Even blogging is too much work for Trump

After he was shut out of his favorite platforms of Twitter and Facebook for his serial lying and inflaming his supporters to stage an insurrection, Trump promised to start his own system to reach his fans. It turned out to be underwhelming, consisting of basically a blog that did not have the kinds of features that the major social media platforms provide that enable wider participation and it was the target of much derision by late night TV comedians. Today it was announced that he was shutting it down for good after less than a month, which will no doubt prompt more jokes.
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A difficult question on safety

In a post a few months ago, I linked to a Samantha Bee clip on sexual assault where she asked why the onus of safety was placed on women, with them being advised to take precautions, such as avoiding being alone in isolated places at night, when it is the behavior of men that is the problem and should change. Women should have the right to be anywhere at any time without fear of being attacked.

This question has come up with how the media should report violent attacks on women. Chris Quinn is the editor of Cleveland.com, the online affiliate of the Plain Dealer newspaper. He sends out a newsletter and recently he described the challenge that this places on news reporting because they cannot duck this issue and have to decide what facts are pertinent when reporting a story. I reproduce most of it here because he describes the problem well and he links to a discussion he had with two female colleagues about this issue who had different views from him.
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TV review: Columbo

Long time readers of this blog know that I am a big fan of murder mysteries. Starting in the early 1970s, there was a TV crime procedural set in Los Angeles featuring Peter Falk as a homicide detective named Columbo. Wearing a crumpled beige raincoat, tie askew, a cigar, and a perpetual puzzled expression on his face, he became a cultural icon. I wrote a brief appreciation of the show and Falk when he died in 2011

What made this show distinctive from other crime shows is that there was no mystery at all. The opening sequence showed the murderer committing the crime and covering it up. The rest of the show was about how Columbo identified the murderer and pinned it on them. The stories always seemed to take place with the wealthiest of people in high society living in opulent houses and driving expensive cars, a stark contrast in class to the clearly blue collar Columbo who drove a beaten up and unwashed Peugeot convertible. We never saw his own home and although he frequently talked about his wife and other family members, they were never shown. I liked the fact that his personal life was not a part of the show. In some modern shows, the drama in the detectives’ personal lives sometimes overshadows the crime story. I also liked the fact that any violence was always off-screen and there was no blood and gore, no chases, or any of the other tropes of police shows.
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Women’s athletics and the Simone Biles controversy

I do not watch sports much at all and almost never events like gymnastics or figure skating. But I do know that in those events, winners are decided by judges who weigh various subjective factors like the level of difficulty involved in what was attempted and the grace and style with which it was achieved. And this had led to a controversy in women’s gymnastics involving Simone Biles. She seems to have superior athletic abilities and has done things that no woman before has done in competition. So you would think that she would score highly. But in fact the judges seem to actually penalize her for her ambition. The latest example occurred last week when she did what had been thought to be impossible, something that is called the ‘Yurchenko double pike’. You can see her do it here during Olympic training.
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Why are professional athletes forced to speak after matches?

It is common after sporting events to have the press interview various players after each match. I had assumed that participating was voluntary but that professional athletes would welcome the chance to increase their profile by doing so. But apparently, at least in professional tennis, they are forced to subject themselves to post-game interviews and this odd aspect has come into sharp focus in the case of tennis player Naomi Osaka.
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Return to hugging

Even though the CDC has said that it is now fine for vaccinated people to gather together without masks, it does feel a little strange for those us who closely followed the guidelines during the height of the pandemic (avoiding indoor settings outside out homes, wearing masks, keeping physical distancing, washing hands frequently, and even using hand sanitizer) to feel completely comfortable relaxing all or even some of those habits.
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National Academy of Sciences expels scientist

The National Academy of Sciences is the most prestigious body of scientists in the US and being elected to membership is highly prized. So it becomes news when for the first time in its history a member was expelled for misconduct violations, as was the case a few days ago with astronomer Geoffrey Marcy for a pattern of sexual harassment.

The action is the first since the 158-year-old NAS revised its bylaws 2 years ago to allow members to be expelled for documented misconduct violations. No actions were taken on the policy until fall 2020, when, after reading news accounts, a French scientist filed a complaint against Marcy and three other NAS members who had been investigated for sexual harassment.
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The forcible cultural subjugation of indigenous peoples

One of the shameful features of US history is its attempted genocide of the indigenous people here. Apart from the outright massacres, other attempts involved the erasure of their identities by destroying their language and culture. One means of doing so was a governmental policy involving the forcible abduction of Native American children from their parents and sending them to boarding schools where they were forbidden to practice any aspects of their culture and were forced to adopt those of white people.
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Why would anyone need 22,000 rounds of ammunition?

We have yet another mass shooting in the US, this time of nine people in California. These mass shooting are becoming so frequent that they hardly raise much of a ripple in the media unless the numbers of the dead are large (as in this case) or the shooter had some sort of ideological grudge that can form the basis of media speculation tying it to larger national political issues. In this case, the victims were co-workers of the alleged shooter so it seems like it was workplace motivated.
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Satanic panic and other dangerous beliefs

While I am an atheist, I can understand the appeal that the idea of a god has for some people, since I was a believer myself at one time. But even during my most religious phase, I never gave much thought to the devil or Satan, as he was sometimes called. It just seemed such a silly idea and the various depictions one saw of a red-faced guy with wings and horns seemed ridiculous. He also seemed superfluous. Since god was omnipotent and it was he who consigned you to hell to suffer interminable torments for one’s transgressions, what was the point of Satan, other than to serve as some kind of doorman to the gates of hell?
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