November, 2016 archive
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
The hunt for politeness continues.
Police say Paro fired a shot, unaware that his father, 58-year-old Kevin Paro, had gone into the woods a short time earlier to hunt. Troopers say the father was hit in the chest by a round from his son’s .270-caliber rifle.
Many years ago, when my brother lived in Vermont, his old boss overheard a conversation between two out-of-state hunters.
One said, “Did to see anything?”
The other answered, “No, but I got off a couple of sound shots.”
His boss gave up hunting at that moment.
In case you are wondering, this was a “sound shot.”
Victory Lap 0
The celebrations continue.
“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Maureen Costello, who runs the organization’s Teaching Tolerance program in schools. She noted that the group had coined the term “the Trump effect” earlier this year because it believed that divisive rhetoric concerning immigrants and race in the presidential campaign was getting picked up and mimicked by schoolchildren.
This should surprise no one.
More at the link.
All the News that Fits 0
Paul Isom, a professor of journalism, meditates on the spread of and defenses against “fake news,” also known as lies. Among other musings, he offers suggestions about how not to get duped (emphasis added):
But questions persisted. Several had heard from friends, relatives, politicians and others that The New York Times was a biased, untrustworthy news source. How were New York Times stories any more believable than the fake news purveyors?
In response, I showed them a Times piece from Nov. 15 headlined “Steve ‘Turn on the Hate’ Bannon in the White House.” I had first seen it in my Facebook feed, and one of the top comments railed about the story’s liberal bias and, in turn, the Times’ lack of credibility as a news source.
Then I asked the students to notice what was written above and below the headline.
“The Opinion Pages” was most prominent label, along with “Editorial” and “By the Editorial Board.”
Understanding the difference between news and opinion is key to understanding what we’re reading.
In related real news, at Psychology Today Blogs, Romeo Vitali discusses the relationship between social media usage and narcissism. It’s not benign.
If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better 0
Rekha Basu notes the Republican Party’s willingness to tolerate intolerance among its own. A snippet:
Distressingly, she goes on to indulge in a little pro forma bothsiderism, but the column is worth a read.
Stray Thought, Normalization Dept. 0
One of the distressing aspects of dis coarse post-election discourse is the attempt on the part of some to portray bigotry, hatred, and racism as somehow legitimate because the bigots, haters, and racists feel “aggrieved.”*
______________________
*Afterthought, Late That Same Evening:
And, natch, because they are not Not White. Not White grievances are ipso facto not legitimate. If you paid attention, you’d know that.
I think I shall be ill.
Know Them by the Company They Keep 0
In the middle of a longer article about the Petulant Elect’s attempts to intimidate the press, Solomon Jones notes the following, which should be obvious, but seems not to be.
Those actions have consequences, as we’ve seen in the rash of hatred and bigotry that has been unleashed in the wake of Trump’s election. When bigots are emboldened to physically assault women who are wearing a Muslim head covering, or to paint swastikas on walls in Trump’s name, or to threaten black students attending an Ivy League university, America is in danger.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
We are a society of stupid.
Aside:
Ever since I’ve had my little corner of the internet, I’ve standardized embedded media to 500 pixels in width, because, at the time I got it, 800×600 was still a thing. Here’s how I determined the proper settings for this image, which is 640×506 pixels:
Code:
$ echo 500/640*506 | bc -l
395.31250000000000000000
You can’t do that on Windows.
Image via Job’s Anger.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Still well under 300k, despite Bloomberg’s scary headline (follow the link to see it).
(snip)
The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, declined to 251,000 — the lowest since the first week of October — from 253,000 in the prior week.
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits climbed by 60,000 to 2.04 million in the week ended Nov. 12. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits ticked up to 1.5 percent from 1.4 percent. These data are reported with a one-week lag.
Wait six months. The unemployment rate will Trumple.
Meta: Don’t Bother 0
If you post a spam comment here at my place, it will be deleted and no one will ever see it.
Go annoy somebody else.
