart without having mathematical ability and one can have high mathematical ability and be completely illogical but be able to be trained in analytics to be able to do computational analysis of data but not be able to construct a theoretical construct from the data or devise a logical method to conduct a decent study - so analytical and logical are not the same. They are on two opposite ends of a spectrum: analytical could be on the left end of the spectrum, with answers gained through a cognitive thought process that works in a sort of scientific method process of gathering information/data and logical on the other end, can be arrived at through intuition: things have to make 'logical sense' and all the presentations of data in the world may not make sense if one's gut tells one it is not correct data or information. But having enough 'correct' data helps one make logical sense - and the 'gifted logic' sifts through all of the data in a lightening speed mode. The whole makes sense (or not). In my view, analytical and mathematical are stand-alones and 'logical' belongs with Howard's newly defined area 'existentialist'). [Sorry Joyce, just a tad bit off track for the existentialists and logicals on the site]. Anyway, Joyce is gifted off the chart in logical, analytical, interpersonal (we're all in this together) and kindness is imbedded as the overwhelming common denominator with all of our gifted friends who excel in their domains (like knitting or growing plants or cooking/feeding their families or keeping the neighborhood 'together.')
I so agree Valere with everything you said, beautifully ( And humorously). I had a dad who was a genius in economy and became well known at his time in france, but at the dinner table if my siblings or I would say of someone, 'well he is not that smart', ( in French you say, he didn't invent the powder, lol ) he would lift his finger and say, 'yes, but he is a gentle one". Gentleness or kindness, though he was brilliant, would for him override everything.
Great lessons to us as children.
Joyce is a treasure indeed, just as you describe.
I love it that your dad knew the difference. And you do as well. Joyce’s
substack is unique in that lots of bright people show up, but as a general rule, they don’t have egos out of control and there’s really no sniping to other members. Interloper appear, but they don’t stick around. We really are here to learn, and to share that knowledge as much as possible. There is an undercurrent of fear because a few people think Trump could be reelected. I’m not one of them. I think he does post significant danger because of his control over his followers who are cult members. There are factors that make me Think he’s not going to be in good shape for very very long. everyone has free will and could certainly turn behaviors around (including diet ). We have a deeper worry than him, and it’s that there is an element of right wing Christian evangelicals, who have a co-opted our legislative branch through their revisionist history, claiming that the constitution was written by founding fathers who were ‘ ‘Christian.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. None of the founding fathers were even close to being Christian Evangelicals. They were Unitarian if they had a church membership but by and large they were Unitarian. Some were atheist. They belonged to Presbyterian and a few belong to the Congregational church. But by and large they were deists who believed God created the Earth, and then left it alone for them to run. And it’s for that reason God is not mentioned in the constitution. They did not think one needed to be religious to be moral and a patriot and they said so. So it is odd to me that the revisionist historians among the Supreme Court members and the Congress leave this important fact out of their story. Many of the laws that have affected us socially have been done with the wrong view that: “This is what the Founding Fathers wanted” and “This is what the Founding Fathers meant.“ so far as I can determine, the Founding Fathers made a social contract when they created the founding documents (The writers were generally wealthy, educated, business owners, lawyers, editors, and they represented people who didn’t have a voice or the wherewithal to take months off to work on the governing documents. Thus the founding fathers understood very clearly that they had a social contract with people who were not able to participate in the document preparation. And they left God out of it. The evangelical right wing Christian movement is imposing their beliefs on the rest of us, and Trump selected only Christian evangelical justices for the Supreme Court. I for one and pretty tired of it. They hide behind this façade of. protecting their right to religious freedom, but where is my right to not have their religion crammed down my throat? I’m hoping Biden will expand the Supreme Court to get this ship back on course.
I’m going to bed now so rest well and it’s very nice to talk to you for a few minutes. I hope I meet you again.
Flo, thank you for chiming in here on this thread (“Bienvenue!”😉). You are spot-on about Carter; if his ordered raid to rescue the Iran hostages had been successful then one could fairly posit that he might have won a 2nd term.
The only President that could actually get Arabs and Israelis to sit down and talk and negotiate a peaceful coexistence. Back when extremists on both sides weren’t in charge. But Sadat paid the dearest price from power hungry extremists who could not abide.
Getting back to your other thoughts: I concur completely. I firmly believe the good people of this country will not ever again let the MAGA minority get back in power except in isolated Red state pockets. But we must collectively get the “don’t buy into GOP/MAGA propaganda” message out there and get another Big Blue Wave 🌊🌊🌊 in ‘24.
Thank you Mark, I am humbled by such nice comment. Yes, weren't we lucky to have had Jimmy Carter and Anwar Sadat ?
We won't let MAGA people win, we just need to pay attention to legal shenanigans going right now and later. And perhaps pay attention to our little Vladimir Putin's discreet actions too.. But we shall do all this 😉