Whitewashing in Hollywood

Use your *&?!!@#$ pronouns!

Fascinating perspective on Max 8.

Tidy sarcasm.

Not even ironic.

Gog, when I was little, Capote terrified me in that movie.

This catch.

Time to change your profile picture

https://twitter.com/RuchoSharma/status/1108007042541932545

I'm definitely not a fan of Beto O'Roarke, but this story about his being a member of the hacker collective Cult Of the Dead Cow looks pretty much like a non-story. The much bigger story was Reuters participating in a cover-up for two years, in order to help O'Roarke's election chances.

This is what happens when you let politicians decide what you need.

So people who are genuinely in pain need to suffer, just because Kirsten Gillibrand wants to be president?

https://pjmedia.com/trending/kirsten-gillibrand-is-a-pain/

Seattle is dying? oh.

As I noted last month, just 100 homeless people in Seattle were responsible for 3,500 criminal cases. This special references that story. It also asked Seattle police officers to comment anonymously on what was happening and those responses are enlightening. One officer told KOMO, “People come here because it’s called Free-attle and they believe if they come here they will get free food, free medical treatment, free mental health treatment, a free tent, free clothes and will be free of prosecution for just about everything; and they’re right.”

https://hotair.com/archives/2019/03/18/komo-news-seattle-dying-special/

The much bigger story was Reuters participating in a cover-up for two years, in order to help O'Roarke's election chances.

If you think of them as Democrats with by-lines, you won't go far wrong.

Dr Helen asks: "Is Circumcision Healthy, Outdated or Dangerous?"

https://pjmedia.com/drhelen/is-circumcision-healthy-or-outdated/

I was kind of surprised at the number of pro-circ comments underneath. Two of the men were circumcised as adults, btw.

Personally, I don't believe in inflicting it on babies, any more than I would pierce a baby girl's ears (shudder). Yes, we've all seen baby girls like that, I'm sure.

Dan Savage doesn't believe in subjecting baby boys to the operation either, but he still understands the fondness for circumcised men. His story (regarding his son) is amusing, as his writings always are. Search on his name plus "circumcision" and "Alkon," or just search on "In the first few months of D.J.'s life."

Here we go again...

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-screen-time-debate-is-pitting-parents-against-each-other

Honestly.

Here's what I wrote in 2010:

Why do so many parents understand that "you are what you eat" but not "you are what you do"? In other words, just because kids are deprived of
escapist/passive "screen time" in school (and that is less and less the case these days, what with TV taking over for teachers so often), that is no reason to let kids have a 20-hour MINIMUM per week, at home, of videogames / texting / TV / Internet!

To put it another way,

1) you wouldn't let your kids be on a home diet that was 80% fat and sugar on the grounds that they don't get to indulge themselves like
that during the school lunch, so why let them have the equivalent in anti-intellectual activities?

2) Elementary school kids, on average, probably have FEWER than 30 hours a week of leisure time when you subtract (from 168 hours) the time needed for eating, sleeping, school, homework, transportation, chores, and maybe one extracurricular activity.

3) So, doesn't it stand to reason that they should be spending at least 20 hours or more of that time on essential activities such as outdoor exercise, face-to-face socializing, creative play, and...oh yes....READING? (Keep in mind, too, that even reading is time spent sitting down, so you need to exercise all the more!)

4) Allowing kids to have visual electronics in their bedrooms clearly doesn't help them to maintain the quota from point 3...

Paul Copperman wrote in his book, "The Literacy Hoax": "Consider what a child misses during the 15,000 hours (from birth to age 17) he spends in front of the TV screen. He is not working in the garage with his father, or in the garden with his mother. He is not doing homework, or reading...He is not cleaning his room, washing the supper dishes or cutting the lawn. He is not listening to a discussion about community politics among his parents and their friends. He is not playing baseball or going fishing or painting pictures. Exactly what does television offer that is so valuable it can replace these activities that transform an impulsive, self-absorbed child into a critically-thinking adult?"

And, in 2017, I said:

Plenty of people will tell you that it's important for kids to understand that screen-time limits will stay firmly in place even when the kids just plain don't WANT to do anything else. I.e., non-screen activities can't "take away" time from the screen if one doesn't allow more than two hours of screen time per day anyway.

However, that doesn't mean that parents should back off on reading aloud every time they hear a kid scream "I hate reading." After all, as Jim Trelease pointed out in "The Read-Aloud Handbook," would we back off when it comes to kids' protests against things like toothbrushing or getting exercise? Of course not. Kids will get over their hatred if parents refuse to take the hatred too seriously. You don't ask kids' permission; you just put them through the motions, matter-of-factly, until they accept the daily routines.

Bottom line: You don't need to spend a lot of money to keep kids occupied with mentally challenging pastimes. A few library books on indoor activities, plus a few everyday materials around the house, should work.

Also, even a 3-year-old can "help" with chores, even if it's just folding socks or doing the simplest kitchen chores. Even if the chores end up getting dragged out by twice as much time, such a daily habit helps teach small children that they have no right to be bored when there's work to be done, because they have no right to be passively entertained after a certain age when the parent is slaving away.

Besides, does any adult claim that doing chores together with kids doesn't count as "quality time"? I can only hope not.

(end)

And if three-year-olds could be expected to entertain themselves for short periods on a regular basis in pre-TV days, why not now?

On top of everything else, I'd say: Why would a modern teen take pride in being well-read when all the other teens only read books with lots of pictures and can't really relate to the idea of reading at their grade level or higher, for fun? So, plenty of teens don't bother reading at all.

An Italian bus driver of Senegalese descent was arrested on Wednesday after hijacking his own vehicle and setting it on fire, allegedly threatening to kill more than 50 children on board whose hands he had bound.

The man, named as Ousseynou Sy, was driving 51 children from their middle school near the city of Cremona to a sporting event when he started making threats, brandishing a knife.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/20/bus-full-children-set-alight-angry-driver-retaliation-migrant/

This is the best tampon ad ever:

https://twitter.com/TheDrewXL/status/1107864910166482944

I wonder if they know they can be used for reading:

https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1108070032540659712

Let's call it the "Bezos Gambit". It didn't work, because democracy dies in darkness.

"The Saudi connection aspect of the allegation from Jeff Bezos," said CNN's Chris Cuomo, also on Feb. 8. "Bezos says ... that you had [National Enquirer chief David] Pecker go to the White House with a Saudi guy that he was trying to raise money from. The dinner was a reward from the president. The Khashoggi reporting that the Washington Post did would really bother the Saudis, the Saudis wound up giving Pecker the money. Pecker's now going after Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, maybe this has something to do with the Saudis, maybe even the president."

And so on. The Bezos team spun quite a story. But holes quickly appeared in their handiwork.

...

Imagine that. Mogul sends deeply private texts to gossipy L.A. girlfriend who has gossipy, fame-hungry brother, and somehow it gets out! No Saudis required.

It is not unusual for men caught sexting with women not their wives to claim they have been hacked, or that their texts have somehow been stolen. Remember that Anthony Weiner tried the same thing. But few have the resources of Jeff Bezos, and few could rely on so many media commentators to spread the story.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/byron-york-truth-comes-to-light-in-bezos-spectacle?platform=hootsuite

More on the admissions cheating scandal.

Admissions officers and deans of admissions appeared to be the victims in this case. That is hard to believe. After years of working in an Ivy League admissions office where I handled the recruited athletes' applications and being a dean of admissions at a small liberal arts college, I know better.

No matter how much influence the indicted individuals had, we are overlooking the fact that none of them signed off on admissions decisions. Every single student who was admitted under false pretenses received their offer from the admissions office signed by the dean or another high-ranking member of the staff.

Let's be clear: It is the responsibility of the admissions office to verify applicants, their applications and their viability to succeed at the institution.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2019/03/19/college-admissions-bribery-lori-loughlin-felicity-huffman-column/3201803002/

"Leo Tolstoy on Love and Its Paradoxical Demands"

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/leo-tolstoy-on-love-and-its-paradoxical-demands

On top of everything else, I'd say: Why would a modern teen take pride in being well-read when all the other teens only read books with lots of pictures and can't really relate to the idea of reading at their grade level or higher, for fun? So, plenty of teens don't bother reading at all.
________________________________________

Just to clarify, I meant that non-reading is a vicious circle among the young, so if more parents don't set a good example AND let their kids know that they expect them to read challenging books, more and more kids will say "what's the point? My friends don't read. Besides, every hour I DON'T spend on Facebook is ruining my social life."

Call it Minimum wage counterterrorism

https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/1108297145898156032

I bet parents today wished it were like back in the day where the only naughty found in the kid's bedroom was a Playboy magazine tucked between the mattresses.

https://twitter.com/fyzzgiggidy/status/1108448739428106240

Ever wonder what happened to the music industry?

Here ya go.

> Here we go again...

Lenona, follow this person on Twitter. Or read her books.

I read her Atlantic article back in 2017, thank you.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/

Of course, many parents are a little too grateful for the fact that kids who are constantly in their bedrooms are not (mostly) doing chemical-type drugs, having sex, or driving recklessly. I'm sure adult drivers and local merchants are pretty grateful as well. So it's a Catch-22.

Adults who need jobs but have no skills may well be grateful too - that is, they may now have a better chance at getting a job. From the article:

"Independence isn’t free—you need some money in your pocket to pay for gas, or for that bottle of schnapps. In earlier eras, kids worked in great numbers, eager to finance their freedom or prodded by their parents to learn the value of a dollar. But iGen teens aren’t working (or managing their own money) as much. In the late 1970s, 77 percent of high-school seniors worked for pay during the school year; by the mid-2010s, only 55 percent did. The number of eighth-graders who work for pay has been cut in half. These declines accelerated during the Great Recession, but teen employment has not bounced back, even though job availability has."

This looks interesting too:

"The Dangers of Distracted Parenting," by Erika Christakis:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/the-dangers-of-distracted-parenting/561752/

"But iGen teens aren’t working (or managing their own money) as much."

I have seen elsewhere that teens in the 1960s spent their disposable income on music; today, it's food...