…or…not [DOT 4/8/24]

& phone it in...

…ok…so I thought I had a way to get this done but as it turns out between the iffy internet connection & the lack of a device with a proper keyboard…it’s an early christmas for @butcherbakertoiletrymaker

…because trying to knock one of these up in the usual fashion on a phone would have left me either mad or with a broken phone…or very possibly both…so…err…some tunes might show up at least if things improve…but that’s not exactly guaranteed…so…knock yourselves out?

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30 Comments

    • I expected pictures of massive closets. That was underwhelming.

  1. It’s Barack Obama’s birthday! He turns 63.

  2. @loveshaq CBS Sunday Morning just did an interesting piece on the Merrie Monarch Festival. Not sure what time the show airs in Pacific time.

    • Hey @butcherbakertoiletrymaker thanks for thinking of me.  I’m up in BC right now & probably have to see if I can find that online.  Hold down the fort for me while I’m gone.

    • The Times (along with most outlets) also screwed up their headlines on Trump’s tantrum about Harris being a Black woman, and sank into meaningless mush along the lines of “racially charged.” Eventually they changed it.

      I think a big piece of it is that they are putting the Trump campaign’s spin up without questioning it, but forcing anything coming out of the Harris side to go through the wringer. If a reporter gets a couple of GOP sources telling them something, it counts as “objective” and it goes live. Anything out of Harris needs a greater level of confirmation and it also needs senior editors to sign off on the value judgments, so it sits around until it can get a blessing as “objective.”

      I think this is a good rundown on the importance of headlines in general which Josh Marshall, publisher of Talking Points Memo, wrote after Jonathan Martin of Politico (former with the Times) brushed off the meaning of the Times screwing up its headlines:

      https://nitter.privacydev.net/joshtpm/status/1819751515520635018

      They’re what most people see and read, especially for the online world, but it’s been a central truism of journalism going back to the AP pyramid structure. And they have a systematic problem.

  3. Now what am I meant to do with my Sunday morning?

    • Binge “The Decameron.”

      There’s a famous novel written by a famous novelist, a woman I think, that I read probably 30 years ago but damned if I can find it now. A retelling of The Decameron. It’s so irritating. I can picture myself reading it but I can’t remember the book itself. Anyone know what I’m talking about?

      • You mean Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron?  I read that back in college and it was a hoot.

        I’m looking forward to the new Netflix series.

        • No, it was based on the Decameron. A group of people are holed up somewhere but I think it was set in the present. I’m not even sure there was a plague involved. Arrrgh. So frustrating. And if you google “based on the Decameron” all the results are about the Decameron itself, which, no, that’s not what I’m asking.

          • …any chance it was Marguerite de Navarre’s “Heptaméron”?

            …it was unfinished & dates from 15-something…& I guess it wouldn’t really be a re-telling as such…but…it’s possible…or I can think harder, I guess?

            • …decent chance this may wind up bugging me like the occasional crossword clue someone asks for help with & you never find out if it was something you hadn’t thought of…just me?

              …probably just me…but that being so or on the off-chance it isn’t…in terms of famous writers & modern day I don’t think you mean this one

              https://www.thebookseller.com/rights/new-island-release-modern-updated-decameron-1222613

              …but that makes mention of a thing I sort of recall from the void time of covid lockdowns that was a collection of stories in the manner of the decameron by a bunch of people with margret atwood high in the billing…which might be the more plausible candidate?

              …if you have any other things you remember about it & I find a spare moment I might be willing to have a go at figuring it out?

  4. Yeah, this is not going well for Trump. At all.

  5. Speaking of headlines, I posted this in last night’s DU!AN but it’s worth bringing up again. This is a wild correction the Boston Globe ended up running of a screwed up headline:

    https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/08/03/sports/editors-note

    A significant error was made in a headline on a story in Friday’s print sports section about Algerian boxer Imane Khelif incorrectly describing her as transgender. She is not. Additionally, our initial correction of this error neglected to note that she was born female. We recognize the magnitude of this mistake and have corrected it in the epaper, the electronic version of the printed Globe. This editing lapse is regretful and unacceptable and we apologize to Khelif, to Associated Press writer Greg Beacham, and to you, our readers.

    What’s missing, though, is any recognition of how this happens. What management inevitably does is treat it as a process issue rather than a bias one. They’ll route things through another layer of review in the CMS rather than ask whether there are problems with the people they have in the CMS.

    • This whole debate is so stupid. I’m no geneticist and my science classes are far behind me but I remember that XY chromosome abnormalities are pretty common. *Checks Google* About 1 out of every 448 people have them. This poor woman deserves every apology on the planet from these ignorant fucks.

    • The Boston Globe no less. I’m surprised the readers didn’t storm the newsroom and tar and feather whoever was responsible for this. Or maybe drag them out for a few sessions on the ducking stool.

    • Did you see the IBA douchebags awarded the prize money to the Italian boxer who lost the match?

    • O/T but from the article: Is there any other title on earth more irritating than “Speaker Emerita?” Well, yes, of course there are (“thought leader”) but that one really makes the eyes roll.

  6. Remember when everyone said Trump was using campaign funds to pay his bills? Well, if any campaign money not being swiped by Trump is going to some other grifters. I know, I know, you’re terribly surprised. Basically, instead of setting up traditional campaign efforts, they’re handing money to right-wing organizations with … dubious methodology.

    Trump team gambles on new ground game capitalizing on loosened rules

    How’s it going?

    Past experiments with outsourcing field operations, most notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s heavy reliance on a super PAC in the Republican presidential primary race, have wound up as expensive boondoggles. With the legal barriers now removed, the current effort will test how much the rules — as opposed to structural or personal dynamics — contributed to the challenges. It will also test how a novel approach stacks up against the Democratic ground effort, which is using more traditional methods.

    Best quotes:

    Bowyer instructed the organizers not to come on too strong by showing up with MAGA hats and fliers. Instead, they should research their marks and start reaching out through Facebook groups, community events, or neighborly gestures such as recommending plumbers or harp teachers. They could even arrange seemingly chance encounters on coffee runs or dog walks.

    “Some of these things sound like stalking,” one staffer whispered.

    “Professional stalkers,” his colleague joked back.

    As one slide from the training implored: “BE NORMAL. BE NORMAL. BE NORMAL.”

    And Republicans wonder why people are calling them “weird.”

    • I’ve done a little door to door volunteering, and of the basic points is that your role is only to encourage supporters, not to engage with doubters.

      The most you ever say is “Sorry we disagree, hope you’ll keep an open mind, have a nice day.”

      It’s really hard to imagine the angry uncles and aunts who pick fights at Thanksgiving ever being able to do that.

      • I dunno, if someone came to my door and had a recommendation for a harp teacher…

  7. For an insight into the brains of NY Times Opinion section you could read today’s offerings claiming to debunk the ideas of their “comfortable herd.” But don’t drive yourself crazy.

    It offers such supposed debunkings as David Brooks saying people should embrace AI, an idea so commonplace it’s been adopted by every single major tech company to the tune of tens of billions in investment and PR.

    Bret Stephens tries to pivot from a claim that “conservatives think the market is always right” to his supposedly lonely point in his world, a long tirade that higher ed needs to embrace conservative ideas about higher ed. Pamela Paul takes the wildly controversial opinion that cat owners (approaching 40 million in the US) are somehow disrespected.

    These people have an opportunity to be truly original, and this is what they come up with? They not only stick to incredibly safe positions, they come up with such bland ones.

    These are exactly the kinds of things herd thinkers believe are serious questions on the edge of the discourse. They’re positive they’re the iconoclasts, and their editors, Patrick Healy and Kathleen Kingsbury, believe it too.

  8. was that relevant to anything?

    well no….

    but its cheerful and bouncy!

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