And there we have it in a nutshell. “Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.” That phrase, it should be pointed out, is not what “they” say it’s a journalist’s duty to do. That phrase was satirical, uttered by the fictional Irish bartender “Mr. Dooley,” the 1893 creation of Chicago Evening Post humorist Finley Peter Dunne. It was not intended to be taken seriously. Here’s the phrase in its original context: “Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.”
It was a satire of newspapers, not a how-to manual for journalists. Yet that is exactly what Jackman — and, I would wager, the majority of his crusading colleagues — has turned it into. And let’s just ruminate for a moment on what that means. Afflict (“cause pain or suffering to”) the comfortable (“those who are free from worry or pain”). In other words, give pain to those who don’t have it. What a motto, what a career description. Forget the five Ws, forget just telling the truth. Journalists are here to give pain to those they feel are too pain-free. And of course the press takes it upon itself to determine just who is comfortable enough to deserve affliction. Now, make no mistake, in an active situation on the street, the police do, absolutely, wield the power. They have a license to take lives, and they have the muscle of the state behind them. That said, can we really call inner-city beat cops “the comfortable”? Are we talking the Rockefellers here? Are we claiming that your typical parking-ticket scribe is a caviar-eating, yacht-racing, Fabergé-egg-collecting one-percenter?
That’s why those who elect themselves the rainmakers and the pain bringers are so dangerous — we are at the mercy of their judgment regarding who among us needs the misery they have decided they must inflict.
David Cole, “Afflicting the Comfortable”, Taki’s Magazine, 2016-10-06.
July 6, 2018
QotD: “Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted”
July 3, 2018
The Animals – The House of the Rising Sun
José Antonio
Published on Sep 3, 2010By José Antonio…. Because the original version of this video, has low quality in both audio and video, I took the trouble to improve with better sound, better image quality, better zoom and better edition with the best of intentions, thanks.
En vista de que la versión original de este video, tiene baja calidad tanto en audio como en video, me tomé la molestia de mejorarlo con mejor sonido, mejor calidad de imágen, mejor zoom y mejor edición con la mejor de las intenciones, gracias.
July 2, 2018
Drowsy Maggie – Scottish Indian Punjabi Mix (The Snake Charmer)
TheSnakeCharmer
Published on 4 Jun 2018When a 200 year old Traditional Scottish Folk song gets a Punjabi Dubstep revival by The Snake Charmer. A multi cultural music video with Britain’s Castles, highland dancers, Bagpipes, Graffiti walls from India, punjabi folk, bhangra dancers, Russian violinist and a crazy dhol player get together to showcase the amazing diversity in the world and how we all have something in common and can contribute to each other despite the distance and differences. Enjoy this brand new Celtic punjabi mix with Bagpipes.
Patreon (Support me for as less as $1) – https://www.patreon.com/thesnakecharmer
GET MP3
iTunes – https://goo.gl/eoszgf
Google Play – https://goo.gl/3sGBgbBagpipes – Archy Jay
Violin – MadinaHighland Dancers – Northumberland Church of England Academy combined cadet Force, Laura Greyson, Whistle School of Highland Dance.
Bhangra Group – https://www.facebook.com/bhangrainspire/
Dhol Player – Sarthak Pahwa
July 1, 2018
A point about historical advisors in films
Lindybeige
Published on 24 Mar 2011In which I relate an anecdote which is fairly depressingly illuminating when it comes to how much Hollywood really cares about historical authenticitude.
June 30, 2018
Enriching the public in ways that do not show up in the GDP calculations
Tim Worstall looks at the calls to regulate the big tech firms and points out that we already get a very good deal on “free stuff” that isn’t reflected in standard economic statistics:
It won’t have escaped your attention that rather large numbers of people are calling for the regulation of the tech companies. The Amazon, Google, Facebook (Apple and Microsoft often added, just because they’re large) nexus have lots of power over markets and thus therefore – well, therefore something. My own prejudice here is that certain people just cannot look at centres of power and or money without insisting that they, the complainers, should be the ones exercising that power and determining the disposition of that money. Thus much of the drive for “democratic” regulation of the economy more generally, the self proclaimed democrats being the ones who would end up with the power. The advantage of this analysis being that it does describe reality, the same people do end up making the same arguments about different companies over time. Mere prominence brings the demand for control.
The economist on this subject is Jean Tirole. His Nobel was for exploring this very subject, tech companies and the two sided market. Google, for example, sells the search engine to us and us to the advertisers. The tech here is different, obviously, but the underlying economics is the same as that of the free newspaper.
Tirole’s a new book out and there are a number of interesting points to be had from it:
Yes, on the whole consumers tend to get a good deal, because we use wonderful services — like Google’s search engine, Gmail, YouTube, and Waze — for free. To be certain, we are not paid for the valuable data we provide to the platforms, as for example Eric Posner and Glen Weyl remind us in their recent book Radical Markets. But on the whole, our living standards have substantially improved thanks to the digital revolution.
From which we can extract a few points. We’re richer, we really are. Substantially richer and yet in a manner that normal economic statistics entirely fail to capture. As Hal Varian has pointed out, GDP doesn’t deal well with free. Near all of those benefits of the digital revolution are coming to us for free and so aren’t recorded in that GDP. So, we’re richer yet the numbers say we’re not. In that is much of the explanation of slow economic growth these days, even of slow real wage growth. We’re just not counting what is happening to our living standards.
But we can and should go further than that. If the above is true then we’re very much less unequal than we’re recording. Stuff that’s free is, obviously enough, distributed rather more evenly among the population than extant monetary incomes. You, me and Bill Gates all have access to exactly the same amount of Facebook at the same price. We’re entirely equal in that sense. Bill’s actually poorer concerning search engines, stuck for emotional reasons with Bing as he is while we get to use Google or DuckDuckGo. Our standard measures of inequality are wrong both because of the undermeasurement of new wealth and also the extremely equitable pattern of the distribution of that new wealth.
June 29, 2018
Sultans of Swing (metal cover by Leo Moracchioli feat. Mary Spender)
Frog Leap Studios
Published on 30 Mar 2018Original by Dire Straits
Check Mary´s channel here:
http://bit.ly/2pi8zsAWant to send me something?
Postboks 27 4333 Oltedal,
Rogaland NorwayHi there, my name is Leo and I run a studio on the westside of Norway where I record and produce bands, do video work and play live shows.
On my youtube channel there is lots of videos with covers, gear reviews, studio updates and other shenaningans.
For my covers I play everything myself as well as record, mix, master, shoot and edit the music & videos.
Please subscribe if you like what you see/hear and I am forever gratefull to everyone who buys songs so I can keep doing this as a living.
H/T to ESR for the link.
June 27, 2018
Remy: Violent Video Games
ReasonTV
Published on 26 Jun 2018In prison for life, Remy looks back on his violent past and contemplates where it all went wrong and who’s to blame.
Written and Performed by Remy
Shot and Edited by Austin Bragg and Meredith Bragg
Mastering by Ben Karlstrom
Music tracks by Grind Time Production SquadReason is the planet’s leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won’t get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
—————-
LYRICS:
In the clink
In the slammer
Yeah I’m doing hard time
For a crime that I committed
Back in 2009See violent games lead to crimes
Wish I knew from the start
Before I ever got involved
In playing Mario KartI was hugging the turns
Heaving items for thrills
Ain’t seen a toad so damaged by shell
Since that last oil spillBut something happens to your brain
Doing virtual wrongs
Woke up the next morning
And it wasn’t too long before I wasDropping bananas Upon every street
Hurling turtles
Hurting every single person I seeThen I was road-raging at plumbers
Nobody could stop me
I’d run princesses off the road so much
I joined the paparazziNow I’m in prison doing 20 to life
How could such a game be legal man
The danger is rifeWell my fate is sealed
Won’t be doing right
Because I’m playing violent video games tonight
And the things I do I then do in life
It’s a tragedy
I’m gonna be in jail for lifeReminds me of another time
My life went astray
Playing a World War 2 game
Back in 2008I was only playing a minute
Then I felt an unease
Next thing I did right after playing
I interred the JapaneseYears later I would pay the judges
To win every race
It’s just what happens when you play
Too many games by EANow I’m doing life
With no chance of parole
Why didn’t anybody ban these games
How was I to knowCHORUS
Expert here
And forgive me for stalling
But violent video games
The stats are appallingJust look at this graph
And as you can tell
As gameplay’s increased
Youth crime has as wellUh – It’s gone down
Well who needs a chart?
I took 400 grand in loans
So you know that I’m smartLike a guy leaving the mohel
You’re missing the point
Freedom’s when you only get to play
The games we anoint
Canada’s odd approach to open data
Michael Geist the contrast between what the Canadian government says about access to information and what they actually do:
The Liberal government has emphasized the importance of open data and open government policies for years, yet the government has at times disappointed in ways both big (Canada’s access-to-information laws are desperately in need of updating and the current bill does not come close to solving its shortcomings) and small (restrictive licensing and failure to comply with access to information disclosures).
For example, late last year, I noted that government departments had oddly adopted a closed-by-default approach to posting official photographs on Flickr. Unlike many other governments that use open licenses or a public domain approach, Canadians looking for openly licensed photographs for inclusion in learning materials, blog posts, or other content must rely on foreign governments. The restrictive licensing approach remains in place: those seeking photos on Flickr from the G7 will find Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s are “all rights reserved” but other governments attending the summit – including the United States, United Kingdom, Norway, and South Africa – all facilitate re-use of their photos through open licensing.
A restrictive approach to disclosing information about completed access-to-information requests has also emerged in recent months. Open disclosure of the completed requests benefits both the public and the government. For the public, completed requests are there for the asking as they can be obtained on an informal basis at no cost. For the government, completed requests can sometimes provide the information requested by the public, thereby reducing costs and saving time for government officials. For many years, the government maintained a database known as CAIRS, which featured lists of completed access to information requests. After that was cancelled, the government created an open government page that includes the last two years of requests (the information is searchable or downloadable). According to the site:
Government of Canada institutions subject to the Access to Information Act (ATIA) are required to post summaries of processed ATI requests. You can search these summaries, which are available within 30 calendar days after the end of the month. Searches can be made by keywords, topic or field of interest. If you find a summary of interest, you can also request a copy of the previously released ATIA records.
But you can’t access them until they’ve been published, and several government departments are as much as a year behind in making these records available.
June 25, 2018
QotD: Gandhi and the British army
The film, moreover, does not give the slightest hint as to Gandhi’s attitude toward blacks, and the viewers of Gandhi would naturally suppose that, since the future Great Soul opposed South African discrimination against Indians, he would also oppose South African discrimination against black people. But this is not so. While Gandhi, in South Africa, fought furiously to have Indians recognized as loyal subjects of the British empire, and to have them enjoy the full rights of Englishmen, he had no concern for blacks whatever. In fact, during one of the “Kaffir Wars” he volunteered to organize a brigade of Indians to put down a Zulu rising, and was decorated himself for valor under fire.
For, yes, Gandhi (Sergeant-Major Gandhi) was awarded Victoria’s coveted War Medal. Throughout most of his life Gandhi had the most inordinate admiration for British soldiers, their sense of duty, their discipline and stoicism in defeat (a trait he emulated himself). He marveled that they retreated with heads high, like victors. There was even a time in his life when Gandhi, hardly to be distinguished from Kipling’s Gunga Din, wanted nothing so much as to be a Soldier of the Queen. Since this is not in keeping with the “spirit” of Gandhi, as decided by Pandit Nehru and Indira Gandhi, it is naturally omitted from the movie.
Richard Grenier, “The Gandhi Nobody Knows”, Commentary, 1983-03-01.
June 24, 2018
Berlin protest planned against EU’s proposed copyright changes
If you’re a regular internet user and you’re anywhere near Berlin, you might want to consider supporting this protest:
On Wednesday, the Legislative Committee of the European Union narrowly voted to keep the two most controversial internet censorship and surveillance proposals in European history in the upcoming revision to the Copyright Directive — as soon as July Fourth, the whole European Parliament could vote to make this the law of 28 EU member-states.
The two proposals were Article 11 (the link tax), which bans linking to news articles without paying for a license from each news-site you want to link to; and Article 13 (the copyright filters), requiring that everything that Europeans post be checked first for potential copyright infringements and censored if an algorithm decides that your expression might breach someone’s copyright.
These proposals were voted through even though experts agree that they will be catastrophic for free speech and competition, raising the table-stakes for new internet companies by hundreds of millions of euros, meaning that the US-based Big Tech giants will enjoy permanent rule over the European internet. Not only did the UN’s special rapporteur on freedom of expression publicly condemn the proposal; so did more than 70 of the internet’s leading luminaries, including the co-creators of the World Wide Web, Wikipedia, and TCP.
We have mere days to head this off: the German Pirate Party has called for protests in Berlin this Sunday, June 24 at 11:45h outside European House Unter den Linden 78, 10117 Berlin. They’ll march on the headquarters of Axel-Springer, a publisher that lobbied relentlessly for these proposals.
If you use the Internet to communicate, organize, and educate it’s time to speak out. Show up, stand up, because the Internet needs you!
Original post, with embedded links, at BoingBoing.
June 23, 2018
June 22, 2018
What the well-dressed politician shouldn’t be wearing
Ann Althouse reacts to a New York Times article on what clothes “say” about the wearer:
I clicked on that title because I thought it was going to say that it’s a mistake for female candidates to wear pants (in any form) rather than a skirt/dress (of some kind). But the article lumped skirted suits and pantsuits together.
To my eye, women in pants look less dressed up than a man in a standard business suit, and I don’t think women should put themselves at that disadvantage, especially since pantsuits look sloppier on a woman’s body than a business suit on a man’s body.
I don’t mean to insult women by saying that, but women’s bodies are (generally) shaped differently than men’s and women’s pants are (generally) fitted differently from men’s suit pants. Men’s suit pants do not hug the legs or crotch, so they completely deflect attention away from the lower body. Men’s suits bring us right up to the shoulders — the idealized shoulders — and and then, via shirt and tie, aim us straight at the face.
Women’s pantsuits are more fitted in the leg and use color in a way that draws the eye downward, and they often do things with the jacket — such as making it very long — to cover up what’s happening down there in the legs. But then the jacket is distracting.
In the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton’s jackets were flat-out weird, with perplexing patch pockets. In fact, I don’t like Vanessa Friedman’s reference to the “Elizabeth Warren/Hillary Clinton/Kirsten Gillibrand mold,” because Warren and Gillibrand wear very low-key things and Hillary Clinton launched into clothes that we struggled to understand, that got compared to loungewear or sci-fi costumery.
I don’t really know what the best answer is. It depends on the individual. But you’re asking to be trusted with responsibility, not to be enjoyed as a pop star or fashion maven. You don’t want to look as though you’re seeking power for purpose of expressing your individuality.
June 13, 2018
June 11, 2018
QotD: Gandhi as filmic hagiography
Gandhi, therefore, the film, this paid political advertisement for the government of India, is organized around three axes: (1) Anti-racism — all men are equal regardless of race, color, creed, etc.; (2) anti-colonialism, which in present terms translates as support for the Third World, including, most eminently, India; (3) nonviolence, presented as an absolutist pacifism. There are other, secondary precepts and subheadings. Gandhi is portrayed as the quintessence of tolerance (“I am a Hindu and a Muslim and a Christian and a Jew”), of basic friendliness to Britain (“The British have been with us for a long time and when they leave we want them to leave as friends”), of devotion to his wife and family. His vow of chastity is represented as something selfless and holy, rather like the celibacy of the Catholic clergy. But, above all, Gandhi’s life and teachings are presented as having great import for us today. We must learn from Gandhi.
I propose to demonstrate that the film grotesquely distorts both Gandhi’s life and character to the point that it is nothing more than a pious fraud, and a fraud of the most egregious kind. Hackneyed Indian falsehoods such as that “the British keep trying to break India up” (as if Britain didn’t give India a unity it had never enjoyed in history), or that the British created Indian poverty (a poverty which had not only existed since time immemorial but had been considered holy), almost pass unnoticed in the tide of adulation for our fictional saint. Gandhi, admittedly, being a devout Hindu, was far more self-contradictory than most public men. Sanskrit scholars tell me that flat self-contradiction is even considered an element of “Sanskrit rhetoric.” Perhaps it is thought to show profundity.
Richard Grenier, “The Gandhi Nobody Knows”, Commentary, 1983-03-01.
