It’s a bit early in the day for the Dave Clark Five, but they do bring back memories…It’s amazing to think back on, but when they first appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964, the group was widely regarded as indistinguishable from The Beatles, just another British Invasion group that teenage girls were screaming about. This song even knocked “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” off of the #1 spot on the UK Singles Chart.
A weird housekeeping note: a recent entry into the comment wars who ripped off over a hundred comments in just a handful of days has gotten himself/herself/themselves (in case it’s conjoined twins) suspended indefinitely for refusing to send me a real email address and a full name as the Comment Policies clearly require. I don’t understand this at all. It’s not an unreasonable request. I am also fascinated that the participants from just one side of the ideological spectrum behave this way, showing deliberate contempt and disrespect for a forum in which they are guests and beneficiaries. This isn’t the first time.
It’s really frustrating to attempt Diversity and Inclusion of viewpoints here when so many progressives enter determined to act like jerks.
1. Clearly, I spoke too soon about rejoining Twitter. Becoming active on Twitter will require a huge time commitment, and having re-joined to support Elon Musk’s mission to restore the platform to a forum not being manipulated to advance a particular party’s agendas and narratives, I am rapidly feeling misled and betrayed. I’ve got an account again , but the chaos under Musk continues. This mess, part of the craziness described in “After Matt Taibbi Leaves Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Shadow Bans’ All Of Taibbi’s Tweets, Including The Twitter Files” strongly suggests that he is too mercurial and unstable to deliver on his promises, or that it may have always been impossible to do so.
2. The latest “book banning” controversy: I don’t know what to make of stories like this one, and there are a lot of them. “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” was removed from a library at Vero Beach High School after Moms for Liberty in Indian River County claimed that the book was inappropriate. The school’s principal either agreed with the objection or didn’t have the guts to oppose it (most principals are weenies and will always choose the path of least resistance) and the book was removed. The book at one point shows Anne walking in a park, admiring female nude statues, and describes her proposing to a friend that they show each other their breasts. It also has relatively little context regarding the Holocaust.
To the Left, this is just another example of Cro-Magnon conservatives “banning” books that are insufficiently de-sexualized. To the Right, the book is needlessly edgy and not the kind of thing that belongs in school libraries. A favorable review of the book by the Times of Israel is here.
What lines in school library collection decisions should be drawn? Is it really necessary to include a graphic novelization of Anne Frank’s story that has Peter whispering “Penis!” to Anne during dinner and imagines her commenting about another girl, “Did you see that pair of melons she’s sprouted?” Yet even if the good taste of those choices is debatable, does that justify removing the book?
Incidentally, removing a book from a school library is hardly “banning” it.
3. Today’s gun control “Do something!” virtue signaler: Criminal defense attorney and Fox News contributor Ted Williams (not the headless frozen baseball great). In response to yesterday’s mass shooting in Louisville, Williams told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Saying he was “sick and tired” of the shootings, Williams said,
“Just two weeks ago, I stood in front of a camera when you had some kids, some babies, shot in Nashville, Tennessee, with a person who, by the way, had an AR-15. And from what we’ve been told here, Neil, this individual had that same kind of a weapon. And when you look at mental illness … and that weapon, that’s a dangerous concoction, and we’ve got to do something in this society….We have to talk about guns. AR-15s are killing our babies and our citizens in this country, and we’ve got to do something about it.”
Well.
- Gee, I’m impressed that you are sick and tired of mass shootings, Ted. How special.
- If that’s the definition of insanity, “Do something!” grandstanders like Williams are insane.
- “AR-15s are killing our babies and our citizens in this country.” What’s wrong with that sentence?
- Williams rolled off two “do somethings” without adding anything of substance to the discussion “we have to have.” Apparently he wants to “do something” about two problems he has no practical solution to: mental illness and people abusing individual rights.
- Later, the best he could come up with was—you guessed it!—“red flag laws” which presume to take away civil rights on the presumption that being treated for emotional and mental illness should make one a second class citizen. But it’s “something”!
4. I really am really confused this morning…One of the largest supermarkets in Downtown San Francisco, a Whole Foods Market, shut down this week just a a year after the store opened. “We are closing our Trinity location only for the time being,” a Whole Foods spokesperson said in a statement. “If we feel we can ensure the safety of our team members in the store, we will evaluate a reopening…” The company cited deteriorating street conditions around drug use and crime near the grocery store as a reason for the closure. Meanwhile, CNN was enthusiastically promoting the crazy San Francisco “reparations” plan this morning, which is inching forward despite the fact that the city not only can’t afford it, it can’t afford the basic functions of a city government. As with Chicago, Washington, DC, New York City, Portland, Minneapolis and Detroit (among others), life is becoming increasingly miserable for residents yet they continue to vote for the same people directly responsible for the deterioration. What was it Ted Williams said about “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”? This is life incompetence.
5. Good! Deja Taylor, the mother of a 6-year-old boy who shot his first-grade teacher in Newport News, Virginia, in January has been indicted for felony child neglect and recklessly leaving a firearm to endanger a child. The child will not be criminally charged, Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard Gwynn has said, which seemed a forgone conclusion. The bot shot his teacher in her hand and chest with a gun purchased by Taylor and kept on the top shelf of her bedroom closet. Her son brought the gun to school in his backpack after threatening to do harm to his teacher. Her attorney claims that the gun had a trigger lock. I doubt it
Well, convicting the mother would be “something”! It won’t do much to stop kids from shooting people, but it will put let irresponsible parents know they could end up in jail, if they are smart enough to figure that out—which is very much in doubt.
Ethics Alarms 
“I don’t understand this at all. It’s not an unreasonable request. I am also fascinated that the participants from just one side of the ideological spectrum behave this way, showing deliberate contempt and disrespect for a forum in which they are guests and beneficiaries.”
I’m surprised you don’t have us reach out to you on facebook or linkedin just to confirm our accounts are attached to unique individuals.
Previously banned or suspended accounts merely need create a new email from any of the internet’s free options and reasonably believable name to get their ticket to ride stamped.
The reason is that for the vast majority of participants here, their trustworthiness is reasonably presumed, and I want to minimize the hoops they, and I have to jump through. Is someone cheats, he is on the wrong blog anyway.
True. The nature of the blog tends to self-sort.
Funniest thing; during the short, if tediously voluminous, EA commenting life-span of Seriously?, the posting activity of a certain LOCAL LEFTY BLOGGER dropped off noticeably.
All of a sudden, (READ: Post-Self-Ban) three (3) posts within just the last ~18 hours.
Probably nothing to it…
Now, now Paul, we all know that correlation ≠ causation; but that said, there is certainly some correlation. 😉
[From the moderator: Remember, Terri was banned, and, as always, I made it quite explicit why.}
Terri wrote, “Maybe if you didn’t ban people for disagreeing with you…”
That’s not going to go over well here. There is no apparent reason to make such an accusation, be prepared to support that claim with facts.
Terri wrote, “Still have no idea why I was banned.”
If you were banned then why are your comments being posted? Your claim seems illogical.
I guess I missed that.
Frankly, I found the requirement unusual; I don’t think many sites do that.
But, it was a requirement, so I complied.
-Jut
[From the moderator: Remember, Terri was banned. This was her second illicit attempt to comment post banning, which is how commenters prove I was correct to ban them.]
Terri wrote, “No one does it.”
It is not descriptive enough in context, no one does what?
Terri,
It is a form of quality control.
With that requirement, you can’t remain perfectly anonymous.
Anonymity is a big problem with commenting because anonymous people are completely unaccountable.
At the same time, Jack knows perfectly well that I am who I claim to be. The same is presumably true of other commenters.
Without that understanding, Seriously? Was just someone talking out of his ass.
-Jut
Many blogs do not accept anonymous comments, and there’s nothing magic about “Anonymous”: if there isn’t a genuine name attached to a comment, it is, in fact, anonymous, meaning, as you say, unaccountable. This is an ethics blog. It is appropriate to require more transparency.
I am confused.
Was Terri banned?
Or Seriously?
Or both?
-Jut
Terri was warned, then banned, on this post after I required an apology and a retraction for a comment insulting me personally, and she decided to demand conditions. She was also close to triggering the Comment Policy Stupidity Rule. And she has compounded fer offense by sneaking back here to make comments knowing she was banned, and being insulting in those comments as well.
Seriously is not banned, but suspended after missing multiple deadlines and refusing to hand over a real name and email address, as required by the rules here.
Seriously can comment once I get the required info.
Terri will not be allowed back unless eh is capable of writing an epic apology, which I sincerely doubt.
Aha, now I know why I didn’t know about the Terri banning, I wasn’t part of that blog thread.
I’m such a slacker, I really have to get more involved. 😉
It makes sense to me –
There’s 4 general types of blogs:
1) No commenting allowed. Easy – with no comments, no one needs to vet commenters.
2) Complete and utter chaos of commenters, no moderation whatsoever. The blogger blogs and ignores the commentariat regardless of what follows. Easy – with a no-holds-barred approach, no one needs to vet commenters.
3) Some level of moderation – little level of interaction. The blogger simply bans whomever as necessary. A bit of work for the blogger. Seems frustrating.
4) Ethicsalarms. A blogger who actively interacts with a very active set of regular commenters and, for most of its duration – had a regular turn-over of new commenters who tended to stay for a long duration. I think this is clearly aided by the minimal level of vetting of asking for a real name and real email address.
#2 On one end of the spectrum, there are people out there in the political left that have gone straight off the deep end with their claims that Republicans are banning books like Nazi’s, it’s a completely false propaganda campaign but par for the course when if comes to the political left’s propaganda lies.
We must have a baseline set of standards to determine of any particular book meets the basic human decency concept that our children and young adults shouldn’t be exposed to certain things until they’ve reach certain ages of maturity. If a book meets the standards to show K-6 students, or 7-8 students, of just 9-12 students then put it on the shelves for those groups of students, if it doesn’t then limit its exposure, period.
The problem we’re having right now is that the political left has gone to the completely off the rails of reality and dove straight into the abyss of absurdity, they’re accusing Republicans of being fascists while they are actively fighting to allow “sexually explicit” material in schools. No I’m not joking, that exactly what they are doing. Yes this is an attack on our cultural status quo that we’ve had for many years that historically reflected a basic human decency concept that our children and young adults shouldn’t be exposed to certain things until they’ve reach certain ages of maturity. You think I’m misrepresenting the left here, nope I’m not, read this What Happened To Common Decency When It Comes To Exposing Minors To Sexually Explicit Materials?
Jack wrote, “Incidentally, removing a book from a school library is hardly “banning” it.”
I recently stated roughly the same thing in the blog post linked to above.
All that said; if there are specific books that some people want to be unlimited in school libraries, then they can take that up with the people that are applying the standards and see if they can get it changed book-by-book, but to smear the whole standards program as Nazi banning books is not only socially unacceptable but immoral.
Jack wrote:
“AR-15s are killing our babies and our citizens in this country.” What’s wrong with that sentence?
You mean besides the fact that there is no event recorded in history of a gun killing anybody, and the logic of blaming a gun for the actions of its operator is only generously defined as pure sophistry?
Also, there is the small point that AR-15’s, and in fact, semi-automatic rifles of any type are a tiny percentage of the tools used in killings with firearms. The AR-15 seems to punch way above it’s weight class when it comes to opprobrium from the Left.
Ted Williams reportedly said:
And when you look at mental illness … and that weapon, that’s a dangerous concoction, and we’ve got to do something in this society….
Is Ted saying “that weapon” is somehow more dangerous in combination with mental illness than any other weapon? I beg to differ. It is much harder to get an AR-15 into most places covertly than, say, a Glock 19 or any other semi-automatic high-capacity handgun. Even a Kel-Tec SUB-2000 (one of the weapons used in the Nashville school shooting) is much easier to get in, and with the right magazines has nearly the same capacity albeit in a pistol cartridge. That particular weapon folds into two equal parts, making it very easy to conceal for later use as a weapon of murder.
Yet I hear no calls to ban folding pistol-caliber carbines, only AR-15’s, which are arguably an inferior choice for a mass shooting for all kinds of reasons.
But telling that to the Left is futile, because logic is something with which they have are unfamiliar, and in any case have no use for.
Ted Williams has always seemed to me to be a mediocre analyst whose only qualification was that he has a law degree and police background. He likes using fancy sounding words to make himself appear erudite but he regularly bumbles his way through his commentary.
“Bits and Pieces” is a really good song. Interesting hearing it again. It’s very raw, almost proto-punk or Elvis Costello. Pretty rough around the edges. The foot stomping is pretty striking. And great lyrics. A really punchy take on heartbreak. “I’ll give it a five, Dick. It’s got a good beat but I’m not sure you can dance to it. Which is fine with me since I can’t really dance.”
Seriously? refused to identify himself because he is Chris. Must be off his meds again. That’s mania.
Other Bill wrote, “Seriously? refused to identify himself… That’s mania.”
Nope, it’s pure cowardice and far too typical of progressives.
P.S. I could be wrong, but don’t think it’s Chris.
Yes Seriously?, I’m calling you a coward.
Own it.
Steve, I found Seriously’s? number of comments and their compulsive incessantness symptomatic of mania. Refusing to identify himself was an attempt to avoid being banned because he’d been banned previously. Just a theory. But if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck….
Other Bill wrote, “I found Seriously’s? number of comments and their compulsive incessantness symptomatic of mania.”
Let me be really bold and “fix” that for you.
“I found Seriously’s? number of comments and their compulsive incessantness symptomatic of progressiveness…” a.k.a. a consumed, hive-minded, cultish, 21st century “regressive”.
Other Bill wrote, “But if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck….”
It’s rather difficult to pin these things down based on a limited view of the behavior when so many of them argue using the same tactics and the same parroting, you have to look at the totality of rhetorical commentary tactical patterns which is what they can’t hide from. I think it’s clear that we’ve been dealing with a Trump deranged progressive. So…
…as in a Trump Deranged progressive duck.
I find mental health categories helpful in trying to comprehend behaviors. I think there’s some plain old mania at work in Seriously? separate and apart from the quasi condition of TDS. But of course, both conditions do reinforce each other.
Other Bill wrote, “…both conditions do reinforce each other.”
Amen to that!
I’m not a psychologist and I did not even stay at a Holiday Inn last night, but I think there’s a strong obsessive/compulsive streak in contemporary lefties. They think they need to (AND CAN!) fix everything AND they think everything is broken. Which is very unhealthy and symptomatic of a deeper problem. Also ironic because it’s guys who are usually accused of mansplaining to everyone else’s detriment.
Other Bill wrote, “I think there’s a strong obsessive/compulsive streak in contemporary lefties. They think they need to (AND CAN!) fix everything AND they think everything is broken. Which is very unhealthy and symptomatic of a deeper problem.”
Funny you should put it that way.
These people we’re discussing thinking that everything is broken and they’re the only ones that can fix it is pure delusion, a false belief or judgment about external reality, held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, but it’s also pure pompousness and showing off how the Dunning-Kruger effect is put into practice and so very, very typical of progressivism.
My opinion of modern progressivism is:
• Progressivism is and enemy to Liberty.
• Progressivism is an enemy of civility.
• Progressivism is an enemy to our culture.
• Progressivism is an enemy to our society.
• Progressivism is an enemy of the status quo.
• Progressivism is an enemy of logic.
• Progressivism is an enemy of critical thinking.
• Progressivism is an enemy of common sense.
• Progressivism is an enemy of the Constitution and therefore…
• Progressivism is an enemy of the people.
You’d think that progressives would eventually have to look in the mirror at what they’ve become but they all seem to looking in the mirror with permanently attached industrial-strength weapons-grade thickened ideological blinders (#Cornelius_Gotchberg) and are completely blinded from being self-aware.
My observation above is the baby sister of your more expansive one. I guess they view destruction the precursor of reform and progress. And yes, the destruction seems totally indiscriminate. And destructive! Classic example: let street people live … on the street. Progress for street people. Destroyed feature: social order. Caring for street people by leaving them alone good. Social order, bad. Ergo, social order has to go. I’m not sure they’re so much evil as simply wrong.
But what’s there to be afraid of?
Jack Marshall wrote, “But what’s there to be afraid of?”
That’s a great question and I don’t know the answer. Maybe Seriously can chime in and tell us why he/she is afraid.
Whatcha wanna bet I used the wrong pronouns in my comment above.
For shame… 😦
Thirty lashes with a wet noodle for me.
The embarrassment of being caught trying to sneak back into the commentariat.
I don’t understand this issue. The only person that would know the true identity is Jack and he does not disclose that information without permission.
I have always used my full name here but that is personal choice. I can understand that others my choose to use a pseudonym that is published with the comment.
For all I know those who do not wish to provide a real name o the host are nothing but ChatAI comments initiated by a variety of different people with an agenda.
It became apparent to me that it was not worth my time to rebut Seriously’s statements because there is no point debating someone whose mind is made up using made up or improperly interpreted sets of facts.
Requiring that age and content appropriate books be used in public education is hardly “banning”. As noted, they’re all still publicly available to any parent who wants them.
We don’t try to teach calculus to third graders; it only confuses them. We don’t want a math textbook with a chapter of calculator jokes (get a result that totals 58008; turn it over to read “BOOBS); it’s an inappropriate distraction. Anyone who does want those types of things is pushing an agenda.
(Don’t take advice from someone who won’t learn to pronounce the “R” in AR.)
#3: Another “celebrity” genius (adult playing a kids’ game) weighs in with his thoughts and
Constitutional Expertise :
“‘They’re going to cloak all this stuff [in] the myth of the Second Amendment, the freedom. You know, it’s just a myth. It’s a joke.”
“Ted Williams (not the headless frozen baseball great)”
I hate to be pedantic, but isn’t Teddy Ballgame the opposite of “headless”, as that’s all that remains? One might say he’s bodyless. Disembodied, even. The poor fellow is, if anything, headful…
No, his body is still cryogenically frozen, last I heard,
That’s odd. I wonder what the ostensible purpose is of decapitating the corpse and freezing the head separately? I mean, it’s all ludicrous pseudoscience, but they must have some kind of rationale for that.
Or is the bisected Ted a peculiar result of the legal battle that was fought over his final disposition?