2020 archive
All the News that Fits 0
Will Bunch talks about the latest (!) white supremacist terror attack, this one in Germany, and laments the failure of the press to give it the coverage it deserves. A nugget:
That’s disgraceful — and arguably racist.
(snip)
It’s hard not to believe that — with our ADD-addled ability to focus only on the latest outrage of the last hour — we are missing the most alarming and important trend of the last decade. That would be the rise of violent, brownshirt-style, right-wing global extremism and the concurrent era of authoritarian-style rulers on every continent, whose angry rhetoric toward migrants, ethnic minorities or women inspires these terrorists. The world’s indifferent response to similar trends in the 1930s led to global conflagration in the 1940s. Are we repeating those mistakes in the 2020s as we fail to connect the dots?
Methinks he is onto something. We have forgotten the lessons of World War II.
I am not sanguine.
Epidemiology 0
A first-person account of the spreading epidemic–no, not the new coronavirus, but the old racism.
Judging Amy 0
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson has had enough of Roger Stone’s guff.
Reboot(strap) 0
Nicholas Kristoff marvels at how a metaphor for futility became a prescription for policy. Here’s a bit; the full piece is at the link.
Yet this phrase has become part of America’s mythology and the centerpiece of our approach to help those left behind: We harangue them to lift themselves up by the bootstraps.
A Question of Identity 0
Does the individual described in this article remind you of anyone?
SLAPP-Happy 0
In The Sacramento Bee, Eric Swalwell examines Devin Nunes’s practice of suing everyone who hurts his tender wittle fee-fees, while consistently voting to deny others the same privilege.
The Bullies’ Pulpit 0
Thom reports on a Washington Post article about the proliferation of bullying in Donald Trump’s image.
The Rule of Lawless, Newspeak Dept. 0
A former Federal prosecutor comments on the pardon of Rob Blagojevich. A snippet:
Elsewhere, Leonard Pitts, Jr., has a somewhat different interpretation, arguing that we are not, indeed, living in “post-fact America,” but rather in “post-integrity America.”
Experiments fail, even noble ones.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
As any “responsible gun owner” (sic) knows, politeness takes practice.
The Artfulness of the Con 0
Barry M. Mitnick explores why even persons who don’t consider themselves gullible get gulled.