June, 2019 archive
Manufacturing Memories 0
In Psychology Today, Matthew Hutson examines the mechanics of manipulating memory, specifically in the context of what we see on the inner webs. It ain’t pretty, folks.
An excerpt:
Half the time, people said they remembered the false event happening, and in most of those cases they said they actually remembered seeing it on the news. They recalled being “torn” upon seeing it, or having “mixed emotions,” or “cring[ing].” Perhaps some people were lying about their recollections, but when told one of the events hadn’t happened, readers guessed the wrong one 37 percent of the time. For them, the fake event was not only real but more real than some of the actual events.
Aside:
I read this article in the print magazine, to which I have been a long-time survivor (it was helpful in my days as a trainer and instructional designer). Selected articles from each issue are available on the website when the next issue has been, well, issued. I made a note to come back to this one because it is a must read, especially in these days of Fox News and their dupes, symps, and fellow travelers.
Teflon Don 0
David discusses the lack of reaction to E. Jean Carroll’s description of having been assaulted by Donald Trump.
Dick Polman is also troubled.
Where’s There a Will? 0
The Philadelphia Inquirer tries to track down serial robocaller “Will” with a signal lack of success.
(snip)
So we decided to ask Will “what’s up,” ignoring experts’ advice that you shouldn’t speak to robocallers, many of whom are fraudsters.
Follow the link to read about their quest.
Suffer the Children 0
In case you haven’t noticed, that’s now a Republican Family Value.
We have gone from the American Ideal to become the American Ordeal.
Concentrate on This 0
Esther Cepeda marvels at the apathy towards the barbaric treatment of migrants along our southern border. A snippet:
These frivolous spats effectively overshadow the tough-to-stomach reality that migrants are being penned in cages and locked in freezing-cold holding cells — that is, when they’re not fenced in under bridges and made to sit on the ground in 100-plus degree weather.
(snip)
Eladio Bobadilla, an assistant professor of history at the University of Kentucky, put it this way in a recent post on the Latino Rebels website: “[Conservative] commentators are wrong, both historically and morally. Not only is it historically accurate to call these detention centers concentration camps, but the uproar reveals a curious and cruel irony: Conservatives are more outraged by the terms used to describe the detention camps than they are by the conditions inside them.”
Stray Question 0
If you dream that you have insomnia, do you get any rest?
HMOtrocity 0
Aside:
In retrospect, I’ve concluded that the more to HMO-style health care that started in the 1970s and 1980s as the way to “fix” American heath care was a big mistake. It effectively put American health care under the control of insurance companies, which are incentivized, as the neologism goes, to provide as little actual care as possible, and removed it from medical professionals, most of whom (and yes there is the occasional glaring exception) care about caring.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Another gun owner demonstrates how responsible he can be.
The injured man then managed to drive himself to the hospital.
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
At the Des Moines Register, Richard Cherwitz reminds us of another purported “attack” in another gulf which was used to justify another war for a lie, this one in a country whose name did not start with “I.”.
