Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

I was promised a recession.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

We still have time to mess this up!

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Late Night Talking Points Open Thread

Late Night Talking Points Open Thread

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From Facebook:

Jill Filipovic

Seeing so many people (fairly) complain about The Media not covering mass killings in Beirut, Baghdad, Kenya, etc with as much alarm and emphasis as they’ve covered Paris. Ok. But do you read the World section regularly and share those articles? Do you actually pay money to subscribe to news outlets with foreign bureaus? Do you travel to the places that are pushed aside in American media? Do you know much about them aside from their involvement in tragedy and conflict? Yes, we have a media problem. But The Media does not exist alone. We also have an audience problem.

/self-righteousness

(Jill Filopovic is an attorney as well as a blogger, which is probably why she can turn the question so deftly.)

And, via commentor EZSmirkzz, “Decoding Daesh: Why is the new name for ISIS so hard to understand?”:

Over the last few months, there has been a concerted effort by several senior global politicians to give a new name to the group known as ISIS, or Islamic State, IS or ISIL. That new name is ‘Daesh’. If you’ve followed coverage of this attempted official linguistic sea change, you’ll have gathered that the new name, although it’s just an Arabic acronym equivalent to the English ‘ISIS’, apparently delegitimises the organisation, mocks them, and thus drives them to threaten taking violent retribution on anyone who uses it…

… if the word is basically ‘ISIS’, but in Arabic, why are the people it describes in such a fury about it? Because they hear it, quite rightly, as a challenge to their legitimacy: a dismissal of their aspirations to define Islamic practice, to be ‘a state for all Muslims’ and – crucially – as a refusal to acknowledge and address them as such. They want to be addressed as exactly what they claim to be, by people so in awe of them that they use the pompous, long and delusional name created by the group, not some funny-sounding made-up word. And here is the very simple key point that has been overlooked in all the anglophone press coverage I’ve seen: in Arabic, acronyms are not anything like as widely used as they are in English, and so arabophones are not as used to hearing them as anglophones are. Thus, the creation and use of a title that stands out as a nonsense neologism for an organisation like this one is inherently funny, disrespectful, and ultimately threatening of the organisation’s status. Khaled al-Haj Salih, the Syrian activist who coined the term back in 2013, says that initially even many of his fellow activists, resisting Daesh alongside him, were shocked by the idea of an Arabic acronym, and he had to justify it to them by referencing the tradition of acronyms being used as names by Palestinian organisations (such as Fatah). So saturated in acronyms are we in English that we struggle to imagine this, but it’s true…

Also, in my probably oversimplified analogy, it’s equivalent in written Arabic to using a Comic Sans font. Read the whole thing, it’s quite interesting and not that long!

Reader Interactions

111Comments

  1. 1.

    Major Major Major Major

    I’ve noticed a lot of my friends on FB posting about that awful Boko Haram massacre in April saying like Why aren’t we talking about this too?‽

    And I’m like… You don’t remember that? Cuz that was April. You must be thinking of Lebanon? Which you also didn’t hear about because you’re not engaged?

    Man, and they’re all white people. (Not like I’m not white myself.)

  4. 4.

    Greg

    I just had to post a gigantic STFU to all my FB friends about this. You know why I am posting a lot about Paris? Because I lived in Paris, speak French, and have friends in Paris and friends with family in Paris. So, wow, on my personal page I am posting about Paris. I had to point out that I was 100% aware of all of the other eleventy-thousand attacks, but seeing as I have no personal connection to those cities or countries, I don’t really have anything to add. Of course, these are the same idiot friends that believe that chem-trails are being used to terraform the Earth and manipulate the weather which is why we have a drought out here blah blah blah blah blah. They use words like “false flag” and “sheeple” a lot, they are basically the flip side of Alex Jones, but at least their views are harmless crazy not violent crazy.

  6. 6.

    Applejinx

    Very interesting and thoughtful article. So the entire point is: the west’s quarrel is not with Islam, it’s with Daesh. Who are royally pissed off because they’re about as insistent that they are the Word Of God, as is the Westboro Baptist Church. So, think of Daesh as WBC with bombs instead of signs, and don’t allow them to lay claim to all of Islam any more than the WBC are allowed to claim to represent all of Christianity.

    Works for me, and what a world we live in. Yeesh. Yet all this is so important…

  9. 9.

    Bill

    I’ve called them that ever since I’ve heard about the name daesh. People are always saying “Who”? I have to explain that they aren’t a state, they aren’t Islamic, and they aren’t happy when people call them daesh.

    Actually, now that I stop to think about it, I typically use another word, then say daesh.

  11. 11.

    Splitting Image

    if the word is basically ‘ISIS’, but in Arabic, why are the people it describes in such a fury about it? Because they hear it, quite rightly, as a challenge to their legitimacy: a dismissal of their aspirations to define Islamic practice, to be ‘a state for all Muslims’ and – crucially – as a refusal to acknowledge and address them as such.

    Just going to add: this is precisely why so many people are perfectly content to use ISIS. At least one political party and a large number of media personalities are just as vested in the idea that ISIS is entitled to define Islamic practise as Daesh is.

  12. 12.

    Roger Moore

    @Applejinx:

    Who are royally pissed off because they’re about as insistent that they are the Word Of God, as is the Westboro Baptist Church.

    I don’t like the comparison between Daesh and Westboro Baptist Church. WBC is awful, but they’re basically a fringe group/litigation machine rather than a serious threat to peace. I would suggest the Lord’s Resistance Army as a better example of an analogous allegedly Christian group.

  13. 13.

    mainmata

    Well, I have worked a lot in the Middle East as well as Southeast Asia. Yes, acronyms are not widely used in the Middle East though word play is used. Hence, Daesh, which is an acronym but also a (pretty strained) version of an insult. Basically, this entity is AQI and remnants of Baathist military that were disbanded by W’s occupation. It is an utterly cynical outfit with a pseudo-religious/mostly gangster, psychopath organization that calls itself by several names and has no real objective other than chaos. (Same as the original al-Queada but more brutal.)

  14. 14.

    Original Lee

    @mainmata: I read elsewhere on the intertubes that part of the reason why Daesh drives them crazy is because, depending on pronunciation, it means bigot. Is this true? Because that would be awesome, calling them by an acronym that accurately describes them.

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Original Lee: It sounds similar to a word that means to crush something underfoot. Though this would be spelled without an aliph. The other issue is, that unlike the PLO, this is both strained and somewhat offensive. Basically its would be like standing up and announcing, I am representing that which will be crushed underfoot and trampled! Fatah, however, while an acronym for the PLO in Arabic just means open or opening. Its from the same root as to thrust open or force open, which we transliterate as intifada. So the PLO acronym in Arabic doesn’t connote anything negative, but DAESH for ISIS or ISIL does.

  24. 24.

    Suzanne

    @Original Lee: I would like to learn the most offensive pronunciation of “Daesh”, so I can use it judiciously. I don’t want to be needlessly offensive to my Muslim friends and colleagues, but I hope to do my part to offend these extremist fucks.

  28. 28.

    srv

    John’s old boss, Andrew Bacevich, has a shit sandwich for all the warhawks:

    A war the West cannot win

    In proposing to pour yet more fuel on that fire, Hollande demonstrates a crippling absence of imagination, one that has characterized recent Western statesmanship more generally when it comes to the Islamic world. There, simply trying harder will not suffice as a basis of policy.

    It’s past time for the West, and above all for the United States as the West’s primary military power, to consider trying something different.

  40. 40.

    Adam L Silverman

    @p.a.: Not necessarily. If it made any difference in their attempts to recruit young Muslims from around the world either to move to the area they control in Syria and Iraq or to motivate young Muslims in their hosts countries to stay there and engage in leaderless resistance, then they would have lost the marketing campaign. As of right now there is no indication that it is doing anything but annoying them.

  44. 44.

    goblue72

    @Omnes Omnibus: Same thing. Intentional reworking of the organizational name they self identify as in order to aggravate them. Not that much different than the Neanderthals of the GOP who go around calling it the “Democrat” party as opposed the “Democratic” party.

  45. 45.

    p.a.

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Don’t ISIS and ISIL imply limited areas; Iraq/Syria Iraq/Levant? Are they writing off non-Arab Sunnis? Or is this stage 1, with Pakistani and or African Sunnis stage 2.

  47. 47.

    sharl

    @Amir Khalid: No worries. I appreciate (if that’s the right word) reminders about what folks far from me have to deal with in their lives (and good stuff too, when it happens).

  48. 48.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    We watched “The Simpsons” tonight and it reminded us why we don’t watch that show anymore.

    Now we’re watching “The Death of ‘Superman Lives,'” which is about how the Tim Burton version of Superman with Nicolas Cage went south.

  49. 49.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @goblue72: There is no play on word possible with Democratic/Democrat. Also, D v. D. doesn’t involve translations. Has ISIS/ISIL/DAESH suggested their preferred translation? Because it is a translation thing.

  50. 50.

    Roger Moore

    @p.a.:

    Don’t ISIS and ISIL imply limited areas; Iraq/Syria Iraq/Levant?

    I thought that was why they tried to rebrand themselves as just plain Islamic State rather than Islamic State in Iraq and (Syria/Levant).

  51. 51.

    srv

    At least they’re not handing them out:

    WORCESTER (CBS) — The FBI is investigating an overnight break-in at the Lincoln Army Reserve Center in Worcester.
    …
    Sources tell WBZ-TV six semi-automatic rifles and 10 pistols were stolen from a gun locker.

  54. 54.

    sharl

    For those like me who are afflicted with an absurd fascination with the internal machinations, trials and tribulations of “New Media”, former Gawker staff writer Dayna Evans has just posted On Gawker’s Problem With Women. It was to be posted at Gawker, but recently appointed Editor-in-Chief John Cook spiked that, so it’s at Medium instead.

    In a follow-up, Gawker editor Alex Pareene noted that it was spiked over his objections. Lots of current and former Gawker writers I follow on Twitter promptly posted links to the piece. So far at least, EIC John Cook and Publisher/Owner Nick Denton are silent (at least on Twitter).

    Evans largely held Denton responsible for the problem on the editorial side (although the business side is apparently a different story). She also noted that this problem doesn’t exist solely at Gawker, but of course she wrote mostly on what she directly witnessed at her former place of employment.

    It’s a rather long read.

    ETA: Here is John Cook’s e-mail response to Evans on why he killed her piece for publication at Gawker.

  55. 55.

    Bobby Thomson

    @efgoldman: if I understand this correctly, using Daesh is kind of like the “Draw the prophet Mohammed contest” stuff in that it’s designed to be deliberately insulting, but unlike the “Draw the prophet Mohammed contest” stuff in that it’s not designed to insult mainstream adherents.

    I suspect this ranks about on the scale of changing the blog color in terms of making a difference when people here do it, but They seem to think that John Kerry doing it will make them lose their shit. Time will tell.

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    @p.a.: Its a good question. And I’m not sure there’s really a good answer. From the advertised, for lack of a better term, position of ISIL they are in the process of establishing a true caliphate. Currently that caliphate is confined to portions of Syria and Iraq. But the stated objective is to expand that caliphate and bring first all professed Muslims into alignment with the doctrine and practice of tawheed (radical unity of the Deity). This would also require killing all Shi’a, apostate Muslims, etc.

    Here’s where things begin to get dicey and confusing. Not even the al Saud’s in the late 19th century/early 20th century when establishing the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were willing to allow the muwaheedun (adherents to tawheed), and specifically the Ikhwan from the Rub al Khali, to completely establish tawheed. In the western cities of Mecca and Medina there are things that are allowed that are not allowed anywhere else in Saudi Arabia. In the easternmost provinces, where the oil is, is a sizable Twelver Shi’a population. It has been reported that ISIS has imposed the jizayya (head tax on non-Muslim people of the Book: Jews and Christians) residing in their area. So if you’re a Syriac and pay the jizayya and do not take up arms or assist those that have against ISIS, you’ll be left alone, though a second class citizen.

    Finally, and perhaps more importantly, every actual caliphate was not one based on tawheed. They allowed for Jews and Christians to live provided they paid the jizayya and at times, such as during Spain’s Golden Age, the integration was so great that the sectarian religious distinctions were relatively minor issues. At other times those paying the jizayya were either truly second class citizens or actively and heavily discriminated against. Most often they were closer to sultanates where the ruler is temporal even if the law is Islamic, than a caliphate where the ruler is both religious and temporal. The issue is I’m not sure you can really have a caliphate based on tawheed. The amount of compromises that will have to be made, especially in the current area of high technology (in the late 19th Century the Saudi Ikhwan wanted to ban the telegraph and trains as modern innovations that took away from one’s proper devotion to the unity of the Deity), are large. And each time the khalifa makes one it increases the likelihood that he will, himself, be accused of apostasy. I’m not sure the stated goals and reality are going to accommodate each other. There’s a reason the only signifiant population of Muslims that adhere to tawheed are in Saudi Arabia. The House of Saud and the descendants of the House of Wahhab made a symbiotic agreement. Neither can really survive without the other. I’m not sure it can be replicated and ISIS certainly isn’t trying. They’ve made it clear that House of Saud are apostates.

  60. 60.

    srv

    Ironical, Obama has even lost the Voice of America:

    ISLAMABAD— Government officials and insurgent sources in southern Afghanistan say at least 70 Afghan soldiers have defected to the Taliban while 85 others were killed in days of fierce fighting.

    Mirza Khan Rahimi, governor of the volatile Helmand province, told reporters Saturday that the defections occurred in Sangin district, and that the soldiers joined the Taliban with their weapons and equipment.
    …
    The deteriorating security and rising civilian casualties have prompted sharp public criticism of President Ashraf Ghani, leading to large anti-government demonstrations.

    Afghan military commanders blame withdrawal of U.S.-led military surveillance and close air support for the battlefield setbacks.

    Gotta love the VOA’s photo editor.

  61. 61.

    Amir Khalid

    @sharl:
    Stupid decision by the editor. Since the piece would be published anyway, and he knew it, he might as well have published it himself. He says he had a problem with not being asked for his side of the story; but in that case, his beef is not just with the writer but with the editors — his own colleagues — who didn’t require that he be asked for it.

  63. 63.

    Roger Moore

    @Bobby Thomson:

    if I understand this correctly, using Daesh is kind of like the “Draw the prophet Mohammed contest” stuff in that it’s designed to be deliberately insulting, but unlike the “Draw the prophet Mohammed contest” stuff in that it’s not designed to insult mainstream adherents.

    It sounds as if it’s a bit closer to calling members of the Tea Party teabaggers. It’s based on something they called themselves- Daesh is just an Arabic acronym for ISIL/ISIS- that turned out to have unfortunate connotations that the originators didn’t appreciate. That they ultimately inflicted it on themselves is part of what makes it so delicious for people who want to mock them.

  65. 65.

    sharl

    @Amir Khalid: Yeah, I thought that was weird too. In fact, in Cook’s rebuttal e-mail, he said he thought Evans’ piece should be published, just not at Gawker. I wonder if that was in order to avoid riling up owner/publisher Denton?

    And Evans said she did run the story by Cook back in August, with an open offer to him to get in touch with her anytime about it. In Cook’s defense, I suppose he could have just been insanely busy with his new role as EIC, but he should have seen a story like this would just roil the waters there before things had settled down from the debacle over the summer.

    Most of the writers I liked there are no longer on the staff, but there are still a few left. I hope they get their act together.

  66. 66.

    Steeplejack

    @srv:  

    No, you try to keep up. Most commenters here, aside from a few contrarian dipsticks and techno-retards, are very good about supplying links. I know that doesn’t fit your edgy, lobbing-bombs-at-the-sheeple self-image, but you don’t have to overdo the obnoxious douche part.

  67. 67.

    Steeplejack

    Test.

    ETA: FYWP is spiking some of my comments but not telling me if they’re going into moderation or what.

  73. 73.

    gwangung

    @sharl: I am fed up with that kind of crap (entitled white male fragility). I’ve had a weekend full of dealing with insecure white people on a WIDE array of topics and I am just sick of it.

  75. 75.

    guachi

    Indeed, acronyms are incredibly rare in Arabic. The only other one I’ve ever heard of is the same one referenced in the article.

    Compound nouns are also rare. I’ve only encountered two – electromagnetic and capital (monetary capital not capital of a country)

  77. 77.

    srv

    So sad, where will the BJ poll trolls go now?

    The Donald is back on top in Iowa, according to a new poll.

    The CNN/ORC International poll has Trump winning 25% of likely Republican caucusgoers, compared to 23% for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

  78. 78.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Goddamn it, now Balloon Juice or FYWP is throwing me to MySpace or something called GoGarden.com. What the fucking fuck.

    (Mobile site on Android.)

  79. 79.

    Amir Khalid

    @srv:
    That lead is probably within the margin of error. If so, then the most precise conclusion you can draw from those numbers is that The Donald and Dr Ben are about neck-and-neck in Iowa — which is about where they have been in recent weeks; and which is a bit surprising, given the issues cropping up in that time concerning Dr Ben’s credibility.

  80. 80.

    different-church-lady

    So I read that article and I think, okay, the murderous nutbags are also touchy murderous nutbags. Fuck ’em. Fuck ’em in their stupid ear.

  81. 81.

    Origuy

    @Jewish Steel:

    How am I meant to pronounce Daesh?

    Until someone who actually speaks Arabic offers an answer, I am guessing, based on a few weeks trying to learn the language, that it would be da-EESH. AFAIK, Arabic doesn’t have diphthongs like the English AE.

  84. 84.

    Peale

    @different-church-lady: yeah. I think we need an acronym that translates into “if that’s your idea of a caliph, you probably fuck your mother, too, and maybe a goat.” That might make them rethink their affiliation. beyond that, I wonder if we might want to think about other ways of minimizing the number of supporters they have.

  85. 85.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Origuy: this is it. Unless otherwise denoted with a shudda (diacritical marking indicating emphasis), it would go to the second syllable.

  86. 86.

    sharl

    @Origuy: I cannot vouch for the fluency in Arabic or anything else about the narrator in this Youtube video (2m34s), but he pronounces it something like Dah’sh (“ah” as in “say ahhhh”), with a stronger accent on the first syllable, but with the audible break between syllables that is barely perceptible (at least to my ears).

    The video is part of a series by the Conflict Studies Group, whatever that is. I linked its ‘About’ page, but it isn’t very informative; maybe Adam knows them. But whether wingnut sabre-rattlers, money-grubbing NatSec contractors, or committed experts (or combination thereof), they would presumably not ding their own reputation with a bad pronunciation of a word that is big within their alleged area of expertise.

    ETA: Ah, I see expertise has arrived. Nevermind…

  87. 87.

    Brachiator

    @srv: Go, Donald, go! I am happy that Trump is leading in the Iowa poll. I hope he does well there. The more he wins, the more he assures the collapse of the GOP on a national level.

    He also is deftly pulling the GOP not just to the right, but to the land of the nutjob. Look at Jeb! Trying to out bigot Trump by saying that he only wants Christian refugees.

  88. 88.

    David Koch

    Iowa is not predictive of eventual nominee.

    only 2 of 6 winners have won nomination and those 2 (dole 96 Shrub 00 had kitten-weak competition).

    bigger takeaway is how msm keeps pushing debate “winner” little marco and none of the dogs will eat the dog food.

  89. 89.

    Amir Khalid

    @David Koch:
    I don’t understand why the media says Rubio won that Republican debate. In the polls, he’s still more or less where he was before, isn’t he?

  91. 91.

    David Koch

    It seems like Sanders’ supporters don’t understand how polling works. They think web site polls are national polls.

    The polls I am reading (Slate.com, Washingtonpost.com, Fox5Sandiego.com, Syracuse.com) all show Bernie with a HUGE margin (80% to 90%). I guess your poll must have been only sent to Hillary supporters. It saddens me to see people using the media to try to shape public opinion rather than reporting the actual news.

    Now is the time to stop believing in “official” polls and everything else flowing out of the “mainstream” media.

    All these so-called polls saying Hillary is so far ahead are skewed, because they are not polling the people likely to vote for Bernie.

    Bernie Sanders killed it according to online polls. #BernieSanders I’m starting to get excited.

    There’s reams and reams of this departed reality. It’s as bad as the Romney voters who were shocked on election night when he quickly loss in a landslide.

  92. 92.

    David Koch

    @Brachiator:

    Look at Jeb! Trying to out bigot Trump by saying that he only wants Christian refugees.

    yeah, no one would ever lie about being christian.

    Q., Mr. bin Laden, are you a christian?

    A. Uhhhh, Ummm,… why yes.

    Q. good enough for me. here’s your passport, sir. enjoy your stay.

    Gotta get up early in the morning to fool ¿Jeb ?

  93. 93.

    ruemara

    @David Koch: They seem to be unaware there’s a massive demographic shift between online polls and live polling groups. Which hardly surprises me, they think Sanders will “save” them (indicative only of 90% of my friends & associates, who have lost their gotdang minds).
    Whatever. Disappointing, but I wasn’t unaware the left is overfond of rhetoric and stupid memes.

    Better news, I powered through a massive amount of editing today and it looks like I may have a not too shabby short. I am cautiously optimsixi? I can’t spell. I’m going to bed.

  94. 94.

    Anne Laurie

    @different-church-lady:

    So I read that article and I think, okay, the murderous nutbags are also touchy murderous nutbags.

    To be fair, “incapable of dealing with the minor stresses and friction of daily life with equanimity” would seem to be a prominent feature of the “murderous nutbag” profile, by definition.

  95. 95.

    magurakurin

    @David Koch: Speaking of polls, Gravis has New Hampshire Clinton 46 Sanders 25. No matter what one’s opinion might be of polls or any one particular pollster, Bernie Sanders down 21 points in NH on November 15 should be setting off alarm bells loud enough to wake the dead in the Sanders campaign. Devine’s entire strategy depends on Sanders winning Iowa and NH or at least New Hampshire and parlaying the win into greater support in SC and NV. A loss in New Hampshire ends the campaign in February. But the only comments I’ve heard at all about the poll over at the Great Orange Bern amount to Gravis is a shit pollster. That may be, but 21 points?

  96. 96.

    David Koch

    @ruemara:

    but I wasn’t unaware the left is overfond of rhetoric and stupid memes.

    Oh sure. They have a long record of supporting people like Weiner, Grayson, Kucinich, John Edwards. People who are loooong on rhetoric and utopianism and empty on legislation and results.

  97. 97.

    David Koch

    @magurakurin: it could be an outlier. I wouldn’t put much stock in a single poll. But they on the other hand are rejecting all polls (except the online ones that are freeped)

    freep

    To skew or cheat an online poll by repeatedly voting (clearing cookies, using proxies) or to make a blog appear to be commented by numerous posters by the same means. (From the practices of the Free Republic or “freepers”)

    Example: “The results of the CNN question of the day were running 70:30 in favor until an hour ago when it got freeped.”

  98. 98.

    magurakurin

    @David Koch: But 21 points? Almost for sure Sanders is now losing in New Hampshire. It may well be that 21 points is wildly overestimating the lead, but I wouldn’t bet against Clinton having a 3 to 5 point lead at this point. And that is a death blow for Sanders. If he loses NH, it’s over. I never thought he ever had a chance and that’s why I never bothered to invest any energy, whether emotional or financial, into his campaign. But now…he might lose every primary. I wonder how it plays out when he finally concedes and endorses Clinton. The cognitive dissonance burst will be heard around the globe.

  100. 100.

    Another Holocene Human

    (Jill Filopovic is an attorney as well as a blogger, which is probably why she can turn the question so deftly.)

    Deftly my ass. My compassion isn’t limited to the places I have the financial worth to visit. How do you know who reads the “world section”, you don’t even know what circ is (but you make it up)? If your online world coverage sucks your readers will seek another website–you know they can do that, right? Sophistry and motivated thinking.

  101. 101.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Major Major Major Major: I remember it, somebody remembered it and called people out and they didn’t remember it and started repeating it, game of telephone, trying to put that moment of shame on somebody else.

    People are assholes, is the point.

  104. 104.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Amir Khalid: Rubio is still way behind Trump and Carson, but at the moment, Rubio and Ted Cruz are the only candidates whose numbers are rising nationally. I think the Rubio boomlet is genuine; the question is just how far it goes.

    Trump and Carson are both steady or modestly declining, it’s hard to tell.

  105. 105.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Major Major Major Major: Just saw a story about a horrific bombing that happened a month ago in Ankara being passed around as new news.

    As I said elsewhere, I think people are trying to make up for lost attention.

  106. 106.

    Matt McIrvin

    Though, while I hate to even partially agree with Ann Coulter, I think that the Paris attacks might well be a boon for Trump on “in a scary world, we must vote for the biggest and loudest asshole” grounds.

    Lindsey Graham tried to be the hair-on-fire War On Terror candidate, but no, that’s not happening.

  107. 107.

    debbie

    Early on, John Kerry was calling the group Daesh, which made it easy for conservatives to mock the usage.

  109. 109.

    Gex

    I have been critical of Facebook though. Who seems to give us a profile picture overlay for some tragedies and not others. Or a safety check in for some tragedies and not others. I personally don’t expect my fellow Americans, even friends and family, to be better about being informed, nor do I blame them for the media’s inability to teach us anything remotely accurate about those places.

    Take this for example. Facebook stated that they didn’t do a safety check in for Beirut because for all practical purposes it is never really safe in Beirut.

    Whereas I think there is a difference between the background noise of every day violence and a massive coordinated terror attack. For instance, if I read online that a person in Minnesota was shot and killed, I would not immediately worry that everyone I know could have been that person. But if I read that 100 people were shot and killed in a mass shooting in Minnesota, I would instantly want to check on everyone I know.

    I bet people in Beirut are really not so different from me on that front. But to ignorant westerners, other parts of the world are only what our stereotypes are. Apparently Facebook thinks that what happened in Beirut is such a normal everyday thing that people in Lebanon had no particular increase in their concern for their loved ones in the midst of that tragedy.

    Basically it is the “Africa is a country” way of thinking in the west writ large.

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