Author's archive
Flat Earth Flatulence 0
Joe Pierre was once interviewed by the Spanish newspaper El Pais Semanal about the apparent increase in flat earth flatulence from flat earther believers.
The interview was not published, so he has chosen to share the transcript at Psychology Today Blogs. It is worth your while, because the dynamic he discusses pervades dis coarse discourse; here’s bit:
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Scatter politeness at your house of worship.
Court records show a small boy found Dallas’ gun under the bleachers in the gym at World Overcomers Church and picked it up, setting it off.
No one was hurt.
Investigators say Dallas also didn’t have a gun permit.
“Checks and Balances” 0
Will Bunch fears that the current federal administration has become unchecked and unbalanced.
Facebook Frolics 0
Professor of Communications Joseph B. Walther explores why persons continue to use Facebook despite the recent spate of revelations about the craven venality of its algorithmic manipulative tactics and porous “security” protection. A snippet (emphasis added):
(snip)
The psychological tendency at work here is called “the third person effect,” the belief that media don’t fool me, and maybe don’t fool you, but all those other people are sitting ducks for media effects.
Ironically, this dynamic can encourage people to support restrictions on media consumption – by others. If someone uses, say, a social media site and feels immune to its negative influences, it triggers another psychological phenomenon called the “influence of presumed influence.” When that happens, a person worries that everyone else falls victim, and supports efforts to protect others, even if they think they themselves don’t need the protection.
I commend the piece to your attention.
Plucking the Flock 0
(I thought of a better title than “Marketing Mammon.”)
Money Talks . . . 0
. . . and he answers.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness takes practice.
“The deputies actually had to take cover behind some logs,” Ryan said, uncertain if they were being deliberately targeted. The officers called out and eventually made contact with the group firing weapons, located about a mile east of the cemetery.
Turns out “several” people were target shooting from private property using high-powered rifles, Ryan said, and as of Saturday evening, authorities were still on the scene, investigating. A woman was sitting in the vehicle at the cemetery that was struck — in the hood — and Ryan noted that being Memorial Day weekend, more and more people may be going to cemeteries on Sunday and Monday.
Yet more evidence that “responsible gun owner” is not a thing.
QOTD 0
Peter Senge:
The further human society drifts away from nature, the less we understand interdependence.
(Missing attribution fixed.)
Plus ca Change 0
A map of the House of Representatives vote on the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.
Via PoliticalProf.
Extra-Special Bonus QOTD 0
S. S. Van Dine (Willard Huntington Wright), who could say much in few words when the muse struck:
Nature had endowed Miss La Fosse with many of its arts, and those that Nature had omitted, Miss La Fosse had herself supplied.
Van Dine, S. S., The Canary Murder Case, in a double volume with
The Benson Murder Case (London: Leonaur.com, 2010), p. 344
Damned If You, Damned If You Don’t 0
Sportswriter extraordinaire Bob Molinaro catches the irony:
Malignant Narcissist or Just the Garden Variety Kind? 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Dan Neuharth notes that the number of persons who have referred to Donald Trump as having “malignant narcissism” has been increasing; it’s not just a few outliers any more. He proceeds to provide the background and definition of “malignant narcissism.”
Follow the link and decide for yourself.