The Chaff

Saturday, May 17th - 8:44pm
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Oh, so THAT’S what journalism looks like!

It happened again: I saw a piece on TV last night that gave me hope for the Fourth Estate. Last time, it was an investigative report. This time, it was an interview. Both times, it was on The Daily Show.

Jon Stewart interviewed Doug Feith last night for over 20 minutes. I only saw the ten miniutes that aired but…

I was stunned by how good Jon Stewart was in that interview. He was polite and respectful, and he didn’t play stupid “gotcha” games. (I admire his self control, too: I probably would have punched Feith in the face. I think a fair punishment would be one punch for every 100 soldiers who’ve died in Iraq minus one for every single WMD found there: I calculate that at about 40 punches.)

But without violence and without yelling or cutting off Feith’s mike, Stewart hit the big issues that really matter. He hit them hard and stayed on them and came back to them when Feith contradicted earlier statements. He brought in other quotes from administration officials for context, and he called Feith out on all of his bullshit.

I agree with Athenae over at First Draft (linked above): Stewarts’s use of metaphor and comparison framed the issues in clear, concrete terms that everyone can understand instead of relying on vacuous phrases and meaningless soundbites. He made it personal, too, with statements like “I feel like I was lied to” and “No, I clearly remember what was going on in the run up to the war, and I’m pretty sure most Americans do, too.” He was an excellent spokesman for the American people– even though he never crowned himself as such (like the “real” political pundits do).

In short, Stewart was absolutely fucking brilliant. I haven’t seen an interview like that since…well, Stewart’s interview of Josh Bolton, actually.

No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Dorothy
Monday, March 31st, 2008

Why Wingnuts Write Wrong (It’s not the heat: it’s the stupidity)

Clif over at Sadly, No! thrashes a book review by Brent Bozell, in which Bozell graciously provides an example of How Not To Be Understood:

Alterman argues that conservatives loathe Hollywood because they, like the rich everywhere else, are expected to “embrace the right-wing politics that would benefit their economic self-interest and leave the opinion business to the professionals.” What conservative in his right mind has ever uttered this thinking? What conservative having lost his mind advances this belief?

This paragraph triggered an epiphany for me: is it possible that wingnuts are using some kind of “rhetorical deniability”? 

Look at this sentence:
(1) Alterman says
  (1.1) conservatives loathe Hollywood
  (1.1.1) BECAUSE they (i.e., Hollywood) are expected to
  (1.1.1.1) “embrace the right-wing politics
  (1.1.1.1.a) that would benefit their economic self-interest
  (1.1.1.2) AND leave the opinion business to the professionals
(2) [Hollywood is] like the rich everywhere else

Note the number of different ideas in that sentence: I count seven separate statements, not including the causality assertion of “because” in 1.1.1 (you could dispute the factuality or the causality of that statement independently: call it 7.5).

Now note Bozell’s rebuttal:
(3) What conservative has ever uttered this thinking / advances this belief
  (3.a) [what conservative is] in his right mind
  (3.b) [what conservative] having lost his mind

<i>This belief</i>? WHICH belief is that? He just named a minimum of 6 beliefs, and then does not specify which of those 6 he is referring to. So when someone (like Clif) soundly thrashes any one of the beliefs (like 1.1.1.2), Brent can say “Ha! Stupid Moonbat! I wasn’t talking about 1.1.1.2–I was talking about 2: Conservatives never claimed Hollywood folk are like rich folk everywhere! Take that!”

Of course, he can easily substitute any combination of the 6 “beliefs” as necessary; in a pinch, he can even claim he was referring to belief 1.1.1.1.a. (After all, who in their right mind would assert that right-wing politics benefit someone’s economic self interest?)

Even better, the addition of the opposing conditions 3.a and 3.b makes it completely and totally impossible to answer Bozell’s question. If you put forward a conservative (such as Bozell) that you believe espoused any combination of the belief set, he just pops off with “Clif just said I have lost my mind! Ad Homina-homina-hominem! Mean ol’ unhinged moonbats!” Or he can take the opposite condition “Ha! So you agree that I’m in my right mind–therefore I am right! PWNED!!”

Just like intelligent design, Bozell’s hypothesis is framed so incompetently that it can’t be argued against or disproven under any rules of logic and rhetoric. Wingnut writing is just too bad to be shot down.

Is it possible that wingnuts are taught to write this poorly on purpose? Or are they really just that ignorant?

4 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Dorothy
Friday, December 21st, 2007

Ah, Memories…

Over at Defective Yeti, there’s a post about things you hate to see in the movies. One person complained:

Certain actors use smoking as a way to eeeeeeeeee-mote and show that their character is either edgy or stressed out or both. But [...] you can tell they don’t know the first thing about smoking. They fling the cigarette around like a crazy person

Maybe they were coached by my philosophy professor. Seriously.

This guy was an old, self-absorbed, chain-smoking codger. I never saw him without a cigarette in his hand. He was very animated…and he always talked with his hands, even while lecturing.

So every morning, he’d pace around the classroom, making his argument and waving this cigarette around like–well, like a crazy person, actually, flinging sparks and bits of ash onto your desk. Everyone ducked as he walked by. He’d go on for fifteen or twenty minutes without ever touching the cigarette to his mouth once.

As he built up to his finale, he jabbed the cigarette at the front row, punctuating every point with a startled gasp from the closest student. He’d mark his conclusion by (finally!) putting the cigarette in his mouth and taking the deepest, most desperate draw you’ve ever heard (like he was getting his first breath oxygen after 3 minutes under water…or bogarting a joint).

At first we thought he was trying to keep us awake (8:30 am Metaphysics class, you know), but then we noticed he had the exact same mannerisms while playing chess.

No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Dorothy
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007

When is discrimination OK?

My very, very long response to a comment over at Sadly, No!:

the appalling thing about what I wrote

the more i learn about these hideous people the more terrified i become. it’s not as if they’re centralized in one remote spot; they could be living next door or on the next block.

is that it matches what wingnuts say about blacks, Mexicans, Arabs, Muslims, homosexuals and lesbians, etc.

Lesley, there is one major difference between your comment and what the wingnuts say about “The Others”:

Your discrimination and/or fear is based on the person’s behavior. I think this is the logical and acceptable basis for reacting to other people.

If someone goes around bragging about shooting stray cats or dogs, being afraid of that person is the “correct” response: when you consider it’s not that far a jump to shooting people or wonder what happens to any stray bullets, it’s pretty clear that this person represents a real, physical danger to the people around him. (If your belief system condemns cruelty to animals as wrong, then loathing him is also appropriate.)

If someone constantly talks about beating up, incarcerating, or even killing people who share your beliefs, then you are right to fear them and avoid them–it’s just self preservation. If you know for a fact that they are just “kidding” or full of bullshit, then you might not fear them, but despising them is still a perfectly valid response. (”Dude, you just told me I should die–why would I want to go have a beer with you?”)

This is completely different from hating or discriminating against someone based on appearance, ethnicity, gender, religion, etc.: those things don’t have a direct effect on you, so there’s no logical reason to discriminate based on them.

On the flip, if someone’s behavior has a tangible, negative effect on you, you have a right to react. This particular group of people (the “yokels”, not Christians in general) are grouped together by the way they act, and the way they act happens to affect you negatively.

What’s the quote? “Extremism in the defense against assholes in no vice” or something?

2 Comments » - Posted in In Dorothy's World by Dorothy
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007

When is war justified?

From a comment on this post over at Pandagon

Suppose for a moment that the Bushites were right, that Hussein had WMD and the ability and the will to use them against Americans (preposterous but hang in there for a bit). Would you still oppose war, the killing of people bent on killing us, which would of necessity mean killing civilians? When is war justified? Despite seeing the horrors of the Dresden firebombing first hand, Vonnegut still thought WWII was justified.

Here’s the problem I have with the term “justified war” or (even worse) a “just war”:
Today, we tend to think of the term “justified” to mean “it’s OK” or “it’s not wrong”. I don’t think that’s a correct connotation for the legal sense, and it certainly doesn’t apply to war, any war, ever. War is never OK; it is never going to be “just”.

What it has to be is “worth the consequences”. Our goals when we choose to go to war have to be so important, so vital, that we willingly accept the consequences for the horrible things we are about to do.

When we go to war, we are going to kill civilians. There is no way around it: innocent people are going to die, and that means little children and granfathers and grandmothers and mothers with their babies. Even adorable kittens and puppies are going to die because of what we do. Face that fact and accept the consequences. Read the rest of this entry »

No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Dorothy
Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

God, Save Us from Merit Pay for Teachers!

Matt Yglesias has a post about presidential campaigns discussing merit pay for teachers. My response to a comment there got really, really long, so I’m pasting it over here:

The underlying logic of merit pay seems perfectly intuitive, of course, I’m just not sure it would work out.

It does seem intuitive until you consider that the teacher’s pay depends on the students’ performance. And since teachers do not have the direct control over students that, say, department managers do, it is very, very difficult to hold them accountable for things they can’t control. (e.g., A department head can fire unproductive employees; a teacher cannot simply kick unproductive students out of the class.)
Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments » - Posted in In Dorothy's World by Dorothy
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

Who Is the Target Audience?

So I’m cleaning out the spam trap, and I see a plug for “drunk teen exploited sex”.

Whaaa?

The “barely legal sex” ones are bad enough. The “hot teen virgins doing it with farm animals” are disgusting. But “drunk teen exploitation” porn? Is there really an audience for date rape videos?

Are there actually men out there thinking “Wow, I would love to watch someone’s 17-year-old daughter get gang raped after she passes out from alcohol overconsumption”?

Are there really guys out there like this?

And I suppose on the porn videos, the rapists say some stupid line like, “This is her fault. She got drunk and she did this to herself.‘”

Nah, that would be way too sleazy, completely unbelievable.

4 Comments » - Posted in Crimes Against Sanity by Dorothy
Saturday, May 5th, 2007

An Outrage

This is just infuriating.

German counter-terrorist agents kidnapped an American citizen and secretly sent him to Afghanistan, where he was imprisoned and tortured for four months. And the whole time his wife and children had no idea where he was or what had happened to him.

And why? Because a unit chief “had a hunch” he was a terrorist. A hunch?

Well, the hunch was wrong. And when they found out this guy had no connection with any terrorist group, they kept it a secret so they wouldn’t “embarrass” the government. Of course, the man’s life is completely ruined, because people who knew him before are afraid to associate with him now.

This is unbelievable. Unforgivable.

Germany is supposed to be a democracy that respects human rights, for gods’ sake, not to mention one of our allies. To treat one of our citizens like this, on no evidence other than some random intelligence officer’s “hunch” is completely unacceptable. Isn’t that pushing the “act of war” line?

We should demand the intelligence office be turned over for trial and that damn unit shut down. If they refuse, we should toss their ambassadors out out of our country, kick the bastards off the UN Security Council…

Wait…I read the story wrong. It was a German citizen kidnapped and tortured by American counter terrorism agents.

Oh, well, that’s quite different….

Never mind.

No Comments » - Posted in Crimes Against Sanity by Dorothy
Saturday, May 5th, 2007

Spam, spam, spam, spam, bacon, and spam

The comment spam has been really, really bad. Too keep it from crashing the site (like it did before), we’ve set all comments to moderate. I do not reject any actual comments, but I think at least one got deleted by mistake (I’m sorry!). I’ve caught up on the comment queue, though, so if your comment hasn’t shown up yet, please feel free to repost it. I promise to be more careful (and remove the cat from the keyboard) when moderating comments from now on.

1 Comment » - Posted in Uncategorized by Dorothy
Sunday, April 22nd, 2007

It All Makes Perfect Sense Now!

Camile Paglia suggests a very provocative and compelling reason for the recent shooting rampage by a student at Virgina Tech:

The pervasive hook-up culture at college, where girls are prepared to sleep with boys they barely know or fancy, can be a source of seething resentment and alienation for those who are left out.

Young women now seem to want to behave like men and have sex without commitment. The signals they are giving are very confusing, and rage and humiliation build up in boys who are spurned again and again.

In typical, snarky lefty blogofacist fashion, Bradly S. Rocket over at Sadly, No! dismisses Ms. Paglia’s thesis as “tragically and depressingly stupid”. I believe that Dr. Rocket is too enthralled by knee-jerk, “blame men for the stuff they do” feminazis* to truly understand simple brilliance of Ms. Paglia’s insight.

If we take Ms. Paglia’s thesis as given, it provides us a concrete, mathematically provable method of reducing spree killings in our society.
Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Dorothy
« Previous Entries