HS Volleyball player hospitalized

Good points and your second point gets to the heart of it. These are teeny schools. Hiawassee Dam can barely field a team in any sport. I don’t know about the athleticism of the girl that was hit but some of her teammates are very short and +++ sized. Basically if you want to play volleyball you’re on the team. And the exact same kids will be on the softball team.

 

Actually, it does. Boys have penises and produce testosterone. Testosterone is a powerful thing. After my boys hit puberty and their nuts dropped I wouldn’t pitch batting practice unless I had a screen. It was dangerous for me otherwise and baseballs hurt. A lot.

 

It’s a dangerous populist dynamic around the world. Democracy has failed to give them what they want, so abandon that and try to get what want by government coersion.

 

Ursidman dunking a facial on wgb…

 

OT - have a site where FWC showed up earlier in the week to collar some panther kittens. We knew there was one in the area from old telemetry data. Apparently they were trying to get thru the thick pepper to find the den when mama started heading back that way and they decided to back out rather than tranq mom. Den is on piece of ground under 30 acres in size and surrounded by 2.5 acre tracts with houses. Neighbors have already lost two goats in the last year. We suspect that FWC is not going to object to our permit because we think they want this kitty to move elsewhere. Once we clear the exotics she won't like the site nearly as much anyway

 

Panther dens are in incredibly thick vegetation- I think females choose to den there because the noise produced by anything approaching the den makes a lot of noise and serves as a warning. It is very hard to move through with anything approaching speed - unless mom is coming and then it suddenly becomes easier to get out than going in. I have proof.
Yeah, hard to say that developing one 25-30 acre spot will cause irreparable harm - they have such large home ranges. I never saw the presence of panther stop any development in my time down there. It certainly made some development more expensive though.

 

This applies to multiple threads, especially because of the conclusion. Kevin Drum tries to analyze the late Republican poll resurgence, especially David Brooks' explanation of the effectiveness of the "new" culture/class war

Democrats seemed to be doing well this summer as their approval level surged following the Dobbs decision. But now Republicans are surging back. This is partly because the out party always does well in midterm elections, but David Brooks thinks there's more to it:


The Trumpified G.O.P. deserves to be a marginalized and disgraced force in American life. But I’ve been watching the campaign speeches by people like Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor in Arizona. G.O.P. candidates are telling a very clear class/culture/status war narrative in which common-sense Americans are being assaulted by elite progressives who let the homeless take over the streets, teach sex ed to 5-year-olds, manufacture fake news, run woke corporations, open the border and refuse to do anything about fentanyl deaths and the sorts of things that affect regular people.


Sure, I guess. But this is the farthest thing imaginable from something new. The details change from election to election, but this narrative began with Richard Nixon and became fully weaponized by Newt Gingrich and Fox News in the 1990s. It's been part of the core Republican message for 50 years, and it's been their nearly exclusive message for the past 20.
Practically all the evidence suggests the United States is fundamentally a strong country right now. Probably the strongest in the world, and with the brightest future. It's extraordinary to think of just how good a place it could be if only we could figure out a way to overcome the debilitating fear that so many people still have of progress and change.

Why are Republicans surging as the midterms approach? - Kevin Drum

 

Shit happens in sports. That includes injuries.

 

It will never stop at that. Even if all "biological males" were excluded from girl's sports tomorrow, and there may be as many a five nationally, the issue will not go away. More will be demanded to address the "threat". Nextt will be treatments. But that won't be enough.

Because this is not about competition, protecting kids, etc. It may be to some subset, but that's not why it's an issue.

Trans issues seemed to come upon us quickly, requiring confusing mental adjustment for the older generation, but not for the younger. But they did, and they will, if the younger generation has it's way.

So 20 years from now, likely one of two general outcomes, depending on the choices we make now as a society. The younger generation naturally assumes power pursuant to democratic means and the older generation (I will likely be dead statistically), will mutter in discomfort and regret at the harms (there will be harms real and imagined; no change is frictionless).

Or gender noncomformity will be persecuted and marginalized with some sliding scale of official and nonofficial sanction, in a nondemocratic US, where those in power will claim they were forced to take power by nontraditional means to preserve the family and can never relinquish it, so they can do what "is necessary" to "protect" the family/children, etc.

The laws of human nature. The physics of force then in play will not be a spiked volleyball but a swung billy club, to much greater effect.

 

What nuance is needed here? Do you honestly think cisgender women can't hit the ball that hard? If that's true, this transgender volleyball player must be the best player in the state of North Carolina. Is she?

 

Logic does not follow.

You started out with a public safety concern for the competitors. Now you’re talking about Competitive advantage at the absolute elite level. Those are two very different issues.

Obviously a physically superior competitor can cause danger. So can a physically inferior competitor. So can a physically equal competitor. There may be a marginally greater danger from a physically superior competitor, but overall, that’s much more likely to occur from just random variation than it is from transgender issues. Much much more likely. The sudden focus on transgender competitors, especially so little in number, out of concern for safety, betrays an emphasis born of motivations beyond safety.

Being the absolute champion due to external physical advantage, the Lia Thomas issue in college swimming, is a completely different issue. And that may take some tweaks in terms of physical testing, although again this is not a new issue. It’s not like the use of artificial testosterone to gain competitive advantage is a product of the recent gender nonconformity movement, unless you think the 70s Soviet Bloc Olympic Training regimen was driven by the ever evil wokeness among Soviet leadership.

We have been addressing these issues for years with testing, and then enhanced testing as competitors come up with new masking agents or other artificial aids, as well as discussion as to what should and should not be permitted. These are the things a society can deal with in sports governing bodies without resorting to exclusionary hateful laws and tactics.

At the HS level, still nothing that could not be resolved with ad hoc as opposed to generalized legal solutions. But you’re mixing your logical arguments, shifting in response to responses. Ideology indeed

 

Yes, young men are stronger than young women. Generally men are well over 50% stronger and it’s even more for upper body punching power. Young men are also generally taller and heavier. This all equates to raw ability for a faster spike. obviously a boy can get hit in men’s vb. but if he has practiced, played against boys coming up thru the ranks, developed physical skills and aware of that potential speed he should be better prepared both physically and mentally. bottom line - this transgender did spike the ball and sent this girl to the hospital. is it just coincidence?

I get the school board cancelling the games. One injured girl is bad. if it happened a second time against this athlete or maybe even worse, regardless if it’s a wild fluke or because of her strength, the district board would be accountable and culpable. not to mention feel horrible about it.

Are these the facts? That’s not rhetorical, I admittedly never played competitive VB and have limited knowledge. Are there any VB coaches here that can offer insight?

 

There are obviously girls at the better schools college level, like UF, who can do that, but they are probably the exception. When I used to play in some leagues, I’m 6 2 inches, with white mans disease in terms of jumping ability, and on a mens 8 ft net I couldn’t hit the ball with that trajectory downward - down the line. I could angle but that is easier. I probably could have done that on a women’s 7 and a half foot net.

At that level that girl was probably not expecting somebody to be able to do that.

 

What Is The Height For Volleyball Net?

Actually it is only 7 ft 4 inches.

Yeah the lower net is a key factor in this whole issue.