Friday, December 05, 2014
First Assume Standards
I watched with "amusement" the evolving new "journalistic standards" for covering sexual assault accusations. Quite often there are pieces that inspire a bunch of people working in media to pretend that there are some standards which must be applied that have never actually been applied before, at least not in any consistent form.
It isn't the same, obviously, but back in the good old days journalists would try to impose random "standards" (or "ethics") on bloggers that didn't apply anywhere else in the journalist universe. Also, too, not really a journalist. One reporter insisted that bloggers must fully disclose all of their financial information, just in case there was some conflict of interest. I was like, do you read your own opinion pages? Do you get all of the tax returns of your contributors?
It isn't the same, obviously, but back in the good old days journalists would try to impose random "standards" (or "ethics") on bloggers that didn't apply anywhere else in the journalist universe. Also, too, not really a journalist. One reporter insisted that bloggers must fully disclose all of their financial information, just in case there was some conflict of interest. I was like, do you read your own opinion pages? Do you get all of the tax returns of your contributors?
A Wank of Writers
A bunch of TNR writers and editors (I think everyone has the title of 'editor' these days) who happily worked under the ownership of Marty Peretz for years are all resigning in a huff - good for them if that's what they want! - and the collective journalist community (not all journalists) is talking about this in apocalyptic terms. There has been a death in the family.
TNR was a force for bad for as long as I was aware of it. Peretz, a horrible person, owned it since 1974, before finally selling it to the rich facebook guy.. How far back does one have to go for the supposed good old days when it was some sort of wonderful thing?
TNR was a force for bad for as long as I was aware of it. Peretz, a horrible person, owned it since 1974, before finally selling it to the rich facebook guy.. How far back does one have to go for the supposed good old days when it was some sort of wonderful thing?
Grifters Gonna Grift
Especially when the laws empower them to do so.
EMPLOYEES AT Olney Charter School are questioning the payment of thousands of dollars to a contractor hired to paint the school because they say they do not recollect that a contractor ever did work at Olney.
According to invoices from the school, ASPIRA Inc. of Pennsylvania, the North Philadelphia charter-school operator that manages Olney, paid $163,365 to Lyon Contracting Inc. to paint the school in 2011. But employees who recently learned of the payments say school janitors and building maintenance workers performed the work.
Thursday, December 04, 2014
So Long, And Thanks For All The Shit
Apparently TNR is getting rid of its current editor, Foer, and moving the operation to New York. This has caused various journalist twitterati to huff and puff their outrage, because nobody is supposed to ever lose their job in that world. Or Something.
Anyway, I've never understood the lingering affection that people who should know better have for TNR. Yes it does publish people I like these days, but there is this weird worship of it as An Institution, as An Important Part Of The Discourse. Yah, thanks for Marty Peretz, Andrew Sullivan, The Bell Curve, Betsy McCaughey, Mickey Kaus, the Iraq War, etc...etc...
It isn't going out of business, but people are acting like it is because the newish owner is daring to make changes (no idea if they'll be good or bad).
...oh God, I forgot Chuck Lane, who often manages to make Richard Cohen look good...
Anyway, I've never understood the lingering affection that people who should know better have for TNR. Yes it does publish people I like these days, but there is this weird worship of it as An Institution, as An Important Part Of The Discourse. Yah, thanks for Marty Peretz, Andrew Sullivan, The Bell Curve, Betsy McCaughey, Mickey Kaus, the Iraq War, etc...etc...
It isn't going out of business, but people are acting like it is because the newish owner is daring to make changes (no idea if they'll be good or bad).
...oh God, I forgot Chuck Lane, who often manages to make Richard Cohen look good...
Give People The Tools
I admit I get a bit confused when people call for more net-nannying from sites like Twitter and Facebook. I get it more with Facebook, as they've long been making sure that what you post fits whatever "standards" they think it should be applying. Once they go down that road, it's reasonable to ask why if X violates their TOS, that Y doesn't.
But twitter is more a pure communications system. I get that people (cough women cough) face genuine harassment and threats there and I am not discounting the problem. Still it just seems like with a bit of intelligence you can give users control over what they see and don't see. Muting and blocking are good features (I do so miss when I could hellban people on the blog). Adding the ability to block all "new" accounts would probably solve a lot of problems. I'm sure there are other good ideas floating around.
But twitter is more a pure communications system. I get that people (cough women cough) face genuine harassment and threats there and I am not discounting the problem. Still it just seems like with a bit of intelligence you can give users control over what they see and don't see. Muting and blocking are good features (I do so miss when I could hellban people on the blog). Adding the ability to block all "new" accounts would probably solve a lot of problems. I'm sure there are other good ideas floating around.
Decline
The suburbs aren't one thing, and this type of pattern is going to vary quite a bit from place to place, depending in part on when the inner ring suburbs were built. Still there is the basic issue that older suburbs are having to deal with legacy maintenance costs, changing demographics, and local resistance to land use/zoning changes that are potentially self-defeating.
I see a lot of boarded up strip malls and houses in places where that would have seemed very unlikely a couple of decades ago.
I see a lot of boarded up strip malls and houses in places where that would have seemed very unlikely a couple of decades ago.
Butterfly Wings
This kind of thing is long how I've seen blogging/internet potential. Anyone without a normal massive platform can, occasionally, set something in motion.
Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Evening Thread
One thing I increasingly don't understand is the cliche that people get more conservative as they age. I don't even know if it's true, but it's the kind of thing people say. The longer I live the more aware I am of how fucked up and bullshit things are, especially for the poor and members of minority communities.
Shit Is Fucked Up And Bullshit
So it's effectively legal for cops to kill black men in this country.
I'm not going to pretend police abuses are a new thing, but I honestly seem to remember a time when it was an issue when a cop killed someone. That is, it was thought to be a situation in which something went wrong. That didn't mean the cop was prosecuted, or even lost their job, but that if a civilian was killed by a cop it meant that we all agreed that it shouldn't have happened that way. Not really anymore.
I'm not going to pretend police abuses are a new thing, but I honestly seem to remember a time when it was an issue when a cop killed someone. That is, it was thought to be a situation in which something went wrong. That didn't mean the cop was prosecuted, or even lost their job, but that if a civilian was killed by a cop it meant that we all agreed that it shouldn't have happened that way. Not really anymore.
Wednesday Crass Commercialism
I'm sure someone you know would love all the Harry Potter films on Blue Ray for just 55 bucks.
Holiday purchases from amazon provide me with my Xmas bonus from Jeff Bezos. Best way to support this site, as it costs you nothing. Just click one of the links...
Holiday purchases from amazon provide me with my Xmas bonus from Jeff Bezos. Best way to support this site, as it costs you nothing. Just click one of the links...
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