May, 2018 archive
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.
Woodpecker 0
Another picture from my brother in Virginia’s Northern Neck.
Facebook Frolics Meets Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
USA Today staffers read every phony Russian Facebook ad. What they found should not surprise. Here’s their first paragraph:
Follow the link for why they said that.
