30 November, 2016

The Digest—Wednesday, 30 November, 2016

[The Digest is a collection of articles, videos, and other media I've viewed and found significant throughout the day. It is a way to divest myself from other social media that is more reliant on likes, click-bait, and peer-approval rather than quality, intelligence, and diversity of opinion, which are the qualities I find important. It is also a way to devote myself to daily contributions to this space...at least in theory.]

-=Summary: The devils of PC culture; corporate right-wing activism, best of 2016 Scifi/fantasy, The Doors, and crisis management=-

Articles:

Political correctness: how the right invented a phantom enemy
Moira Weigel from Th Guardian

This is some great history and perspective that helps explain the disastrous result on discourse done by accusations of "politically correct!" It shuts down the conversation while simultaneously claiming oppression of truth by "elitist" agendas. Run awaaaaaaayyyy!



29 November, 2016

The Digest—Tuesday, 29 November, 2016

[The Digest is a collection of articles, videos, and other media I've viewed and found significant throughout the day. It is a way to divest myself from other social media that is more reliant on likes, click-bait, and peer-approval rather than quality, intelligence, and diversity of opinion, which are the qualities I find important. It is also a way to devote myself to daily contributions to this space...at least in theory.]

-=Summary: profiling the NRA, down with the poor, down with women's health, down with Einstein, fictive transplants, down with CNN, down with the first amendment, her worst nightmare, & AHS Hotel finale=-

Articles:

This Sociologist Spent A Decade Studying the NRA — and Saw How It Paved The Way for Trump
Alex Yablon from The Trace

Rhetoric, fantasy, perspective, disgust, sadness.

27 November, 2016

The Digest—Monday, 28 November, 2016

[The Digest is a collection of articles, videos, and other media I've viewed and found significant throughout the day. It is a way to divest myself from other social media that is more reliant on likes, click-bait, and peer-approval rather than quality, intelligence, and diversity of opinion, which are the qualities I find important. It is also a way to devote myself to daily contributions to this space...at least in theory.]

-=Summary: Anonymous confession of an almost-racist, the self-fellating NRA, please boycott this UNC professor, hate crimes rising in Trumptown, how citizens became consumers, controlling the media, arrested for being outside-while-female, and American Horror Story=-

Articles: 

'Alt-right' online poison nearly turned me into a racist 
Anonymous from The Guardian 

Language is a powerful thing. Indoctrination often works in subtle shades. It cracks me up when liberals are accused of this because, so far, liberals totally suck at the persuasion game. We think facts and earnest conversation can convince people to recognize common sense, scientific consensus, and compassionate sensibility. This might have been true at some point in our history, and we think it's true because it's what we, ourselves, respond to, but for those with minds made up, beliefs locked in, and villains lynched, it is worse than ineffective—it convinces them they were right about us all along.

The Digest—Sunday, 27 November, 2016

[The Digest is a collection of articles, videos, and other media I've viewed and found significant throughout the day. It is a way to divest myself from other social media that is more reliant on likes, click-bait, and peer-approval rather than quality, intelligence, and diversity of opinion, which are the qualities I find important. It is also a way to devote myself to daily contributions to this space...at least in theory.]

-=Summary: Trump's legal wakeup call, makeup tips for domestic abuse, 81x the wealth for whites in D.C., educational saturation a predictor of unTrumpiness, inventing the Russian threat, modern meanings of 'like', fundamentalist white America, Dollhouse, & Spanish Lake=-

Articles:

'A recipe for scandal': Trump conflicts of interest point to constitutional crisis
from The Guardian

Apparently Trump has it all legally wrong that the President can have no conflicts of interest (ahem); he says he's giving his business to his kids, yet his kids are sitting in on meetings with foreign leaders, and foreign leaders seem to be making way to ease Trump's business interests in their countries, not to mention booking rooms in his many hotels across the globe.

The constitutional problem is specifically about receiving payments and/or gifts from foreign leaders, and the existential problem is about whether Trump will or will not intervene in foreign governments based on his business interests. Apparently the electoral college can block his ascendance to the Presidency if he does not figure out this business boondoggle, though I wouldn't count on it. No...pun...intended.



26 November, 2016

The Digest—Saturday, 26 November, 2016

[The Digest is a collection of articles, videos, and other media I've viewed and found significant throughout the day. It is a way to divest myself from other social media that is more reliant on likes, click-bait, and peer-approval rather than quality, intelligence, and diversity of opinion, which are the qualities I find important. It is also a way to devote myself to daily contributions to this space...at least in theory.]

-=Summary: Denying Trump, interviewing Trump, Batman v Superman, & documenting the Holocaust=-

Articles:

No, Trump, We Can't Just Get Along
from The New York Times, by Charles Blow

Agreed.

Donald Trump's New York Times Interview: Full Transcript
from The New York Times

This was difficult to read through—the rambling incoherence, the obsequiousness of NYT editors and staff, the pretense mutual respect. I understand that the NYT feels it needs to have a relationship with the President, but how much will they self-censor in the next four years to keep that relationship viable? How much restraint will be placed on reporters who don't want to give Trump an easy time, like Charles Blow above?

25 November, 2016

The Digest—Friday, 25 November, 2016

[The Digest is a collection of articles, videos, and other media I've viewed and found significant throughout the day. It is a way to divest myself from other social media that is more reliant on likes, click-bait, and peer-approval rather than quality, intelligence, and diversity of opinion, which are the qualities I find important. It is also a way to devote myself to daily contributions to this space...at least in theory.] 

-=Summary: Shot by police, Trump "used" by alt-right, Good Girls Revolt, & Deprogrammed=-

Articles:

Chicago-area teen's death by police under investigation
from CNN

I was just writing about this yesterday. "He had a gun." This story is told so often, so persistently, and by people who for so long were unquestionable that it still passes so, so easily. When I read this article, they had yet to find a gun associated with the victim. As it is potentially so harmful to the reputation of the CPD, I would not be surprised if they "discovered" the weapon in 2 days behind some bush, blah blah. And it is, of course, conceivable that the young man did have a weapon.

But there have been so many videos of young black men being shot by police while actively running away from them, while posing no danger, with their backs turned and hands empty. Some people believe that if you're up to no good, it's your own damn fault if police shoot you for it. Really? Would they still believe that if it were their son, or their brother, or their girlfriend? 

Doubtful, but then again....

24 November, 2016

The Digest—Thursday, 24 November, 2016

[The Digest is a collection of articles, videos, and other media I've viewed and found significant throughout the day. It is a way to divest myself from other social media that is more reliant on likes, click-bait, and peer-approval rather than quality, intelligence, and diversity of opinion, which are the qualities I find important. It is also a way to devote myself to daily contributions to this space...at least in theory.] 

-=Summary: Black youth as deadly threat, the rabbit hole of right-wing conspiracy, Clinton's 2 million vote lead, the doom of arctic ice melt, Trump's (un)tax plan, & the fight for Thanksgiving=-

Articles:

West Virginia Man Accused of Killing Teen Who Bumped Him
from CNN

This is so reminiscent of the Jordan Davis case, wherein an older white man (Michael Dunn) shot to death a black teenager (Jordan Davis) for playing his music too loud and telling the older man to shut the fuck up, or something like that. Witnesses heard the killer say he wouldn't be talked to like that, and he opened fire on the vehicle in which Jordan Davis was sitting with his friends. In that case, Michael Dunn raised the spectre of a black kid with a gun, when there was indeed no gun in the car with the victim.

Now we see it again: old white man says young black teenager has a gun and has to defend himself. He might have indeed felt threatened; a lot of white people identify assertiveness and dominant behavior in African Americans as a threat, so just the image of a black kid walking toward him on the street may have made him fear for his life. That in no way justifies gunning him down, but points to implicit racism that continues whether one is conscious of it or not; whether one intends it or not. 

Expecting black people to acquiesce or pacify in the face of white authority is the structural framework of racism in America and part of the system of oppression most white people are either completely ignorant about or willfully deny. So far, the only gun identified in this case is the suspect's, and it's likely to remain that way. White people have long called on racist stereotypes to deflect responsibility or to conjure a bogeyman to take the blame. 

Ashley Todd. Susan Smith. Charles Stuart. He had a gun; he was wearing a hoodie; he looked "suspicious." In this case, all the victim had to do was refuse to submit, "talk back," and walk across the street. 


23 November, 2016

The Digest—Wednesday, 23 November, 2016

[The Digest is a collection of articles, videos, and other media I've viewed and found significant throughout the day. It is a way to divest myself from other social media that is more reliant on likes, click-bait, and peer-approval rather than quality, intelligence, and diversity of opinion, which are the qualities I find important. It is also a way to devote myself to daily contributions to this space...at least in theory.]

-=Summary: Losing overtime, Trump's defunding of climate science research, and Network at 40=-

Articles:

Millions may now lose eligibility for overtime after ruling
from CNN

"The rules are just plain bad public policy, and we are pleased that the judge is allowing time for the case to go forward before they can go into effect," said David French, the senior vice president for government relations at the National Retail Federation.
What an asshole. Gee, I wonder why a bunch of lobbyists for retail business owners would oppose overtime pay. If you don't want to pay overtime, don't demand your employees work so many damn hours. They also need to do something about salaried workers who are forced to be "at work" all the time, even if at home at night on a weekend, even if on vacation. Technically, workers don't have to do this, but if they don't, they know their employer will just find someone else who will.

Until this country starts treating workers with the same reverence owners receive, we'll continue to be a 3rd world country in practice, if not glaring on the surface as the approaching 4 years may demonstrate.


22 November, 2016

The Digest—Tuesday, 22 November, 2016

[The Digest is a collection of articles, videos, and other media I've viewed and found significant throughout the day. It is a way to divest myself from other social media that is more reliant on likes, click-bait, and peer-approval rather than quality, intelligence, and diversity of opinion, which are the qualities I find important. It is also a way to devote myself to daily contributions to this space...at least in theory.]

-=Summary: The media mourns itself, the nefarious consequences of false equivalence, rigging the election, war on the poor, university as commerce, Matt Tiabbi says some shit, & Good Girls Revolt=-

Articles:

Trump v the media: did his tactics mortally wound the fourth estate?
from The Guardian

I would argue that the fourth estate has been mortally wounded for a while and that the infection of Trump has merely made the symptoms more visible. This should terrify everyone, even those whipped into repeated frenzies about the "mainstream media" and "liberal press." For a group of persons who claim to want change so desperately that they're willing to watch the world burn to accomplish it, they exempt themselves form these efforts and seek only to reinforce their views of the world. But, of course, what they call change is really reinforcement of long-standing status quo and existing privilege...but that's a different topic.

How False Equivalence Is Distorting the 2016 Election Coverage  (must read!)
from The Nation

This one is a little old, though I just stumbled upon it today, but it addresses one of the most egregious failures of the press in modern political discourse. "Equal time" rules during campaigns make sense, but equal truth? Not so much. No one has done a better job at validating the anti-science, anti-fact, anti-reality narrative driven by Republican politics and embodied in Donald Trump than the mainstream press and its desperate drive to seem unbiased. 

In this narrative, if one side has a fact, represented in scientifically-supported data, peer-reviewed, or even just basically, observably, demonstrably true (as in, "The clock on the wall says it's 4pm"), and the other side has a story funded by billionaires in whose interest it is to make clocks disreputable, or just to fuck with the system (as in, "Other sources in the room said the clock was slow" or "Scientists haven't come to a consensus that time is real" or "It didn't feel like 4pm; I'd guess it was closer to 5"), these two "viewpoints" are posed as equally deserving of attention and validation. This is total bullshit. Journalists know better, but fear and cowardice motivate them to treat Newt Gingrich's gut feelings on equal standing with scientific data.


21 November, 2016

The Digest—Monday, 21 November, 2016

[The Digest is a collection of articles, videos, and other media I've viewed and found significant throughout the day. It is a way to divest myself from other social media that is more reliant on likes, click-bait, and peer-approval rather than quality, intelligence, and diversity of opinion, which are the qualities I find important. It is also a way to devote myself to daily contributions to this space...at least in theory.]

I spent the sleepless, early-morning hours catching up on Vice News Tonight. A couple stories in particular caught my attention, and they had nothing to do with the election. The first was about a principal at an elementary school in Baltimore trying new tactics to increase attendance and help improve the lives of her students, apparently to great effect. Personally, I think she's amazing.






09 November, 2016

Dealing in Democracy—The Rehumanization of Bureaucracy

[Dealing in Democracy grasps at, wrestles with, questions, critiques, and explores mere tinges of the brittle and broken bones of American politics through my admittedly biased eyes and offers me an outlet through which to fumigate the horrors both presently presenting and ever-present.] 

Throughout this agonizingly long and malicious election cycle, and now especially post-election, I keep hearing about the failure of progressive policy—how the great social experiment in liberal ideals like equal opportunity, multiculturalism, environmental responsibility, and social justice have been rejected by the majority, even if the alternative is to burn the system to the ground.

Aside from the incorrect presumption of majority, as Clinton did indeed win the popular vote (as did Democrats for the Senate, though gerrymandering makes notions of popular will an impolite topic of conversation), I would argue that it is not the policies of progressivism that have failed, but the people appointed to enact and enforce those policies. To quote a celestially homicidal computer, "It can only be attributable to human error."