Saying any particular identity group should have veto power over the party platform is silly and its likely to alienate a plurality of voters in a big diverse country. I'm not sure I agree with your facts on public opinion around Obama but I guess we'll find out. Maybe hunting heretics will work out for you. The right managed to kill all the RINOs, though I'm not sure we're better off for it.
@maribou All I have is anecdata but as best as I can tell the SJW crowd was 'with her' and the critics on the left were racist, sexist Bernie bros. Of course this could lead us into a discussion of what 'social justice' really is- and its a pretty nebulous term when you get down to it. Who I mean when I say 'SJW' would be the illiberal intersectionality uber alles left. And yes, I think the energy and where our political fault lines lie favor them to win over the Democratic party then promptly eat their own in an orgy of witch burning like the ditto-heads have the GOP.
@pillsy There's always been an arbitrariness about where the law sets those limits and social attitudes about it vary widely with the times. I'd think most people agree that the situation referenced in Cr4 is never going to be acceptable but time was that people weren't as horrified by a 15 or 16 year old getting what she came for from an adult rock star. That isnt to say it was exactly approved of but I'm not sure they were looked at as victims in quite the way they might be now. Attitudes about that have changed but I think we should be hesitant to project current norms onto things that happened 40 or more years ago. I mean... my grandmother was 17 and my grandmother was 32 when they had my mom. She'd laugh at anyone who said she was taken advantage of.
I actually think what @stillwater is saying is quite founded. The weirdos on the SJW left don't dominate the Democratic party now but the reactionary-populist right didn't always control the GOP either. It happened over a long period of time where a certain energized strain was allowed to grow in influence until it took over the grass roots. It's quite possible Obama will be remembered as the last of the Clintonite third way Democrats.
My hope is that the party will turn more towards a Sanders style push to renegotiate the social contract but theres no reason to think that the energy coming from the SJW corner won't prevail. The tribal nature and urban vs. rural aspects of our political moment favor a coastal coalition of college educated whites (particularly women) and minorities, where the SJW side side is strongest. Essentially the coalition Hilary thought would win her the election.
I dunno Burt. I agree that it doesn't have to be misinformation but there are plenty of prominent voices out there calling for various limitations on speech, including establishing laws other Western countries have adopted that wouldn't pass 1st Amendment scrutiny here. Now I do think there's more ignorance out in the general public than ideology but I don't think that's quite whats going on at colleges.
It makes sense if you look at everything through the lense of victim culture where individual agency is less important than amorphous societal power dynamics.
All fair enough (and don't worry given your posting history here I do not doubt your fandom, especially since I think I've deduced youre a fellow O's fan).
To me if they're going to do stuff like add a pitch clock or change rules around pitching changes they should first get rid of more recent crap like challenges and shrinking the strike zone. See if that helps before we do something that really screws with the flow of the game.
All interesting points but I don't really see what they had to do with my comment. I don't hear the push coming from regular fans of the game during the season, but it does consistently around playoff time when suddenly the national media tunes in and people who don't watch much baseball all summer suddenly are.
Medieval Europe was not preoccupied by race, nor was it an era of racial purity
One of the more pernicious, ahistorical, and stupid aspects of our cultural moment is the tendency to view everything through the lense of racial politics in modern America.
Ed2- Americans have an unusual fear of math because we're bad at teaching it and the stakes of failure at any point in our education system are ever higher.
Ed6- The call to condemn as usual is misdirected and its absurd to ask academics to virtue signal for no reason other than showing solidarity with a particular perspective about the current political climate. The way to disabuse anyone of fantastical ideas about medieval Europe is with facts about these societies, none of which bore much resemblance to popular imagination. Neo-Nazis and other fringe movements already traffic in fantasy anyway and I doubt many of them have much of a presence on college campuses where these denunciations would occur.
I've seen this kind of thing come up in the heavy metal world where certain subgenres of power metal and folk metal have become popular in Neo-Nazi circles even though there's nothing inherently racist about the music. Just because some noxious group likes a particular thing doesn't obligate others who enjoy or study that particular thing to disavow them. I'll never understand how all this Mcarthyite guilt by association crap has gotten so popular in our society.
@pd-shaw's last paragraph I think is most on point. I hear the complaint about length most around playoff time where the pitching strategy is nothing like the normal season.
I'm a dissenter on the idea that these games need to be shortened. If it's something we're going to do I don't think it should be driven by the ultra-casual fan or sports media more interested in the highlights than the quality of the product as a whole. As @mike-dwyer said above, the slowness of the game is part of its charm.
Blade Runner 2049 may top my list of perplexing sequels. The original wasn't a commercial success, there's no franchise potential, and as best as I can tell no one was asking for it. More evidence that Ridley Scott should be forced into retirement I guess.
Eh I kind of get why they don't. A lot of what goes on in campus activism has as much to do with youth and maturity as it does with actual politics. Conservative media already does all it can to connect the Democratic party to college activist antics. If I were a party operative I wouldn't want to officially own something I probably can't control.
Maybe I'm wrong though and it would create a more disciplined left which I don't think would be a bad thing. We've talked plenty on this site about the myriad of ways left wing activisim in this country ensures its own ineffectiveness.
I dunno- I think Will's comment shows a misreading of the situation. No one has been better at trolling the campus left than college Republicans. Every riot, disrupted speaker, or similar incident is a PR victory.
I'm not sure I agree. I think people who still have a subscription to the WaPo or NYT probably still find them largely credible but that's not really what I'm talking about.
Agree completely (see also my comment to Oscar above). The more they imitate the tactics of usually-but-not-always right wing tabloid newstainment the less seriously people take claims to the moral high ground/serious journalism.
I think they're getting a very different message, and because of it they're becoming a little less distinguishable from Fox News in certain important respects. The closet Milo sympathizers from respectable institutions mentioned in Me8 (not Mitchel Sunderland/Vice) along with the list of debunked stories about Russia over the last 8 months are illustrative of the problem.
Me3 is hilarious and I would be willing to pay Comcast extra to periodically be pranked that way.
Me5 and Me7 is why the whole 'fakenews' thing strikes a chord despite being largely silly. Major news outlets, for all their self righteousness in the Trump era, smugly act like they have no reponsibility to get things right.
Me8 wait, Mad Max, Dune, and... 80's synthpop are important to the alt right? Tanz den Mussolini I guess.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Linky Friday: Blood & Money”
Saying any particular identity group should have veto power over the party platform is silly and its likely to alienate a plurality of voters in a big diverse country. I'm not sure I agree with your facts on public opinion around Obama but I guess we'll find out. Maybe hunting heretics will work out for you. The right managed to kill all the RINOs, though I'm not sure we're better off for it.
"
Did Obama have to do those things to win in the Midwest?
"
@maribou All I have is anecdata but as best as I can tell the SJW crowd was 'with her' and the critics on the left were racist, sexist Bernie bros. Of course this could lead us into a discussion of what 'social justice' really is- and its a pretty nebulous term when you get down to it. Who I mean when I say 'SJW' would be the illiberal intersectionality uber alles left. And yes, I think the energy and where our political fault lines lie favor them to win over the Democratic party then promptly eat their own in an orgy of witch burning like the ditto-heads have the GOP.
"
@pillsy There's always been an arbitrariness about where the law sets those limits and social attitudes about it vary widely with the times. I'd think most people agree that the situation referenced in Cr4 is never going to be acceptable but time was that people weren't as horrified by a 15 or 16 year old getting what she came for from an adult rock star. That isnt to say it was exactly approved of but I'm not sure they were looked at as victims in quite the way they might be now. Attitudes about that have changed but I think we should be hesitant to project current norms onto things that happened 40 or more years ago. I mean... my grandmother was 17 and my grandmother was 32 when they had my mom. She'd laugh at anyone who said she was taken advantage of.
"
I actually think what @stillwater is saying is quite founded. The weirdos on the SJW left don't dominate the Democratic party now but the reactionary-populist right didn't always control the GOP either. It happened over a long period of time where a certain energized strain was allowed to grow in influence until it took over the grass roots. It's quite possible Obama will be remembered as the last of the Clintonite third way Democrats.
My hope is that the party will turn more towards a Sanders style push to renegotiate the social contract but theres no reason to think that the energy coming from the SJW corner won't prevail. The tribal nature and urban vs. rural aspects of our political moment favor a coastal coalition of college educated whites (particularly women) and minorities, where the SJW side side is strongest. Essentially the coalition Hilary thought would win her the election.
On “Plausible Misconceptions”
I dunno Burt. I agree that it doesn't have to be misinformation but there are plenty of prominent voices out there calling for various limitations on speech, including establishing laws other Western countries have adopted that wouldn't pass 1st Amendment scrutiny here. Now I do think there's more ignorance out in the general public than ideology but I don't think that's quite whats going on at colleges.
On “Linky Friday: Blood & Money”
It makes sense if you look at everything through the lense of victim culture where individual agency is less important than amorphous societal power dynamics.
On “The 9:30 Project”
All fair enough (and don't worry given your posting history here I do not doubt your fandom, especially since I think I've deduced youre a fellow O's fan).
To me if they're going to do stuff like add a pitch clock or change rules around pitching changes they should first get rid of more recent crap like challenges and shrinking the strike zone. See if that helps before we do something that really screws with the flow of the game.
"
All interesting points but I don't really see what they had to do with my comment. I don't hear the push coming from regular fans of the game during the season, but it does consistently around playoff time when suddenly the national media tunes in and people who don't watch much baseball all summer suddenly are.
On “Morning Ed: Education {2017.10.18.W}”
One of the more pernicious, ahistorical, and stupid aspects of our cultural moment is the tendency to view everything through the lense of racial politics in modern America.
"
Ed2- Americans have an unusual fear of math because we're bad at teaching it and the stakes of failure at any point in our education system are ever higher.
Ed6- The call to condemn as usual is misdirected and its absurd to ask academics to virtue signal for no reason other than showing solidarity with a particular perspective about the current political climate. The way to disabuse anyone of fantastical ideas about medieval Europe is with facts about these societies, none of which bore much resemblance to popular imagination. Neo-Nazis and other fringe movements already traffic in fantasy anyway and I doubt many of them have much of a presence on college campuses where these denunciations would occur.
I've seen this kind of thing come up in the heavy metal world where certain subgenres of power metal and folk metal have become popular in Neo-Nazi circles even though there's nothing inherently racist about the music. Just because some noxious group likes a particular thing doesn't obligate others who enjoy or study that particular thing to disavow them. I'll never understand how all this Mcarthyite guilt by association crap has gotten so popular in our society.
On “The 9:30 Project”
@pd-shaw's last paragraph I think is most on point. I hear the complaint about length most around playoff time where the pitching strategy is nothing like the normal season.
I'm a dissenter on the idea that these games need to be shortened. If it's something we're going to do I don't think it should be driven by the ultra-casual fan or sports media more interested in the highlights than the quality of the product as a whole. As @mike-dwyer said above, the slowness of the game is part of its charm.
On “A Fork In The Road”
@aaron-david
Blade Runner 2049 may top my list of perplexing sequels. The original wasn't a commercial success, there's no franchise potential, and as best as I can tell no one was asking for it. More evidence that Ridley Scott should be forced into retirement I guess.
On “Morning Ed: World {2017.10.13.F}”
Eh I kind of get why they don't. A lot of what goes on in campus activism has as much to do with youth and maturity as it does with actual politics. Conservative media already does all it can to connect the Democratic party to college activist antics. If I were a party operative I wouldn't want to officially own something I probably can't control.
Maybe I'm wrong though and it would create a more disciplined left which I don't think would be a bad thing. We've talked plenty on this site about the myriad of ways left wing activisim in this country ensures its own ineffectiveness.
"
I dunno- I think Will's comment shows a misreading of the situation. No one has been better at trolling the campus left than college Republicans. Every riot, disrupted speaker, or similar incident is a PR victory.
On “Morning Ed: Media {2017.10.11.W}”
Its the Milo Minderbinder philosophy. The absolute worst thing you can do is act ashamed.
"
Agreed.
"
It tied Milo to Devin Saucier and another personality (Deezer or something) who are apparently prominent in the neo-Nazi movement.
"
I'm not sure I agree. I think people who still have a subscription to the WaPo or NYT probably still find them largely credible but that's not really what I'm talking about.
"
@pillsy you don't think the MSM has taken some serious blows to its credibility?
Edit to add by credibility I mean credibility as a neutral arbiter/4th estate kind of function.
"
Agree completely (see also my comment to Oscar above). The more they imitate the tactics of usually-but-not-always right wing tabloid newstainment the less seriously people take claims to the moral high ground/serious journalism.
"
Whats wrong with drinking and drugs?
"
I think they're getting a very different message, and because of it they're becoming a little less distinguishable from Fox News in certain important respects. The closet Milo sympathizers from respectable institutions mentioned in Me8 (not Mitchel Sunderland/Vice) along with the list of debunked stories about Russia over the last 8 months are illustrative of the problem.
On “A Fifth Qatari Travelogue: The Blockade”
I'm not sure the tone of this piece is sufficiently defiant, what with the blockade...
Thanks for sharing these I very much enjoy reading them.
On “Morning Ed: Media {2017.10.11.W}”
Me3 is hilarious and I would be willing to pay Comcast extra to periodically be pranked that way.
Me5 and Me7 is why the whole 'fakenews' thing strikes a chord despite being largely silly. Major news outlets, for all their self righteousness in the Trump era, smugly act like they have no reponsibility to get things right.
Me8 wait, Mad Max, Dune, and... 80's synthpop are important to the alt right? Tanz den Mussolini I guess.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.