A Tune for the Times 0
Warning: Mild Language.
If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better,
Republican Thought Police Dept.
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At the Des Moines Register, Rekha Basu has a long and thoughtful article about Iowa’s Republican Governor’s attempts to stamp out talk about DEI in the state’s educational institutions. (In case you wondered, the goal of the anti-DEI movement is to pretend that discrimination and bigotry and segregation and slavery never happened and left no legacy.)
She notes that the Iowa governor referred to Donald Trump’s anti-DEI executive order, then observes (emphasis added)
I commend the entire piece to your attention.
Metamorphosis 0
David discusses how Nixon’s southern strategy led to today’s Republican Party. Methinks he makes valid points. (Warning: Short commercial at the end.)
A Diet of Worms 0
At the Tampa Bay Times, Stephanie Hayes imagines what Louis Pasteur would have to say were he to come back and find that “raw milk” is now a fad.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Self-politeness is the politest kind.
Guns and stupid, guns and stupid.
They go together like love and Cupid.
Let me tell you brother,
You can’t have one without the other.
It’s All about the Algorithm, Reprise 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Daniel Marston suggests that something much simpler than the “content” offered by the algorithm keeps us glued to our screens. It’s the mere fact that the “content” keeps changing. He cites a study that seems to bear this out:
Now, if you can tear yourself away from watching online videos of persons cleaning their houses, go read the rest of his article . . . .
Chaos Agents 0
Writing at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Gene Collier is not sanguine. He notes
Follow the link for context.
A Culture War How To 0
David makes a strong case that the culture war can–methinks maybe even should–be viewed as a conscious tactic to stoke division and distract the polity from what’s going on behind the scenes. He summarizes the process as follows:
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1. You identify a perceived threat to traditional values.
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2. You exaggerate the threat.
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3. You demonize the “other.”
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4. You use that to galvanize the base and distract from everything else.
Watch the video for his explication. (Warning: Short commercial at the end.)
“Facts Are What People Think” 0
Donald Trump is suing universities, attacking news media, and honoring slaveholders.
Douglas Rooks* sees a pattern in all this. Here’s a tiny bit of his article:
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Yes, David Rooks. Not David Brooks. Clearly.
It’s All about the Algorithm 0
Susanna Newsonen takes a look at how “(S)ocial media hijacks your brain’s reward system, making it hard to log off” and how that erodes persons’ attention spans. A snippet:
Now, go read a book and, remember, “social” media isn’t.
Real Big Men 0
At the Hartford Courant, Rachel Marsden is fed up with the faux machismo of many of today’s Republican Party. She argues that “Trump’s foreign policy has turned into big act of manspreading.”
Follow the link for her evidence.