Cyberbullying and sexting are problems that continue to grow in our nation's schools mainly due to the ever-changing advancements in technology and thCyberbullying and sexting are problems that continue to grow in our nation's schools mainly due to the ever-changing advancements in technology and the inability for schools to keep up with it. It doesn't help that many adults---parents, teachers, and administrators equally---don't know how to recognize the problem and probably wouldn't know what to do if they did.
Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin's "School Climate 2.0: Preventing Cyberbullying and Sexting One Classroom at a Time" is a good reference for parents and teachers. Written more for educators, parents of students who may be being cyberbullied or are cyberbullies will find some useful information.
Bullying, which is still a serious problem in schools, used to be defined as the aggressive behavior and harassment by one person or a group of persons, carried out repeatedly over a period of time, involving a power differential. It's the power differential that's significant: generally the strong picked on the weak, the big picked on the small. With the advent of technological advances such as computers and cellphones, the power differential isn't as significant. Anyone can be a bully, and anyone can be bullied. Not only that, but traditionally bullying occurred solely on school grounds, during school hours. Home was a safe area. Not anymore. Cyberbullies can attack anytime, from anywhere.
Sexting, for those who don't know, is the sending or receiving of sexually explicit texts or nude or semi-nude pictures or videos via cellphone or other forms of technology. Recent studies have found that a significant number of teenagers have sexted, and that sexting becomes more frequent as teenagers get older. Those naughty little selfies teens send to their significant others can often be copied and disseminated to many other people. What many kids don't know is that, owing to the fact that most of these kids are underage, their sexts, if found, fall under certain child pornography statutes. Sexting could conceivably land kids in jail and have a "sex offender" status permanently attached to their record. It may not be fair, but it is the law, and it has happened.
One of the things that schools can do, according to Hinduja/Patchin, is take a proactive approach by implementing strategies for creating a more positive school climate, one in which students feel that teachers sincerely care about them, where misbehavior is monitored and dealt with in a fair and consistent manner, where students feel that they are being better prepared for the future, and where they feel safe and secure. Research has indicated that schools with positive school climates---as rated by students and teachers---have a marked reduction in incidents of cyberbullying and sexting.
While somewhat dry in its writing and overloaded with statistics (it is a textbook, after all), "School Climate 2.0" is nevertheless a useful resource for the latest research on an issue that probably won't be going away anytime soon....more
Narcissism (noun): 1) excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one's physical appearance. 2)PSYCHOLOGY selfishness, involving a sense of entNarcissism (noun): 1) excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one's physical appearance. 2)PSYCHOLOGY selfishness, involving a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration, as characterizing a personality type. 3)PSYCHOANALYSIS self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects, either in very young babies or as a feature of mental disorder. —-Dictionary.com
I’m guessing that Donald Trump has never been, and never will be, a pet person. One has to be able to think beyond one’s own narrow self-interest in order to take care of a dog or a cat or even a lizard. I’m pretty sure Trump’s initial thought upon seeing any domesticated animal is “Can I eat it?”
But why pick on just Trump? After all, even his biggest fans know that Trump’s narcissism is merely a symptom of a bigger problem within our society. They would say that we’ve become too lazy, too soft, too apathetic as a society. Our ridiculous self-love is the least of our problems. Or is it?
Despite its publication date of 1979, Christopher Lasch’s now-classic “The Culture of Narcissism” could just as easily be read and appreciated today. If it’s not already on required reading lists for college psychology courses, it probably should be.
Lasch, in ’79, couldn’t have fathomed the level of self-indulgence in 2024. He couldn’t have foreseen the Internet and the subsequent generations of children addicted to an isolated virtual world. He couldn’t have foreseen the dangerous anonymity of social media where people can “speak” to millions of people but really only be speaking to themselves. He couldn’t foresee a political divisiveness that went beyond just a disagreement between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, but a hyper-dangerous mentality of “My opinion is the correct one, and anyone that disagrees with it is evil.”
Whether it’s the epidemic of depression and anxiety of young girls so obsessed with smartphone selfies and trying to be as beautiful as those AI-generated supermodels or the sharp rise in white Christian nationalists or the uptick in violent incidents perpetrated by young men who dub themselves “involuntary celibates”, a.k.a. incels, or elected politicians who deny the values they supposedly hold so dear in order to align themselves with a megalomaniac that allegedly has the power to end their political careers if they don’t agree with him, narcissism is at the root of most problems. We all want to look good, get ahead, keep up with the Joneses, regardless of whether we are making a better world. That doesn’t matter anymore. Today, it’s all about making a better world for ourselves.
It’s really all about “optics”. You’ve heard the word, ad nauseam. It’s the buzzword in entertainment, sports, politics, law enforcement, business, education. It’s no longer “How can we fix this?” but rather “How can we spin this to make it look good?”
“For all his inner suffering, the narcissist has many traits that make for success in bureaucratic institutions, which put a premium on the manipulation of interpersonal relations, discourage the formation of deep personal attachments, and at the same time provide the narcissist with the approval he needs in order to validate his self-esteem. Although he may resort to therapies that promise to give meaning to life and to overcome his sense of emptiness, in his professional career the narcissist often enjoys considerable success. The management of personal impressions comes naturally to him, and his mastery of its intricacies serves him well in political and business organizations where performance now counts for less than “visibility”, “momentum,” and a winning record.” (p. 91-92)
Trump, as the archetypal narcissist, is all about “winning”. To his credit, Trump’s brilliance lies in his ability to convince a wide swath of Americans that he actually gives a shit about them, that he actually wants to help them. In truth—-and his own track record shows this—-Trump’s only out to help himself. For a narcissist, that is the end-all-be-all:
“The pursuit of self-interest, formerly identified with the rational pursuit of gain and the accumulation of wealth, has become a search for pleasure and psychic survival. Social conditions now approximate the vision of republican society conceived by the Marquis de Sade at the very outset of the republican epoch. In many ways the most far-sighted and certainly the most disturbing of the prophets of revolutionary individualism, Sade defended unlimited self-indulgence as the logical culmination of the revolution in property relations—-the only way to attain revolutionary brotherhood in its purest form. By regressing in his writings to the most primitive level of fantasy, Sade uncannily glimpsed the whole subsequent development of personal life under capitalism, ending not in revolutionary brotherhood but in a society of siblings that has outlived and repudiated its revolutionary origins.” (p. 131)
In a narcissistic society, all the trust-worthy institutions that we once turned to for help and security are no longer trust-worthy. The media is “fake news”. The government is “broken”. The family is “broken”. Our teachers and professors are “spreading liberal propaganda”. Businesses are “price-gouging”. Hospitals are “in bed with insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies”. Churches are either “too political” or “not political enough”.
“The superego can no longer ally itself, in its battle against impulse, with outside authorities. It has to rely almost entirely on its own resources, and these too have diminished in their effectiveness.” (p.342)
The end result? We’ve stopped caring. About our own families, about our friends, about our community, about our government, about our world.
“The narcissist feels consumed by his own appetites… He longs to free himself from his own hunger and rage, to achieve a calm detachment beyond emotion, and to outgrow his dependence on others. He longs for the indifference to human relationships and to life itself that would enable him to acknowledge its passing in Kurt Vonnegut’s laconic phrase, “So it goes,” which so aptly expresses the ultimate aspiration of the psychiatric seeker.” (p. 342-243)...more
If you are a parent of a child between the ages of 0 and 18: please do yourself the favor of reading Jonathon Haidt’s book “The Anxious Generation: HoIf you are a parent of a child between the ages of 0 and 18: please do yourself the favor of reading Jonathon Haidt’s book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness”. It may save yourself much frustration, fear, and grief down the line.
Haidt’s book is the inevitable endpoint of research and knowledge that started in 2010 with Nicholas Carr’s book “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to To Our Brains” and followed, in 2022, by Johann Hari’s book “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t pay Attention—-and How to Think Deeply Again”.
Haidt’s book provides conclusive (or pretty damned near) evidence of what Carr could only hypothetically predict would happen 14 years later and substantiates, with further studies and statistics, what Hari was saying in his book.
The basic premise is this: Sometime around the years 2010 to 2015, something drastic and worrisome started happening to children born in the late-1990s (a demographic of children often referred to as “Gen Z”). Rates of childhood depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation began to skyrocket across the country. This was across racial, ethnic, and gender lines, although it seemed to effect girls more.
Haidt and his researchers believe that a combination of factors are the reason for these high rates of mental illness among children.
One factor is a type of parenting called “helicopter parenting” that became prevalent, which essentially involves an extreme overprotection of children, out of an irrational sense of safety, that does not allow—-or over-regulates—-certain childish activities that children of the ‘70s and ‘80s engaged in quite regularly: climbing trees, walking unsupervised to the park or school or store, playing on a playground, skateboarding, staying in a house by him or herself.
Another factor is the prevalence of devices that allowed children a preponderance of “screen time” that far exceeded previous norms in previous generations. Haidt directly links this rise of device usage to the introduction of smartphones (specifically, iPhones, which were brought to market in 2007) and popular social media platforms like Facebook (launched in 2004).
A third factor is an inexplicable “underprotection” of children from the Internet and, specifically, social media sites. So-called helicopter parents were fearful of their children playing on a jungle gym, but they seemed to have a complete lack of worry about their children being vulnerable to cyberbullying or on-line sexual predators. One explanation for this—-given by parents themselves in studies—-is the parents’ own distractedness and addiction to device usage.
Haidt’s solutions—-based on the advice of mental health professionals, educators, and social scientists—-is weirdly simple: Don’t give your kid a smartphone until they are about 16-18; Limit kids in both time and access to the Internet; allow kids to do more activities unsupervised; increase the amount of playtime for kids.
According to almost every scientific study, playtime has been shown to be vitally important to a child’s development. Despite this fact, many schools have limited or eliminated playtime and replaced it with more academics, such as testing, to detrimental results. Thankfully, there is a swing back towards more playtime during school hours, especially more unsupervised playtime.
Even Haidt acknowledges that it goes against every fiber in one’s being to let your kid walk to the grocery store in town by him or herself. On the same token, it’s hard to give up the “babysitter” benefits of the iPad or iPhone.
I’ll be honest: I get a shitload of laundry and house-cleaning done when my daughter is curled up on the couch playing God-knows-what on her iPad, and while I trust that my daughter is playing appropriate games and not browsing Youtube for porn, I realize that it’s not the healthiest thing for her.
Seriously, Haidt’s book is an important resource for parents, teachers, and health care providers. We need to be more aggressive advocates for the health of our children, but if healthier children means loosening the reins and letting our kids engage in more risky activities by themselves while simultaneously limiting—-or forbidding—-access to stupid shit like Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook, then we need to do some serious soul-searching as parents....more
“Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.”—-Abigail Adams
I don’t like guns. I do not own any guns, I refuse to have guns in my home, and I wi“Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.”—-Abigail Adams
I don’t like guns. I do not own any guns, I refuse to have guns in my home, and I wish I could live in a world where I wouldn’t have to worry whether the person standing next to me in line or the person driving the car behind me on the highway is packing heat and having a bad day.
I am for stricter gun laws, and I am also for gun bans, especially guns that serve no useful purpose other than killing the most amount of people in as short amount of time. I realize that saying those words aloud will automatically piss off some people and, not ironically, make them want to shoot me.
It wasn’t always like this. Or maybe it was, and maybe we’re just deceiving ourselves. Maybe a majority of us are just violent brutes who have always lusted after bloodshed and have this deep desire to watch the world bleed from gunshot wounds. I feel, though, deep down in my soul, that it wasn’t always like this.
Historian Dominic Erdozain’s book “One Nation Under Guns” puts the issues of gun violence and gun control in their proper historical context, starting with what our Founding Fathers actually meant when they wrote the Second Amendment (spoiler: it absolutely did NOT condone ownership of guns by private citizens) and ending with the ridiculously out-of-control pro-gun lobby led by the NRA that has created a gun culture which literally threatens the health and safety of every American.
Erdozain illustrates an American culture that was founded on violence and a machismo in which men were only real men if they used brute force. It is a culture that has been bolstered by violent TV shows and movies that created a fairy tale portrait of the Old West full of gunslingers and outlaws and savage Indians that never actually existed. It is a culture that has been perverted by a political system, backed by the gun lobby, that was once a system that promoted gun safety and is now a system that promotes gun worship. It is a culture that not only ignores scientific evidence that overwhelmingly proves that cities and states that have lots of guns and fewer gun laws have rates of higher gun violence and gun death, but it also works to keep researchers from conducting further studies of gun violence and deaths.
This nation has a gun to its head, but Erdozain manages to remain somewhat hopeful, because history—-American history—-has shown that we do, occasionally, do the right thing. ...more
Many people have an opinion about Critical Race Theory (CRT). A majority of those opinions are based on faulty information. More often than not—-in myMany people have an opinion about Critical Race Theory (CRT). A majority of those opinions are based on faulty information. More often than not—-in my experience—-opponents of CRT are unable to actually define it when asked to elaborate.
Harlan Ellison once said, “You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.”
The key word in that quote is “entitled”, which is defined as “believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.” This word, more than any other, is perhaps the best word to describe the forces of white privilege/supremacy that CRT is trying to bring to light.
A recent spate of books about CRT has been published to counteract the overload of disinformation and falsehoods about the academic movement, espoused by Republicans as an attempt to confuse and mislead the public. While I have not read them all, the one I have read is as concise and succinct an explanation of CRT that I have read thus far, one that may be a good start when conducting further research into the subject.
Victor Ray’s “On Critical Race Theory: Why It Matters & Why You Should Care” may be short (129 pages of text, with nearly 30 pages of endnotes), but it is dense with information, and it requires careful reading.
A brief summary of Ray’s main points might be helpful but would ultimately be a disservice to his in-depth and nuanced approach to the subject. Nevertheless, I will attempt to give a concise encapsulation of Ray’s already wonderfully concise examination.
It may help to first point out what CRT isn’t. It is not, as some CRT opponents have incorrectly implied, an attempt to alter history through a lens of anti-white historical revisionism. It is not taught in any school, at any level. While some primary and secondary educators may have an academic knowledge of CRT, it is not something that can be implemented into any school curriculum. Ignoramuses, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who claim that schools are being overrun with CRT agendas (read “woke”), have little to no idea what a CRT agenda actually looks like or that it even exists at all. (Spoiler: it doesn’t.)
CRT, as described by Ray, is simply a belief—substantiated by lots of historical evidence—-that racism has played, and continues to play, a significant role in how our society is structured, in everything from education to the economy to the law. More importantly, it’s the belief that racism has been, and continues to be, a major motivator in American history. Racism is built into the political system of our country, and it is this systemic racism that continues to stifle and counteract attempts to improve the lives of Americans, white and non-white alike.
At its core, CRT is founded on a few main beliefs: 1) Race is a social construct, not a biological one; 2) Racism is systemic; and 3) whiteness is more than just an identity, it is a sense of entitlement and property that has helped to maintain systemic racism throughout American history.
The rightness of these core beliefs should be obvious to anyone with skin in the game (no pun intended), but the fact that a major backlash against the CRT movement exists at all is clear evidence that it is not. ...more
An extremely timely and important book, Sara Kamali’s “Homegrown Hate: Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists Are Waging War Against the UnitedAn extremely timely and important book, Sara Kamali’s “Homegrown Hate: Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists Are Waging War Against the United States” is dense with information; practically an info-dump of anything and everything having to do with domestic terrorism. (One-third of the book is endnotes, sources, and bibliography.) Yet despite its disturbing subject matter and the sheer amount of academic (albeit fascinating) information, the book manages to still be readable and engaging.
One of the more disturbing take-aways is that White Nationalist extremists do as much, if not more, damage (loss of life, property damage, stress on the system and individuals) in this country than their American-born Militant Islamist counterparts, but, due to the fact that there is, technically, no federal ordinance against domestic terrorists, especially if they are white or Christian, very few are punished as severely as terrorists who happen to be Muslim. (Another win for white privilege! Yay!)
So, the terrorists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, with the intent of overthrowing the government and torturing and killing government employees and officials, can’t, technically, be branded domestic terrorists. At least, not officially, since there is no federal criminal statute for it. This should make anyone who witnessed the horrific events of that day (and NOT the “high fives and hugs” that the Republicans witnessed through their bullshit-tinted glasses) feel sick to their stomach.
Why does this matter? After all, it’s essentially just semantics, right?
Wrong.
The differences between being branded a “domestic terrorist” and a “homegrown violent extremist”, according to the language of the respective federal ordinances, are subtle, but it boils down to the fact that a person is a homegrown violent extremist and NOT a domestic terrorist if, and only if, that person has ties (directly or indirectly) to a militant Islamist organization. So, because the Proud Boys didn’t receive funding or moral support from ISIS, they are not, technically, terrorists. Even if they are. Make sense?
Here’s some eye-opening stats (from the United States Government Accountability Office… and, yes, I’m just as surprised that such an office even exists, too):
“In ten of the fifteen years, fatalities resulting from attacks by far right wing violent extremists exceeded those caused by radical Islamist violent extremists.
“In three of the fifteen years, fatalities resulting from attacks by far right wing violent extremists were the same as those caused by violent radical Islamist extremists.
“Of the eighty-five violent extremist incidents that resulted in death, far right wing violent extremist groups were responsible for sixty-two (73 percent).
“Of the eighty-five violent extremist incidents that resulted in death, violent radical Islamist extremists were responsible for twenty-three (27 percent).”
In case you need it spelled out for you, those sentences are basically saying that, statistically, white Christian assholes are far more violent than brown-skinned Muslim assholes. But let’s be honest: this is like saying that Donald Trump’s penis is uglier than his ballsack.
White Nationalists and Militant Islamists actually have way more in common than one would think:
They both absolutely hate the U.S. government. Kamali gives detailed histories of both movements. Interestingly, using a straight line from Ruby Ridge to Waco, TX to Timothy McVeigh to January 6, she succinctly demonstrates how White Nationalists are overwhelmingly anti-U.S. government. Equally, due to a lot of history that the U.S. was a part of that has shaped (in a pretty bad way) the turmoil in the Middle East, Militant Islamists are vehemently anti-U.S. government, as well.
They both absolutely hate and want to kill anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs. For White Nationalists, anybody who is non-white (and, for the most part, non-Christian) are simply in the way of their goals. Likewise, Militant Islamists just want to kill everyone who is not Muslim. To be fair, both these groups are using very perverted interpretations of Christianity and Islam, but, hey, it’s all good because
They both want to establish a perfect Utopian World government. The problem is White Nationalists want an all-white Christian theocracy, and the Militant Islamists want a Muslim-only theopolity. Awkward!
Kamali’s book gives very in-depth explanations of concepts and terms that many people have heard but may not understand, like the Fourteen Words, RAHOWA, White Genocide, Christian Identity, Creativity, Wotanism, Al-wala, Wa-l-bara, Takfir, Jihad. Trust me, you will know what all of that shit means by the end of the book.
In light of recent events in the Israel-Palestine War and in light of January 6, 2021, Kamali’s book is an important and useful primer on terrorism....more
It’s definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year, but it’s certainly not the most uplifting. In fact, it’s downright disturbing and frighteniIt’s definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year, but it’s certainly not the most uplifting. In fact, it’s downright disturbing and frightening, which creates a kind of cognitive dissonance since it is also beautifully written.
Jeff Sharlet’s “The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War” is journalism at its finest and most poignant. Written as a travelogue through Trump country, Sharlet’s book is an attempt to try to understand the mentality of certain groups of people: Trump supporters, pedophiles, televangelists who preach hate in the name of Jesus, racists, violent pro-lifers, and gun-loving militia members ready to wage war against the evil liberal elites.
He sits down with these people and talks to them, letting them just speak. Occasionally, he’ll ask questions. Mostly, he just lets them speak.
Amazingly, he didn’t die. He didn’t hide the fact that he was a liberal or a journalist or a Jew. Maybe it was this honesty that made them feel comfortable enough to talk with him. Laying all the cards on the table allowed them to do the same.
The result is, at times, tension-filled and horrifying. Sharlet records some of the most vile and cringe-worthy conversations ever. At times, though, he actually succeeds in finding the humanity buried at the heart of some of the most atrocious people.
Sharlet’s “trick” is that he never calls them atrocious people. I’m pretty sure that he never actually thinks it. To him, they are Americans who, like him, have problems with this country, but they just have wildly divergent opinions as to what those problems are and how to solve them. This isn’t to say that Sharlet doesn’t admit to being frightened by these people. He just doesn’t let that fear negate the fact that these are still human beings, not the villainous “them” (as in the age-old “us vs. them”) that many of these people resort to using (and which I will admit to being guilty of using myself, most notably in that last paragraph).
This is an extremely important book, and it may be the first truly great book about the Trump Era. I can’t recommend it enough....more
Critics of “cancel culture” and the “woke” mentality like to believe that it is a form of censorship or the Left’s ultimate agenda of destroying a perCritics of “cancel culture” and the “woke” mentality like to believe that it is a form of censorship or the Left’s ultimate agenda of destroying a person’s freedom to have fun. (Because those of us on the Left clearly hate to see people having fun, according to just about every pundit and host of FOXNews.)
But let’s be honest: the Right seems to be the ones who want to truly cancel stuff. Look at Colin Kaepernick, a football player who had the audacity to peacefully protest racial violence and, because of that, essentially lost his job and has never been able to play again. And the Right likes to accuse us of destroying a person’s freedom to have fun?
What about the Right’s campaign to make it harder for teachers to do their job by not allowing them to even talk about stuff in the classroom like homosexuality, transgenderism, or our nation’s history of genocide and racism against indigenous peoples, black people, or Asians? Isn’t that basically censorship?
Yeah, like a lot of people, I am also sick of hearing about “cancel culture”, but not for the reasons you might think. I’m actually for cancel culture, because the truth is, some things need to be cancelled.
You can’t tell me that assholes like Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and Matt Lauer didn’t deserve to be cancelled. Louis C.K.? Iffy, but it’s not like he’s in prison or has lost an opportunity to do his stand-up comedy. Sure, Netflix won’t be signing him up for any specials anytime soon, but you can still go to his website. Cancel Culture seems to have a way of balancing things out.
You also can’t tell me that we really needed those statues honoring Southern racist assholes who were for secession and started a war between the states that resulted in thousands of needless deaths. The same goes for that stupid Confederate flag. It’s way past time to cancel that fucker. And if it means I never have to watch an episode of “The Dukes of Hazzard” again in my life, that’s great!
I’m sick of hearing about “cancel culture” when it’s being used as a pejorative. In my mind, there’s nothing really wrong with cancel culture. People who whine about it don’t like it because they don’t get it. They have a completely wrong idea about what cancel culture is. These are, typically, the same people who whine about their co-worker (behind their back, of course) who prefers the “they/them” pronoun as if it’s something that actually causes them physical pain. These are the same people who rail and deride “critical race theory” but wouldn’t be able to define it if asked. (And I have asked, of course. That’s when they attack me for wanting to cancel them, as if asking to clarify is somehow akin to censorship.) These are the same morons who cried “Lock her up!” And “Hang Mike Pence!” but thought the insurrectionists on January 6, 2021 were patriotic sight-seers.
Ernest Owens defends cancel culture in his book “The Case For Cancel Culture: How This Democratic Tool Works to Liberate Us All”, and he does a fairly decent job of it.
Owens probably could have expounded a bit more in some of his chapters, and he probably could have not picked on Justin Timberlake so much, but those are petty complaints. Overall, he does a good job explaining what cancel culture is and what it isn’t. He also makes the fair point that cancel culture isn’t anything new. In fact, it’s been around for quite awhile, starting with the Boston Tea Party. Indeed, it’s based on an ideal upon which this country is founded: protest.
“Before we called it cancelling,” he writes, “we called it taking a stand, speaking truth to power, saying it like it is, giving power to the people, and making sure that the revolution would not be co-opted. Cancel culture is the new digital wave of individualized protest and a way to demand change in a society that has yet to grant liberation to all. While previous iterations of protest and public outcry were more traditionally coordinated, in person, and institutional, cancel culture is more personal and is carried out on social media. (p. 26)”
I’ll be honest: I hate Facebook, and I have never used Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram, so I’m not what one would call social media savvy or “woke”. But if social media can be used for good—-and Owens seems to think we can—-then I’m all for cancel culture. The Revolution will not be televised, but it will definitely be posted and receiving millions of “likes”....more
“People say they’re into all kinds of bad things and say all kinds of terrible things about them. But, you know, my understanding is they basically ar“People say they’re into all kinds of bad things and say all kinds of terrible things about them. But, you know, my understanding is they basically are just people who want good government.” —-former President Donald Trump, on followers of QAnon
If QAnon doesn’t scare the shit out of you, you have either been living in a cave for the past six years or you have fallen down the QAnon rabbit-hole yourself. The fact that idiots like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are in positions of power within our government should terrify any rational-minded person.
And don’t be fooled by your friends and relatives who are playing the whole “What’s QAnon?” game, after years of trying to convert you into believing that a cabal of Democrats and Hollywood types (Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg among them) have secretly been running a pedophilic child-trafficking ring in the nonexistent basements of pizza parlors where they engage in Satanic ritualistic rape and murder of children and then extract the chemical adrenochrome from their bodies to use as an elixir of youth. They may not use the terms “QAnon” or “Q” but they probably still believe the bat-shit beliefs. (https://www.prri.org/press-release/ne...)
Will Sommer—-whom I am surprised is both still alive and sane—-has been following Q since the first official Q post on 4chan in October 2017, which alerted everybody to the impending arrest of Hillary Clinton. Her arrest never happened, of course, but 4chan users were somehow still impressed by this mysterious “Q”, who was either an intelligence expert working secretly within the Trump administration or a fat teenager in a wheelchair in his mom’s basement posting made-up shit just to get a rise out of people. Nobody knows. It doesn’t matter, though, because Q immediately picked up followers and believers.
Sommer writes about the phenomenon of QAnon in his frightening book “Trust the Plan”, which succinctly asks the question “How far will lonely, socially-awkward idiots that are so gullible as to believe the most ridiculous conspiracy theories out there actually go?” The answer, of course, is the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in the hopes of overturning the government to keep Trump president.
QAnon gets its roots, according to Sommer, from several age-old beliefs. One is millenarianism, a belief from early Christians that all of the world’s problems—-corruption, illness, pedophelia, homosexuality, pronoun abuse, BLM, Judy Blume, the Muppets—-will be destroyed once and for all when Jesus comes back on Judgment Day, which is supposed to happen at the millennium. (In lieu of Jesus, an orange-faced obese New York businessman will do.)
Another belief rooted in QAnon is left over from the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, which was the widespread belief that schools, day-care facilities, and babysitters around the country were engaging in Satanic rituals in which children were molested, tortured, murdered, and—-in worst-case scenarios—-eaten. The Satanic Panic was, itself, rooted in the ancient anti-Semitic “blood libel” conspiracies, which was the belief that Jews routinely kidnapped, murdered, and drank the blood of children.
All of this perfect storm of awfulness came to a head when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. The shutdown happened and people were now stuck at home with very little to do other than go on the Internet. It didn’t help that the pandemic happened the same year as one of the most contentious and controversial election years in U.S. history. It also didn’t help that the Idiot-in-chief was not only at the center of QAnon (QAnon loved Trump, believing him to be a messianic figure that would bring about a new world order) but did nothing to dissuade the crazies from promulgating their crazy conspiracies. Why would he do that, since he was promulgating his own crazy conspiracies?
Of course, now we are hearing that FOX News helped to boost some of the crazy beliefs that QAnon believed, not because they actually believed them (Tucker Carlson has intimated that QAnon isn’t even real and yet still manages to spout the same drivel that QAnoners spout. (https://www.thewrap.com/tucker-carlso...)) but because to say they didn’t believe them would turn away viewers. In other words, FOX News is admitting to spreading lies just to get ratings. Not really a complete shocker to those of us who have been saying that for the last decade.
QAnon is damned scary, no matter how you look at it. To anybody who has had to deal with family members who have fallen down that rabbit-hole, it’s a real problem. And even doctors and psychologists are stymied. QAnon acts like a cult, but it’s far more difficult to “deprogram” a QAnoner simply because there is no actual leader or any actual ideology.
Sommer’s book is worth a read if you are confused or angry about QAnon. It may help to understand that idiot co-worker who claimed that Covid-19 was a “plandemic” created by Bill Gates and Barack Obama back in 2012 as a way to sell masks so that the pedophile Democrats can hide their identities when they come to kidnap and eat your children. (Based on an actual conversation...)...more
I am a feminist. I realize that that word has lost some of its cachet over the years, for a multitude of reasons; some of them valid, some not. Still,I am a feminist. I realize that that word has lost some of its cachet over the years, for a multitude of reasons; some of them valid, some not. Still, I’m proud to call myself a feminist, if only because I appreciate what the feminist movement originally strived to do, and still does: work to create a world in which there is gender equality.
Sadly, there is often a misunderstanding about what that phrase means. “Gender Equality” doesn’t mean gender “sameness” because that’s ridiculous as well as unreasonable. Biologically, gender differences are obvious. And, yes, I am applying a gender-binary context, although it can still apply to non-binary genders. After all, you either have a certain body part or you don’t. But that’s beside the point, because what I’m actually talking about when I talk about “gender equality” is treating and appreciating everybody equally regardless of whether they are male, female, or any number of non-binary genders in between.
Culturally, we still have a problem with gender equality. I know men who still believe that women shouldn’t play sports. I know women who still believe that women are naturally better at childcare. Girls can play with toy soldiers, and boys can play with dolls. Doing the laundry is a woman’s job. Doing yard work is a man’s job. These may be somewhat minor examples, but they tend to point out bigger and broader issues of gender inequality.
It’s 2022 (almost 2023), and we still have a problem with gender inequality, which is not to say things haven’t improved somewhat. They have. Unfortunately, some things have actually gone backwards. The overturning of Roe v. Wade, for example.
It is a constant battle to protect rights of women, and if you can’t acknowledge the problem—-indeed, if you honestly believe that there is no problem at all—-then you are a major part of the problem.
There are lots of people out there trying to solve the problem. Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, two investigative reporters for The New York Times, have written a book highlighting the many people who are trying to solve the problem of gender inequality. In “She Said”, Kantor/Twohey recount their efforts to investigate Harvey Weinstein, the movie producer who, for decades, has had a reputation for gross sexual misconduct with young actresses and co-workers, to the point that it was an open secret and constant fodder for TV talk-show hosts. Many people knew that he was a monster, but nobody was doing anything about it. Why?
Therein lies the brilliance of Kantor/Twohey’s reportage. In investigating the egregious behaviors of horrible human beings like Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Brett Kavanaugh, et al., these investigators uncovered a powerful system of control, run by men for men, whose sole purpose is to keep the balance of power weighing heavily on the side of male power, a patriarchy machine.
It is this machine that enables powerful men to harass, molest, and rape with impunity while simultaneously ensuring that women would be too cowed to report incidents. It is this machine that enables the perpetuation of false notions of masculinity (“Boys being boys”, “men who fuck around are studs”, “They let you do it. You can do anything…”) and the accompanying double standards that inherently contribute to gender inequality.
Thanks to brave women such as Ashley Judd, Rose McGowan, Christine Blasey Ford, and countless others that broke their silence and opened the floodgates of pent-up rage and frustration that led to the #MeToo Movement. It wasn’t easy for them to do it, as Kantor/Twohey so eloquently recount.
“She Said” is an important book for many reasons, not the least of which is that it proves how important quality investigative journalism is. It is also a historical record of—-and a template for—-taking down a monster like Weinstein. It is also a powerful examination of how woefully unequal our society still is when it comes to gender rights and protection and how far we still have to go....more
I recently watched an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher in which Maher had a conversation (and a surprisingly civil one) with Steve Bannon. FrighteI recently watched an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher in which Maher had a conversation (and a surprisingly civil one) with Steve Bannon. Frighteningly enough, Bannon almost came across as human, and an intelligent one at that.
I can anticipate your rebuttal: You are employing the same dehumanization tactics that you often accuse the racist Far Right white nationalists of employing with that flippant comment.
My response to that: Yep.
It has, sadly, come to that. I have always believed strongly that every side to an argument should have a voice, and I believe that still. But what if there is no “other side” to an argument? What if there is simply “acting like a decent human being” and then whatever the fuck the opposite of that is. What if there is “murder is wrong” and the other side’s desire to kill any and all human beings they don’t agree with or like? Why give that insanity a chance to speak? That isn’t another “side” to an argument. That is just plain horribleness that crawled out from under a rock. It doesn’t deserve the chance to be given a voice.
In Malcolm Nance’s book “They Want to Kill Americans”, Nance—-a thirty-four year veteran of working in U.S. Intelligence, especially Counterterrorism—-claims that the biggest threat to the American way of life is not Al-Qaeda or ISIS but the internal enemy: ourselves.
His book examines the terrifying rise of domestic terrorism under the banners of white nationalism, white supremacy, neo-Nazism, and the truly idiotic anarchic visions of those that just want to watch the world burn, almost all of whom flourished under the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency.
The absolutely frightening truth, as Nance repeats over and over, is that these people are our co-workers, our neighbors, and, in some cases, our close relatives. They may be sitting in the next cubicle or across from you at the dinner table.
And this isn’t fear-mongering. This is data-supported facts. This is observable truth, as we all were witness to on January 6, 2021, when thousands of brain-washed cretins stormed the Capitol steps in the largest attempted insurrection on American soil, solely because some orange-haired vaginal wart in the shape of a person tweeted to his loyal followers that they should stir things up a bit in D.C. and that he loved them. He then proceeded to watch the subsequent train-wreck on FOXNews and sat back and did nothing.
Nance doesn’t resort to name-calling, judgmentalism, or condescension. He doesn’t have to. These people have already handed over their human card. They have suckled the teat of idiocy via Alex Jones and Sean Hannity. They have fallen down a magical rabbit hole of Q-Anonsense, where John F. Kennedy is alive and well and trying to stop the demonic Democrats and their pedophiliac sex trafficking in the basements of pizza parlors. They have made a profession out of being Karens and Kens on Youtube videos, ranting gibberish about the civil rights violations they have endured having to wear masks and being told by Dr. Fauci to get vaccines that are actually microscopic GPS injections. They have embraced the mantle of being gun-worshipping, anti-science, book-burning, involuntary celibates who listen to hate-fueled racist music and spend hours playing violent video games. They are completely unaware of the irony that the views they embody and uphold are the same ones held by the brownshirts that their grandfathers fought and killed in World War II.
They really do want to kill Americans. That’s not fear-mongering, that’s just a fact. And while I respect Maher for trying to have a civil discourse with bastions of incivility like Bannon, I don’t have it in me to give that side of hateful stupidity even the time of day. ...more
There is something both earth-shatteringly terrifying and liberating about admitting that one is a racist. Especially when one has lived a life with tThere is something both earth-shatteringly terrifying and liberating about admitting that one is a racist. Especially when one has lived a life with the mistaken view that one is not racist. There is, in fact, a kind of weight lifted when one can finally admit to one’s self that, yes, I am a racist, and I want to change.
Ibram X. Kendi writes about this sense of liberation in his book “How To Be an Antiracist”, which is based on the common-sense premise that admitting to being not racist is—-besides being wrong—-not as effective nor mindful as admitting to being against racism and willing to stand up against, and fight, racist policies.
Kendi believes that the problem with the recent conservative backlash against the word “racist” stems from a misunderstanding of the term and its usage. Pundits on the Right hate the word because they feel it is an insult, when in fact it is simply a descriptor of a person’s personal or political relationship with racist policies. Those on the Left have, for too long, used the term to shut down dialogues and paint political opponents with an unfairly wide brush. Neither side is helping the argument.
Part memoir and part manifesto, “How To Be An Antiracist” is a brilliant piece of contemporary philosophical writing. Through clearly-defined terminology, well-reasoned arguments, and personal experiences, Kendi illustrates an entirely different (well, different for me, anyway) perspective on the issue of racism in this country.
For me, it begins with admitting my own racism; being aware of my own subtle (and not-so-subtle) racist views and behaviors. Doing this opens one’s eyes to the systemic and institutionalized racism that is in nearly every aspect of American life: law enforcement, the justice system, health care, sports, entertainment.
Kendi also opened my eyes to the idea that black people can be racist toward each other, as well as toward white people. This is something I always felt wasn’t a thing. Black people can’t be racist, I thought, because there is the power differential, but Kendi breaks down that argument fairly quickly and succinctly.
There is much to take in with this book, and it certainly necessitates, and deserves, multiple readings.
I “read” this book as an audiobook on CD, read by the author. Kendi’s reading is slow and, occasionally, with a monotone that is distracting, but, for the most part, it was excellent....more
It is by auspicious coincidence that I just recently read a book about how, collectively, our cognitive and ratiocinative proficiency has been steadilIt is by auspicious coincidence that I just recently read a book about how, collectively, our cognitive and ratiocinative proficiency has been steadily devolving for many years, especially since the advent of the Internet. In dumb-people speak: We don’t think so good anymore.
Johann Hari’s “Stolen Focus” is the perfect nonfiction companion piece to Blake Crouch’s latest science fiction novel “Upgrade”. Both books examine, in very different ways, how our dwindling attention skills and our declining ability for deep, reflective thinking are negatively effecting the world around us.
Our inability to listen to each other effectively has created a political atmosphere of, at times, violent divisiveness. Our inability for creative and critical thinking has prevented us from fomenting scientific, mathematical, and practical efforts to combat truly life-threatening problems such as global climate change or pandemic preparedness. Our inability to think like intellectual grown-ups is literally destroying us as a species.
So, how do we correct it? Hari’s solution is, in a nutshell: turn off your damn phone/tablet/computer for a large period of time, actually talk to real human beings, occasionally read a book, stop eating garbage you buy in gas station heat-trays, and go outside for a walk or a jog around the neighborhood. Okay, so there’s more to it than that, of course, but that’s the Cliffsnotes take-away version.
Crouch’s solution is a bit more drastic. Horrifying, really.
Set in the near future, “Upgrade” is about a man named Logan Ramsay, an agent for a governmental law enforcement agency tasked with monitoring, regulating, and preventing rogue genetic engineering. It helps to know that years ago, a group of scientists (all with the best of intentions) altered the genetic structure of certain insects and crops to create blight-resistant food source. Instead, they accidentally set off a global famine that killed millions of people.
One of those scientists was Logan’s mother, who, shortly after the incident, committed suicide. Many years later, Logan has been trying to right the wrongs of his mother. One night, on a raid, Logan is caught in the blast-radius of a gene-bomb, created to rewrite a person’s DNA. Logan survives, but he has no idea what is going to happen to him.
It turns out that the bomb has rearranged his DNA to the point that he is stronger, faster, and smarter. He now has an eidetic memory. He can read a 300-page book in two hours and remember it, word for word. He can recall conversations, verbatim, that he had when he was 15 years old. He can comprehend higher math and scientific concepts he never could before.
What does a person do with this gift? Well, as it turns out, Logan has two choices. One of those choices could result in the unintentional death of billions of people. The other choice is worse.
As fans have come to expect from Crouch, “Upgrade” is a suspenseful thriller that also happens to be thought-provoking and rather apropos to current events.
Personally, I thought “Upgrade” was good but not his best work. His last novel, “Recursion”, I felt, dealt with the ethics of technological advancement in a much subtler and nuanced way. At times, I felt that he was bludgeoning the reader over the head with the message in “Upgrade”. I don’t like being lectured to or screamed at, which is what I felt this book was doing.
Not that I didn’t like or agree with the message. I did. I just felt that, towards the end, especially, Crouch resorts to proselytizing rather than simply telling an exciting story....more
In 1968, a low-budget black-and-white horror film premiered in American theaters. Unbeknownst to audiences—-as well as everyone associated with the fiIn 1968, a low-budget black-and-white horror film premiered in American theaters. Unbeknownst to audiences—-as well as everyone associated with the film’s production—-the film would go on to create an enormous cult following and completely change the genre. It also managed to create its own subgenre, one that is still outrageously popular today.
The film was “Night of the Living Dead”, and it is still one of the most influential and significant horror movies of all time.
The British Film Institute (BFI) publishes a series of books about films that have made some kind of socio-political impact. They offer in-depth analyses of nearly every aspect of the film: narrative, technical, sociological, and philosophical.
Ben Hervey wrote the analysis of “Night of the Living Dead”, and it is as thorough and in-depth as one can be in film analysis. It is also immensely readable and not as academic as it sounds. This is intellectual pop-culture studies at its finest.
According to Cass Sunstein, a Harvard economics professor, there are three factors that determine a film’s success. The first is the film’s quality: is it actually any good? Does it showcase the particular filmmaking talents of the writers, directors, editors, and actors within the film?
“NOTLD” is a good film. I know it’s debatable. I have friends who think it’s one of the most amazing horror films ever made, and I have friends who find it boring and stupid. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. That said, I doubt the film would have had the impact it had if it wasn’t, in some ways, good at what it was trying to do, which was: scaring the shit out of audiences.
George Romero, the director, created a horror film that, at the very least, was good at one thing: overturning audience expectations at every turn. Film conventions and horror tropes of the time were simply ignored or purposely flipped on their heads. Teenagers and even a child in the film died violently. The camera didn’t turn away when the creatures feasted on victims’ flesh. The hero is killed in the end. Nobody saw any of this coming.
The second factor is social influences. Sunstein refers to “echo chambers”, or ways in which word-of-mouth recommendations can explode. Today, with social media, a film’s success or failure can happen almost instantly. This is, in fact, what RottenTomatoes.com capitalizes on. In 1968, long before Facebook and Twitter, people actually had to use mouths to spread the word. And word about “NOTLD” spread like wildfire. People were, at the very least, curious about this film that was terrifying audiences.
The third factor, according to Sunstein, is timing. It’s everything. The film came to theaters in the same year that the Vietnam War ratcheted up its most violent year with the Tet Offensive. It was the year Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. The “free love’ hippy movement was getting dark, and it would only be a year later that four hippies, brain-washed by Charles Manson, brutally murdered five people during a home invasion in the Hollywood hills.
Tensions were high. Fear ruled. A film like “NOTLD” was either the tip of the iceberg or a much-needed catharsis.
Whatever the reason, Romero’s little film about flesh-eating ghouls (the word “zombie”, by the way, is never uttered once in the entire movie, and Romero has gone on the record several times saying that he detests the term), for good or ill, started the whole zombie film genre, a genre that, like the creatures, simply will not die. ...more
What is the single common factor of almost every war, revolution, holocaust, and other man-made atrocities throughout history? They have nearly all beWhat is the single common factor of almost every war, revolution, holocaust, and other man-made atrocities throughout history? They have nearly all been caused by white men. This is a fact.
Lightening rod statement, of course. It’s a statement, however, that can’t really be refuted. White men, throughout history, truly have caused almost every war and holocaust and atrocity. Every U.S. presidential assassin—-both failed and successful—-with the exception of one (Gerald Ford’s failed assassin, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme), was a white male. Among the notorious list of school shooters, 70% of them are white males. Since 9/11, the majority of terrorists who have killed American citizens, here and abroad, have been white men. Of all recorded serial killers, 92.5% are men and 56.86% are white. These statistics are all well-documented and can be found in multiple sources.
But citing these statistics doesn’t necessarily prove anything. They are fascinating and intriguing, from a sociological and anthropological standpoint, but it merely begs the question: what is it really saying about white men?
What is really at issue is why white men are so angry all the time. Why are they more prone to violence, more trigger-happy, more apt to have a mental breakdown that results in homicide/suicide?
Here’s another sobering statistic: In 2017, the U.S. recorded 47,173 suicides, 70% of which were white men. The rate of suicides among white men has been steadily increasing over the past several years.
Ijeoma Oluo’s book “Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America” could, just based on the title alone, easily be accused of being many things: “reverse racist”, “radical feminist”, “man-hating”, “engaged in the most negative of identity politics”. Indeed, she and her book has been accused of these, and more.
All of them are knee-jerk reactions by people who have not actually read the book.
While there may be some righteous anger in Oluo’s book, it’s understandable. She’s black and a woman: she represents two people-groups that white men have historically treated deplorably. But get past the anger, and there is a noticeable sense of compassion and love behind it.
She knows that the average person probably knows a white male, that chances are a white male is a family member or close friend or co-worker. You can’t escape them: they’re everywhere.
Flippancy aside, Oluo’s book isn’t an attack on white males. If anything, it’s an attempt to peel back the statistics and look at what’s really going on in the lives of white men, to understand why they do what they do. Statistics don’t show everything.
Oluo’s book is basically a history of white and male privilege, starting with the cowboy/“outlaw” mythos of the Old West that has, in many ways, carried on its pathetic racist machismo to the present day; to the Southern plantation mentality of keeping blacks in their place; to the anti-intellectualism of the Right that has led to a conservative attack on liberal education; to the arena of football, where athletes are treated like demi-gods, unless, of course, they get uppity and start protesting stuff and threatening a billion-dollar industry run primarily by white men.
Her book is eye-opening, and I say that from the perspective of someone who has unabashedly used white male privilege to my advantage for my entire life, especially considering I am not white. I look white, though, which for other white males is enough to get me invited behind the curtains.
It’s an important read, but one that I feel will be skipped over by those that need to read it the most. ...more
The National Rifle Association of America (NRA), back in 1996, utilized its political pull to essentially stop the Centers for Disease Control and PreThe National Rifle Association of America (NRA), back in 1996, utilized its political pull to essentially stop the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from conducting in-depth scientific studies about gun violence. (https://www.npr.org/2018/04/05/599773...)
How it happened is actually less significant than the why. It turns out that a 1993 study’s conclusions contradicted the NRA’s widely-held “truth” that a gun in every household was the key to gun safety. It’s not. Quite the opposite, in fact. (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/he...) So, basically, politicians (funded by the most powerful gun lobby in the country) who didn’t like the fact that there was now scientific evidence that suggested that having guns actually increased, not decreased, one’s chances of being killed, simply stopped the nation’s largest science and health organization from doing any more research on guns.
For over twenty years, thousands of people have died in mass shootings, and the government has done nothing about it. (https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-...)
Recently, though, there is some light at the end of the tunnel: In December 2019 (yes, under President Donald Trump), the government agreed to allocate money and support for further studies. (https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...) Too little, too late? History will decide.
In 2021, Jillian Peterson, PhD and James Densley, PhD—founders of a non-profit and nonpartisan research group called the Violence Project—-published their book, “The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic”. Here’s a link to their website: (https://www.theviolenceproject.org)
The book is, at times, an info-dump of horrifying statistics about gun violence. It is up-to-date, based on some very recent new studies.
It is also a riveting, emotionally powerful, and surprisingly satisfying book. That last part may sound weird, considering the dark subject matter. I say it’s satisfying because it lends credence to what people like me—-a non-gun owner strongly supportive of sensible gun control legislation—-have felt for years but were always rebuffed by angry pro-gun and pro-Second Amendment advocates who—behind all the rhetoric—-seemed like children afraid that their parents were going to take their toys (read: guns) away.
The authors interviewed many survivors of mass shootings, law enforcement and paramedic personnel, and several actual mass shooters who are now in prison. Their collected stories create a sad and disturbing tapestry of the United States, one which reveals the brokenness and dysfunction of numerous institutions, from education to health care to law enforcement to prison systems.
There are many take-aways from this book, but the one that is quite clear on every page is that every mass shooting that has happened in this country, starting from the late-1960s, could have been prevented if the obvious red flags had been seen earlier and/or addressed earlier or at all.
Preventing future mass shootings will require a lot of difficult choices and may involve public policies that a segment of the population won’t necessarily agree with, but it will be necessary if we don’t want to see another several hundred thousand people needlessly murdered in the next 20 years....more
It may seem like we’ve gotten through the worst of it, but the Trump Era is not over yet. Joe Biden may be taking over as our new Commander-in-chief, It may seem like we’ve gotten through the worst of it, but the Trump Era is not over yet. Joe Biden may be taking over as our new Commander-in-chief, but the shitstorm he is walking into and the damage control he is going to undertake will take years to undo and repair.
Those of us who scratched our heads and shed actual tears of sorrow when he was elected in 2016; those of us who saw the kind of unqualified, incompetent, and dangerous person that he was early on; those of us who went through four years trying to find subtle ways of fighting back and/or calmly trying to talk sense into his religious followers (many of whom were our co-workers, bosses, neighbors, or relatives); those of us who were neither shocked nor surprised by the events at the U.S. Capitol building last week; those of us who want (correction: need) to see him held accountable for a lifetime of actual crimes he has committed:
We still have so many questions. We still have no idea what the hell to tell our children. We are still scared. We are still confused. We are still angry.
We will be talking about these last four years for a long time. Not only that, but there is more about these last four years that we don’t even know about, I’m sure. There is more to come, and far more books to be written in the future about the Trump Era.
Carlos Lozada, the nonfiction book critic for The Washington Post, has done the thankless and unbelievable job of reading the literally hundreds of books that have thus far been written about Trump. His overview and analysis of this literature (a field that I have dubbed “Trump Studies”) is found in his book “What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era”.
First off, I think Lozada clearly deserves a medal or a huge monetary prize for doing something that most people wouldn’t dream of doing. I myself have read many of the books he writes about but nowhere close to the amount that exists out there. He has, thank God, read them all so that we don’t have to.
Lozada’s undertaking reminds me a bit of Morgan Spurlock’s month-long endeavor to eat only McDonald’s food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in his film “Super-Size Me.” Both are incredibly horrible ideas, and both, I’m sure, resulted in, at times, thoughts of suicide or the warm embrace of accidental death.
Thankfully, Lozada survived with his wits intact. He actually learned quite a bit from the exercise, too. There is, thankfully, a good deal of humor mixed in with the horribleness.
Lozada’s book breaks down the “genre” of Trump Era literature (Trump Lit?) into several subgenres. The first, of course, are books written (supposedly) by the Don himself: “The Art of the Deal”, “The Art of the Comeback”, “Crippled America”, etc. Believe it or not, the “etc.” covers a lot of ground. He has actually written many books. Of course, we know that he didn’t actually write them. According to some of his ghostwriters, Trump didn’t even read them. This touches on a point that Lozada makes early: Trump doesn’t read. At all. He barely has the attention span for Dr. Seuss let alone Doris Kearns Goodwin. (Oh wait, she’s a woman—-he’d never bother anyway.)
Lozada starts to make a joke about this, but then realizes how seriously unfunny it is: “Yes, I would be delighted if our president read more books, even more so if they were good ones. But of the many concerns I have about Trump, a thin TBR pile is not foremost among them. I’d settle for him reading his briefing materials. Or the Constitution. (p. 4-5)”
Subsequent chapters deal with books about the forgotten folk, like the white rural poor, who found solace in Trump’s words and came out in droves to vote, supposedly, in 2016. These are books like J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy”, Nancy Isenberg’s “White Trash”, and Sarah Smarsh’s “Heartland”. Many of these books became bestsellers, tapping into a liberal elite sense of guilt which, of course, later turned to resentment.
Other chapters deal with identity politics and Race (books like Ibram X. Kendi’s “How To Be An Antiracist”, Bari Weiss’s “How to Fight Anti-Semitism”, and Wesley Yang’s “The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays”), the Me Too Movement (Chanel Miller’s “Know My Name: A Memoir”, Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Kate Harding, eds.’ “Nasty Women”, and Anti Zeisler’s “We Were Feminists Once”), and books about the whole Russia-Trump connection (Greg Miller’s “The Apprentice”, David Shimer’s “Rigged”, and Timothy Snyder’s “The Road to Unfreedom”).
Don’t forget the countless books by Trump apologists (Newt Gingrich’s “Trump’s America”, Jeanine Pirro’s “Liars, Leakers, and Liberals”, and Donald Trump Jr.’s “Triggered”), even though much of it is forgettable. Except for this gem: Sean Spicer, in his book “The Briefing” in which he (apparently in all seriousness) writes about how Donald Trump is “a unicorn, riding a unicorn over a rainbow”. Damn, that’s love.
Lozada offers some brief critiques about each book, but his real intention is to mine every book (even the ones he didn’t like) for an understanding and a truth about what the fuck happened these past four years. That he manages to be funny, entertaining, and extremely informative while doing so makes this an important book.
Lozada’s last chapter is simply a list of the top twelve books (in no particular order of importance) that he felt were the best ones he read in the past four years, and the ones that would be the most long-lasting. If you’re like me, you love lists, especially about books, so I’m sharing his list with all of you. You’re welcome.
*”We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America” by Jennifer Silva
* “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons for the Twentieth Century” by Timothy Snyder
*“A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream” by Yuval Levin
* “America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States” by Erika Lee
* “The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America” by Gary Grandin
* “A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy” by Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum
* “When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir” by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and as he bandele
* “The Mueller Report”
* “Know My Name: A Memoir” by Chanel Miller
* “The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis
* “Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump’s War on the World’s Most Powerful Office” by Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes
* “One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy” by Carol Anderson ...more
Like most of Americans, I was horrified and saddened by the barbarism and stupidity on display by protestors at the Capitol building yesterday. Four pLike most of Americans, I was horrified and saddened by the barbarism and stupidity on display by protestors at the Capitol building yesterday. Four people are dead because our president can’t accept that voters are sick of his shit and is whining, like a three-year-old, that more than half the country “stole” the election from him, based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever.
My wife and I watched the news coverage last night. At times, neither of us could hold back tears. But one question kept coming up between us: How could it have gone that far?
With all the Capitol police, local police, and National Guardsmen (which, please correct me if I’m wrong, were only called in later, after the fact, I think) on-site, how were so many idiotic protestors allowed to even get to the point where they were crashing through windows, running through the halls, breaking into Senate offices, ransacking desks, sitting in chairs with their feet up, and snapping selfies with their fellow grinning insurrectionists? How?
Because let’s be honest: If this had been a crowd of Black Lives Matter and other anti-Trump protestors, you know that the police would have used much more force. Screw the tear gas and rubber bullets. They would have used real bullets, and the numbers of fatalities reported this morning would have been astronomically higher.
And I’m sorry, but anyone who tries to justify the actions and behavior of these protestors by comparing them to BLM is full of shit. BLM protestors are protesting an ACTUAL injustice that happens every. Single. Day. These Trump-humpers are protesting a FAKE injustice that has been manipulated by a president who has never been accountable to anyone a day in his life. Trump is a sore loser. Plain and simple. And now four people are dead.
What a way to start 2021.
Speaking of uncomfortable: Read Emmanuel Acho’s “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man”. It’s an important book. Especially now.
Acho was a football player in the NFL and now is a host of FOX Sports 1. He also created a Youtube show called “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man”, which was later re-worked and published as a book in November 2020.
Acho’s book could also be titled “How to Talk to White People About Race and Racism Without Being Accusatory and Making Them Feel Like Shit”. But his title is actually a lot shorter and more succinct.
It is a book that I would not hesitate to include on school reading lists, as it is an excellent primer on starting conversations about topics such as implicit bias, white privilege, cultural appropriation, systemic racism, reverse racism, and everything in between.
It is one of those books that I wish I could give certain people I know and ask them to read it and seriously think about.
It is one of those books that I would buy to keep on my shelf and re-read several times, highlighting passages and writing notes in the margins.
It is a book that I hope to one day give my daughter to read, so that we could have a conversation about it, because I don’t even know how to begin that conversation with a seven-year-old.
Acho’s format is, I’m assuming, much like his show (which I have not seen). He starts with a valid question about race from a white person, and he sincerely tries to answer it as best he can. In eloquently succinct responses, Acho defines terms, gives thoughtful and real-life examples, and (my favorite part) sources for further reading. I have already added a dozen or so books to my reading list. Some of them are books I have read before, but I want to go back and re-read them now.
After the shitstorm that happened yesterday, we need a thorough, compassionate, intellectual conversation about our democracy, much of which is tied—-whether we like to admit it or not—-directly into the topic of race. Thankfully, we have thinkers like Acho to start that conversation....more
What transpires in a person’s brain to go from “Sure, it’s possible that the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, the lost continent of Atlantis, and alien UFOWhat transpires in a person’s brain to go from “Sure, it’s possible that the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, the lost continent of Atlantis, and alien UFOs may exist” to “Oh, they exist for sure, and anybody who tells you differently is somebody who is trying to suppress the truth”? What causes that mental switch to be flipped from everyday wonder and curiosity to radicalized fanatical belief?
Colin Dickey attempts to explain this phenomenon in his book “The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained”.
Dickey, like most rational-minded people, is a skeptic who also happens to be, like most rational-minded people, fascinated by stories of the unexplained. It’s a very human thing to be captivated by “true” stories of events that have no scientific explanation.
Indeed, one aspect of those people who become radicalized true believers is an almost-pathological mistrust and fear of science.
Many of us are all too aware of the anti-intellectual, anti-science beliefs that warp people’s views and can be a danger to society. We have seen it at its peak in the Trump Era, with politicians who completely ignore or deny the evidence supporting global climate change, parents who completely ignore the societal health benefits of childhood vaccinations, and people who blatantly disregard the state mandates for wearing masks and practicing social distancing due to Covid-19 because they believe that the pandemic is a government-created hoax.
But this anti-science conspiracy-theory paranoia has been around for decades, if not longer.
Dickey starts out by examining the history of the theory of Lemuria, an ancient lost continent (similar to Atlantis) that sank in the Indian Ocean thousands of years ago. It is a fascinating theory that is based on what any and all reputable scientists now considers an indisputable hoax and egregious pseudo-science. And yet there are still millions of people today who believe that Lemuria once existed.
The same is true for the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and most stories of UFOs. All of these started out as hoaxes perpetrated by, in most cases, people who just wanted a few bucks from newspapers that would publish their photos. Most of these people later went on record claiming that it was an elaborate lie, that their photos were doctored or faked. And yet, today, there are pseudo-scientists, calling themselves cryptozoologists, whose life goal is the search for these mythical creatures and millions of “UFOlogists” seeking the truth of alien visitors.
It’s both funny and sad, depending on how one looks at it. Regardless of how one looks at it, though, it also attempts to satisfy a human need, according to Dickey. That need is the sense of mysticism and the divine that humanity is losing in this world of ever-increasing scientific and technological knowledge. Where nearly every inch of our planet has been mapped, we no longer have places on our maps that say “here there be monsters”, and, according to biologist John Napier, “[m]an needs his gods—-and his monsters, and the more remote and approachable they are, the better.”
It is this need that is embodied in the now-famous poster of a UFO over the desk of Fox Mulder, the FBI agent investigating alien conspiracies in the iconic TV show The X-Files, which reads, “I want to believe.”
But why, in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, do some people continue to believe in things that simply aren’t true? In the book “When Prophecy Fails”, researchers Leon Festinger, Henry W. Rieckon, and Stanley Schachter studied doomsday cults and what happened to believers after the “end-of-the-world” deadlines came and went. Oftentimes, these believers double down on their beliefs rather than face the possibility that their beliefs are wrong. Quite simply, Festinger et al “argue that once you’ve irrevocably begun down a path, it becomes increasingly harder to admit you’re wrong, and you’ll increasingly distort the facts and adopt ever more fantastical ideas rather than change course. [p. 165]”
It’s a very believable and understandable defense mechanism. It certainly helps to understand why some people deny the facts about global climate change or the existence of Covid-19. In some ways, it even helps to understand the irrational beliefs that some people have about the unverified, and unverifiable, “facts” of Joe Biden secretly hordeing billions of dollars of bribe money from the Russians or the “facts” of rampant voter fraud throughout the United States in this past election. They want to believe so badly that not believing is simply not an option.
It’s okay to keep an open mind. It’s even okay to occasionally question science and scientific findings. It’s this ability to question and refute findings that has, for the most part, helped humanity by keeping things on the up and up.
But one can go too far in refuting the science, and this, according to Dickey, is extremely dangerous: “[G]radually but inexorably, a search for wonder and mystery, for the sublime, for the enchanted world just out of our grasp, can descend into paranoia. The longer that sublime remains unknown, unseen, felt but not reached, the more the mind spins for explanations. [p.222]”
Until one starts finding explanations in the unverified, the unverifiable, and “alternative facts”. And we’ve all seen, in the past four years, where that’s gotten us… ...more
White people have literally gone batshit crazy in this country. Granted, it’s not completely their fault. Part of it is genetics: white people have siWhite people have literally gone batshit crazy in this country. Granted, it’s not completely their fault. Part of it is genetics: white people have simply evolved to think that they are entitled to everything, from better housing to better education to better jobs. Part of it is their history: Few non-white cultures have stood up to their craziness and told them “no”. The few that have tried tend to be branded as “enemies” or “terrorists” or “those people” and subjugated or slaughtered. White people call this patriotism.
But there will be a day that white people get their comeuppance, and I hope that the revolution will be led by D.L. Hughley.
In his book “Surrender, White People!”, Hughley humorously articulates a peace treaty putting an end to the 400 years of war waged on black people. Yes, it’s funny, but don’t be fooled: Hughley is making some seriously unfunny social commentary in this book.
Take, for example, history textbooks. One would think, after reading a standard curriculum high school textbook, that slavery was just a minor embarrassment to white people, rather than the horrific and vile institution that it was.
There are ignorant people, still, who think that black slaves were treated decently. After all, they were given jobs, beds, and food on the table. What could they possibly have to complain about? According to Bill O’Reilly, not much: (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/bu...)
There is also a tendency to whitewash (pun intended) the reasons for the American Civil War. As Hughley points out, most textbooks say that it was due to state’s rights. What often gets forgotten or never mentioned is that it was primarily the state’s rights to profit off of slavery. (https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/...)
There is also a slew of major historical events in which crazy-ass white people just went completely medieval on black people’s asses. Ever hear of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre? I hadn’t, until I read about it in this book. Most people, for decades, until recent historians started digging into the past, hadn’t either, as the white community kept a tight lid on it for years. (https://www.history.com/topics/roarin...)
Hughley’s book is full of this eye-opening stuff. In between the laughs, he is trying to make a very serious point, one that is only now, in 2020, finally being addressed seriously. Except, of course, by our idiotic rancid mango-and-cat-semen jello mold of a president. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...)
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