2016 archive
Facebook Frolics 0
What means this term, “responsible”?
Part of the problem is something I’ve remarked on for years. For some fool reason, people will believe stuff they read on a computer monitor when they would not believe the same thing if they read it in the Encyclopedia Britannica or heard it from the mouth of god herself.
Facebook and Twitter do not generate the seeds of stupid, but they sure as hell allow them to spread and flourish in fertile, febrile fields.
Student Athletes 0
Yeah, right.
Sportswriter extraordinaire Bob Molinaro highlights the hypocrisy of big time college sports.
In a Nutshell 0
In a long and thoughtful article, Elizabeth Kolsky convincingly argues that the key to Donald Trump’s appeal was not the “Make America Great” portion of his slogan, but rather the “Again.” She posits that he offered what many of his supporters saw as continuity with America’s racist past, rather than change, which means acceptance of its pluralist present. Almost in an aside, she wonders
As it turns out, this is also the key to explaining why 53 percent of white women voted for Trump.
Do please read the rest.
Playbook 0
Yesha Callahan looks back at the tactics of President Obama’s opponents over the last eight years to find ideas as to how to deal with Donald Trump. The result is a six-point strategy.
Here’s the first; follow the link for the rest (emphasis in the original).
Don’t worry about whether it’s true or not. As Obama’s haters have shown us, the key to perpetuating a lie is just to repeat it so many times, people will begin to believe it, whether it’s true or not. Every time you tell an untruth, you must end with, “Look it up!” That alone legitimizes your falsehood. The same way conservatives believe that Mexicans are streaming over the border and taking jobs (even though net immigration from Mexico is negative, meaning that more Mexicans are leaving America than sneaking in), or how Muslims are coming to kill you (although white men have committed more terrorist acts in the U.S. since 9/11), you can create your own falsehood.
The Court Is Still in Sessions 0
An attorney who once worked for the Department of Justice recounts his experiences with Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, who is Donald Trump’s selection for Attorney-General of the United States, responsible for ensuring that the Department of Justice concerns itself with, well, justice. A nugget:
Follow the link.
It gets worse.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
The hunt for politeness continues.
Police say Paro fired a shot, unaware that his father, 58-year-old Kevin Paro, had gone into the woods a short time earlier to hunt. Troopers say the father was hit in the chest by a round from his son’s .270-caliber rifle.
Many years ago, when my brother lived in Vermont, his old boss overheard a conversation between two out-of-state hunters.
One said, “Did to see anything?”
The other answered, “No, but I got off a couple of sound shots.”
His boss gave up hunting at that moment.
In case you are wondering, this was a “sound shot.”
Victory Lap 0
The celebrations continue.
“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Maureen Costello, who runs the organization’s Teaching Tolerance program in schools. She noted that the group had coined the term “the Trump effect” earlier this year because it believed that divisive rhetoric concerning immigrants and race in the presidential campaign was getting picked up and mimicked by schoolchildren.
This should surprise no one.
More at the link.
All the News that Fits 0
Paul Isom, a professor of journalism, meditates on the spread of and defenses against “fake news,” also known as lies. Among other musings, he offers suggestions about how not to get duped (emphasis added):
But questions persisted. Several had heard from friends, relatives, politicians and others that The New York Times was a biased, untrustworthy news source. How were New York Times stories any more believable than the fake news purveyors?
In response, I showed them a Times piece from Nov. 15 headlined “Steve ‘Turn on the Hate’ Bannon in the White House.” I had first seen it in my Facebook feed, and one of the top comments railed about the story’s liberal bias and, in turn, the Times’ lack of credibility as a news source.
Then I asked the students to notice what was written above and below the headline.
“The Opinion Pages” was most prominent label, along with “Editorial” and “By the Editorial Board.”
Understanding the difference between news and opinion is key to understanding what we’re reading.
In related real news, at Psychology Today Blogs, Romeo Vitali discusses the relationship between social media usage and narcissism. It’s not benign.
If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better 0
Rekha Basu notes the Republican Party’s willingness to tolerate intolerance among its own. A snippet:
Distressingly, she goes on to indulge in a little pro forma bothsiderism, but the column is worth a read.
Stray Thought, Normalization Dept. 0
One of the distressing aspects of dis coarse post-election discourse is the attempt on the part of some to portray bigotry, hatred, and racism as somehow legitimate because the bigots, haters, and racists feel “aggrieved.”*
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*Afterthought, Late That Same Evening:
And, natch, because they are not Not White. Not White grievances are ipso facto not legitimate. If you paid attention, you’d know that.
I think I shall be ill.