No disagreement from me. What I think is good is the overview of the sketchy sources policy makers and American journalists rely on when making hysterical claims and urging military action. It's maddening to me that even after Iraq supposedly reliable media will spoonfeed the claims of activists and charlatans with stakes in the conflict to the public as objective and unbiased.
Joyner and everyone else knows exactly what happens now. Now we do the same stupid thing we always do every time our government intervenes in messy civil wars across the globe. We destabilize existing states and feed the chaos and fanaticism that sets the stage for the next intervention, heedless of the humanitarian cost and whether or not any of this is actually in the interest of the American tax payer.
The gas attack (assuming it was a gas attack and it was carried out by Assad forces, both things which are far from clear) is just a pretext for what establishment hardliners have wanted from the beginning. The fact that the mainstream media immediately trumpeted this as an Assad atrocity and began beating the drum for war shows why, despite all their crying to the contrary of late, they don't deserve the trust of the public.
Edit to add, anyone who thinks its clear that the gas attack, again, assuming it was one, was committed by Assad should read this analysis of the sources of information that the government and mainstream media are relying on:
I think the 13th Warrior is criminally underrated in some respects. They sliced and diced it so much that it was never going to be good but I thought it had a lot of cool concepts, including the educated, urbane Arab scholar among barbarian Vikings. I liked it even more when I found out ibn Fadlan was an actual historical figure.
I'm a bit of a hater on the super hero movie genre but my understanding is that Hollywood tried to include a cameo of famous Chinese actors in one of the Iron Man movies and it was so unsubtle that it blew up in their faces. They've probably learned their lesson and are now trying to weave stars from each country into films so that they can emphasize accordingly in the advertising. I bet all of the posters over there for Independence Day 2 prominently featured Angelababy for this reason, while ours prominently featured the American cast. Same deal with this. We see a Matt Damon movie, they see a movie starring a prominent Chinese actor.
Precisely. Its why I think a lot of post-modern cultural criticism on this issue strikes me as off the mark, or at least (perhaps ironically) ethnocentric. The majority of the profits on blockbuster movies aren't being made in America, or even necessarily the West.
It's also quite possible for violence to be remote. 1984 doesn't dwell on life in the trenches for those in the perpetual war between Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, but it isn't really the point of the story. Maybe the remoteness of the violence is itself illustrative of something.
I haven't seen the movie but it's funny how that can happen. Based on your assessment I'm guessing they put Matt Damon in it to get American (and to a lesser degree European) asses in seats for a movie otherwise designed to get Chinese asses in seats.
I tend to agree and have a similar discomfort with it. I also think that we haven't yet adapted well to the realities of social media. A chuckle to yourself at someone else's expense in the circumstances described is ugly and wrong but also human. It can be a teachable moment. Something about making someone else's shame go viral just to get kicks, and the popularity of it, says something very ugly and harder to remedy about human society more generally.
Berlatsky would have a much more interesting point if he didn't veer off into intersectionality foolishness at the end. The threat of violence is real in totalitarian societies, and I think it's fair to consider its absence in some of our more famous allegories (1984, Brave New World). However in his zeal to he misses how arbitrary, inane, and stifling modern attacks on free speech can be, from the illiberal campus left, to British libel law, to German comedians facing charges for mocking Recep Erdogan. You don't need highly personalized torture to stifle free thought any more than you need a body count (though the latter no doubt helps).
He also needs to update his research on World War 2. Now that we've got records from former Eastern Bloc countries Auschwitz really should fade from the forefront as our image of the holocaust. The better one is a silent forest and men with rifles herding civilians to be shot into cold, unmarked graves. Of course considering historical research might also require him to try to square the fact that most civilian deaths caused by Soviet and Nazi policy in eastern Europe were white Christians (Kulaks, ethnic Poles, Ukranians, Belarussians, and Baltic peoples). God forbid we consider the limitations of modern American identity politics in explaining history.
The places the author warns about sound a lot like what other parents have described to me. My cousin's wife told me their son is coming home from 6 hours of kindergarten with several hours of math homework. No idea if this is an exaggeration but I just don't see that as productive for most 5 year olds.
The advice is very much appreciated. My wife and I are tentatively considering that depending on the financial outlook and what our student loan situation is when the time comes. Luckily we've still got plenty of time to think.
All of this focus on methodology and testing in education worries me more than a little. I've got my first born due in September. The stories some of my relatives and friends who have kids starting school tell me about heavy homework assignments in kindergarten and inscrutable approaches to problem solving make my stomach tie into knots.
Maybe I'm just being conservative but it all sounds so different than the Catholic school I went to I'm my early years. Discipline was pretty harshly enforced (including occasionally with the rod) but I don't recall pressure for particular results in tight timelines. I was able to read at the end of 1st grade which seemed in line with most of the other boys (girls on balance seemed to be a bit ahead). Some kids showed up already reading well and some stragglers took until the beginning of second grade but I don't recall that being cause for alarm.
My son isn't even born yet and I already have visions of teachers trying to get blood from a stone in order to meet an arbitrary mandate. I know it's kind of taboo to say in this country but I suspect that socio-economic factors will determine how most students perform, regardless of what magic wands we require teachers to wave.
I'm still not really connecting these dots. If you want me to say Trump is a buffoon who lies and references events that did not occur or characterizes events that did occur in extremely misleading ways I will (and I agree that he does). The fact that he does these things does not justify others doing it or jumping to extreme conclusions, facts (or lack thereof) be damned. I don't see anything controversial about that.
I guess I don't see what's fucked up about urging calm and waiting for evidence? I think I'm missing your point (not trying to be flip at all).
I feel like my life has turned into a mirror image of the moral panic that went on in the conservative ecosystem for much of Obama's first term. I don't like it.
I think your suggestion is the best way to handle these discussions but I do get Damon's frustrations. If we're going to roll our eyes at conservatives latching onto every wild-eyed story about Muslims or illegal aliens that falls apart under scrutiny we need to hold liberal voices to the same standard.
I just don't buy this. When we abandon reason and evidence for feelings and truthiness we all lose. People who continuously attach their credibility to dubious claims only have themselves to blame when they're no longer taken seriously.
There was a piece written by Richard Blow a couple years ago about the Rolling Stone UVA hoax where he talked about bias confirmation in media reporting. Sometimes I think public debate would be greatly improved if everyone was required to read the substance of that essay prior to viewing or discussing any other piece of writing not clearly marked as fiction.
Labeling it 'cultural genocide' is ridiculous and seems to be part of the academic trend of using terminology which is both outrageous and detached from the meaning of the words themselves. It's almost like people are afraid to analyze an argument on its own merits.
I guess I'm cool with these Texas folks doing this as long as we can all be in agreement not to care/justify it when a Texan is inevitably killed by a Palestinian. If they want to intervene on behalf of armed religious fanatics colonizing foreign territory and get caught in the crossfire of locals protecting themselves, well that's the risk they take, right?
The biggest thing that needs to change and the hardest to swallow politically is reforming sentencing guidelines. They're no longer mandatory but most judges still largely adhere to them. This blows up the population of incarcerated people in two ways.
First it makes more people accept plea bargains because the enhanced sentencing mechanisms allow for absurdly long sentences that defendants will not risk if they can avoid it, so you've got more people going in to begin with. Second they mandate irrationally lengthy sentences. We keep people in there for decades and decades, often due to conduct committed at a very young age. The cost outweighs any measurable benefit, unless we see being as severe as is constitutionally permissible as some sort of social good.
This. Plus there's the issue of whether or not there's really such a thing as a completely apolitical technocrat. At the very least they all have an interest in keeping their jobs, which itself is a political question.
That Addict Aide stunt is a joke. I'm all for taking addiction seriously but acting as though it can be diagnosed by social media and trying to shame people for 'liking' images of an attractive, scantily clad coed with drinks in her hand seems likely to have the opposite effect. The puritanical undertones are also embarrassingly absurd.
I think over time you're right but there was a little bit of a cult of personality in 2008. Remember the whole women fainting during his speeches thing?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “OTB: Trump Orders Syria Strikes. So Now What?”
No disagreement from me. What I think is good is the overview of the sketchy sources policy makers and American journalists rely on when making hysterical claims and urging military action. It's maddening to me that even after Iraq supposedly reliable media will spoonfeed the claims of activists and charlatans with stakes in the conflict to the public as objective and unbiased.
"
Joyner and everyone else knows exactly what happens now. Now we do the same stupid thing we always do every time our government intervenes in messy civil wars across the globe. We destabilize existing states and feed the chaos and fanaticism that sets the stage for the next intervention, heedless of the humanitarian cost and whether or not any of this is actually in the interest of the American tax payer.
The gas attack (assuming it was a gas attack and it was carried out by Assad forces, both things which are far from clear) is just a pretext for what establishment hardliners have wanted from the beginning. The fact that the mainstream media immediately trumpeted this as an Assad atrocity and began beating the drum for war shows why, despite all their crying to the contrary of late, they don't deserve the trust of the public.
Edit to add, anyone who thinks its clear that the gas attack, again, assuming it was one, was committed by Assad should read this analysis of the sources of information that the government and mainstream media are relying on:
http://www.alternet.org/world/trump-going-commit-next-great-american-catastrophe-syria
On “Morning Ed: Society {2017.04.04.T}”
I think the 13th Warrior is criminally underrated in some respects. They sliced and diced it so much that it was never going to be good but I thought it had a lot of cool concepts, including the educated, urbane Arab scholar among barbarian Vikings. I liked it even more when I found out ibn Fadlan was an actual historical figure.
"
I'm a bit of a hater on the super hero movie genre but my understanding is that Hollywood tried to include a cameo of famous Chinese actors in one of the Iron Man movies and it was so unsubtle that it blew up in their faces. They've probably learned their lesson and are now trying to weave stars from each country into films so that they can emphasize accordingly in the advertising. I bet all of the posters over there for Independence Day 2 prominently featured Angelababy for this reason, while ours prominently featured the American cast. Same deal with this. We see a Matt Damon movie, they see a movie starring a prominent Chinese actor.
"
Precisely. Its why I think a lot of post-modern cultural criticism on this issue strikes me as off the mark, or at least (perhaps ironically) ethnocentric. The majority of the profits on blockbuster movies aren't being made in America, or even necessarily the West.
"
It's also quite possible for violence to be remote. 1984 doesn't dwell on life in the trenches for those in the perpetual war between Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, but it isn't really the point of the story. Maybe the remoteness of the violence is itself illustrative of something.
"
I haven't seen the movie but it's funny how that can happen. Based on your assessment I'm guessing they put Matt Damon in it to get American (and to a lesser degree European) asses in seats for a movie otherwise designed to get Chinese asses in seats.
"
I tend to agree and have a similar discomfort with it. I also think that we haven't yet adapted well to the realities of social media. A chuckle to yourself at someone else's expense in the circumstances described is ugly and wrong but also human. It can be a teachable moment. Something about making someone else's shame go viral just to get kicks, and the popularity of it, says something very ugly and harder to remedy about human society more generally.
"
Berlatsky would have a much more interesting point if he didn't veer off into intersectionality foolishness at the end. The threat of violence is real in totalitarian societies, and I think it's fair to consider its absence in some of our more famous allegories (1984, Brave New World). However in his zeal to he misses how arbitrary, inane, and stifling modern attacks on free speech can be, from the illiberal campus left, to British libel law, to German comedians facing charges for mocking Recep Erdogan. You don't need highly personalized torture to stifle free thought any more than you need a body count (though the latter no doubt helps).
He also needs to update his research on World War 2. Now that we've got records from former Eastern Bloc countries Auschwitz really should fade from the forefront as our image of the holocaust. The better one is a silent forest and men with rifles herding civilians to be shot into cold, unmarked graves. Of course considering historical research might also require him to try to square the fact that most civilian deaths caused by Soviet and Nazi policy in eastern Europe were white Christians (Kulaks, ethnic Poles, Ukranians, Belarussians, and Baltic peoples). God forbid we consider the limitations of modern American identity politics in explaining history.
On “The Reading Railroad”
@kazzy thanks for the insight and yes, please do shoot me an email if it isn't too much trouble.
"
The places the author warns about sound a lot like what other parents have described to me. My cousin's wife told me their son is coming home from 6 hours of kindergarten with several hours of math homework. No idea if this is an exaggeration but I just don't see that as productive for most 5 year olds.
"
The advice is very much appreciated. My wife and I are tentatively considering that depending on the financial outlook and what our student loan situation is when the time comes. Luckily we've still got plenty of time to think.
"
All of this focus on methodology and testing in education worries me more than a little. I've got my first born due in September. The stories some of my relatives and friends who have kids starting school tell me about heavy homework assignments in kindergarten and inscrutable approaches to problem solving make my stomach tie into knots.
Maybe I'm just being conservative but it all sounds so different than the Catholic school I went to I'm my early years. Discipline was pretty harshly enforced (including occasionally with the rod) but I don't recall pressure for particular results in tight timelines. I was able to read at the end of 1st grade which seemed in line with most of the other boys (girls on balance seemed to be a bit ahead). Some kids showed up already reading well and some stragglers took until the beginning of second grade but I don't recall that being cause for alarm.
My son isn't even born yet and I already have visions of teachers trying to get blood from a stone in order to meet an arbitrary mandate. I know it's kind of taboo to say in this country but I suspect that socio-economic factors will determine how most students perform, regardless of what magic wands we require teachers to wave.
On “Morning Ed: World {2017.03.30.Th}”
I'm still not really connecting these dots. If you want me to say Trump is a buffoon who lies and references events that did not occur or characterizes events that did occur in extremely misleading ways I will (and I agree that he does). The fact that he does these things does not justify others doing it or jumping to extreme conclusions, facts (or lack thereof) be damned. I don't see anything controversial about that.
"
I guess I don't see what's fucked up about urging calm and waiting for evidence? I think I'm missing your point (not trying to be flip at all).
I feel like my life has turned into a mirror image of the moral panic that went on in the conservative ecosystem for much of Obama's first term. I don't like it.
"
I think your suggestion is the best way to handle these discussions but I do get Damon's frustrations. If we're going to roll our eyes at conservatives latching onto every wild-eyed story about Muslims or illegal aliens that falls apart under scrutiny we need to hold liberal voices to the same standard.
"
I just don't buy this. When we abandon reason and evidence for feelings and truthiness we all lose. People who continuously attach their credibility to dubious claims only have themselves to blame when they're no longer taken seriously.
"
There was a piece written by Richard Blow a couple years ago about the Rolling Stone UVA hoax where he talked about bias confirmation in media reporting. Sometimes I think public debate would be greatly improved if everyone was required to read the substance of that essay prior to viewing or discussing any other piece of writing not clearly marked as fiction.
"
It's as real as Finland.
"
Labeling it 'cultural genocide' is ridiculous and seems to be part of the academic trend of using terminology which is both outrageous and detached from the meaning of the words themselves. It's almost like people are afraid to analyze an argument on its own merits.
"
I guess I'm cool with these Texas folks doing this as long as we can all be in agreement not to care/justify it when a Texan is inevitably killed by a Palestinian. If they want to intervene on behalf of armed religious fanatics colonizing foreign territory and get caught in the crossfire of locals protecting themselves, well that's the risk they take, right?
On “Pitchfork Republic”
The biggest thing that needs to change and the hardest to swallow politically is reforming sentencing guidelines. They're no longer mandatory but most judges still largely adhere to them. This blows up the population of incarcerated people in two ways.
First it makes more people accept plea bargains because the enhanced sentencing mechanisms allow for absurdly long sentences that defendants will not risk if they can avoid it, so you've got more people going in to begin with. Second they mandate irrationally lengthy sentences. We keep people in there for decades and decades, often due to conduct committed at a very young age. The cost outweighs any measurable benefit, unless we see being as severe as is constitutionally permissible as some sort of social good.
On “Tim Harford: Some things are best left to the technocrats”
This. Plus there's the issue of whether or not there's really such a thing as a completely apolitical technocrat. At the very least they all have an interest in keeping their jobs, which itself is a political question.
On “Morning Ed: Health {2017.03.27.M}”
That Addict Aide stunt is a joke. I'm all for taking addiction seriously but acting as though it can be diagnosed by social media and trying to shame people for 'liking' images of an attractive, scantily clad coed with drinks in her hand seems likely to have the opposite effect. The puritanical undertones are also embarrassingly absurd.
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2017.03.26.Su}”
I think over time you're right but there was a little bit of a cult of personality in 2008. Remember the whole women fainting during his speeches thing?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.