Obsidian Wings

Two-Topics and an Open Thread

by
JanieM

This quotation, apparently from Clickbait's favorite fixer Michael Cohen, highlights some interesting issues about the current state of our information culture.

I tried from the time of the 2016 election to never type a certain name, for reasons related to the passage at the link. I have also spent minimal time listening to Clickbait -- I can't stand the sound of his voice, the sight of his orange face and hair, or the vicious lying word salad that comes out of his mouth. But I have also been far too fixated, both on the circus he has generated and on the internet in general. Retiring from my job didn't help; now I don't even have programming deadlines to make me stop staring at yet another comment thread on the two or three blogs I read, or the two or three Twitter users I look at fairly regularly, or the handful of news sites I get headlines from. I have had spells of abstinence, where I've stayed away even from Obsidian Wings, but my will power fails every time. If I were being simple-minded I would say that the internet is ruining us. But it's also a great treasure, so . . . it's complicated.

Maybe more on that in the comments, but if that's not a conversation starter, then here's another one.

The statistics in this article about active court cases related to voting are depressing. I saw a clip yesterday (sorry, didn't keep the link) of a Biden campaign lawyer saying he was absolutely sure that this election was going to be conducted successfully. But it's hard to keep the faith in the face of the kind of information cited in the linked article.

Also, in cranky mode, and even though I think the author is probably right overall, I don't like his "we this" and "we that," a dozen times worth in one article. I think "we" is a weasel word, because which "we" is he talking about? This country is not a functioning "we" -- there is no consensus about a single thing he writes about in that article; if there were, he wouldn't have had to write it.

If it isn't one damned thing it's another.

Open thread.

Restaurants in Tokyo post COVID

by liberal japonicus

This article from the Asia-Pacific Journal is a nice look at subject that might give folks interesting perspectives on their local food scene. My takeaway is that it is a lot more complicated and we are going to be dealing with the fallout for a long time afterward.

A Covid thread

by liberal japonicus

While not a break, I thought I'd open a thread for covid speculation, though I imagine a lot of you are sick of it. But two things that caught my eye recently.

Here in Japan, while Covid is still a problem, statistically, we have fewer deaths than would have been predicted in a normal year.

here and here.

There has also been this news, that COVID severity may be linked to blood type. Which is interesting because Japanese are primarily O. In fact, Japanese are convinced that blood type is related to, well, everything so it is going to be ironic if it turns out that Japan's advantage does turn out to be blood type distribution. Wikipedia take here and this has a nice infographic

There are a shit ton of articles now about Covid and blood type, and I think my link above is a secondary source. This points to some of the problems in our news flow, we have the primary research, we then have secondary sources summarizing this research followed by tertiary sources summarizing the summaries. Not wanting to dump on journalists, but if they don't have excellent training and the moral fibre to not juice up stories, we are screwed in our news sources. But that is nothing new to anyone here.

Anyway, petit morceau to chat about. See if you can leave off the politics until the second page of comments!

That second debate

by liberal japonicus

A thread for your thoughts about what was essentially a second debate, separate by distance. Savannah Guthrie put paid to my notion that a woman would get overwelmed, though as moderator rather than debate opponent, she had some protection from Trump going all crazy uncle on her. The Guardian live blog was (and continues to be, as they are collecting various reactions) interesting, feel free to add things you catch or your own observations.

a cautionary tale

by russell

Ayn Rand vs nature cage match.  Guess who wins.

Don't let this happen in your town!!

:)