Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Who Cares? Social Justice

Beware the Eve of the Ides of March

    Today is the Ides of March, so I should have known better than to go to a performance yesterday ofJulius Caesar at London’s new theatre, The Bridge. Remember, it was on ... read more

Plain English
PUT ANY WORD BEFORE “JUSTICE” AND IT BECOMES THE OPPOSITE OF JUSTICE: David Solway writes that “‘Social Justice’ Is About Anything but Justice.”

(Classical reference in headline.)



SHEER INCOMPETENCE AND AN OVERWEENING DISDAIN FOR THEIR CUSTOMERS:  United Airlines In The News Again…But Is Sheer Incompetence The Only Flaw Here?


 Sydney needs a minister for nightlife



Chris Hughes, as he will be the first to tell you, has too much money. As he relates in his new book, “Fair Shot,” he co-founded Facebook, asked his roommate Mark Zuckerberg for 10 percent of the company, received 2 percent instead and became dynastically wealthy as a result.
Hughes is acutely aware of how unfair this is. “Most Americans cannot find $400 in the case of an emergency,” he writes, “yet I was able to make half a billion dollars for three years of work.” He’s also aware that the flip side of people like himself having too much money is that tens of millions of Americans have too little. Over 40 million Americans live below the poverty line, including one in five children under the age of 6.
There is a simple solution to the problem of people having too little money: giving them some. As Hughes efficiently and compellingly recounts, the proven and far-reaching effects of cash grants include more work; higher incomes; better performance in school and college; less tobacco and alcohol use; and fewer hospitalizations, illnesses and untimely deaths. In short, grants strengthen and empower the poor, making them much more economically and socially productive.


NAME THAT PARTY, SPECIAL “ALL THIS AND WORLD WAR II” EDITION:
In Sunday’s Washington Post, art critic Philip Kennicott unloaded on images of American “fascism” in a new exhibit in New York featuring photographs of the unjust internment of Japanese Americans during World War II titled “Then They Came For Me.” That’s somehow comparable to Trump if he deported “Dreamers.” That would be a “looming civic crisis.” The online headline was “If America fails its people again, what will the catastrophe look like?” In the paper, it was simply “Images that provoke deja vu.”
In his 1,571 words, Kennicott never used these words: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Or any reference to the Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, “CNN Exploits Holocaust, Suggests ICE Agents are Nazis,” Joel Pollack writes at Big Journalism:
CNN posted a tweet to promote the article, declaring: “A Jewish woman heard an undocumented immigrant and her two daughters were on the run from ICE. Driven by thoughts of the Holocaust, she risked her own comfort to offer them shelter.”
* * * * * * * *
The implication is that ICE agents are like Nazis or Gestapo secret police ready to arrest illegal aliens for legitimate reason other than their identity. Jews in Germany and in Nazi-occupied Europe were citizens of the countries where they were arrested, and where they were murdered or deported to death camps. They had not violated immigration laws or any other laws except laws preventing them from existing.
More at Red State:
I have to give CNN credit. Just when you think they’ve given it their best shot in lying, in manufacturing news, in encouraging hatred of people they don’t like, in deliberately maligning Republican office holders; when they’ve reached that pinnacle where you think, “my stars, they can’t possibly be more douchebaggy than this,” you find out, yes, they can.
Dude,  it’s CNN; the scale of douchebaggery there reaches to infinity and beyond – and then some.
(Classical reference in headline.)



Who Care? Top bottled water brands contaminated with plastic particles: report PhysOrg

 Drugs, plastics and flea killer: the unseen threats to UK’s rivers Guardian

After a year in space, Scott Kelly’s genetic code changed significantly; 7% looks to remain permanently altered.
↩︎ Live Science


Almanac: Rex Stout on secrets

“You should know that your only safe secrets are those you yourself have forgotten.” Rex Stout, Death of a Doxy... read more

 How Hollywood actors are writing wills to control their CGI selves from beyond the grave Telegraph



The National Academies take a hard look at the safety and quality of abortion care in the U.S. Los Angeles Times (Kevin W). A class issue masquerading as a gender issue.
Uber’s Biggest Rival Is Experimenting With All-You-Can-Ride Monthly Subscriptions Time. Prescription for adverse selection, as in only heavy users will sign up. And how do you give surge pricing inducements to drivers? This looks like a way to burn cash even faster.

Title: Why Cities Boom While Towns Struggle Wall Street Journal. Kevin W: “Important takeaway – ‘From 2010 to 2016, large cities generated 73% of the nation’s employment gains and two-thirds of its output growth. A study by the Economic Innovation Group found that from 2010 to 2014 just 20 counties accounted for half the new business formation in the entire U.S.'”
What Happens After the Worst Happens? Places  I lived in St. Helens, Oregon, which was so named because it had good views of Mount St. Helens…



Don’t Bork Gina Haspel Rich Lowry, Politico. “[T]he interrogation program [sic] wasn’t a rogue operation. It was approved at the highest level of the U.S. government.” Say it, Rich. Say it with me. “I was….” “I was only….” “I was only following….”

Ex-CIA chief Panetta backs Haspel nomination CNN. Remember Panetta at the Democratic National Convention? When the Sanders supporters chanting “No more war” were drowned out by Clinton supporters chanting “USA! USA!” Good times…

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes says the 1 percent should give cash to working people Recode. That’s callednoblesse oblige, one of the less malevolent aspects of feudalism. One imagines Hughes tossing coins to the peasants from his gilded coach…



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