August, 2020 archive
The Disinformation Superhighway 0
Sara Gorman and Jack Gorman explore why misinformation and outright falsehoods spread so widely and rapidly. After naming several common factors, they go on to suggests that some persons are willfully gullible:
The entire piece is worth the five minutes it will take for you to read it.
Self-Pity Party 0
All the News that Fits 0
Thom and a caller discuss (and differ on) how to recover from 40 years of media concentration and right-wing propaganda.
Grouch on the Couch 0
Ravi Chandra, writing at Psychology Today Blogs, shares his psychiatrist’s view of Donald Trump’s Axios interview, focusing on “what thought processes and relational qualities” the exchange revealed. Here’s a bit:
A patient with fixed ideas displays these typical defenses.
1. An insistence on their own point of view, and an inability to listen to, comprehend, or give any weight to the other party—usually because other people’s viewpoints are threatening and destabilizing to an already fragile ego and worldview.
2. In other words: I’m right and everyone else is wrong (stamps feet).
He doesn’t reveal anything fundamental we didn’t already know, but the perspective is interesting.
QOTD 0
Kerry Greenwood:
When will you learn . . . that inadvisable is not the same as undesirable.
Greenwood, Kerry, Murder in Montparnasse (Scottsdale, AZ, Poisoned Pen Press, 2005), p. 237
“American Exceptionalism” 0
The United States has most recently demonstrated its exceptionalism by its abject failure to contain COVID-19.
I can’t summarize or excerpt his piece and do it justice. Just go read it for yourself.
Trying To Stir Up Trouble??? 0
The Angry Grammarian is just askin’???
School Daze, Reprise 0
Georgia school system suspends student for not keeping the proper social distance–from “social” bleeping media.
Words fail me.