Journalists are often criticized for emphasizing bad news. On a day when there are no commercial airliner crashes, there’s no need for a story on the fact that everyone who flew today landed safely. I prefer to get my news from the web, so I don’t follow TV news in any form. However, I was…
From the Wall Street Journal: At a March 10 church choir practice in Washington state, 87% of attendees were infected, said Lea Hamner, an epidemiologist with the Skagit County public-health department and lead author of a study on an investigation that warned about the potential for “superspreader” events, in which one or a small number…
Happy Flag Day! All flags matter, but nobody needs to say that out loud, because we are rational and well-meaning individuals who recognize my expression of respect for my nation’s flag in no way interferes with anyone else’s ability to express respect for their own flags.
Cops are trained to make snap decisions under highly stressful situations. Often their training saves lives. Sometimes they deeply regret decisions they make. After thinking back on his recent behavior while working during a protest at Foley Square May 31, NYPD officer Robert Cattani offered a heartfelt apology: “I know I made the wrong decision,”…
Medium is not a peer-reviewed source, and the author is anonymous, which affects how credible this article is. The clickbaity headline obscures the fact that this essay offers a good argument that much of the good done by cops doesn’t involve having a “monopoly on state violence.” It’s also a reminder that being “blue” as…
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. Data builds an android derived from his own positronic neural pathways, and intends to raise it as his child — a prospect that invokes Picard’s iconic facepalm. Picard (to admiral conjured up by writers who needed an antagonist): “There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly…
The ongoing protests following the killing of George Floyd were caught up in violence again on Saturday, as police all over the country tear-gassed protesters, drove vehicles through crowds, opened fire with nonlethal rounds on journalists or people on their own property, and in at least one instance, pushed over an elderly man who was walking away with a cane. Here are some of the ways law enforcement officers escalated the national unrest.
A rubber bullet shot by the Hong Kong police on Sunday caused a journalist to lose sight in an eye. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) again urges the authorities to guarantee reporters’ safety. A reporter working for Indonesian-language media outlet Suara Hong Kong News, Veby Mega Indah, has permanently lost eyesight in the right eye on…
A Facebook meme with 52k reactions and 37k shares includes pictures of volunteers cleaning the streets in Minneapolis, the day after mass protests of the death of George Floyd. The pictures make a powerful point about the values of the community. However, the text includes an unnecessary slam against journalism, because it introduces the images…
Powerful writing, by Matthew Schneier. Most of the essay is on the power of poetry as an oral art form. (See also Poetry is for the Ear and Poetry Writing Hacks: Top 10 Tips.) But I blogged it because of the paragraphs about the author’s father. Right now, a machine is breathing for my father,…
(Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break) Crusher finds herself sympathizing with the charming terrorist who kidnapped her. After last week’s “The Hunted” and the week before’s “The Defector,” it seems the writers are very interested in humanizing perceived enemies. An unusually exposition-heavy captain’s log establishes the Enterprise is visiting a non-aligned world shaken by terrorists.…
If, like pollster Matthew McDermott, you shared (or at least chuckled at) that Jimmy Kimmel clip of VP Pence joking about delivering empty boxes because it confirms what you already believe about Pence; or, if you feel the C-SPAN clip that unfairly makes the VP look bad confirms your attitude about the lying America-hating media,…
My social media feed just featured adorable pictures of dolphins engaging with a sloth. Instead of blogging the Business Insider page or the Bored Panda or the Reddit pages or local TV news programs that repurposed content from the Texas State Aquarium, I wanted to find the original. The dolphin pictures are still frames from…
Possibly, in a few months, we’ll return to some version of the old normal. But this spring won’t be forgotten. When later shocks strike global civilization, we’ll remember how we behaved this time, and how it worked. It’s not that the coronavirus is a dress rehearsal—it’s too deadly for that. But it is the first of many calamities that will likely unfold throughout this century. Now, when they come, we’ll be familiar with how they feel.
If you think of science like the multiple-choice quizzes in a high school science class, where there’s exactly one correct answer that your teacher knows in advance, then watching science happen in real time can be confusing. Especially when it mixes up with politics, business, and human stubbornness. If socially disruptive anti-virus actions work, they…