Given a chance to explain his support for a YouTuber who warns about alien DNA, Trump abruptly ends press conference
After mounting a half-hearted defense of a woman who says masks don’t work, that there’s a cure for COVID-19, and that doctors make medicine from DNA from aliens and that experts are working on a vaccine that makes you immune from becoming religious, Trump ends a press conference by walking out of the room. Background…
Data-Related Deaths, 1960-2019 (Excluding Fatalities Caused by Misreadings, Typographical Errors, and Paper Cuts)
Making movie magic with my dueling gut-shot daughter
Family outing to the Pittsburgh National Aviary
My kids are in a tree. How's your Friday?
The worst-case scenario Converging in a tense section of Huntsville: A white police officer fresh from de-escalation training, a troubled black woman with a gun, and a crowd with cellphones ready to record
This article focuses on a police officer who had just completed training in how to de-escalate an encounter with a mentally ill citizen, and just three days later found himself face-to-face with a mentally ill woman with a gun (and her toddler with a sippy cup). De-escalation training gives cops better tools than AR-15s, and…
Apple Hill Playhouse is closing, leaving theater group seeking new home
Configuring socially distanced seating and maintaining sanitation protocols in the rough-hewn, Civil War-era barn that houses the theater would be difficult, [executive artistic director Pat Beyer] said.
“I cannot see this structure being brought up to speed in today’s climate. They still haven’t worked out yet how theaters will operate,” she said. “If they can’t figure out what to do at Heinz Hall and the Benedum, how do they expect me to figure it out?”
I went with frisse.
German uses esse “to eat” for people, but frisse “to feed on” for animals. This is a bear, so “I am eating a potato” should naturally be “Ich frisse eine Kartoffel.” But it’s an anthropomorphized talking bear, which implies the self-awareness of “Ich esse eine Kartoffel.” But surely a bear that knows…
Donald Trump Is a Broken Man (Assessment by Speechwriter for Reagan and both Bushes)
Powerful assessment of Donald Trump, written by Peter Wehner, a speechwriter who served Reagan and both Bushes. For context, here’s what Wehner writes about the conservative movement during the Reagan years: The conservative movement in the 1980s, although hardly flawless, was intellectually serious and politically optimistic. And Reagan himself was a man of personal decency,…
How long has Google Docs let you pop up a window with your current word count? Why wasn’t I informed?
Background for Trump’s remarkable pivot to a pro-mask stance; via right-leaning Forbes and The National Review
Background for Trump’s remarkable pivot to a pro-mask stance. First, here’s a report from the right-leaning Forbes, last week. One possible reason for Trump’s continued public embrace of Fauci–even as he shirks his advice behind the scenes–is Fauci’s popularity: an Economist/YouGov poll released Wednesday showed 55% of voters surveyed have a favorable view of Fauci…
The black chair is down to 18¢ per ounce? Shut up and take my money, Amazon!
In July, 2000, I was creating handouts on the sounds of poetry, prototypes, and writing for the web
It seems that an unusually high percentage of links I posted to my website in July 2000 no longer work, but here are a few links that I could find via the Wayback Machine: The guy who invented the “pet rock” won the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest for really bad writing. Humorous courtroom transcripts Q: All…
‘Wear a mask.’ Trump predicts coronavirus will ‘get worse’ as he returns to briefings
In a shift in tone, and after weeks of focusing public events on other issues, Trump urged Americans to wear a mask. […] “We’re asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask, get a mask,” Trump said in perhaps his strongest urging to date on that issue. “Whether you…
Masks serve many purposes. How sad that they’ve become politicized.
I’ve seen the original meme on my social media feed. I’ve fixed it. The purpose of the first three masks differs from the purpose of the fourth mask. The first three masks are designed to protect the wearer from breathing in harmful things in the environment. The mask Dr. Fauci wears is designed not to…
This Woman Inspired One of the First Hit Video Games by Mapping the World’s Longest Cave
The Medium headline calls Colossal Cave Adventure “one of the first the video games,” but it’s a stretch to use “video” to describe the modality of a command line text parser game. The former Patricia Crowther was very helpful to me when I interviewed her by telephone for my DHQ article. I could have written…
No, this photo of people wearing coats standing in front of bare trees was not a fake news media attempt to misrepresent what’s happening in Texas and Arizona in July
It’s distressing and shocking to realize that some people are more willing to spread conspiracy theory shit than it they are to check their sources. Isn’t it the bad guys who are supposed to be spreading lies? I like reading news stories for myself, rather than spreading disinformation on social media. How hard is it…
On set as Betsy and Philip Schulyer in an historical film.
No, Dr. Anthony Fauci did not write the “How dare you you risk the lives of others so cavalierly?” essay
A copy-paste meme I’ve encountered recently compares chickenpox, herpes and HIV with COVID-19, and builds up to a powerful rebuke to those who dismiss the seriousness of the current pandemic. I was particularly moved by these words: For those in our society who suggest that people being cautious are cowards, for people who refuse to…