Author's archive
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite to your friends.
“This is a horrible tragedy, but it was an accident,” defense attorney Alex Parsons said.
Anderson called 911 Sunday and reported that he had accidentally shot his friend in the chest, police said. The only witness was the victim’s sister, who is also Anderson’s girlfriend, police said.
In an unusual development, the accidental shootist is being charged with manslaughter.
Chartering a Course for Disaster 0
Two North Carolina charter school teachers speak out about the rot inside the charter school movement. A nugget (emphasis in the original):
This realization led to greater clarity: regardless of our intentions, we had become part of the problem of school resegregation*.
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*Which, or course, was part of the plan all along. Charter schools are the new seg academies.
The Party of Mean for the Sake of Mean, One More Time 0
Some Republicans have been quite callous about John McCain’s impending death; Kelly Sadler’s remark that he “doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway” is the most notable example.
Dick Polman puts the cruelty in context.
The Art of the Con 0
Farron tries to figure out Republicans’ loyalty to Donald Trump.
QOTD 0
Rex Stout (in the voice of Archie Goodwin):
I made a note to quit trying to understand women and start trying to understand men.
Stout, Rex, Too Many Women (New York: Bantam, 1949), p. 90
Selfie-Awareness 0
Michael Wiegold tries to figure out why persons are fascinated by selfies, both their own and those of others. A nugget:
The theory’s originator, Leon Festinger, proposed that people have an innate drive to evaluate themselves in comparison with others. This is done to improve how we feel about ourselves (self-enhancement), evaluate ourselves (self-evaluation), prove we really are the way we think we are (self-verification) and become better than we are (self-improvement).
It’s a list that suggests a range of motives that appear quite positive. But reality, unfortunately, is not so upbeat. Those most likely to post selfies appear to have lower self-esteem than those who don’t.
In sum, selfies draw attention, which seems like a good thing. But so do car accidents.
Follow the link for the complete article.
Recommended Reading 0
Shaun Mullen makes book.
The Payoff 0
These folks who style themselves as “Evangelical Christians” worship no Jesus that I know.
A Lethal Combination 0
Robert Reich considers what led to the Trumpling and concludes that there were two main ingredients in a toxic stew. Neither alone is a sufficient explanation, but which together boiled reacted like baking soda and vinegar. A snippet:
One explanation focuses on economic hardship. The working class fell for Trump’s economic populism.
A competing explanation — which got a boost this month from a study published by the National Academy of Sciences — dismisses economic hardship and blames it on whites’ fear of losing status to blacks and immigrants. They were attracted to Trump’s form of identity politics: bigotry.
(snip)
Yet the truth isn’t found in one explanation or the other. It’s in the interplay between the two.
Follow the link for the rest.