Australia is suffering from extreme fires and all good scientists are supposed to say, “Well, we can’t say these are the result of global warming.” And that is true to some extent. But these fires are demonstrating my greatest fear about global warming and it ain’t the average global temperature.
The science of global warming is more complex than most people realize. The most basic of theory shows, for example, that as radiative forcing increases, the poles warm the most and the equator the least. And the stratosphere cools while the troposphere warms. But mostly, the climate system is really complicated.
Double CO2
For example, there is much made of double-CO2 experiments. But they are not meant to be realistic. They are just a shorthand way to compare how different models respond to changes in radiative forcing. So the models run under current circumstances and double CO2 levels. The differences can be large. When I worked in the field, one model I used saw a 2C increase from double CO2 while another saw a 5C increase.
At the time, I figured the lower estimate was right. But since that time, it looks like the higher number is. The Earth’s climate is surprisingly sensitive to radiative forcing.
Beyond Averages
None of this matters, however. No one lives through climate; they live through weather. Think about it like a car traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles at an average speed of 30 mph. That speed is meaningless if it runs you over. The only thing that matters is exactly what speed it was traveling when you were hit.
There clearly are problems with the temperature always being a few degrees warmer than usual. But the bigger problem is that having a higher baseline means more and harsher extreme events. Plants and animals have evolved to deal with temperature changes. But they aren’t evolved to deal with temperatures outside their normal range.
I realize most people — conservatives most of all — don’t think this matters to us because we can adapt. But we do sit at the top of the food chain. And while we air condition our way through a heatwave, not all the animals we depend upon can.
Extreme Consequences
In addition to more extreme heat, we will also see more extreme drought. If anything, that’s even worse. And it combines synergistically with the heat.
All of this is to say that the Australian fires are the result of global warming.[1] And this is how it will be.
I used to look forward to a time when even the global warming denialists would have to admit that they’d been wrong. But that won’t happen. For one thing, there are people who claim the Earth is flat. But more importantly, the worst effects of global warming will come in extreme events. And that means sudden mass extinctions. And sudden pain for us. Fun times!
But at least coal is cheap!
[1] These extreme events seem like they are coming on the order of once in the decade. But given the climate we had in 1850, these kinds of events would only occur every 10,000 years or more. I think we can thus use the shorthand that such events are due to global warming.
Europeans have, on average, more neanderthal DNA than Africans. In an interview with Ezra Klein, Sam Harris said, “Had it gone another way, all of a sudden we can’t talk about Neanderthal DNA anymore.”
His point is that if Africans had more DNA, liberals like myself wouldn’t want to talk about it because it would be a concrete sign that Africans were more brutish. It’s a hilariously stupid thought to support his contention that Charles Murray is a perfectly fine person to platform on his show.
But Sam Harris is probably right. But not for the reasons he thinks.
What Would Happen If Africans Were More Neanderthal
The truth is that if Africans did have more neanderthal DNA than Europeans, it would cause a reaction. White supremacists would use the information along with the ignorant belief that Neanderthals were stupid brutes to argue that white people are superior to black people.
And thus, the discussion of neanderthals would become complicated. Because for each person who was discussing neanderthals seriously, there would be ten who were just using it to push racist bullshit.
Neanderthal DNA, IQ, Whatever
“All of a sudden we can’t talk about Neanderthal DNA anymore.” –Sam Harris
It’s like IQ. There are plenty of people who talk about it seriously and there is never a problem. No one demonstrates against James Flynn speaking on a college campus. They have a problem with Charles Murray because he isn’t actually a scientist. Instead, he’s a racist quack who uses the respectability of the pretense of science to push his own political agenda.
Sam Harris has shown himself to be open to racist IQ pseudoscience. He has also shown that he accepts the same tired stereotypes of neanderthals. So if it had turned out that Africans had more neanderthal DNA than Europeans, I have little doubt that Harris would allow racist quacks on his show to use this information to push their agenda.
And he would do this because, he’d claim, college students were trying to silence the brave neanderthal quacks. It certainly wouldn’t be because Sam Harris has some latent racism that he refuses to grapple with.
No, it would be because he’s just a brave truth-teller. It’s interesting that brave truth-tellers are almost always people pushing really old, regressive ideas. Leftist ideas somehow have a much higher activation energy when it comes to brave truth-telling.
Sam Harris Gonna Platform Bigots
The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter what neanderthal DNA says about human evolution. White supremacists would use it to make racist arguments if it helped them and ignore it if it didn’t. If it did help them make their case, liberals would rightly see the issue as a delicate one.
And Sam Harris would platform racists wanting to use it.
Merry Christmas, everyone! In the following article, I’m going to pull together some old stuff from previous posts with mostly new stuff to make a Christmas post. If you want more, go back to Christmas: Everything I Have to Say. It has so much in it that I couldn’t even manage to read it all. And I’m very fond of my own writing (this is helped by having a terrible memory).
Setting the Mood
Let’s set the mood with some Christmas music. This gets harder every year.
It used to be that it was just the explicitly Christian songs that bugged me. And they still do. There are few things that annoy me more than Christians who run around reminding people of the “reason for the season!”
There is basically nothing theologically interesting about Christmas from a Christian standpoint. The virgin birth is just something tacked on for the prols. Christians should make a big deal out of Easter and the related holidays. But they don’t. Because American Christians neither know nor care about their religion’s theology. Instead they care about cultural signaling and in- and out-group politics.
But this year I found it impossible to enjoy songs that I’ve liked in the past like “I Saw Momma Kissing Santa Claus.” So I included a few songs that you really need to stretch to include. Here’s the list:
“Blue Christmas” — Elvis Preseley
“Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” — Jackson 5
“Christmas Wrapping” — The Waitresses
“This Christmas” — Donny Hathaway
“Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)” — The Ramones
“Santa Baby” — Eartha Kitt
“Merry Christmas Baby” — Otis Redding
“There Ain’t No Sanity Clause” — The Damned
“Baby It’s Cold Outside” — Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski
“Back Door Santa” — Clarence Carter
“If We Make It Through December” — Merle Haggard
“Run Rudolph Run” — Chuck Berry
“The Weight” — The Band
“Der Hölle Rache” — Diana Damrau
“Fairytale Of New York” — The Pogues
“2000 Miles” — The Pretenders
“Santa Stole My Girlfriend” — The Maine
“We’ll Meet Again” — Vera Lynn
“Must Be Santa” — Bob Dylan
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” — Judy Garland
I’m particularly bothered by The Ramones cut because of the stupid video stuff at the beginning and end of the song. But I so love the song that I included it.
Last Year’s Christmas
Last year, I published A Very Alpha Christmas. It’s interesting because I thought I had written it in 2016 or 2017. My feelings have only gotten worse. In fact, I tried to back out of all my familial obligations. It’s not that I mind doing all the holiday stuff. But I do mind the feeling that there are those who only take.
Next year, I may well do my own horror-themed Christmas. If my family wants to come, great. I’ll serve the food I like and show the horror films that I want to watch.
But that’s not what I would hope for a family gathering. I do, however, think that Christmas shouldn’t be me cooking while the television in the other room screams sports. But note: my problem is not the sports but the fact that it isn’t the choice of the group. It’s the choice of one man. And it is the choice he makes all the time. You see, it is no more a choice for him than it is for me.
Last year I also recommend that you watch Christmas Evil. It is the film I’m featuring on Psychotronic Review, so click over there and watch it. Things have been taking off over there. It is getting a lot more love than Frankly Curious. And I’m starting to see the traffic to justify it.
Still, it’d be nice to do more on Frankly Curious. It’s hard to find the time — especially while I’m trying to save money. But I’ll do my best.
School Is In!
It’s always fun to learn stuff. If you don’t agree, you aren’t the target audience of this site. Go away!
In the past, I’ve featured lectures and interviews that were Christmas-focused. Here are a few that I find interesting.
Don’t Celebrate Christmas!
Tom Flynn believes that people shouldn’t celebrate Christmas or any similar holidays. I don’t find the argument compelling. As I’ve already noted, there isn’t much that’s religious about Christmas.
Still he makes an argument that is worth hearing. He’s interviewed by authoritarian atheist Robert M Price. These were the days before Price felt comfortable flying his authoritarian flag high. Now he takes the derision of people like me as proof that he’s right. He’s hopeless.
Rebecca Watson is one of the small number of major atheist celebrities who didn’t go on to be an authoritarian asshole. She continues to make excellent skeptic-oriented videos.
In this video, she jokes about PZ Myers. I’m not sure what that’s about. The two of them have long been allies. Both of them are good examples of how the New Atheists largely pushed away anyone who didn’t go along with its increasing political conservatism (or worse).
About a year after I turned against New Atheism, PZ Meyers wrote:
The number of people identifying as “nones” will grow in this country in coming years, because we’re on the right side of history, and because organized religion is happily in the process of destroying itself with regressive social attitudes, scandals, and their bizarre focus on other-worldly issues that don’t help people. The number of people identifying as atheists will stagnate or even shrink, because organized atheism is happily in the process of destroying itself with regressive social attitudes, scandals, and their bizarre focus on irrelevant metaphysical differences that don’t help people.
Here is Rebecca Watson’s funny Christmas lecture:
If you want to hear a more radical view of New Atheism (which I mostly agree with), read Sam Kriss’ Village Atheists, Village Idiots.
A Brief History of Christmas
I highly recommend watching Klaus for a Christmas story that is epic and filled with wonderful folkloric elements. It’s on Netflix but I’m sure eventually will be on DVD.
In the meantime, CGP Grey has this excellent video made in the style of, well, CGP Grey.
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Renegade Cut creates great videos of film analysis from a leftist perspective. This one tries to answer why Christmas makes some of us miserable.
Saving Christmas
In comparison with the above, here is another leftist YouTuber Maggie Mae Fish on Kirk Cameron’s ode to materialism Saving Christmas. The film is basically a debate between a sincere Christian who believes Christmas is too materialistic and Cameron who thinks materialism rocks.
According to the movie, Cameron is right. And why not? He does speak for the vast majority of Christians, even if they don’t like it put forward in such a coarse way. Fish tears the film and Cameron apart.
Christmas Comedy
Here is a playlist that I’ve put together with mostly comedy related to Christmas, religion, and that kind of stuff.
Merry Christmas
That’s all for me today. I’ve written an article about the “skeptic” community’s embrace of racial IQ “science” that will come out here early next week. And I’ll be doing a few things over at Psychotronic Review.
I hope you have a good Christmas. It’s hard to be too keen given that it looks like America is taking a big step toward authoritarianism. And if Trump is re-elected, I suspect it is over. The Republicans will be in a position to have minority control over the government for the foreseeable future and there won’t be much we can do about it.
When people virtue signal, who are they signaling to? At least when it comes to liberals and leftists, the people they’re signaling to are themselves. They are trying to be the kind of people they think are good.
They absolutely are not signaling to others. In fact, that would be embarrassing. And that’s part of the problem with conservatives who point out supposed virtue signaling; it accuses them of something they absolutely are not doing at the same time it does what they don’t want to be done. If a liberal is signaling to others, they aren’t being the good person they want to be.
How to Be a Good Person
The conservative view goes along with Aristotle’s notion of how to be a good person. The idea is that you should pretend to be good. You should act the way that good people act and eventually, you too will be a good person.
But people have images of themselves. And they will give up a lot to live up to that image. For example, most people become vegetarians despite the taste of meat, not because of it. We see this very clearly with conservatives too.
There is a common liberal complaint that conservatives “vote against their interests.” But that is rarely true. They often vote against their economic interests. But white people voting for policies that oppress brown people? That’s an interest. They are voting for an idea that white people are better than brown people. And need I remind everyone that the Republican Party is overwhelmingly white.
Conservative Signaling
And conservatives signal too. What do you think all that ostentatious patriotism is about? And I think that’s genuine. Just as with liberals signaling that they are tolerant and so on, conservatives are signaling to themselves that they are good people — the kind of people who love the flag and all that.
Conservatives signal other things too. One I notice a lot is signaling that they are skeptics: nobody’s fools. Unlike liberals, who supposedly let emotions get in the way of their view of the world, conservatives see things the way they are. (Not that I agree.)
Allow People to Be Who They Are
I wish conservatives would allow us on the left to have our beliefs without pathologizing them. But I know they won’t because if leftists’ acceptance of others is a sincere belief, what’s wrong with them?
So it is doubtful things will change. But the charge of “virtue signaling” is hollow. It’s just a way of claiming they don’t accept our view of the world. And we know that. So it really means they have no argument.
John Kerry has endorsed Joe Biden. I’m sure it makes perfect sense to him. But I’m equally sure that we shouldn’t follow John Kerry to catastrophe a second time.
Let’s look at this in detail. Back in 2004, Democrats nominated John Kerry as their presidential candidate. He picked John Edwards as his vice-presidential running mate. And they lost — by over 3 million votes — more than Trump lost by in 2016. Based on what we know about political science, this was not surprising.
Political Science 2004
In 2009, political scientist Lynn Vavreck published a book that looked at presidential elections, The Message Matters. In it, she argued that the country’s economic trend largely controlled the outcomes in presidential races. If the economy is improving, the political party in the White House wins; if the economy is going into recession, the party loses. This is standard political science.
What Vavreck added was that there were elections when this didn’t hold. She argued that a candidate could win the presidency against a strong economy if they could make the election about something other than the economy.
The classic example of this is Jimmy Carter in 1976. He should have lost. But he made the election about corruption and that allowed him to eke out a win by less than 2 million votes.
The Democrats had a great opportunity in 2004. People had turned against the Iraq War. If the Democrats had made the election about the war, they could have won. But they nominated two men who had voted for the war. And Kerry was especially bad when it came to justifying that vote.
The right choice was Howard Dean. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t like Howard Dean. He’s the kind of Democrat I’ve always had problems with. He’s one of the Democrats who rose in the wake of Watergate. He’s very much in favor of “good government” over ideology, which means that economically, he’s pretty conservative.
But his 2004 campaign was all about the Iraq War. And regardless of what he may have thought at the time, he wasn’t on record as being for it. Had the Democrats nominated him, it would have been Bush looking uncomfortable at the lectern, not Kerry. And Dean might have won. He certainly would have done better than Kerry did.
Political Science 2020
So here we are on the cusp of 2020 and Kerry has announced that he is supporting Joe Biden for the nomination. It’s not surprising. The two of them worked together at the top of the Obama White House. What’s more, I think the decline of Warren in the polls has caused a lot of establishment types to decide that Biden is their only choice.
But I think Biden is as electable today as Kerry was in 2004. I know: everyone claims he is the most electable candidate. But Trump is going to hammer him on his Iraq War vote, just like he did Clinton in 2016. And if you don’t think Hunter Biden is going to be the “But her emails!” of 2020, you haven’t been paying attention.
If Kerry is wrong this time too, don’t worry: the Democrats will listen to him again.
You know the Democratic saying: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on you; fool me three times, wow, you really aren’t a very nice person, you’d better not fool me a fourth time!
Recently, a “private equity firm” (read: rich guys with money) bought most of the Gizmodo Media Group. That company includes several sites which aren’t hugely read, and several that are — such as The Onion, Jezebel, The Root, and Deadspin.
I assume everyone knows what The Onion is. Jezebel is a feminist website. The Root is an online magazine co-founded by Henry Louis Gates Jr, which focuses on African-American politics and culture. (It’s often surprisingly funny, even when dealing with instances of dumb racism that infuriate the writers.) Deadspin is about sports, so I’ve cited it often in my baseball-related writing.
History of Deadspin
The thing about Deadspin is that it was founded primarily for writers to make snarky remarks criticizing the fawning coverage of successful teams and athletes often featured on ESPN.
Over the years, it maintained the snarky tone but branched out to include skeezy team owners and politicians (and even annoying holiday catalogs) among its targets. The great Neil deMause, our nation’s top writer on terrible taxpayer-funded stadium deals, often wrote there.
Drew Magary, a former commenter on the site, eventually became an editor. He made the absolutely true observation that when readers say “just stick to sports” they don’t really mean it. What they mean is “don’t cover sports with” things some readers don’t want to know about, such as players who make statements against racism or war or shabby college athletic pay. (They’re fine with F-15s flying over the Super Bowl, and stories of players who saved kittens.)
Deadspin would cover “edgy” political sports stories, usually with a left-of-center attitude, and made quite a bit of money doing so.
The Beginning of the End
Enter the new owners — a group of old men who’d run almost every publication they’d ever been in charge of into the ground. (Well, except Forbes. Rich people will always like their Forbes.)
They started off by hiring their buddies, ignoring internal candidates, and several female staff complained about a particularly rude, dismissive tone. The first thing they did was tell all the writers they were expected to generate Moar Page Views[1], which is the besetting nightmare of anyone who puts thought and energy into their writing (yes, even jokes about sports take thought and energy).
Then they made it clear that this political nonsense was going to stop. Deadspin was going to be a series of click-through articles with virtually no content to distract readers beyond increasingly loud, pushy ads. The staff, naturally, fought back on this, arguing that the site was successful precisely because it drew an audience bored by what most dumb sports sites were churning out.
That’s when heads began to roll. First, Megan Greenwell, the editor-in-chief, left. Next, the deputy editor was fired, after refusing to “stick to sports.” One day later, in a truly brilliant move, the senior writers all posted non-sports, fully political articles each tagged “stick to sports” — then quit. Drew Magary quit the following day (the site’s masthead still features a direct link to his archived articles).
What you’re left with as a company might very well remain profitable, but it’s no longer any place anybody wants to work.
Jerk Boss Behavior
Similar complaints about editorial interference and overbearing new management prickiness have been made by editorial and writing staff at all of Gizmodo Media’s other websites, although none with an exodus so large as Deadspin‘s. Some former writers have noted, correctly, that this is exactly normal when private equity firms take over, well, anything (be it a successful website or struggling retail company).
But the most fascinating observation came from Deadspin‘s first high-profile escapee, aforementioned editor-in-chief Megan Greenwell, in her essay called “The Adults In The Room”:
The beginning of the end of my time here came when Spanfeller, my boss’s boss, threw a tantrum in an email to the entire company over a story our staff was reporting on his hiring practices, management style, and threats to editorial independence. He accused us of biased journalism based on the fact that we had sent an early draft to our media lawyer, which is standard journalistic practice. He accused me and a 26-year-old reporter who works for me — a wildly talented reporter who has as much integrity as anyone I’ve ever worked with — of trying to “shame and discredit others in our community” by reporting a story. When another colleague suggested in an all-staff meeting that his email was itself an attempt to publicly shame and discredit his employees, he doubled down, saying he is a transparent guy who says what he thinks…
After I submitted my resignation, explaining that the ongoing undermining from my bosses made it impossible for me to continue to succeed in my job, and that I believed I was putting my staff at risk by staying, the CEO threw a tinier tantrum. When I passed Spanfeller in the office a week after I put in notice, he let out a cruel barking laugh, as if he was disgusted to be in my presence. I said “you can speak to me, you know,” and he responded in a tone familiar to anyone who was ever bullied in middle school. “I don’t want to,” he sneered.
Greenwell’s point, of course, was that this sort of management style is common among those who consider themselves to be the hard-nosed realists, the grownups, the adults in the room. And that as a result, it drives talented people away. What you’re left with as a company might very well remain profitable, but it’s no longer any place anybody wants to work. (Sociopathic environments like Enron and the Trump White House have shown a spectacular propensity to ruin all they touch.)
That office interaction she describes also reminds me of a line from the show Deadwood: “Can’t shut up. Every bully I’ve ever met can’t shut his fuckin’ mouth.”[2]
Why Can’t Bullies Ever Shut Up?
The bully, by definition, always has to have the last word. Because anything else means admitting, or at least allowing others to believe, that you realize your behavior was wrong.
Now, are bullies the only ones who do this? Heavens, no. We’ve all done it in arguments with romantic partners, family members, online commenters, insurance company phone reps, whatever, when we felt we were in the right. Most of us, though, will eventually realize we’ve taken an argument too far and agree to disagree, retire to separate corners, drop the argument altogether — apologize if we really feel crummy about the whole thing.
A true bully will always have the last word. Even if they apologized before, they’ll nurture and nourish their interior anger at having had to do so, and take the first opportunity to resume the argument (if not with the individual in question, then anyone who seems an appropriate abuse double).
A true bully never really regrets behaving the way they do; they consider it their right as the more powerful person.
Most of the writers who quit are enormously talented and probably will have no difficulties finding new employment.
Why Are Many People In Power Some Degree Of Bully?
Orwell once stated that every bully is also a coward. I’m sure there is some truth to this. Any child services professional knows that bullies are often children who come from abusive homes. So do behavioral psychologists who study serial killers. That sort of bully might have a twisted manifestation of the impostor syndrome, where someone who has power over others constantly fears being found out as a fraud.
Some bullies, however, show no signs of ever having been mistreated in their lives. And that’s the kind I think those new Gizmodo Media owners are. They don’t fear being exposed for the frauds, or jerks, that they are. In fact, they assume such a thing will never happen. Not to them.
Power corrupts, as the saying goes, and if that’s not innate to human behavior it is certainly innate to our current form of capitalism. Everyone under capitalism is ranked by their status, in ways both big (investment portfolio size) and small (an office worker at an ad firm is considered “cooler” than a garbage hauler who makes more money).
A great many people who demean others because they have a higher status under capitalism are Orwellian coward-bullies; they’ll be rank suck-ups to those above them and full-on buttholes to anyone beneath. (As another saying goes, “shit rolls downhill.”)
Not the ones at our very top, though. Not the ones who know that no decision they make will ever harm their lives in any serious way. The super-rich almost never become poor — and only go to jail when they present a problem to the other super-rich. Since they have no need to fear any repercussions for their actions, why not be a rude jerk “who says what he thinks,” if you like? If it makes you feel really, really badass.
The Ultimate Fate Of Deadspin
Most of the writers who quit are enormously talented and probably will have no difficulties finding new employment. Craig Calcaterra at NBC Sports’s Hardball Talk does something very similar with his sportswriting. There’s lots of places a clever writer can go if they don’t want to write sports on the internet anymore. (One does need a solid resume for this, however.)
Could the site itself come back in some sort of different form? Ari Paul at Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) thinks there may be, if writers band together to form some kind of employee-owned website. Paul admits such a venture would require considerable risk with very little early reward, yet suggests that “for independent media to survive… we’re at a breaking point, so it’s necessary.”
How about the site itself? No doubt it will continue in some sort of fashion, as it currently does, but I suspect it will never draw such a loyal following again. Especially not if the new owners continue amping up intrusive ad placements. Fans of witty sports/politics coverage can find other places to go, especially on podcasts and the like.
My guess is Deadspin‘s most consistent readers — you know, the ones advertisers like best — will drift away if they already haven’t fled in disgust. (God help these new owners if they push The Root‘s staff into mass escapage.)
Will it hurt the private equity investors at all? They might make less profit than they expected, but they’ll be fine. Even if they do take a loss, they’ll certainly blame someone besides themselves. Not every spoiled brat grows up to be a bully, but every rich bully is a spoiled brat.
[1] “Moar” is apparently who high young-people spell “more” online. Who am I to stand in the way? -FM
[2] The full quote is, “Can’t shut up! Every bully I ever met can’t shut his fuckin’ mouth. Except when he’s afraid.” It is said by Seth Bullock to George Heart in the final film.
Deadspin Logo by Deadspin – Univision, Public Domain.
It’s that time of year to look at the Democratic primary candidates’ 404 pages on their campaign websites.
As you probably know, in HTTP-speak, a 404 page is what displays when a page is not found. In the old days, you usually got a standard The page cannot be found page. Today, you are more likely to get a page that goes along with the look of the site but is otherwise nothing special, like our 404 page. But a lot of sites do more. And that has been the case with campaign websites.
So I thought we would go through each of the candidates in their order in national polling — more or less.
Joe Biden
Joe Biden’s page is designed to appeal to people like me. It has him with an ice cream cone looking very much like his character at The Onion. He says, “Looks like that page isn’t here. Keep cool – I’ll get us back on the rails.” This is shockingly good coming from a campaign that is anything but cool.
Rating: 5
Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Warren has a fairly standard page but with a 2017 SNL skit with Kate McKinnon as Warren. It’s interesting that the character can be so exaggerated and yet pretty much dead-on. And clearly, I am not the only one who likes that feisty character.
Rating: 4
Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders says, “We’ve run into a yuuuuuuge problem.” It then uses this to talk about the problems of the country. There is also an animated GIF of Sanders that does kind of sum up his campaign and his appeal. A little knowing, self-deprecating humor goes a long way.
Rating: 4
Pete Buttigieg
Pete Buttigieg says, “Oops! Something has gone wrong.” There’s also an image of him looking playfully troubled. For a young guy, Buttigieg is surprisingly good at banality. Extra point taken off for being money-grubbing.
Rating: 3
Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris asks, “Are you lost?” It includes an animated GIF of Harris looking pretty cute as she tries to suppress a laugh. There is a goofy side of her that has been sadly missing in this campaign. It’s nice to see here.
Rating: 4
Andrew Yang
Andrew Yang features a boring caricature of himself along with, “Oops! Page not found.” Surprisingly, it makes Buttigieg’s page seem a lot better. But at least he doesn’t use a quarter of the page begging for money.
Rating: 3
Amy Klobuchar
Amy Klobuchar has a page that announces it is a 404. Then, in big letters, it says, “Uff Da!” I looked it up but it meant what I thought. It’s pretty boring but if you scroll down, there’s a video of her throwing a binder at a staffer. (I’m Kidding!)
Rating: 3
Cory Booker
Cory Booker looks like he’s teasing a fussy baby. It’s cute. And the page says, “Cory believes we can all get where we’re going together. Just not on this page.” I like it.
Note that I didn’t dock the page for pushing fundraising because (1) it doesn’t take up much of the pages and (2) I’m more forgiving of struggling candidates.
Rating: 4
Julian Castro
Julian Castro offers us, “Page not found.” Yeah, it’s competent. But it’s no better than the Frankly Curious 404 page, which took all of 10 seconds to install via a WordPress plugin. Really, Castro brothers: raise your game!
Rating: 2
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard’s page is aggressively plain. I guess if you aren’t going to do anything interesting for your 404 page you might as well make it uncluttered. It certainly is more compelling than Castro’s.
Rating: 3
Tom Styer
Tom Styer tells us, “Not found.” But you can watch a 4-minute video about how awesome he is. Now I’m thinking I was too harsh with Castro. Wow!
Rating: 2
Steve Bullock
Steve Bullock says “Looks like the page you were looking for has gone fishing!” And there’s a picture with him with a fish. I know I’ve seen candidates in previous years use this. It’s not horrible. But: fish torture?
Rating: 2
Kirsten Gillibrand
Kirsten Gillibrand is shown drinking a pint of beer. It says, “We all have those days.” It’s nice and simple — appropriate for her (ended) campaign.
Rating: 4
John Delaney
John Delaney displays a B&W picture of someone driving with the words (from Born to Run), “We’re gonna get to that place / Where we really wanna go…” It doesn’t look very good but it’s probably the most useful 404 of the bunch. Still: it is officially no longer cool to quote Springsteen.
Rating: 3
Marianne Williamson
Marianne Williamson has an incredibly simple but pleasant page, “Let’s get back on track.”
Rating: 3
Michael Bennet
Like Bullock, Michael Bennet uses a page I’ve seen before. There is a (poor-quality) picture of his family (I assume) in the woods having just cut down a Christmas tree. It says, “Looks like you’re lost in the woods.” I wonder if what they did is legal.
Rating: 2
Wayne Messam
Wayne Messam tells us, “Page not found!” And there’s a nice but unrelated picture of him.
Rating: 3
Summary
None of these pages are embarrassing. And a number of them are pretty good. But there is no doubt that Joe Biden’s page does the best job of pushing his narrative. And overall, I think he has an excellent site.
Here are my rankings, but I reserve the right to change my mind (which I will undoubtedly do).
Joe Biden (5)
Elizabeth Warren (4)
Kirsten Gillibrand (4)
Bernie Sanders (4)
Kamala Harris (4)
Cory Booker (4)
Pete Buttigieg (3)
Amy Klobuchar (3)
Marianne Williamso (3)
Tulsi Gabbard (3)
Andrew Yang (3)
Wayne Messam (3)
John Delaney (3)
Tom Styer (2)
Julian Casto (2)
Steve Bullock (2)
Michael Bennet (2)
Let me know what you all think. Am I missing something? Is John Delaney’s page cool in a way I can’t see? Am I being too hard on Bullock and Bennet for ripping off past candidates? Am I being too soft on Elizabeth Warren because I have a crush on Kate McKinnon and, well, Elizabeth Warren? Let me know in the comments. Or not. Regardless what you say I know that I am absolutely right about everything.
I check Google News a few times a day just to keep up with what’s going on. And so I see a lot of headlines from Fox News. In fact, it is interesting to see what things they don’t publish about. For example, when Trump pulled out of northern Syria and abandoned the Kurds, it was notable that there was almost no coverage from Fox News. If they can’t spin a story in a way that makes the Republicans look good, they don’t publish stories about it.
The Formula
But I want to highlight a different aspect of Fox News’ deceptions. A shocking number of their headlines are just right-wing talking points pitched as actual news. The biggest way they do this is to offer headlines of the following form:
[Someone]: [Right-wing talking point]
In general, the “someone” is simply a Fox News contributor. Sometimes, this is someone you’ve heard of — at least if you follow Fox News. For example, “Hannity: Dems want to impeach Trump because they’re ‘hell-bent on taking revenge’ for 2016 defeat.”
Other news outlets use this formula, but it is almost always someone of note who is being quoted. For example, CNN recently published the headline, “Pelosi: I don’t know why GOP is afraid of the truth.” Everyone knows who Nancy Pelosi is. She is a major political figure. The story was about a speech she gave on the House floor.
Fox News Examples
But when Fox News uses this formula, their intent is to deceive not to inform. Let me offer you just a few headlines that I’ve collected over the past couple of weeks.
Liz Peek: Democrats toss Biden aside in zeal to impeach – ensuring Trump’s reelection
Tom Del Beccaro: Decoding Democrats’ rush to impeachment
Gregg Jarrett: Trump did NOT commit an impeachable offense on call with Ukraine’s president – Here’s why
Kayleigh McEnany dismisses ‘quid-pro-Joe’ Biden’s call for Trump’s impeachment
David Bossie: Impeachment inquiry? No, Americans are witnessing an impeachment conclusion
Justin Haskins: Elizabeth Warren is pretending to be something she’s not — let’s not fall for her masquerade
Liz Peek: Sorry, Democrats, impeachment doesn’t mean you’ll carry the White House in 2020
David Bossie: Trump impeachment vote is Democratic declaration of war – Republicans must declare war on Dems
Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders want to wreck the ‘great American experiment,’ Jesse Watters says
Stirewalt: Warren’s $52T ‘Medicare-for-all’ plan is a ‘disaster’ just like her DNA test release.
Pretending to Be Objective
Notice what’s really going on here. Fox News wants to publish a story saying, “Trump impeachment vote is Democratic declaration of war.” But that’s not what a news organization does.
So they publish, “David Bossie: Trump impeachment vote is Democratic declaration of war – Republicans must declare war on Dems.” That why they are publishing news. You see, they aren’t saying this. They are just offering “expert” opinion.
One could say that this is just how Fox News presents its opinion coverage. And that’s true. But why is it that the big news outlets that constantly find their way at the top of Google News are overwhelmingly, you know, news?
Opinion All the Time
For example, here are the headlines from three days ago when the House was about to hold a vote on the impeachment inquiry:
What can we expect from televised impeachment hearing? (The New Yorker)
Why John Bolton and his ex-colleagues are crucial witnesses (The Washington Post)
Rep Andy Biggs: Trump-hating Democrats do whatever it takes to impeach, ignoring precedents (Fox News)
Obviously, Fox News is pushing what sells. The first headline would bore their viewers. The second would make them feel bad. But the third? That tells them exactly what they want to hear.
More Examples
Another good example is the treatment of Elizabeth Warren’s Medicare-for-All plan. Fox News cannot discuss it without highlighting it’s cost, as if they were adding “Be afraid! Be very afraid!” to the end of their headlines.
I highlighted one above. Here is the headline of their first article, “Cavuto breaks down Warren’s $52 trillion Medicare for All plan.” At the same time, not one of the half-dozen headlines from actual news outlets mentioned its cost. But then, those outlets produce information, not propaganda.
On those few occasions where Fox News must publish something that will upset their viewers, they do it in a way as to minimize the discomfort. Here’s an example, ” Graham urges Trump to act on Syria, rips Pelosi’s impeachment push.” One Republican has a minor disagreement with another but it’s okay because he “rips” the enemy.
Fox News Is Not a News Organization
What’s maddening about this is that Fox News is treated like a regular news organization. In as much as they produce regular news, it is only so that they can claim the same stature as The New York Times and Newsweek. What they really are is the television equivalent of a tabloid.
The World Series is over and for once I cared. Really! Admittedly, it had nothing to do with baseball. It was all about my love of symmetry. Let me explain.
Early Sunday morning, I was forced to evacuate my home because of the Kincade Fire. And it was a bit scary. When I first left, the fire was 16 miles away. Within 24 hours, it made a bee-line toward me — ending up only 5 miles away.
Having nowhere else to go, I went to stay at my sister’s place down in Millbrae. That meant spending quite a lot of time with her husband, Harold. And that led me to watch game 6 of the World Series.
A Pattern in the Making
At one point, I realized something. I asked Harold, “So if the Nationals win tonight, does that mean that the home team has lost every game in this series?” He seemed vaguely impressed that I noticed that and told me it was so and that it had never happened before.
And sure enough, the Washington National won. So the first two games were at Houston and Washington won them. There was even some speculation that they might sweep the series. But during the next three games in Washington, Houston won each time. In fact, the Nationals looked pathetic. They managed to score only one run each game, while the Astros won with 4, 8, and 7.
The obvious outcome of the next game back at Houston was for Washington to lose badly. But instead, Washington won easily, 7-2. In fact, Houston didn’t score a run after the first inning.
So even though I made it back home today and so did not have to watch the last game of the World Series, I did. You see: life is constantly disappointing. It is unpleasant and chaotic. But here was an opportunity for a little clarity — perfection, in fact. This was seven isolated games during which the team with the home-field advantage lost each time. Six out of seven was no good. It had to be seven.
And it was.
Some Pointless Math
If the outcome of these games were random, then this seven-game streak would happen less than one time out of a hundred. But the home team in MLB wins 54 percent of the time. If we assume that this distribution is random, the number falls to 0.4 percent.
But I don’t think this is simply a statistical fluke. I suspect it is some form of mass psychology. I don’t have any proof, course; but I’ve seen this thing too many times.
Or maybe it is just the normal human tendency to find patterns where none exist. That combined with my own idiosyncratic love of odd patterns. Regardless, this was a very good World Series.
After the fire, it’s nice to have a little clarity in the universe.
The Kurds are an ethnic/linguistic stateless people living primarily in Eastern Turkey and northern Iraq (where they make up about 20% of the national population), northeast Syria and northwest Iran (where they make up roughly 10%).
Since 2012, northeast Syrian Kurds have formed an essentially independent government, based on libertarian socialist principles (non-authoritarian socialism). They’ve been able to do so by fighting off the ISIL faction in Syria’s civil war, and as such were loosely allied with American troops in the region.
On 7 October 2019, President Trump announced his plans to reassign these troops elsewhere in Syria. Since the troops will be taking their air support with them, this leaves Syrian Kurds vulnerable to invasion by Turkey. Turkish president/thug Recep Tayyip Erdoğan then indicated he would do so, using ethnic cleansing to clear a 20-mile deep area along the border as a new home for some of Turkey’s 3.6 million Syrian refugees. Attacks began almost immediately. Erdoğan has threatened to release the Syrian refugees into Europe if he is opposed (how he would do so is unclear).
Why Does Erdoğan Hate the Kurds?
There’s been resentment in Turkey towards its Kurdish minority for decades, roughly since a Kurdish separatist movement arose following the end of the Ottoman Empire. Authoritarian politicians, there as here, sporadically stoked this resentment in hopes of bolstering their own popularity. Repressions have included sometimes banning the language, deposing democratically elected Kurdish politicians, jailing and murdering leaders and journalists, and so on. After a failed 2016 coup attempt (probably started by members of the Turkish military), Erdoğan used the coup as an excuse to crack down even further on Kurdish civil society.
The mostly Christian Armenian population now coexists peacefully with the mostly Muslim Kurdish population.
And ethnic cleansing is not new to Turkey either; during WWI the government is estimated to have murdered between 700,000 and 1,500,000 Armenians (some Kurds helped, as is often the case with genocides: turn one oppressed minority against another). Some who fled for their lives ended up in Northeast Syria, where Armenian culture has existed for centuries. The mostly Christian Armenian population now coexists peacefully with the mostly Muslim Kurdish population. They are sure to be among hundreds of thousands at risk of losing their homes if Erdoğan fulfills his invasion plans. This has caused some prominent American evangelical leaders to criticize Trump’s strategic decision. (I don’t imagine they’ll stay mad for long.)
A Common Fate for American Proxy Allies
It’s not the first time America has used Kurdish fighters as allies then abandoned them to regional enemies; as Jon Schwarz observes, it’s more like the eighth, usually involving our obsession with ruling Iraq from Washington.
Nor are the Kurds our first recent foray in exploiting the self-determination dreams of a stateless people; we did it in Southeast Asia with the Hmong, who faced reprisals from the Laotian government after supporting the US side.
Thousands died in Laotian re-education camps or trying to reach refugee camps in Thailand. We allowed a handful to escape here. There are sizable Hmong populations in California and Minnesota today as a result.
Why Is Trump Doing This?
America has used Kurdish fighters as allies then abandoned them to regional enemies many times before.
Who knows. Trump apparently made the decision following a call with Erdoğan, one of the endless series of tyrants our would-be Mussolini admires.
Probably it’s a win-win-win scenario in his mind since it pleases a tyrant, pretends to be disentangling the US from endless Middle Eastern wars, and screws over suffering people. The US foreign policy establishment, naturally, considers any example of even slightly successful socialism to be a strategic threat, although it’s unlikely Trump pays any attention to such matters.
He did promise that “if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off-limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!).” No doubt Syrian Kurds feel better now. Besides, as William Rivers Pitt points out, Trump owns a hotel in Istanbul; “financially firebombing your own properties” is not a typical Trump move (except via his own stupidity and narcissism).
The Time I Needed Kurdish Tea
Which brings to mind a personal anecdote. I used to live above a Kurdish restaurant in Saint Paul (one of my favorite restaurants, ever). The building owner, a serious Trump-type super-jerk who inherited the building from his dad, was a slumlord and a sleaze; he’d hang out in the lobby at the beginning of every month to hit on college students moving in.
It was impossible to interact with this man without him being insulting and demeaning, making fun of you for having a low-rent apartment. One time he really got under my skin, I don’t remember with what. It was right before I was meeting someone at the restaurant.
And boy, did I vent. I let loose a tirade of f-bombs that would make a mobster blush. The place was pretty empty at the time, and I’m sure my voice was audible all the way in the kitchen.
The owner, a conservatively dressed middle-aged woman, came over to our table. “I think you need some Kurdish tea,” she said, and comped me a cup.
She was right! It absolutely calmed me down.
I’m happy to report that not long after I left that horrible landlord, the restaurant did, too. They’re doing fine in a new location nearby. Same owner, same excellent food, and the same tea.
How to Follow This Story in the US
Right now, there is major media coverage in the US, largely because a few Republican members of Congress have criticized Trump’s withdrawal decision. (This is presumably because of the risk to Armenian Christians and the possible resurgence of ISIL in the region, not concern over the Kurds.) This coverage is already beginning to fade; simple humanitarian crises don’t make our evening news.
One can, of course, trust Al Jazeera English to stay on the story and to see updates from Democracy Now! Economic anthropologist David Graeber (a strong supporter of the Kurdish socialist movement) has, for years, been providing links to coverage of anti-Kurdish repression on his Twitter feed, including many local news sources.
We should follow what happens because, in large part, we did it. And the great anti-war writer, ex-soldier Danny Sjursen sadly notes, betrayal is American foreign policy; “next time, and there will be a next time, don’t even think about trusting Uncle Sam. You’ll thank me later.”
Update
Since I wrote this, the Syrian Kurds have asked corrupt Syrian president Bashar al-Assad for military assistance resisting the Turkish invasion. Assad has virtually no support from anybody in Syria, but he does have lots of guns, probably half of which we sold him, if the history of US interventions is any guide.
Accepting Assad’s help means the end of a socialist Kurdish society in northeast Syria. And that’s correct; preventing murder or forced relocation is more important than protecting an experiment in actual democracy. It’s what Sjursen predicted, and it’s terribly sad. Why not actually flex our international muscle to support the locals, for once? Because we’re America, and that’s not what we do.
Trump claims the relocated soldiers will be returning home. He says, “Those that mistakenly got us into the Middle East Wars are still pushing to fight. They have no idea what a bad decision they have made.”
That’s a good campaign bit, but it’s utterly untrue — we’re not getting out of the Middle East, we’re just repositioning troops. Our war on and about that region never ends. Trump didn’t start it, Trump will not end it, and the suffering will continue, far away, to people about whom we couldn’t give a damn.
I come at the gender-pronoun question from the opposite perspective of most people — but especially social conservatives. Ever since I started writing, I have hated gender-specific pronouns. But for a long time, I resisted the use of the plurals “they” and “them.”
For some time, I was very fond of “it.” It says a lot about me that I thought “him” and “her” could easily be replaced with “it.” My friends thought I was crazy. But why? I don’t mind being referred to as “it.” If all humans were referred to as “it,” there would be no stigma. Yes, I am weird. But after a few years, I realized this fact about myself and gave up on the idea.[1]
Back at the start of 2016, I gave up on solving the gender neuter problem in what I considered an appropriate way. I accepted the plurals as the best option. But to be clear: the issue remained contentious.
And then transgender issues made it to the mainstream of discussion.
Transgender “They” and “Them”
I noticed that a lot of transgender people — especially non-binary people — used “they” and “them” as pronouns. For me, this has been like manna raining down from the heaven where all grammar inadequacies and contradictions are solved. “Yes!” I said to myself. “Let us all act as non-binary people! Let’s destroy gender-specific pronouns for good!”
Let’s start the party!
Transgender People Are Not a Monolith
But there is a problem. There are a lot of transgender people who identify with the opposite gender as their sex.[2] And many of these people would like society to acknowledge their gender just as most cis people do.
We can’t dismiss this desire. Sure, in a perfect world, there would be no need. “We are all individuals!” But I fear we are a good deal further from that world than most liberals would like to think.
What’s more, it doesn’t really matter. There are plenty of pretend alpha males who live in terror of their true selves ever being made public.[3] Who am I to say that they aren’t deserving of society’s reinforcement of their identities? I’m not going to misgender someone even if they take pride in misgendering others.
Toward Gender Neutrality in Grammar
My concern is about grammar and finding language that is accurate. So there’s never a problem saying, “Annette Hanshaw came to sing, and she was great.” But I would like to move toward a language that didn’t include gender — where the standard was, “Annette Hanshaw came to sing, and they were great.”[4]
As a result, I think those who feel comfortable should forsake gendered pronouns. So please: use “they” and “them” for me. But don’t do it because my gender is indeterminate or fluid. I reside very comfortably in the male gender category. This is an opportunity to simplify the language. And I’m always keen on that.[5]
[1] Given the way that many treat transgender people, I can well imagine some awful people using “it” in an effort to dehumanize those in the transgender community. So there is another reason not to use “it.”
[2] I understand that sex is a complicated subject. Forgive me for simplifying there.
[3] I don’t mean to imply anything specific here. However, it has long been my contention that bisexuality among men is far more common than normally believed.
[4] If we ever reach the point where the plural pronouns are default, I might want to discuss getting rid of the plural verb. “Annette Hanshaw came to sing, and they was great.” For now, it sounds odd and grammar needs to change slowly.
[5] Note there are cases where having gender is helpful. For example, when writing about a man and a woman, you can use gendered pronouns throughout without having to use names or descriptions for clarity. But this is a very small advantage that does not begin to compare to the advantages of gender-neutral language. What’s more, even the most barely competent writer can easily solve any problems that come up because of a lack of gendered pronouns.
I’m not particularly good at being a member of a tribe. I am only in a tribe because I like and agree with it. Usually, I’m the first to sound the alarm. But this is because I do care about the tribe. And that’s how I feel right now being an Elizabeth Warren supporter.
It hasn’t broken through to the mainstream media, but there is a story about why Warren stopped being a special needs teacher. According to her now, she was effectively fired because she was pregnant. Back in 2007, in an interview on Conversations with History, she seems to be saying that she left voluntarily.
More recent reporting indicates that the Board of Education renewed her contract.
Alternative Narratives
The allegations don’t disturb me all that much. First, I have already written that Warren is going to face challenges now that she’s doing so well in the polls. I welcome that. Warren shouldn’t be the nominee if she can’t deal with stuff like this.
And I can well imagine what the counter-narrative will be. She can say that, as an academic, she didn’t want to mention that she was fired. So she mentioned a few details but left out that embarrassing bit about being fired. That actually goes along with how she discussed it in 2007. It certainly isn’t the case that she said, “Oh, the Principal begged me to stay but I had to follow my dream!”
As for the Board of Education, that doesn’t mean anything. If Warren was going to be told she needn’t come back because she was pregnant, it wouldn’t have been done in an official capacity. This was 1971. They would know they’d be facing a lawsuit.
None of this is to say that Warren is telling the truth. From my own experience, I know how stories change over time. I’ve seen friends tell the same story over decades and seen how they change even though my friends absolutely believe they are telling the truth. But obviously, this kind of explanation won’t work because regardless of all we know about how the brain works, people won’t buy it. It’s certainly true that my friends do not accept the fact that their stories change over time.
Conservative media presents this as “another” case of Warren lying. What they mean is “second.” And the first was not her lying regardless of how you feel about her claim to have Native American blood. In truth, this whole controversy isn’t substantive. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t enough to destroy her candidacy.
Let’s Have Answers
What most bothers me is that the Warren Campaign hasn’t issued a statement. This thing has been going on for about five days. I realize it hasn’t gotten traction. But it’s better to kill it now than to allow a firestorm once the mainstream media picks it up. And it will eventually be picked up because another Democrat will bring it up or Trump will in the general election.
Of course, if Warren doesn’t have a good answer for this, it is a major problem. This is a lot like Biden in 1987. But if this really is nothing, I’d like it to be resolved. Actually, I want it resolved either way.
Update
CBS News reported, Warren Stands by Account of Being Pushed Out of Her First Teaching Job Because of Pregnancy. It’s almost exactly what I figured above. I find it credible. Of course, conservative media will continue shouting, “Liar!” They would never accept her regardless. I don’t see how this becomes a narrative used by the mainstream press the way it did (wrongly) for Al Gore. But we’ll see.
I’m not particularly good at being a member of a tribe. I am only in a tribe because I like and agree with it. Usually, I’m the first to sound the alarm. But this is because I do care about the tribe. And that’s how I feel right now being an Elizabeth Warren supporter.