Mammon category archive
Ghostbusting 0
The Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Maxwell offers an explainer about dark money and ghost candidates. He focuses on two cases in Florida, but I have read of ghost candidates happening in other places to.
It is a worthwhile read.
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
Thom dicusses Republican efforts to bring back child labor.
It’s All about the Algorithm 0
I recently listened to a podcast in which one of my favorite podcasters spent five minutes discussing a comment that podcaster made on Twitter. The complaint was that the person to whom the comment was directed (and which the podcaster admitted had been a mistake) had responded with a screenshot of the comment, rather than with a “quote tweet.” The podcaster’s point was that said podcaster could have responded to a “quote tweet” by admitting the response was wrong and apologizing for it, but could not respond to the screenshot. (My reaction was relief and self-congratulation that I never became a twit on Twitter.)
That such an inconsequential incident, such a tempest in a twitpot, could assume such significance, if only for a short time, is, frankly, distressing, which leads me to recommend Dr. Charles Johnson’s post at Psychology Today Blogs, in which he takes a look at how our metastasized “social” media has monopolized our attention and distorted our discourse, and at what we can do about it. Here’s a bit of what he has to day:
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
In a century and a half, we have gone from children in the coal mines to children at the counters.
Here’s part of what the artist has to say; follow the link for the rest.
The Fee Hand of the Market 0
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
Brian Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, considers a piece by the Smithsonian Institute’s Jon Grinspan and suggests that it should be required reading. Here’s a bit of Greenspun’s article:
The Alumnus 0
Thom talks with Art Cohen about his experience in exposing the Trump University con.
Spin City 0
Afterthought:
The worst of this is that persons believe uncritically stuff they read on their computer screens when they would not believe the same stuff if it happened right in front of their faces.
Facebook Frolics 0
Methinks “metastatic” would have been a more appropriate choice.
Carrion Crows 0
Shirley Smith describes how a private equity firm purchased her employer, a long-established Detroit furniture retailer, picked its bones clean, than cast it and its employees aside.
It is a chilling tale of greed and rapacity.