Category: Words matter

MBD’s Trump Problem, and Mine

I dislike videos. Especially videos posted as “news”.

I know that’s not the point of the article but this passage stood out to me as the best description of the problem with video news.

Watching TV is no substitute for reading, because TV can never convey ideas faster than human speech (i.e., about 150 words per minute), whereas a collegiate-level reader can absorb the written word much faster. This blog post is about 1,600 words. It would take 10-12 minutes to read it aloud, but you’ll probably reach the end much quicker. Also, the written word has a permanence that the spoken word does not. To absorb complex ideas, and to commit them to memory, the written word is superior.

Agreed. Give me a written article or column.

Source: MBD’s Trump Problem, and Mine

How ‘Experts’ Abused Science to Saddle America with the Microaggression Mania — The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal

I think the very idea of ‘microaggressions’ is a Communists attack on Western Civilization in general and myself personally. My evidence is my ‘lived experience.’ You’re a racist, bigoted, heterophobe if you disagree.

Further strengthening the authors’ argument about the unscientific nature of microaggression research is the way its proponents have responded to the few scholars who have dared to question their methods and conclusions.

For example, when Sue’s research was finally critically analyzed for its weak-to-nonexistent evidence, he responded that what constitutes evidence “is bathed in the values of the dominant society.” But that is no answer at all, as he is saying that the well-established norms of science and academic discourse should not apply to his pet ideas. No one should be allowed to proclaim scientific findings and then declare that normal scientific skepticism toward them is inappropriate.

Or consider the way Monnica Williams replied to criticism of her microaggression research by the late Scott Lilienfeld, professor of psychology at Emory University. She maintained that his insistence on proof was trumped by her “lived experience,” and even said that it was a microaggression for white professors to demand that microaggression proponents prove their case.

Because of such unscientific responses to criticism, Cantu and Jussim write that microaggression research exemplifies “aggressive fragility.”

Source: How ‘Experts’ Abused Science to Saddle America with the Microaggression Mania — The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal

Nothing Can Placate the BLM Riot Mob, and ‘Journalists’ Are Part of the Mob

“Just so everybody is clear, I was front and center at the protest, at the riot,” Brooklyn, Minnesota, Police Chief Tim Gannon told reporters during a press conference Monday. His response came to a question from reporters about why he authorized the use of gas canisters following the issuance of a dispersal order.

In the video tweeted by the Washington Examiner Monday, one reporter exclaims, “There was no riot.” Another shouts “Don’t do that!” Multiple other reporters joined in with those objecting to the word “riot.”

I’m old enough to remember when the news was disseminated by people called news reporters. As you might expect, they reported on what actually happened. As Sgt. Friday would say, ‘just the facts.’

Nowadays instead of news reporters we have this social construct called a ‘journalist.’ A ‘journalist’ tells a story. Stories are fiction. Reality is called ‘news’ and ‘history.’ If reality goes against the storyline a ‘journalist’ will follow the storyline and lie to your face, as we see here.

This is why the media are called ‘fake news.’

Source: Nothing Can Placate the BLM Riot Mob, and ‘Journalists’ Are Part of the Mob

The Rectification of Names

No, Jeffrey Epstein is not a pedophile. This is important. If conservatives keep misidentifying him as one, I fear some unfortunate consequences.

Pedophiles desire pre-pubertal children. This is not Epstein’s kink; he quite obviously likes his girls to be as young as possible but fully nubile. The correct term for this is “ephebophile”, and being clear about the distinction matters. I’ll explain why.

The Left has a long history of triggering conservatives into self-discrediting moral panics (“Rock and roll is the devil’s music”). It also has a strong internal contingent that would like to normalize pedophilia. I mean the real thing, not Epstein’s creepy ephebophilia.

Homosexual pedophiles have been biding their time in order to get adult-on-adult homosexuality fully normalized as battlespace prep, but you see a few trial balloons go up occasionally in places like Salon. The last round of this was interrupted by the need to take down Milo Yiannopolous, but the internal logic of left-wing sexual liberationism always demands new ways to freak out the normals, and the pedophiles are more than willing to be next up in satisfying that perpetual demand.

Source: The Rectification of Names