2018 archive
Deconstruction and the Privatization Scam 0
Thom explains how Republicans are nibbling away at the common good.
Effervescence 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., marvels at the incredible lightness of bleating. A nugget:
Words from the leader of the mightiest nation on Earth no longer anchor ideals, promises and righteous causes — much less, truth. No, they float off like helium-filled balloons. Up, up and away.
Suffer the Children, Abuse with Drugs Dept. 0
The vileness intensifies. Now it’s drugging children in concentration camps–and I do not use that term lightly. The Trump administration is concentrating children in camps for the crime of being.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Surround your family with a cocoon of politeness.
Police say the bullet then ricocheted off the concrete, striking the woman’s 15-year-old daughter in the leg as well.
A. Because That Species Is Extinct 0
Follow the link for the question.
Stimulus–>Response 0
Robert Epstein, former Editor-in-Chief at Psychology Today among many other accomplishments, offers a construct for understanding why Donald Trump does and says what he does and says. The concept is “sympathetic audience control”; it does not refer to the individual’s controlling the audience, but rather to the audience’s affecting the individual.
Everyone, of course, is affected by this to some degree. We behave differently at the in-laws than at the neighborhood watering hole, differently in church than at a party or in a business meeting.
Epstein suggests that Trump manifests an extreme version of sympathetic audience control.
I find this completely consistent with Trump’s behavior as observed and reported daily; follow the link to determine whether or not you find his argument persuasive.
Here’s a bit (emphasis added):
Aside:
In a similar vein, Dick Polman mourns the death of truth.
