August, 2017 archive
QOTD 0
Frank Harris:
Aside:
Bennett Cerf once said of one of Frank Harris’s anecdotes that “he recounted it with the assurance of one who could not possibly have been present.”
Trumpling the Golden Door 0
Bruce Lowry finds himself disgusted by Donald Trump’s choice to play to the basest. A snippet:
(snip)
In my mind, of all the Trump nonsense we have been forced to swallow in the last year or so, this may be the most distasteful yet.
It is rotten red meat served up to appease a particular crowd. Unsurprisingly, the two senators carrying the president’s water on this issue are white, conservative Southerners – Tom Cotton of Arkansas, and David Perdue of Georgia.
(Redundancy removed.)
Immunity Impunity
0
At the Boston Review, Tracey L. Meares notes that a small but vocal movement has concluded that American policing is so broken that it must be abolished and consider their arguments.
She traces the history of U. S. police forces back to Southern slave patrols and notes the many instances, some noted in these electrons, of random police killings of unarmed civilians and of police forces’ refusal to hold their killers responsible (or, to put it another way, police administrations’ willfully aiding and abetting felony murder), then moves on to consider possible remedies. I commend the article to your attention.
Here’s a bit:
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
A polite family is a close family.
At the same time, his daughter, 17, was placing a phone into a pocket in the truck’s door when the gun discharged. The single shot hit the man in the hip area and struck his daughter in the arm.
Rageaholics 0
At the New York Times, Emory University Professor Carol Anderson explores how racism and bigotry infuse the politics and political tactics of Donald Trump and his dupes, symps, and fellow travellers. Here’s a snippet; follow the link for the rest.
The guiding principle in Mr. Trump’s government is to turn the politics of white resentment into the policies of white rage — that calculated mechanism of executive orders, laws and agency directives that undermines and punishes minority achievement and aspiration.
Afterthought:
I recently purchased a Sunday-only print subscription to the New York Times, and I’m glad I did. Although I adhere to the “why would anyone want a newspaper that doesn’t have comics” school of thought, it really is darned good reading (except for David Brooks’s column, which is mindless piffle why they keep someone who is always wrong on the payroll is beyond me).
I must say I’m quite impressed with their customer support. The first paper was supposed to arrive last Sunday and did not. When I called the number in their “Did You Enjoy Your First NYT” email, their Automatic Lady was without question the best Automatic Lady I’ve dealt with on a toll-free number. Automatic Lady credited my account without question and suggested I call back during normal business hours on Monday.
I did so and I was talking to a courteous and competent Real Live Human Being in fewer than 30 seconds. And my Sunday Times was there on the doorstep this morning.
I reckon reading it will take me all week.
Magic from the Magic Kingdom 0
El Reg reports that Disney is being sued:
“In other words, the ability to serve behavioral advertisements to a specific user no longer turns upon obtaining the kinds of data with which most consumers are familiar (email addresses, etc), but instead on the surreptitious collection of persistent identifiers, which are used in conjunction with other data points to build robust online profiles,” the suit claims.
I wonder whether their defense will be, “All the other kids are doing it.”
“Show Me the Money” 0
Congressman Ralph Ellison explains that the numbers don’t lie.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Rear your children to be polite.
(snip)
. . . he found a handgun in a case under a bed in an upstairs bedroom.
“The boy was able to open the case and handled the firearm, at which time the handgun fired a single round, fatally striking the boy,” Back said in the release.
