I’m grinding along with ADA additions to two separate courseware packages. Got one package done, starting on the second. I can move forward a bit faster now, partly because my routine is established and partly because the intro material is similar. In the first few lessons I can just copy the description from the same picture in the other package. Amortizing as always.
Giving myself a pep talk, I said “Well, now we’re moving fast with the help of the dupes.”
Dupes rang an old bell. It was a common insult in the 50s when HUAC was hunting “commie” witches. I haven’t heard it in this context for at least 60 years. The nearest modern synonym is useful idiots. I’m surprised that the witch hunters didn’t dupe dupes for their successive packages of witch trials, always persecuting the same heretics under different brands. They could have moved forward faster by amortizing their words!
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Reading the 1951 Time mag article linked above. It’s always the same. Anyone who doesn’t want to destroy the world is a witch or a dupe. The article was witching several authors and scientists who were petitioning to end our pointless vicious war in Korea. In that specific case, FOR THE LAST TIME IN HISTORY, the witches won. A dupe named Eisenhower ran for president promising to end the war. He kept his promise. He pulled out, then stubbornly resisted Deepstate’s pressure to start a dozen more wars. Deepstate got its revenge in 1960, and NO PRESIDENT SINCE IKE HAS KEPT A PROMISE TO END A WAR.
Polistra's Mill 