News, Notes, and Notions for 18Feb24
Thoughts on a nutty news week, my media appearance regarding the Osteen church shooting, recommendations, and more
“Slow news day” used in a sarcastic way doesn't quite cover it. More like a “slow news week” with a doozy of a Friday night news dump.
The New York Trump trial resulted in a massive judgment against the former president, his sons, and his companies. The Georgia Trump trial had two days of interrogatives involving the conduct of the prosecutors who brought it. Vladimir Putin had a week that saw significant battlefield gains in Ukraine, Tucker Carlson dancing for the dictator's pleasure and purposes, and “sudden” death by death of his highest profile critic in Alexei Navalny.
All of these events flooding the news cycle had the effect of confirming everyone’s priors about how they were right about everything to begin with, because of course they did.
I took some time this weekend to - for the first time in a long time - do some actual heavy reading and reflecting. Even used actual books, not just my phone. There are levels to reading, and reading electronically, I discovered in doing course work online, I tend to read too fast and not fully digest and comprehend what I’m reading. So when I really want to study and meditate on something I try to use a paper copy or at least get some quiet and read slowly, deliberately, over the topic.
Among other things I revisited Eric Hoffer, and one of his quotes grabbed me in reflecting on the week that was, while reading a book on reintegrating prisoners back into society.
“The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.”
― Eric Hoffer
Hey, now.
To be online in news media and social media is to navigate a landscape of folks mostly seeking out what they want to hear. Technology means we can now curate our entire intake of information, and the monetization of media and information continues to bend towards give ‘em what they want so they will pay for the privilege. Good business model, but perhaps not the best method of building up an informed and engaged public.
So, in trying to turn down the noise and get to the stuff we need to know about things like the Trump civil business judgment or the Fani Willis hearing in Georgia, start with eliminating, muting, and ignoring the folks that are just taking current events and slotting them into proof of whatever they already believe. Folks that are ok with being challenged with new information, and take the mature route of parsing through what is happening to try to get understanding and truth are worth your bandwidth and consideration. New information means adjusting your opinion to match that information sometimes, and you lose no Twitter or Facebook points in just saying “Hey, I learned something here I didn’t know then and it changes how I think now.” Fearing truth is the gateway to all sorts of bad stuff. Thing is, we have no excuse for not finding the truth, though the effort takes a bit more than just funneling what we want to hear/see/watch into our screens.
The news cycle isn’t going to slow down, or get less crazy, or become more interested in truth, justice, and the American way. That’s our job, to filter out the bad faith, not fear the confrontational truth, and adjust accordingly. But we have to be determined to do that on the slow news days; waiting til things get crazy is too late.
Media Hit
I joined Dr. Rashad Richey for my regular appearnace on his Indisbutable program to talk the Osteen church shooting, which of course got into topics like gun control, mass shootings, law enforcement, society, and other things.
Worth Your Time
There has been a lot of chatter about the Madame Web movie, so I’ll defer to our friend and certified movie critic Luis Mendez for his take on the subject:
Once in a while social media and communities of movie fandom get hyperbolic about a mediocre movie with proclamations its the worst thing they’ve ever seen - clearly not having plunge the depths of Tubi’s original movies. Film cataloging and scoring sites like IMDB, Letterboxd, Metacritic, or Rotten Tomatoes get reviewed bomb as everyone comes to a consensus that said film deserves F-tier grades. Nine out of ten times I walk into such movies and walk away with the thought it was more alongside a C-tier kind of product and that the hyperbole was out of control. But when it comes to the latest entry into Sony’s own Spider-Man universe, Madame Web actually comes close to living to the hyperbole.
Its hard to even know where to begin with what went wrong with this movie - much less what is the key weak link in its own web.
This is a fantastic conversation between two of my favorite people to talk to, Dennis Sanders and Jeffrey Tyler Syck:
Over at WV Watch, Leann Ray watched the WV gubernatorial candidate debate and found it wanting, with a zinger of a closing line:
The debate really fell apart at the end when Kercheval asked the candidates about the GOP restricting their primary to only GOP voters starting in 2026. Currently, independent voters can choose which primary ballot they want to vote on.
Morrisey agreed with the decision and claimed that “the liberals” are recruiting independents to vote in the GOP primary.
Capito said that every West Virginian should have the opportunity to vote for Trump and that Morrisey “tried to rig this election in the middle of it,” by wanting the 2024 primary to be closed. He then pointed out that Morrisey received money from the Never Trump group, and Warner piled on that Morrisey received $10 million from an anti-Trump group.
Morrisey fought back by asking Warner — who said the 2020 election was stolen — why he was the only candidate who didn’t endorse Trump.
Warner’s answer: “Because I am the secretary of state, I’m the chief elections officer for this state. I didn’t even endorse my wife when she ran for House of Delegates. I have to keep above the fray, and be ready to handle any challenges that come up”
And that’s what we’re working with, folks — an attorney general running for governor who doesn’t understand why the secretary of state, who is an election denier, can’t endorse political candidates.
Read the entire piece here.
Over at Ordinary Times, our friend Bryan O’Nolan with a delight romp through the winter tradition of tapping trees for maple syrup:
Just because humans have been tapping maple trees for thousands of years doesn’t mean innovation is impossible, even for such a simple process.
How exactly the sap runs is not completely understood, but Man long ago worked out the essential aspects. While, in theory, just about any variety of maple tree can be tapped, the aptly named sugar maple is, by far, the preferred tree.
There’s something – I think it goes back to our ancient hunter-gatherer roots – that I find compulsive about picking berries. Blueberries, strawberries, apples, it doesn’t matter. Once I start picking there’s always one more tree or bush I could get a few more fruit from. It’s the same thing with tapping maple trees. I’ve got three taps going, why not a fourth? This tree was a poor producer last year, but two or three years ago it was great; why not give it another shot?
Does this way lie madness? Perhaps, but it also leads to some damn fine maple syrup.
You can read the whole thing here.
Josh Barro and Ken White do a thorough covering of the Fani Willis disqualificaiton hearing in the Georgia Trump case here:
