June, 2021 archive
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Just a little playful politeness . . . .
Guns and stupid, guns and stupid,
They go together like love and Cupid.
Let me tell you, brother,
You won’t find one without the other.
QOTD 0
Christopher Morley:
No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does.
The Noaccount Recount 0
At AZCentral.com, Warren Stewart explores the motive for the Arizona Senate’s noaccount recount:
Follow the link for his evidence.
They Know Not of What They Speak 0
AL.com’s Kyle Whitmire asked an Alabama legislator who submitted a bill to ban the teaching of “critical race theory” in primary and secondary schools (where it is not taught, by the way) to define “critical race theory.”
The Whitewashing of American History 0
I’m a Southern boy.
I lived through my own whitewashing in my segregated school, where what I was taught about Virginia’s history was, shall we say, less than objective. Then I trained to be an historian . . . .
Hell, I was taught that 1619 was the “red letter year,” because it saw the arrival of a significant number of English women to satisfy the lust of the colonists (lust was not addressed in the third grade) (that part seems questionable, but that’s what I was taught when I was eight years old), the creation of the first representative organ of government in the English colony, and the first arrival of African slaves.
Yes, I was taught that the establishment of slavery was a good thing, a red letter thing.
I guess you can call that “uncritical race theory,” the sort of “race theory” that the Republican Party now advocates.
The Republican Party has become the party of racism.
“Money To Burn” 0
No Place To Hide, the Clock is TikToking Dept. 0
Bruce Schneier reports that TikTok has changed its terms of service to include a provision that it may now collect biometric data.
One more time, “social” media isn’t.
The Graham Cracker and the Lab Coat 0
I’m a Southern boy. I use the term “cracker” will full knowledge that it is applicable in all its permutations.
It’s All about the Algorithm, Down the Rabid Hole Dept. 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Sebastian Ocklenburg explores how “fear of missing out,” often referred to as FOMO, sucks people into “social” media and keeps them there. A nugget:
On the one hand, it could be assumed that people with high FOMO check the social media feeds of their friends and family to not miss out on what happens in their lives.
On the other hand, the association could also go the other way around. If someone constantly checks the social media feeds of other people, they may develop FOMO because they see other people doing all these awesome things all the time. That these pictures often look better than the actual experience was is often ignored.
Vaccine Nation 0
David takes a call from a listener who has had a falling out with a friend over the COVID vaccine.