Margaret Sullivan, whom the Washington Post was smart to snap up, with “A user’s guide to the media maelstrom“:
… ● Consider actually reading that story before you share it on social media. It’s astonishingly common to see a story hit Twitter and see it retweeted with outraged commentary even before it could possibly be digested…
● Know your source. …
● Trust the stories you like even less than those you don’t want to believe. At the very least, it’s a good exercise in critical thinking to employ extreme skepticism to fight the confirmation bias we’re all guilty of. Seek out reaction and commentary from the other side of the situation; you don’t have to believe it, but you ought to consider it.
● Wait and see. Know that cable news anchors — and all who deliver breaking news — may be scrambling in the first hours of a development…
● Know who is paid to say what on cable. Remember that cable commenters — particularly Trump surrogates — are paid to bring a particular point of view to the table. They may be legally constrained by nondisclosure agreements from doing anything other than gushing positively. Take this, therefore, with a few extra pounds of salt..
● Compare and contrast.…
● Take a break. The news never stops, so put down your phone, turn off your TV and do something else for a few hours. Cook a meal, take a walk, go to a yoga class, read a 19th-century novel…
On the Road and In Your Backyard
John S.
That ad is gold! Everyone knows young people do the exact opposite of what their elders tell them to do.
Hopefully they are true to form.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Drumpf is doing a solo “news conference” today. He hasn’t done one in 19 months.
This is not a move you make if you have the votes.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
debbie
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
I look forward to his raging over his biggly unfair treatment at the U.N.
debbie
Sheep that I am, I just posted this video on Facebook.
Nicole
I second Sullivan’s advice to do something else, especially reading a 19th Century novel. This Administration has ratcheted up my insomnia, and I have found reading the Wikipedia articles on the French kings is very good at putting me to sleep. I don’t mean that in a bad way.
I am also reading a 19th Century novel with the 8-year-old- we’re reading Black Beauty together. Which, reading as an adult, I see is less about the adventures of a horse and more a plea to men to stop drinking so much. And takes some time to point out the hypocrisy of the hyper-religious, so I’m all in. Unfortunately, I think we’re about to get to the chapter where Ginger dies. I anticipate tears. My kid will probably be a little upset, too.
rikyrah
THREAD
Miriam Dunn (@Miridunn) Tweeted:
ATTENTION FRIENDS: Since Mom died this past Spring, my 92 YO dad waits for mail every day. Listens for the squeak of the mail slot opening. His BDAY is Oct. Please mail a note, card, picture, map or story to
Gerard Dunn
96 Summerhill Avenue
Sydney, Nova Scotia
B1R 2L4
Thank you. https://twitter.com/Miridunn/status/1044218916652941319?s=17
Mary G
It’s a sign of the FTFNYT ‘s descent into mediocrity that they let Sullivan get away. That article was just what I needed yesterday.
The Moar You Know
Fitzmas, anyone? Yeah, I’ve never forgotten that lesson and it’s a good one. Never more applicable than today, there’s a mountain of bullshit awaiting in every Twitter and Failbook post.
JPL
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: He’ll only call on One America and Fox.
JR
@Nicole: As long as that 19th century novel isn’t “Tale of Two Cities” or “Les Miserables”.
Chyron HR
Are you saying I shouldn’t burn western civilization to the ground just because a Facebook ad told me to? That sounds like Neoliberalism to me!
Kay
Honestly how “smart” is Kavanaugh, that he did this? The low quality Trump team may have bullied him into going on Fox but I bet they didn’t tell him to create an entire history for himself that doesn’t fit AT ALL with any of the available evidence.
They’re all saying that Ramirez won’t be credible because she admits being drunk/uncertain but that isn’t what destroys credibility- lying is what destroys credibility. I guess she could have taken the Kavanuagh “lie to increase your credibility” route but that seems risky to me.
Betty Cracker
President Obama was interviewed on Jon Favreau’s “The Wilderness” podcast the other day. On the importance of young folks voting, he said Michelle O tells the kids, “You wouldn’t let Grandma dress you or arrange your playlist, so why would you let her decide your future?”
Troof. If the youngs would vote, this country would be transformed. But I don’t know if even Trump and his gang of Republican enablers can jolt non-voters out of their cynicism and learned helplessness. We shall see, I guess.
Chyron HR
@John S.:
Yeah, but they’re still smart enough to know the people who made the ad are the ones calling them lazy and stupid for not voting, not the actors that were hired to play stereotypical evil Republicans
(It’s true, of course, but that’s just going to piss the kids off even more.)
Dorothy A. Winsor
Some questions about tomorrow’s hearing.
Who will question Kavanaugh? Will the R senators do that or the prosecutor they hired?
I read there’ll be one round of 5 minutes for questions. Does that mean the prosecutor gets one 5 minutes slot? Or does she get 5 minutes for each of the Rs?
MJS
@Kay: “Yes, my memory is hazy because Kavanaugh and his fellow degenerates targeted me during the drinking game so they could assault me. But only one person has ever done what Kavanaugh did to me, so I remember it well” is a pretty good response to, “Weren’t you drunk?”
Kay
We haven’t been very good stewards for young people. They’ll take the hit down the road from those obscene tax cuts. Maybe instead of relying on them to pull our asses out of the burning building we fix what we broke ourselves.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Not that I’m against the attempt, but I feel like there is a campaign to get young people to vote every election. Hopefully, Trump provides the extra incentive this time.
cope
@Mary G: Hear, hear, my first thought as well: a day late and a dollar short.
Having just read Jon Krakauer’s books about campus rape and the death of Pat Tillman, I realized that my escapist reading fare was not helping me self treat against the relentless deluge of the now. Solution: two Bill Bryson books. Look, look, see, see, I CAN actually laugh at something. Thanks, Mr. Bryson.
Baud
@Kay: Speak for yourself. I’ve been an excellent stewart for young and old alike.
PPCLI
@Mary G: And they replaced Sullivan with the smug, pathetic Liz Spayd, whose most memorable moment was defending the ridiculous “clouds and shadows over the Clinton Campaign” article by saying “Hey, there’s critical stuff on Trump published too — look at the great Farenthold article that came out in the Washington Post last week!”
MomSense
@Baud:
The research into the psychology of voting says it’s better to call on youngs to be a voter instead of asking them to vote. The mantra I’m using is Be a voter. Unfuck America. I don’t know who created this but I stole it and I’m sharing it widely.
cintibud
@debbie: Me Too!
oldgold
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The hired gun from the West will question Ford and Kavanaugh. She will have 50 minutes for each of them.
Kay
@MJS:
I don’t know, of course, but I do participate in a lot of hearings and a smaller admission in the course of telling the truth about the larger issue generally benefits the witness. I have watched that play out over and over. We don’t know what happened 35 years ago but we do know he;s a liar. So far, she has been willing to be truthful even what it (supposedly) harms her.
No one asked Kavanaugh to be perfect. I know he’s whining and feeling sorry for himself and acting as if he’s being held to this unreachable high standard, but no one demanded he be the perfect choir boy. It was pretty simple- he can’t be a falling down drunk and he can’t be a rapist. He can admit he drank and had sex in college. His knee-jerk reaction when under pressure is to double down and tell a pack of lies?
Now his entire fucking character is in question and he did it himself.
Betty Cracker
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I have no idea how that shit-show will go down tomorrow. From Grassley’s comments, it sounds like the Democrats will be muzzled completely. That’s blatantly hackish and partisan, but so is our congress.
Baud
@MomSense: Won’t young people be offended by the salty language?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
You don’t make panicked comments like this if you have the votes.
PPCLI
A lot is happening, but it’s important to remember and repeat, and make sure this message is repeated over and over again. The president of the United States has announced his opinion that it is OK to sexually assault a woman if she has been drinking.
Baud
@PPCLI: Hasn’t he previously made clear that he thinks it’s ok even if she hasn’t been drinking?
MomSense
@Baud:
Whatever it takes!
Kay
So I’m slowly making friends with my son’s girlfriend’s 3 year old. I went to his house (well, his mother’s and my son’s house, too- they were there) Sunday and now I’ve invited him to mine. He gave a tentative yes. Someone will have to drive him for this playdate and he’ll technically have to get permission but it’s looking promising.
ChrisS
Remember that cable commenters — particularly Trump surrogates — are paid to bring a particular point of view to the table. They may be legally constrained by nondisclosure agreements from doing anything other than gushing positively.
Honestly, they should be presented as a paid spokesman for X and wear patches like Nascar drivers.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: He’s coming on his own? That will be fun! And exhausting.
Leto
Toxic sludge in human form, ballpoint pen, 4″ x 6″
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Three-year-olds are such fun! What will you do to entertain him?
sherparick
@Nicole: A particular apt quote when the Right Wing Plutocrats are savaging the reputation of Christianity daily, from “Black Beauty.”
… there is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham….”
— Black Beauty, Chapter 13, last paragraph.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Nicole: Just barely qualifying as 19th century, I’m reading an 1895 humorous collection of stories called The Irish R.M. about the motley characters in a town in western Ireland. Picked it up in my favorite local used book store. According to the cover, it was a TV show.
I loved Black Beauty as a kid /teenager. Reread it several times. What I got from it as I got older was that it seemed to be mostly a campaign against “check reins”, which I gather were a fashion to hold horses heads high, interfering with their breathing. IIRC they had something to do with Ginger’s death.
rikyrah
26% is below the crazyfication factor ?? ?
https://twitter.com/EricBoehlert/status/1044916312651300865
rikyrah
About as apt a description of Kavanaugh as possible:
The Midnight Lurker
The best way to get the ‘youngs’ to vote is the same way you get them to do anything – peer pressure. You have to get them together with others their age and let nature run it’s course. More mixers, more barbecues, more community outreach. Free hot dogs and hamburgers work wonders.
Get these people into a voting booth any way you can. Democracy is counting on you.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@PPCLI: When I was working for the Army, much of the required annual training was the same as given to the soldiers. On sex and drinking, they made it very clear that according to Army policy, it would not be considered consensual if alcohol was involved.
DoD is of course trying to deal with a culture in which a whole lot of non-consensual sex and rape occurs. So this is the result of that trying. Don’t know if they’re making a dent, but that’s the message they’re trying to send anyway.
PPCLI
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Not the nineteenth century, but if you are looking for soothing, gentle, charming harmless fun, Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is worth picking up. A bit more piquant, but still soothing and charming, are Vladimir Voinovich’s The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, and the non-fiction hilarity of Voinovich’s battle against corrupt bureacracy: The Ivankiad.
And, of course, if you stick to the nineteenth century, you can’t go wrong with Dead Souls, as one of the jackals will be happy to confirm.
sherparick
@Kay: He (and a good many Republican Senators – looking at you Susan Collins ) have been lying relentlessly and when not lying bullshitting. He lied both in the current confirmation process and his early confirmation hearings in 2004 and 2006 when said he had no knowledge he was getting stolen, hacked information from Republican staffers in the Senate (a felony by the way, receiving stolen property and IT information); he lied about his knowledge of the torture policy; he lied about knowing that Judge Kosinski was sexually harassing his female clerks; and he is now lying about his college and high school days (stupid lies – all he had to say was “I was, like a lot of boys, stupid and immature at times especially when alcohol was involved, but to the best of my memory I don’t recall at any of the times I acted stupid at a party that I did something as described by Dr. Ford or Ms. Ramirez and when anyone said stop or no or was just clearly not happy, I stopped.” But he has to paint himself a choir boy. And of course there is all this lying about “umpire, calling balls and strikes,” when of course he is totally outcome oriented.
A Ghost To Most
@sherparick:
And yet, there is love without religion. Coincidence? I think not.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
It really was fun. I brought little cans of play doh which he took right to. He asked me to make people- him, his mother and my son- so I made my son with a comically outsized head (true) and he laughed! Thought that was just hysterical. He’s a serious, somber person so I felt like I really scored. I think I’m going to cook with him, since they’re going to a concert so it will be an evening. I’m a terrible baker but he won’t know any better.
This relationship moved really fast which makes me nervous for all three of them but who knows? I don’t know the girlfriend that well yet so I can’t tell with her but my son is clearly smitten so maybe it will stick. The little boy doesn’t have maternal grandparents – her parents are both deceased- and his father isn’t in the picture so…I’m trying not to be too pushy. But he really is a joy and if they need a babysitter I’ll take him anytime.
Nicole
@sherparick: My absolute favorite chapter, The Devil’s Trademark”!
My goodness, she even talks about cab drivers needing to go on strike! I’m surprise the Republicans haven’t tried to ban it.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I know…how dare us have such standards!
Nicole
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: it’s interesting, because Anna Sewell didn’t write it for kids, she wrote it for people who work with horses. It ended up really sparking the animal welfare movement in England, so it was quite a changemaker of a book, as my son would say. She did write a lot about harsh equipment that was used to ride and drive horses, but re-reading it what really strikes me is how much of it is characters talking about alcoholism, and hypocrisy, and religion, and class.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Awe Kay, this is so sweet….
I love just reading about it….
Nicole
@Kay: What a wonderful play date you had! Three-year-old are a lot of fun. (And they frequently are very quiet and serious, I think it’s part of the developmental process. Thank goodness it’s sandwiched in between the Terrible Twos and the F*cking Fours. :)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Nicole: Sounds like I need to reread it and see all the social commentary I missed.
Kay
@rikyrah:
He took me outside to show me his bike and my husband came with- he turned and said “do you want to play with us?”
So funny. He has to be invited! He doesn’t know that. I was like “oh, I GUESS he can play- if we must”
r€nato
Why TF would any cable news outfit knowingly permit such propaganda pushers to appear on their network? This makes them nothing but PR outlets.
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
Absent 11th hour changes:
5 minutes allocated per committee member.
11 Rs on committee = 55 minutes. 10 Ds on committee = 50 minutes.
All (or almost all) R time will be ceded to Miller.
Ds could cede time to just one (for example, K. Harris) or two committee members if they choose to do so.
Note: Not saying I agree with the way things are set up, just laying out how they have been set up.
terraformer
I’m amazed that more isn’t being made of bringing in an external prosecutor to question Ford. The comments from the Old Men are also telling (e.g., “we don’t know what we’re doing so we need to get this right”). I mean, this person they’re bringing in isn’t a member of the Senate, much less the Committee – not someone who was voted as a representative of the people – and everyone’s okay with that? I recognize the “optics” issue, but it seems more should be made of both items – that they’re doing this to obviously avoid the “grumpy old men asking questions of Ford”, but also relinquishing their oversight role to someone else.
I’m also amazed (lots of that going around, I know) about these NDAs that Trump surrogates have to sign, where they are obligated to speak positively about him and his policies whenever they’re being interviewed. W.T.F.? Is anyone looking into whether that’s legal? Are TV anchors at least making that clear whenever these people are interviewed? Or is this just another particle in the tsunami of unreal that we’re all struggling to stay on top of?
Marcopolo
@rikyrah: Love the mom’s philosophy, “Set your life on fire, surround yourself with those who will fan the flames!” Words to live by for sure.
Oh & good morning folks.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: That sounds wonderful! I enjoyed cooking with my daughter when she was a little kid. Now that she’s grown, she texts me for recipes all the time, which I find inordinately gratifying. :)
Shana
@Nicole: I suggest the Palliser novels of Anthony Trollope. Six books all about politics.
Anonymous At Work
Anyone want to speculate on Avenatti’s potential bombshell scheduled to drop tonight? I’m thinking something big enough and with sufficient proof to make the Thursday ‘hearing’ even more of a farce.
trollhattan
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
“…highly qualified Kavanaugh, stumbling drunk Kavanaugh, lying under oath Kavanaugh,” same thing, really.
Yutsano
@Leto: A) nice arts! B) Eww! Why Yertle?
catclub
@JPL:
Bloomberg mentioned that about Kavanaugh retreating to FOX ‘news’ for his interview. If he is planning to be unbiased, why pick Fox?
Sister Golden Bear
Went back to work yesterday and managed better than I thought.
Up before dawn today because I have to go in extra early for a company all-hands meeting, and need to do my after-care session (75-90 minutes) before work. Which sucks because I got less than five hours sleep thanks having to wake up to take pain meds during the night, plus waking up from the pain periodically. I’ll be really happy in a couple weeks when I only have to do aftercare 2x/day instead of 3x/day.
I need a coffee IV STAT.
catclub
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
I think this gaslighting that Kavanaugh is something more than a long term GOP hack is what gets me.
he was there on Starr’s investigation of Clinton, he was there for the 2000 lawyers riot in Miami supporting Bush, He was there for Terri Schiavo.
he was there for torture under GWBush. (What else under Bush?? It is hidden away.)
THEN he got rewarded with a federal judgeship.
zhena gogolia
I guess ageism is the last acceptable form of discrimination and stereotyping.
Geeno
@sherparick: I like Abe Lincoln’s formulation of that sentiment:
“I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are the better for it.”
zhena gogolia
Trump has tons of middle-aged and YOUNG supporters. In fact, anecdotally, those are his supporters in my neck of the woods, not old people.
Aleta
Besides the classmates challenging his drinking lies, one says his recent claim of virginity contradicts what he said at Yale.
At least 7 Yale classmates have been provoked by the Fox interview to contradict his two-faced lies.
Someone on twitter asked why a judge who claims to be completely nonpartisan would agree to go on Fox.
But then, why would a judge who claims to champion”women” and strongly condemn sex assault stand next to Trump on day 1. (At that moment Kav openly parroting a lie, as requested to flatter Trump, said it all.)
Nicole
@JR:
I dunno. There are times these days I want a t-shirt that says, “I support Madame DeFarge.”
zhena gogolia
@PPCLI:
Yes, of course. I love Chonkin too. Right now my off-duty pleasure is Trollope. Although the Palliser novels sometimes come dangerously close to today’s headlines. There were Berniebros in Parliament in the 1860s.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Also weightism.
@zhena gogolia
True dat. Don’t personally know a single person over 60 who supported or voted for him. Under 30, a different story.
Nicole
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Let me know what you think if you do. I’ve found it really wonderful reading for the soul, for all that the men in it get drunk and make horses fall down. Sewell even brings up blind partisanship in politics. Pretty good for a woman who had to dictate the whole book to her mother, as she was too ill by then to write it out herself.
Nicole
@Shana: I will totally check those out; thanks for the recommendation!
jonas
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The questioner is said to be a Rachel Mitchell, a career prosecutor from Arizona who is supposed to have a lot of experience trying sexual abuse cases. Josh Marshall over at TPM tried to find out a little more about her and unfortunately the only public interview she’s ever given was for a fundamentalist Baptist newsletter affiliated with Bob Jones University. Yes, that Bob Jones. Josh noted that the interview largely centered on how religious organizations can implement policies to prevent sexual abuse and harassment and didn’t contain anything that out of the ordinary.
But the fact that the only place she *does* turn up is in a magazine published by one of the most fundamentalist Christian colleges in the country is a huge red flag. Where did the JC come up with her name?
Amir Khalid
@Geeno:
I think there’s a “not” missing from your Abe quote.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Good opportunity to sneak in a plug for the late 19th century American novelist William Dean Howells.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
Never read him! I’m kind of immune to 19th-century American except Melville and Poe.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Anonymous At Work: Well he already dropped that he’d like to ask Kavenaugh and Judge about getting girls drunk and gang-raping them. Nobody seems to have reacted to that at all. I guess it would be a bombshell if he’s got video.
Leto
@Yutsano: 1) Thanks, snagged off Reddit’s artist subforum. I thought I linked the main post but apparently not: https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/9ixxq1/toxic_sludge_in_human_form_ballpoint_pen_4_x_6/?st=jmj9jbtm&sh=41db8fc3
2) I thought the title of the piece was clear… ;)
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: Thank you. I was not understanding Honest Abe’s quip. At all.
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle: @Amir Khalid: Oh — I sort of thought the point was “I think religion is a bunch of hooey but I suppose I’ll accept it in a person who uses it to justify being nice to his dog or cat.”
MattF
Speaking of reading a novel… just finished Charles Stross’ ‘Neptune’s Brood’. The hero is an accountant, or, rather a historian of accounting. It’s about financial scams and long-term debt. Exciting, in its own way.
BFR
Good lord, no.
Aleta
@zhena gogolia:
And reactiveness to physical characteristics. That reactiveness is one of the manipulators of ageism, weightism, disabilities; one of the things that triggers assumptions about intellect, worthiness, etc. Seems like that ad is playing a bit with physical appearance in how it shows the faces, although the main intention may be to show overbearingness.
Anecdotally: in 2016 the people I knew who were discouraging each other from voting were all in their teens, 20s, low 30s. (There were also people I knew in their 40s-60s who said all elections were corrupt, but they still voted I think.)
The ad’s intent seems to be a different point (“get involved!” “vote your interests instead of being disenfranchised!”). Perhaps for stronger effect, they simplified “different interests” by deciding to use older people saying “don’t vote.” But if that remains the extent of their “Vote!” campaign, it’s a confusion that supports prejudice imo.
My past experience is that it’s actually been older voters who’ve encouraged younger ones to vote. (Outside of the get-out-the-vote system, so not counting the valiant door to door workers.)
One of the distortions that bothers me when people say (like John Cole sort of implied a while ago) that older people ‘just vote their interests’: It ignores how many older women and men still poll for and fight for reproductive rights even if it’s no longer about their own body/family, and for worker’s rights even if retired.
Why would people now in their 50s-90s who actually worked years to get those rights; or who fought the govt and healthcare system, police and military over treatment of
people with AIDs /rape and battering victims; /lesbians and gays /
suddenly change those beliefs because the threat is not as personal now?
Come to think of it, the people in my neighborhoods who will die of old age before their lake/river gets polluted or overdeveloped, are actually the ones (around here they’re in their 70s-90s) who’ve spent the last 30 years putting their land and water rights into conservation and starting public trail systems (that the 20-30-40 yos and their young kids now bike and ski on).
Then there’s the people who broke ground on environmental research, then climate change research, and spent their professional lives on it (well some died in the field). + The ones who used early parallel computers and growing processing power to try to confirm that warning signs meant something. They’re now early 70s- mid-90s /dead, but have never said “I dont care. I’ll be dead!”
zhena gogolia
@Aleta:
I agree with everything you say.