"Johnson’s decision to end the city’s relationship with ShotSpotter in mid-September seems based on a desire to please his progressive base, not on the views of police"
How do we know Johnson's views of police? or any of his views for that matter? In 2020 he did speak in favor of the "defund the police" movement. He distanced himself from that when running for mayor. I can't tell what he really thinks. It appears that what he says is intended to be pleasing to whoever is his audience at the time.
Taking tools that work away from the police scores a point for the defund the police version of Johnson. "Defund the police" is a protest movement. As such it does not provide answers to the practical questions raised in this edition of PS. For that you need someone who governs, which Chicago is not going to have until it gets a new mayor.
Your last line is the important one, as Johnson has no idea of governing, he's just a Chicago Teachers Union stooge that's hit the big time & has no idea what to do now. He's the captain of a ship at sea that's lost all navigation devices, the engine is dead, unrepairable, the bilge pumps don't work & is just barely floating around, without a clue on how to get to port, let alone to even find land..
The only problem is, I don't see anyone in Chicago that's anywhere near ready to challenge this utter incompetent in three years.
At this point, even perennial losing candidate Willie Wilson is looking good, which is scary!
My problem is this. Some of the supposedly qualified are no longer in Chicago. If they are that concerned about Chicago and helping it, why did they leave? How many places has Vallas been since leaving?
It is very important context to recall that only 35% of eligible Chicago voters voted in the mayoral runoff. Johnson won with 18% of all Chicago voters voting for him to Vallas who had 17%. Further, the Chicago Teachers Union and allied unions poured millions of dollars into the Johnson campaign and also sponsored a very robust get out the vote effort on his behalf. So it's not as if Johnson rolled into the mayor's office with a broad mandate, and all appearances are that a good percentage of those who voted for him now regret doing so.
You cite the PS poll on the age cut off of senior citizen. But that is a poll of PS subscribers who are just a bunch of commie losers with intellectual disabilities who eat penis popsicles and, worst of all, are monsters when to comes to eating pizza.
Love the banter in this back and forth, but it actually gave me a rational idea. Eric, I believe it would be very interesting to come up with the demographics of your subscribers and perhaps even readers overall. How would you feel about including a voluntary survey for people to list their age group, gender identity, political leaning? I believe it is a very safe assumption that your readership skews very much to the left, and I'm also speculating that there is a significant senior citizen demographic. How about it?
I have not tried electroshock, but I was thinking that making penis popsicles would be a good business idea. After all, there are "naughty" bakeries. Of course it is already done. You can buy "Jumbo C*ck Pops" on amazon.
Here's the ShotSpotter problem as I see it. There are certain neighborhoods and certain politicians that are going to make more of a fuss than others. It's difficult to have a reasonable debate because anyone in favor of Shot Spotter is considered racist right from the start
It's an example of too high a reliance on naked numbers. Are their racist cops out there? I'm absolutely sure that there are. But serious crimes are bring committed in black and brown communities. Who's committing them, white KKK members? It makes logical sense that in communities that are primarily black and brown the perpetrators of the crimes will be primarily black and brown. That will definitely skew the numbers in terms of who is getting arrested. Of course, one solution would be to simply assign police officers to neighborhoods of their own color. It might not improve communication with the police, but racism would not be the problem. Another solution would be to stop arresting felons in those communities. This wouldn't make things safer, but we would no longer need to worry about racist arrests. Are my comments controversial? Are they going to make some people mad? I'm quite sure. But I have always wondered how we find solutions to problems we can't even talk about. The current answer seems to be to throw money at it. But no one ever talks about just how money is needed or where it would come from. If government wants to keep taking it from those that have a lot of it, the rich will simply leave and go elsewhere. Don't we have enough examples of that already?
If the police assigned only black & brown cops to those neighborhoods, I guarantee you there would be protests from Pflakey Pfleger that it was a racist plot to keep black & brown cops out of white neighborhoods!
I believe the progressive opposition to spot shooter is that it is technology that aids policing, and the hard left is very opposed to anything that does that. Witness in Portland that police are now forbidden from using tear gas to dispense mobs even when they are getting out of control. But the hard left led by the CTU is who put Johnson in office, and he is I was going to regard them as his primary constituency.
I also want to respectfully take issue with your suggestion of just putting police officers of color in black and brown communities. Once you start that type of racial profiling, you feasibly set the stage for someone following suit and insisting that only white officers be assigned to primarily white neighborhoods. That type of racial segregation is what many people fought against many decades, and we do not want to go backwards on it now.
You know, David, you really need to get real about people you characterize as in the “hard left” and their beliefs. When you say the hard left is against anything that aids policing, you sound rather silly. Almost all people, progressives, liberals, “conservatives,” MAGA people, want criminals arrested and convicted and crime reduced. (Well, leave out conservatives and MAGA people, perhaps, for crimes committed by Donald Trump). The objections to shotspotter are to its effectiveness. See the following comments from a study of the use of shotspotter in neighborhoods in St. Louis:
“After examining the data more closely it appears that every 100 AGDS calls for service generates 0.9 founded crime incidents (which includes both Part I and Part II crimes); regular community member calls by contrast generate 7.6 crime incidents per 100 calls. This indicates that alerting police of potential activity is not enough, human intelligence supporting that information is critical to turn a notice of potential activity into something police can act upon. In effect, prior to the implementation of AGDS, the community member calls for service in the impacted neighborhoods were generating an estimated 281 founded crime incidents per year; after the system was installed in 2013, an estimated 243 founded crime incidents were generated (212.8 from traditional calls and 30.6 from AGDS). Despite responding to more calls for service, results indicate that officers receive less actionable data on the ground. A reduction in uncovering founded crimes through “shots fired” calls for service should not be equated with a reduction in crime. The current evaluation, for example, finds no crime trend differences between AGDS neighborhoods and similar areas. The only reasonable conclusion from this is that AGDS produce less actionable data and are less efficient than traditional sources of information.”
Joanie - thank you for your time and replying and the interesting data from this one study. In googling the subject, I see there are conflicting studies on the effectiveness of the technology.
It is the hard left progressives who are pushing hard to cease use of spot shooter technology. This is indeed the group who has an agenda of defunding and otherwise neutering policing in our society. You really believe that their concern is about effectiveness and cost benefit? Further, the mayor should give strong weight to the efficacy of this technology from his police superintendent. He is the individual with primary responsibility for policing in Chicago, and his views should carry more weight than the progressive interest groups.
One final note, the overwhelming majority of polls reflect that inner city residents want more policing in their neighborhoods, not less. Of course, they wanted to be treated fairly and with respect, but overall they would like more policing because of the high crime rate in their neighborhoods.
My suggestions were facetious and not meant to be taken seriously. They are culturally flawed. I'm not even sure my police suggestion is possible, based on ethnic numbers in CPD. I was definitely not serious in not making arrests in black and brown neighborhoods. The vast majority of people there are not criminals. I'm more worried about victims of crime tha perpetrators. Hey, I have an idea! Let's have more crimes in white neighborhoods and make more white arrests. Would that make people happy? Unfortunately, I have never been married and can't raise any criminals.
Thanks Laurence. Crime is crime, wherever it occurs, and whoever commits it. While black offenders commit a disproportionate percentage of violent crime, blacks are also disproportionately the victims of violent crime. All crime is bad and needs to be combated.
I was so concerned about being old when I turned 50 that I threw myself a big party, complete with Wheaton police showing up at 2 am to tell us to quiet down. (They thought at first it was teenagers whose parents were out of town).
I soon realized 50 wasn’t old. I then realized turning 60 and 65 weren’t old. But when I turned 70, there was no denying it. I was old. I’ve accepted that. But that hasn’t stopped me. I’ll keep going until I drop.
At 70 you can't kid yourself anymore, but honestly its a relief to stop being so competitive about stuff. I am pretty content not to be the oldest person to go bouldering or sky diving or run a marathon. It would be nice to be the oldest person never to have osteoarthritis, but that ship has sailed.
No, the Dems would do well to nominate a candidate who will defeat Trump, something that their current top choice will almost certainly fail to do. Short list to replace Biden: Newsom, Whitmer, Tester, Cuomo, Beshear, discuss.
The discussion about ShotSpotter brought up a number of questions.
Have the police had situations where a young gang juvenile fires a bunch of rounds, the police swarm the area, and meanwhile the gang does a drive by far from the shots fired location?
The big new fad in the gun world is silencers and suppressors to protect the delicate ears of shooters. They are not legal in Illinois, a number of gun groups are trying to change that. In any event they are available through various sources. If criminals use these silencers/suppressors does ShotSpotter pick up the shots? If not, will this render it as fairly ineffective as gangs and criminals figure this out?
The example of the young boy being shot indicated that ShotSpotter “worked” but ended with a bad outcome. Do we have statistics where this worked with good outcomes?
Kinda like to have these questions addressed before keeping or yanking ShotSpotter.
1) ShotSpotter: Whether it is effective system or not - I agree in this instance that it worked: Gun shots, Request for follow up, Suspects found. On the flip side, the shooting connected to this specific instance - isn't directly connected IMO. If a neighbor called and police were called into the neighborhood - the same shooting could have occurred. That is the ShotSpotter wasn't a direct cause to the shooting. So political move - it's what mayors do. 2) Seniors - I was going to chime that it's when "senior discounts" are offered. I didn't realize how varied those offers are - and how meager they are to boot. I always picture $.10 coffee from McDonald's at age 65 and over. Seems like old age has passed me by without me knowing it. *You've got quite a load of 'interesting' followers based on those comments you received. People who rant like that demonstrate their ignorance and self loathing. 3) 2.5? Don't love him, needs to step aside, at the moment I can't vote for him and leading toward voting a 'non-vote.' I'm tired of picking the lesser of two evils. If I don't like either - I may vote and not select. The saddest form of democracy :( 4) Quotables. Chicago's Tijuana. Hilarious. Jesus/Superbowl Funny how people are angered about a positive (intent at least) ad - saying that money could by food for homeless - when the countlees amount of money spent on all the excess of Superbowl Sunday events.
My problem with the "Jesus Gets US" commercial is not just the money spent but the utter hypocrisy of a group that spends a ton of money to oppose the very existence of LGBTQ people as members of society now wants to encourage people to act like Jesus, who accepted all whether they conformed to society's expectations or not. McD's senior coffee is available at age 55, but only if you go inside (no drive-thru). My husband is given the senior coffee, without asking, if he has a (gray) goatee. Clean shaven, no senior coffee. Age 56.
So seniors get a coffee, but we don't trust them to make it through the drive through. So if someone is on the 'higher end' of senior age - you are going to make them park their car, get out, walk into the place to order - causing more inconvenience. No coffee is worth that. I haven't paid attention to who "Jesus Gets Us" is. I did assume it was a Mormon message. So I'm not sure if this is some group with specific contradictory behaviors of promoting one thing and doing the opposite.
I think the idea is the McD's workers can't see you when you order in the drive-thru to verify age. The "Jesus Gets Us" commercials started with the Servant Foundation, started by the founders of Hobby Lobby who actively fund anti-LGBTQ+ groups. Supposedly a new group has taken over the "Jesus Gets Us" campaign but its association with Servant Foundation and the Hobby Lobby folks is murky. There are still Hobby Lobby founding family members on the board of the new organization, Come Near.
Concerning Biden’s fitness and campaign, my husband thinks that he should wait until the Democrat Party Convention. There he will get nominated and THEN he can step away from the campaign. The party can choose a different candidate and VP candidate, and go from there. That would most likely prevent selection of Harris as the candidate or as th VP.
I believe the Democrat party has a real Harris problem with regard to Biden's possible stepping down as the presidential candidate. The Democrat party is obsessed with identity politics, and the highest in the hierarchy are black females who are often stated as being the backbone of the Democrat party. But Harris is the one politician on the national scene with even lower voter approval ratings than Biden, currently sitting at 28%. So I believe this is a real dilemma for the Democrats in terms of wanting to substitute somebody like Gavin Newsom who would then be a white male stepping over the city black female Vice President. If a more credible individual had been chosen as Biden's VP, say Gretchen Whitmer, I believe that everybody would already have rallied behind her and Biden would be heading toward retirement after the election. But Biden displayed his fidelity to identity politics when he promised that he would select a black female as his VP and so now Harris is the DEI VP that the Democrats are stuck with. This will be very entertaining to follow.
Yeah, David, you show your overt disdain for the other party by using such terminology. Your are signaling that you're being intentionally provocative, even if that is not your actual intent.
On the Democratic party’s “obsession with identity politics”:
When I drive in my car, I listen to the radio. And one of my favorite shows was Worldview with Jerome McDonnell. Five years ago, WBEZ took Worldview off the air, and afterwards when I would listen to WBEZ at the same time of day, it seemed as if all the programming was about racial and ethnic minorities: how does this effect black people, how does that effect Latinos, the horrible schools for indigenous Americans, racial prejudice against Asians following COVID. Even the stories about restaurants and food were focused on minorities. At first I got frustrated and irritated and, yes, a little angry that my favorite show had been taken off the air and replaced with what felt to me like radio content “obsessed,” as you might say, with content about and for people who were different from me. And then I thought about it for a bit, and I realized that for the first 60+ years of my life, radio, television, movies, major newspapers, etc. had all focused on things and issues important to white people. For 60+ years black people, Latinos, indigenous Americans, Asians had had to listen to radio, watch television, go to movies, and read news stories in major newspapers that focused on white people and their concerns, successes, foods, etc. The pendulum was swinging as pendulums do, and if it swung a little too far to the side that had been neglected for decades, that was only fair. I found out what it was like to drive my car listening to stories and shows that focused on people who were different from me. It was kind of a shock to my system. I know the pendulum will eventually reach equilibrium. I think a lot of conservatives’ frustration with what they call an “obsession” with identity politics arises from the same sort of feelings I initially felt when WBEZ took Worldview off the air. To them everything seems to be about minorities of one group or another. They long for our culture and society to be the way it was before, but they don’t stop to think that the way it was before was unfair to all those people in minority groups that our culture is currently “obsessing” about.
Except that the frustration of conservatives has nothing to do with the question at hand here, which is about whom the Democrats should present as their candidate for the Presidency in order to defeat Trump and save the country. I’m sure we all appreciate a pendulum that cuts a mean swath, but ask a few black people whether they’d rather see Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom at the top of the Dem ticket.
My strong preference is that we follow MLK's dream to see and judge people by the content of their character as opposed to their ethnic heritage. Obsessing and dividing people arbitrarily by heritage is simply that, divisiveness instead of unifying us in our society.
Identity politics is when a person's qualifications and value depend primarily upon which groups they belong to. When President Biden commits that he will select a black female as his vice president and also a black female as his supreme Court Justice nominee, he is excluding all other groups from consideration based solely on gender and ethnicity. Much better that people are judged individually based upon their personal qualifications and our society is best served in this meritocracy.
My reference to the Democratic party obsession with identity politics revolves around vice president Kamela Harris. Polls reflect that she would be a very unpopular candidate for president, but there will indeed be an outcry from the identity politics crowd if the Democratic party were to bypass her in favor of another nominee, especially if it was a white male. And I doubt that most informed political observers would disagree with me on that.
I'm glad to hear that you had that reaction, the same one I had, so it moves me to defend a little bit my going in a different direction with it -- turning off the radio!
I guess I question some premises in your discussion:
- Is it really fair to say that, pre-awokening, circa two minutes ago, media and entertainment were overwhelmingly dominated by white people talking about white stuff? (My impression is that one reason we liked WBEZ before was that it did focus on minority-related issues and fairness to the underprivileged with some regularity.)
- Is it really true that, post-awokening, the identity brigade informing that coverage that initially turned you off in fact plausibly speaks to or for large shares of minority populations? (I'm pretty sensitive to the argument that we're hearing from mainly a small, privileged, if multiracial cohort even in that coverage and that, in some ways, there are few things cringingly whiter than, say, "Latinx.")
- Can people really be expected to engage only or mainly in material they find superficially relevant to their identity group? After all, did you listen to World View, that show that did more in one episode to shine a light on neglected people and their problems than It's Been a Minute has done in its entire insufferable existence, because you wanted to hear about white Oak Parkers? (I think I caught at one point that you were writing from Oak Park, as am I; sorry if I'm wrong!)
- Isn't it reductive and condescending to imagine that people of color, or members of any minority group, just want to hear "people who look like them" or "people who sound like them" or people who speak mainly to their identity-based concerns? I get and I'm sympathetic to the issue of representation, and my heart goes pitter-pat, for sure, to see a young black boy feeling Barack Obama's hair. I think the sentiment is way overplayed, however, and it seems utterly immune to genuine progress (like Obama's two terms, for example). Nothing strikes me as so facile and lame in my own world of secondary ed as the urge to assign books or movies about people our students can relate to immediately without any thought. The point is thought. The point is to see universal human truths in people who don't necessarily look like you and who maybe lived an age ago or in a world away.
- Isn't a lot of this identity-focused journalism biased, inaccurate, unpersuasive, or just lousy? A typical story will sympathetically highlight some racial disparity -- say, the dearth of African-American French horn players in American symphony orchestras or something -- with the implicit assumption that the percentage, in a non-racist world, should equal or exceed the smallish black share of the population, without any serious engagement with the many possible non-racist causes for that disparity. Such stories are frequently unconvincing that there's anything to see there. They seem to imbibe the Kendi gospel that the disparity itself *is* racism. But that's implausible on its face and so irritating to hear every damn time you turn on the radio!
Not surprisingly, I suppose, I think my perspective on this, rather than yours, is the correct one. You say, for example, “Can people really be expected to engage only or mainly in material that they find superficially relevant to their identity group?” I would suggest that your own decision to stop listening to WBEZ when it began to focus on minorities and their concerns rather than concerns relevant to your identity group might be part of the answer to your question. I am still a big WBEZ listener and fan, although I still miss Worldview. I think white people, obviously including me, find it difficult when they are no longer the focus of our media and cultural Zeitgeist. What one does with that difficulty is the issue. Do you get mad; think the focus on minorities is unfair and ridiculous; claim, now that you are losing your cultural primacy, that now you want a colorblind society; vote Republican, etc., or do you try to imagine what it would have been like growing up black in a white world where there were no programs focusing on people like you and your concerns, and adjust to the new reality of a more multi-cultural Zeitgeist?
How was Worldview focusing on "concerns relevant to [my] identity group?" It wasn't. Not at all. Hardly anything I hear is directly relevant to my identity in any meaningful way. I don't fear loss of "cultural primacy." Never had it. A world where my notions, my own worldview, held primacy would be much different than the one we live in, like in really lots of ways, that's for sure. Don't you feel that way? Do you think your worldview enjoys "cultural primacy"?
I promise you that the reason I turn off the radio in response to those lazy, lame identity stories I have in mind -- those same ones I'm assuming initially turned you off -- those stories produced, let's be honest, largely by white progressives for white progressives, is not that I feel threatened by them in even the remotest way.
I turn it off because they're typically wrong on their merits and boring as fuck besides. I feel I'm being preached at by idiots. I feel I know more about the issues and have thought more deeply about them -- by a lot, not even close -- than the people conveying them, who don't even begin to address my basic questions. That may sound really arrogant! What can I say? I live for the good argument. The rest is bullshit.
Sorry to be self-serving, but if anyone in IL 14 (Lauren Underwood’s district) votes in the Republican primary and wants to vote for a non-MAGA delegate to the convention I’m listed. Morals and commitment to the constitution do matter.
I'm wondering if the Sentinel will bring Grover on board....Appears, reading the advice from his fellow journalists in the NPR story....he will need someplace to nurse his wounds at some point.
Eric - you've repeated the mis-interpretation of Trump's speech about NATO (" the United States should not help defend from hostile invaders any NATO nation that isn’t sufficiently investing in its own military. ") repeatedly. Have you read the full text? Are you being hyperbolic or is this your best understanding of what Trump was communicating?
The full text of his whole speech? No. The context ofthese remarks, yes. He's saying that if a NATO nation isn't investing in the alliance -- there are no dues, as such -- he wouldn't defend them. In your comment you COULD have offered your own spin but for some reason chose not to. So I will here post the factcheck.org analysis and invite your rebuttal:
>>>In 2006, NATO countries made a commitment to aim to spend 2% of their gross domestic product on their own defense. A NATO spokesman at the time said: “Let me be clear, this is not a hard commitment that they will do it. But it is a commitment to work towards it. And that will be a first within the Alliance.”
A 2014 NATO declaration after a summit in Wales again said that countries that weren’t meeting the 2% goal would “aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade.”
According to NATO, 11 countries, including the U.S., are spending at least 2% of their GDP on their defense. Nineteen other countries do not meet that threshold, but with the exception of Croatia and Turkey, all are estimated to be spending more on defense as a percentage of their GDP in 2023 than they did in 2014. According to the NATO report, it was estimated the U.S. would spend 3.49% of its GDP on defense in 2023, second only to Poland, at 3.9%.
Alliance members also pay money for NATO’s commonly funded budget. That’s a direct cost. The U.S. currently pays about 16.2% — the same as Germany — of NATO’s “principal budgets” that are funded by all alliance members based on a cost-sharing formula that factors in the gross national income of each country. The principal budget categories include the civil budget, the military budget and the NATO Security Investment Programme. But, again, when Trump is referring to NATO spending, he is referring to the indirect costs each country spends on its defense.
In his speech in South Carolina, Trump made several misleading statements.
“NATO was busted until I came along,” Trump said. “I said everybody’s going to pay. They said, ‘Well, if we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer. And everybody, you never saw more money pour in.”
“One of the presidents of a big country stood up said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia will you protect us?'” Trump said. “I said, ‘You didn’t pay, you’re delinquent?’ He said, ‘Yes. Let’s say that happened.’ ‘No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills. And the money came flowing in.”
“And that’s why they have money today because of what I did,” Trump said. “And then I hear that they like Obama better. They should like Obama better. You know why? Because he didn’t ask for anything. We were like the stupid country of the world and we’re not going to be the stupid country of the world any longer.”
Trump’s comment that the U.S. would not defend a NATO ally attacked by Russia, and that he would “encourage” the attack, is a rejection of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in 1949, in which NATO alliance members “agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” According to the treaty, NATO countries “will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”
It’s also not true that NATO was “busted” until Trump stepped in — even in terms of indirect spending by countries on defense, that was going up before Trump took office. As we have written, after years of decreases, combined defense spending by non-U.S. NATO members has increased every year since 2015 — two years before Trump assumed office. Combined NATO defense spending increased about 11.5% between 2016, the year before Trump took office, and 2020, Trump’s last year in office, according to NATO. The amount paid by NATO members other than the U.S. increased by about 19.8% over the same period.>>>
As an aside, do you believe for half a second that a leader of another country asked that question, particularly in the wheedling way Trump described?
Any, Pete, have at it! What is YOUR best understand of what Trump was saying?
Maybe some background may be helpful. Go to any number of websites and view the comparison of NATO forces versus Russia. NATO has an overwhelming advantage.
Given that Russia has the bulk of its forces tied up in the Ukraine and has lost a lot of men and machinery, the likelihood that Russia could mount any kind of successful offensive is very very small.
However you view Trump’s speech…or outburst…or brain fart, it is just Trump blowing smoke in his made up narcissistic world.
He can not give permission to Russia to attack a country nor does he have power over NATO to defend or not defend specific countries.
It was a statement by a blithering idiot that the media took seriously and duly reported to the world as potentially realistic.
Trump was recounting an actual discussion/negotiation with some NATO leaders. He was trying to get them to pay their long-delinquent obligations by explaining that continuing to default will mean they aren't going to get defended under the treaty. This threat has already improved payments. But, in Trump's telling, some president tried to call his bluff and say, you wouldn't really do that, would you? Trump called HIS bluff by saying, oh yeah, Russia can do whatever they want with you if you're delinquent, as far as I'm concerned. Would you expect him to say, yeah, of course your equal participation is optional and we'll defend you anyway? But please, begin to pay your share, OK?
It's like a parent telling his kid to clean up his laundry on the floor or it's all going to Goodwill; no one expects the clothes to end up in Goodwill. The parent certainly doesn't want that. Everyone expects the kid to clean up. If the kid is brat, like that president, he'll try to call his parent's bluff. The parent is left with saying something like, oh yeah, make my day. If the kid actually refuses to co-operate, AFTER REPEATED WARNINGS, the clothes SHOULD go to Goodwill.
I approve of that kind of negotiation. I don't approve of bragging about it in public, because it might well mean that the tactic won't work anymore. As I said, and even NYT / NPR agree, Germany and others did make progress toward their treaty obligations under Trump's threats. And, they haven't continued to make progress with Trump gone.
I think your analogy is flawed. Instead of sending the cloths to Goodwill why not change it to something on the same scale? Afterall, we are talking about a certain percentage of the population (of the country being invaded by Russia) losing their lives. What if the kid trips on the junk lying about his room and falls resulting in a broken arm? Would you expect the parents to tell the kid he or she is on their own because they did not clean up their room?
You needed a 'both choices stink but Biden stinks a lot less'. Like most voters, the last thing I wanted was a Trump-Biden rematch. I would normally cast a third-party vote, which is probably still safe in Illinois, but I would not want my vote to facilitate a Trump win; so, Biden it is for me. I want to see a complete collapse of the GOP in the election. Only a thorough trouncing can result in any change. But I am not looking forward to a Dem controlled legislative and executive.
I think if Biden had not run, then the factions of the Democratic party would fight as they did in 2016 and 2020 weakening whoever got nominated. Just my opinion, but I think there is a better shot at electing a Dem with a Trump-Biden match than there would be with Trump-Warren, Trump-Sanders, or Trump-Harris.
btw, Warren's comment on Intuit ignores the fact that the tax code was very complicated long before tax prep software. I am sure she knows this, but like Trump, she knows she can whip up support telling people they are victims and she is their defender.
Thank you! These are the candidates we have and it's time to stop whining (I'm looking g at you Jon Stewart), and get the candidate in who has shown he wants to actually govern, and not just perform a one-man show, fiddling while Ukraine burns.
I thought the Warren comment was pretty laughable. But it reminded me of Sen. Klobuchar (?) at the hearing for the tech executives. She said something similar, 'that the tech company lobbying had prevented the legislation that was obviously necessary'. Neither of them seems to understand that they are saying that the majority of Senators and Congress people are either ignorant, corrupt, or easily manipulated stooges of any lobbyist that walks through the door.
" the majority of Senators and Congress people are either ignorant, corrupt, or easily manipulated stooges of any lobbyist that walks through the door." But yes, they are. They don't want to let the IRS offer the choice of a free, robust tax-filing software because they are exactly that -- ignorant, corrupt, or easily manipulated stooges. You can't doubt that.
Trent Lott was not and is not a medical doctor. He has a juris doctor, which is a law degree. While we receive doctorate degrees when graduating law school and wear the doctorate regalia (robe, cowl, funny hat), no attorney in the US calls themself a doctor.
Thanks for the correction. I may have mixed him up with someone else during the Terry Schiavo controversy, though he seemed to make pronouncements as if he were a doctor, which makes him even dimmer than I thought.
She's right, though. Those software companies don't want to allow the IRS to be able to offer free software for filing -- it would not be hard for the government to distribute a free versions of TurboTax, say. And why don't they? Lobbying.
Actually, most economists have said, the government already knows what your income is & could fill out your tax forms for you & then you could decide if that form needed updating or just accept it as is.
Her statement is not false, but the message is not right. There is a long list of special interests that want specific things in the tax code, which is the main source of complexity. Warren's message is to blame tax prep software companies for your frustration with computing your tax liability. Jerry Brown made a "flat tax" as part of his platform when running for the Democratic nomination for president in 1992 because the tax code was so complicated. It is an old problem.
Also, there is a reasonable argument against having the taxing authority monopolize tax prep software (I know others can make tax software, but they would be force out of business competing with the free option).
I'd've voted 'Relunctantly yes' in the poll - but EZ defines that to include being a big fan of Biden's so-called accomplishments - which i'm not, even if they were accomplishments. i don't consider stoking the worst inflation in the USA since the 1980s as an 'accomplishment' - or, at least, not one to be proud of.
Biden is a terrible option, trump is magnitudes worse. if egotistical biden stays in the race [please, Joe, it's not to late to quit the race!], i will reluctantly vote for him over the megalomaniacal, vicious, criminal trump.
I am hoping the all artists with digital representations of their work will employ the new AI-poison that is available. A tool called Nightshade adds data to every pixel in an image that is invisible to the human eye but confuses AI image scraping engines. For example, the image of a flower will appear to be a rock or abstract garbage. Generative AI will either not select the image, or it will produce garbage. The fact that this works should also reenforce the obvious - AI is a sophisticated plagiarism engine with zero knowledge or understanding of what it is scraping. Only a person with a severe mental defect would look at a flower and think it was a rock. AI will happily accept it. I agree with a prof at UIUC, 'imitation intelligence' is more apt than 'artificial intelligence'.
As I've written before, what AI does isn't "plagiarism," it's synthesism -- it absorbs numerous images of flowers, say, and then generates an image that contains elements of whatever it has perceived as "floral." It's a lot like what human artists do, when you think about it. The fact that it's done with 1s and 0s instead of neurons sets on fire the hair of those who think there is some mystical something about being human that means only humans can "create." I don't know the answers to what amounts to philosophical questions -- what is consciousness, what is creativity? -- but it begs the question to say they are uniquely human.
Synthesism is a good characterization. A more technically accurate description is that it synthesizes or constructs a probabilistically most-likely real-world result to a prompt based on all its known examples. You can think of it as Family Feud, where the AI produces an answer that is the most likely thing the world, instead of the survey, says. There is a ton of room for artful adjustment of what "the world would say" means. For example, the AI can weight certain reliable or prolific sources more than unreliable or unusual sources.
The average life span in 1776 was 36 years and most men entered the workforce between seven and ten. Many left home at that age to begin apprenticeships or to complete their education. John Quincy Adams traveled from England to St. Petersburg, overland, alone when he was 14. Even young founders had far more life experience and the ones over 40 were certainly elders.
The average lifespan figures are kind of skewed by infant mortality which was large back when. If you made it to age two or so, you were pretty likely to make it to middle age and beyond. The discovery of antibiotics in the 1940s added a nice chunk, of course, both in general and in the reduction of maternal mortality. But Ben Franklin lived to be 84. Thomas Jefferson 83. Patrick Henry 63. John Hancock 56. George Washington 67. John Adams 90.
"Johnson’s decision to end the city’s relationship with ShotSpotter in mid-September seems based on a desire to please his progressive base, not on the views of police"
How do we know Johnson's views of police? or any of his views for that matter? In 2020 he did speak in favor of the "defund the police" movement. He distanced himself from that when running for mayor. I can't tell what he really thinks. It appears that what he says is intended to be pleasing to whoever is his audience at the time.
Taking tools that work away from the police scores a point for the defund the police version of Johnson. "Defund the police" is a protest movement. As such it does not provide answers to the practical questions raised in this edition of PS. For that you need someone who governs, which Chicago is not going to have until it gets a new mayor.
Your last line is the important one, as Johnson has no idea of governing, he's just a Chicago Teachers Union stooge that's hit the big time & has no idea what to do now. He's the captain of a ship at sea that's lost all navigation devices, the engine is dead, unrepairable, the bilge pumps don't work & is just barely floating around, without a clue on how to get to port, let alone to even find land..
The only problem is, I don't see anyone in Chicago that's anywhere near ready to challenge this utter incompetent in three years.
At this point, even perennial losing candidate Willie Wilson is looking good, which is scary!
Paul Vallas
Except he's lost not just the governor's race, to Blago of all people, but twice lost the race for mayor.
At this point he's damaged goods, but maybe a third time would be the charm?
My problem is this. Some of the supposedly qualified are no longer in Chicago. If they are that concerned about Chicago and helping it, why did they leave? How many places has Vallas been since leaving?
It is very important context to recall that only 35% of eligible Chicago voters voted in the mayoral runoff. Johnson won with 18% of all Chicago voters voting for him to Vallas who had 17%. Further, the Chicago Teachers Union and allied unions poured millions of dollars into the Johnson campaign and also sponsored a very robust get out the vote effort on his behalf. So it's not as if Johnson rolled into the mayor's office with a broad mandate, and all appearances are that a good percentage of those who voted for him now regret doing so.
Amen to Skeptic & GSC
I am sad that you had to tell the readers what Perry Como did for a living.
Sinatra once intoduced him saying "And now, a singer so famous that the Italians named a lake after him. Ladies and gentlemen ... Perry Maggiore!!"
I thought he was a barber.
You cite the PS poll on the age cut off of senior citizen. But that is a poll of PS subscribers who are just a bunch of commie losers with intellectual disabilities who eat penis popsicles and, worst of all, are monsters when to comes to eating pizza.
Yes, but other than that…
Love the banter in this back and forth, but it actually gave me a rational idea. Eric, I believe it would be very interesting to come up with the demographics of your subscribers and perhaps even readers overall. How would you feel about including a voluntary survey for people to list their age group, gender identity, political leaning? I believe it is a very safe assumption that your readership skews very much to the left, and I'm also speculating that there is a significant senior citizen demographic. How about it?
Hmmm…is this just your roundabout way of indicating you participated in the poll?
I have heard electroshock is very helpful. Have you tried it, Archie?
Who's Archie?
I have not tried electroshock, but I was thinking that making penis popsicles would be a good business idea. After all, there are "naughty" bakeries. Of course it is already done. You can buy "Jumbo C*ck Pops" on amazon.
Please fix this link EZ: Here is Google's ImageFX
It doesn't work, but the one on the linked ZDnet page does work.
https://aitestkitchen.withgoogle.com/tools/image-fx will work. Not sure how that got messed up.
Here's the ShotSpotter problem as I see it. There are certain neighborhoods and certain politicians that are going to make more of a fuss than others. It's difficult to have a reasonable debate because anyone in favor of Shot Spotter is considered racist right from the start
It's an example of too high a reliance on naked numbers. Are their racist cops out there? I'm absolutely sure that there are. But serious crimes are bring committed in black and brown communities. Who's committing them, white KKK members? It makes logical sense that in communities that are primarily black and brown the perpetrators of the crimes will be primarily black and brown. That will definitely skew the numbers in terms of who is getting arrested. Of course, one solution would be to simply assign police officers to neighborhoods of their own color. It might not improve communication with the police, but racism would not be the problem. Another solution would be to stop arresting felons in those communities. This wouldn't make things safer, but we would no longer need to worry about racist arrests. Are my comments controversial? Are they going to make some people mad? I'm quite sure. But I have always wondered how we find solutions to problems we can't even talk about. The current answer seems to be to throw money at it. But no one ever talks about just how money is needed or where it would come from. If government wants to keep taking it from those that have a lot of it, the rich will simply leave and go elsewhere. Don't we have enough examples of that already?
If the police assigned only black & brown cops to those neighborhoods, I guarantee you there would be protests from Pflakey Pfleger that it was a racist plot to keep black & brown cops out of white neighborhoods!
I believe the progressive opposition to spot shooter is that it is technology that aids policing, and the hard left is very opposed to anything that does that. Witness in Portland that police are now forbidden from using tear gas to dispense mobs even when they are getting out of control. But the hard left led by the CTU is who put Johnson in office, and he is I was going to regard them as his primary constituency.
I also want to respectfully take issue with your suggestion of just putting police officers of color in black and brown communities. Once you start that type of racial profiling, you feasibly set the stage for someone following suit and insisting that only white officers be assigned to primarily white neighborhoods. That type of racial segregation is what many people fought against many decades, and we do not want to go backwards on it now.
You know, David, you really need to get real about people you characterize as in the “hard left” and their beliefs. When you say the hard left is against anything that aids policing, you sound rather silly. Almost all people, progressives, liberals, “conservatives,” MAGA people, want criminals arrested and convicted and crime reduced. (Well, leave out conservatives and MAGA people, perhaps, for crimes committed by Donald Trump). The objections to shotspotter are to its effectiveness. See the following comments from a study of the use of shotspotter in neighborhoods in St. Louis:
“After examining the data more closely it appears that every 100 AGDS calls for service generates 0.9 founded crime incidents (which includes both Part I and Part II crimes); regular community member calls by contrast generate 7.6 crime incidents per 100 calls. This indicates that alerting police of potential activity is not enough, human intelligence supporting that information is critical to turn a notice of potential activity into something police can act upon. In effect, prior to the implementation of AGDS, the community member calls for service in the impacted neighborhoods were generating an estimated 281 founded crime incidents per year; after the system was installed in 2013, an estimated 243 founded crime incidents were generated (212.8 from traditional calls and 30.6 from AGDS). Despite responding to more calls for service, results indicate that officers receive less actionable data on the ground. A reduction in uncovering founded crimes through “shots fired” calls for service should not be equated with a reduction in crime. The current evaluation, for example, finds no crime trend differences between AGDS neighborhoods and similar areas. The only reasonable conclusion from this is that AGDS produce less actionable data and are less efficient than traditional sources of information.”
https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/the-hidden-costs-of-police-technology/
Great to get some actual research on the topic.
Joanie - thank you for your time and replying and the interesting data from this one study. In googling the subject, I see there are conflicting studies on the effectiveness of the technology.
It is the hard left progressives who are pushing hard to cease use of spot shooter technology. This is indeed the group who has an agenda of defunding and otherwise neutering policing in our society. You really believe that their concern is about effectiveness and cost benefit? Further, the mayor should give strong weight to the efficacy of this technology from his police superintendent. He is the individual with primary responsibility for policing in Chicago, and his views should carry more weight than the progressive interest groups.
One final note, the overwhelming majority of polls reflect that inner city residents want more policing in their neighborhoods, not less. Of course, they wanted to be treated fairly and with respect, but overall they would like more policing because of the high crime rate in their neighborhoods.
My suggestions were facetious and not meant to be taken seriously. They are culturally flawed. I'm not even sure my police suggestion is possible, based on ethnic numbers in CPD. I was definitely not serious in not making arrests in black and brown neighborhoods. The vast majority of people there are not criminals. I'm more worried about victims of crime tha perpetrators. Hey, I have an idea! Let's have more crimes in white neighborhoods and make more white arrests. Would that make people happy? Unfortunately, I have never been married and can't raise any criminals.
Thanks Laurence. Crime is crime, wherever it occurs, and whoever commits it. While black offenders commit a disproportionate percentage of violent crime, blacks are also disproportionately the victims of violent crime. All crime is bad and needs to be combated.
I was so concerned about being old when I turned 50 that I threw myself a big party, complete with Wheaton police showing up at 2 am to tell us to quiet down. (They thought at first it was teenagers whose parents were out of town).
I soon realized 50 wasn’t old. I then realized turning 60 and 65 weren’t old. But when I turned 70, there was no denying it. I was old. I’ve accepted that. But that hasn’t stopped me. I’ll keep going until I drop.
At 70 you can't kid yourself anymore, but honestly its a relief to stop being so competitive about stuff. I am pretty content not to be the oldest person to go bouldering or sky diving or run a marathon. It would be nice to be the oldest person never to have osteoarthritis, but that ship has sailed.
My dad turns 90 in June. He’s like a big kid; he’s been looking forward to his birthday party for a year now.
The Dems would do well to turn this "too old" conversation around and hammer Trump for being "too dangerous" to be president. That's the real issue.
No, the Dems would do well to nominate a candidate who will defeat Trump, something that their current top choice will almost certainly fail to do. Short list to replace Biden: Newsom, Whitmer, Tester, Cuomo, Beshear, discuss.
eh.
The discussion about ShotSpotter brought up a number of questions.
Have the police had situations where a young gang juvenile fires a bunch of rounds, the police swarm the area, and meanwhile the gang does a drive by far from the shots fired location?
The big new fad in the gun world is silencers and suppressors to protect the delicate ears of shooters. They are not legal in Illinois, a number of gun groups are trying to change that. In any event they are available through various sources. If criminals use these silencers/suppressors does ShotSpotter pick up the shots? If not, will this render it as fairly ineffective as gangs and criminals figure this out?
The example of the young boy being shot indicated that ShotSpotter “worked” but ended with a bad outcome. Do we have statistics where this worked with good outcomes?
Kinda like to have these questions addressed before keeping or yanking ShotSpotter.
1) ShotSpotter: Whether it is effective system or not - I agree in this instance that it worked: Gun shots, Request for follow up, Suspects found. On the flip side, the shooting connected to this specific instance - isn't directly connected IMO. If a neighbor called and police were called into the neighborhood - the same shooting could have occurred. That is the ShotSpotter wasn't a direct cause to the shooting. So political move - it's what mayors do. 2) Seniors - I was going to chime that it's when "senior discounts" are offered. I didn't realize how varied those offers are - and how meager they are to boot. I always picture $.10 coffee from McDonald's at age 65 and over. Seems like old age has passed me by without me knowing it. *You've got quite a load of 'interesting' followers based on those comments you received. People who rant like that demonstrate their ignorance and self loathing. 3) 2.5? Don't love him, needs to step aside, at the moment I can't vote for him and leading toward voting a 'non-vote.' I'm tired of picking the lesser of two evils. If I don't like either - I may vote and not select. The saddest form of democracy :( 4) Quotables. Chicago's Tijuana. Hilarious. Jesus/Superbowl Funny how people are angered about a positive (intent at least) ad - saying that money could by food for homeless - when the countlees amount of money spent on all the excess of Superbowl Sunday events.
My problem with the "Jesus Gets US" commercial is not just the money spent but the utter hypocrisy of a group that spends a ton of money to oppose the very existence of LGBTQ people as members of society now wants to encourage people to act like Jesus, who accepted all whether they conformed to society's expectations or not. McD's senior coffee is available at age 55, but only if you go inside (no drive-thru). My husband is given the senior coffee, without asking, if he has a (gray) goatee. Clean shaven, no senior coffee. Age 56.
So seniors get a coffee, but we don't trust them to make it through the drive through. So if someone is on the 'higher end' of senior age - you are going to make them park their car, get out, walk into the place to order - causing more inconvenience. No coffee is worth that. I haven't paid attention to who "Jesus Gets Us" is. I did assume it was a Mormon message. So I'm not sure if this is some group with specific contradictory behaviors of promoting one thing and doing the opposite.
I think the idea is the McD's workers can't see you when you order in the drive-thru to verify age. The "Jesus Gets Us" commercials started with the Servant Foundation, started by the founders of Hobby Lobby who actively fund anti-LGBTQ+ groups. Supposedly a new group has taken over the "Jesus Gets Us" campaign but its association with Servant Foundation and the Hobby Lobby folks is murky. There are still Hobby Lobby founding family members on the board of the new organization, Come Near.
Interesting Hobby Lobby connection.
Kaye Grabbe
have never shopped at Hobby Lobby-never will.
I was in it once, really creepy place. All the male employees were very gay, which is very weird for a company that hates gays.
I am showing my age. Archie Bunker
Concerning Biden’s fitness and campaign, my husband thinks that he should wait until the Democrat Party Convention. There he will get nominated and THEN he can step away from the campaign. The party can choose a different candidate and VP candidate, and go from there. That would most likely prevent selection of Harris as the candidate or as th VP.
I believe the Democrat party has a real Harris problem with regard to Biden's possible stepping down as the presidential candidate. The Democrat party is obsessed with identity politics, and the highest in the hierarchy are black females who are often stated as being the backbone of the Democrat party. But Harris is the one politician on the national scene with even lower voter approval ratings than Biden, currently sitting at 28%. So I believe this is a real dilemma for the Democrats in terms of wanting to substitute somebody like Gavin Newsom who would then be a white male stepping over the city black female Vice President. If a more credible individual had been chosen as Biden's VP, say Gretchen Whitmer, I believe that everybody would already have rallied behind her and Biden would be heading toward retirement after the election. But Biden displayed his fidelity to identity politics when he promised that he would select a black female as his VP and so now Harris is the DEI VP that the Democrats are stuck with. This will be very entertaining to follow.
It's the Democratic Party, not the Democrat Party!
Yeah, David, you show your overt disdain for the other party by using such terminology. Your are signaling that you're being intentionally provocative, even if that is not your actual intent.
Thanks Garry - My bad and simple carelessness on my part as there was no hidden meaning contained in that reference.
On the Democratic party’s “obsession with identity politics”:
When I drive in my car, I listen to the radio. And one of my favorite shows was Worldview with Jerome McDonnell. Five years ago, WBEZ took Worldview off the air, and afterwards when I would listen to WBEZ at the same time of day, it seemed as if all the programming was about racial and ethnic minorities: how does this effect black people, how does that effect Latinos, the horrible schools for indigenous Americans, racial prejudice against Asians following COVID. Even the stories about restaurants and food were focused on minorities. At first I got frustrated and irritated and, yes, a little angry that my favorite show had been taken off the air and replaced with what felt to me like radio content “obsessed,” as you might say, with content about and for people who were different from me. And then I thought about it for a bit, and I realized that for the first 60+ years of my life, radio, television, movies, major newspapers, etc. had all focused on things and issues important to white people. For 60+ years black people, Latinos, indigenous Americans, Asians had had to listen to radio, watch television, go to movies, and read news stories in major newspapers that focused on white people and their concerns, successes, foods, etc. The pendulum was swinging as pendulums do, and if it swung a little too far to the side that had been neglected for decades, that was only fair. I found out what it was like to drive my car listening to stories and shows that focused on people who were different from me. It was kind of a shock to my system. I know the pendulum will eventually reach equilibrium. I think a lot of conservatives’ frustration with what they call an “obsession” with identity politics arises from the same sort of feelings I initially felt when WBEZ took Worldview off the air. To them everything seems to be about minorities of one group or another. They long for our culture and society to be the way it was before, but they don’t stop to think that the way it was before was unfair to all those people in minority groups that our culture is currently “obsessing” about.
Except that the frustration of conservatives has nothing to do with the question at hand here, which is about whom the Democrats should present as their candidate for the Presidency in order to defeat Trump and save the country. I’m sure we all appreciate a pendulum that cuts a mean swath, but ask a few black people whether they’d rather see Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom at the top of the Dem ticket.
My strong preference is that we follow MLK's dream to see and judge people by the content of their character as opposed to their ethnic heritage. Obsessing and dividing people arbitrarily by heritage is simply that, divisiveness instead of unifying us in our society.
Identity politics is when a person's qualifications and value depend primarily upon which groups they belong to. When President Biden commits that he will select a black female as his vice president and also a black female as his supreme Court Justice nominee, he is excluding all other groups from consideration based solely on gender and ethnicity. Much better that people are judged individually based upon their personal qualifications and our society is best served in this meritocracy.
My reference to the Democratic party obsession with identity politics revolves around vice president Kamela Harris. Polls reflect that she would be a very unpopular candidate for president, but there will indeed be an outcry from the identity politics crowd if the Democratic party were to bypass her in favor of another nominee, especially if it was a white male. And I doubt that most informed political observers would disagree with me on that.
I'm glad to hear that you had that reaction, the same one I had, so it moves me to defend a little bit my going in a different direction with it -- turning off the radio!
I guess I question some premises in your discussion:
- Is it really fair to say that, pre-awokening, circa two minutes ago, media and entertainment were overwhelmingly dominated by white people talking about white stuff? (My impression is that one reason we liked WBEZ before was that it did focus on minority-related issues and fairness to the underprivileged with some regularity.)
- Is it really true that, post-awokening, the identity brigade informing that coverage that initially turned you off in fact plausibly speaks to or for large shares of minority populations? (I'm pretty sensitive to the argument that we're hearing from mainly a small, privileged, if multiracial cohort even in that coverage and that, in some ways, there are few things cringingly whiter than, say, "Latinx.")
- Can people really be expected to engage only or mainly in material they find superficially relevant to their identity group? After all, did you listen to World View, that show that did more in one episode to shine a light on neglected people and their problems than It's Been a Minute has done in its entire insufferable existence, because you wanted to hear about white Oak Parkers? (I think I caught at one point that you were writing from Oak Park, as am I; sorry if I'm wrong!)
- Isn't it reductive and condescending to imagine that people of color, or members of any minority group, just want to hear "people who look like them" or "people who sound like them" or people who speak mainly to their identity-based concerns? I get and I'm sympathetic to the issue of representation, and my heart goes pitter-pat, for sure, to see a young black boy feeling Barack Obama's hair. I think the sentiment is way overplayed, however, and it seems utterly immune to genuine progress (like Obama's two terms, for example). Nothing strikes me as so facile and lame in my own world of secondary ed as the urge to assign books or movies about people our students can relate to immediately without any thought. The point is thought. The point is to see universal human truths in people who don't necessarily look like you and who maybe lived an age ago or in a world away.
- Isn't a lot of this identity-focused journalism biased, inaccurate, unpersuasive, or just lousy? A typical story will sympathetically highlight some racial disparity -- say, the dearth of African-American French horn players in American symphony orchestras or something -- with the implicit assumption that the percentage, in a non-racist world, should equal or exceed the smallish black share of the population, without any serious engagement with the many possible non-racist causes for that disparity. Such stories are frequently unconvincing that there's anything to see there. They seem to imbibe the Kendi gospel that the disparity itself *is* racism. But that's implausible on its face and so irritating to hear every damn time you turn on the radio!
Not surprisingly, I suppose, I think my perspective on this, rather than yours, is the correct one. You say, for example, “Can people really be expected to engage only or mainly in material that they find superficially relevant to their identity group?” I would suggest that your own decision to stop listening to WBEZ when it began to focus on minorities and their concerns rather than concerns relevant to your identity group might be part of the answer to your question. I am still a big WBEZ listener and fan, although I still miss Worldview. I think white people, obviously including me, find it difficult when they are no longer the focus of our media and cultural Zeitgeist. What one does with that difficulty is the issue. Do you get mad; think the focus on minorities is unfair and ridiculous; claim, now that you are losing your cultural primacy, that now you want a colorblind society; vote Republican, etc., or do you try to imagine what it would have been like growing up black in a white world where there were no programs focusing on people like you and your concerns, and adjust to the new reality of a more multi-cultural Zeitgeist?
How was Worldview focusing on "concerns relevant to [my] identity group?" It wasn't. Not at all. Hardly anything I hear is directly relevant to my identity in any meaningful way. I don't fear loss of "cultural primacy." Never had it. A world where my notions, my own worldview, held primacy would be much different than the one we live in, like in really lots of ways, that's for sure. Don't you feel that way? Do you think your worldview enjoys "cultural primacy"?
I promise you that the reason I turn off the radio in response to those lazy, lame identity stories I have in mind -- those same ones I'm assuming initially turned you off -- those stories produced, let's be honest, largely by white progressives for white progressives, is not that I feel threatened by them in even the remotest way.
I turn it off because they're typically wrong on their merits and boring as fuck besides. I feel I'm being preached at by idiots. I feel I know more about the issues and have thought more deeply about them -- by a lot, not even close -- than the people conveying them, who don't even begin to address my basic questions. That may sound really arrogant! What can I say? I live for the good argument. The rest is bullshit.
Let’s agree to disagree.
Sorry to be self-serving, but if anyone in IL 14 (Lauren Underwood’s district) votes in the Republican primary and wants to vote for a non-MAGA delegate to the convention I’m listed. Morals and commitment to the constitution do matter.
I'm wondering if the Sentinel will bring Grover on board....Appears, reading the advice from his fellow journalists in the NPR story....he will need someplace to nurse his wounds at some point.
Eric - you've repeated the mis-interpretation of Trump's speech about NATO (" the United States should not help defend from hostile invaders any NATO nation that isn’t sufficiently investing in its own military. ") repeatedly. Have you read the full text? Are you being hyperbolic or is this your best understanding of what Trump was communicating?
The full text of his whole speech? No. The context ofthese remarks, yes. He's saying that if a NATO nation isn't investing in the alliance -- there are no dues, as such -- he wouldn't defend them. In your comment you COULD have offered your own spin but for some reason chose not to. So I will here post the factcheck.org analysis and invite your rebuttal:
>>>In 2006, NATO countries made a commitment to aim to spend 2% of their gross domestic product on their own defense. A NATO spokesman at the time said: “Let me be clear, this is not a hard commitment that they will do it. But it is a commitment to work towards it. And that will be a first within the Alliance.”
A 2014 NATO declaration after a summit in Wales again said that countries that weren’t meeting the 2% goal would “aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade.”
According to NATO, 11 countries, including the U.S., are spending at least 2% of their GDP on their defense. Nineteen other countries do not meet that threshold, but with the exception of Croatia and Turkey, all are estimated to be spending more on defense as a percentage of their GDP in 2023 than they did in 2014. According to the NATO report, it was estimated the U.S. would spend 3.49% of its GDP on defense in 2023, second only to Poland, at 3.9%.
Alliance members also pay money for NATO’s commonly funded budget. That’s a direct cost. The U.S. currently pays about 16.2% — the same as Germany — of NATO’s “principal budgets” that are funded by all alliance members based on a cost-sharing formula that factors in the gross national income of each country. The principal budget categories include the civil budget, the military budget and the NATO Security Investment Programme. But, again, when Trump is referring to NATO spending, he is referring to the indirect costs each country spends on its defense.
In his speech in South Carolina, Trump made several misleading statements.
“NATO was busted until I came along,” Trump said. “I said everybody’s going to pay. They said, ‘Well, if we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer. And everybody, you never saw more money pour in.”
“One of the presidents of a big country stood up said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia will you protect us?'” Trump said. “I said, ‘You didn’t pay, you’re delinquent?’ He said, ‘Yes. Let’s say that happened.’ ‘No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills. And the money came flowing in.”
“And that’s why they have money today because of what I did,” Trump said. “And then I hear that they like Obama better. They should like Obama better. You know why? Because he didn’t ask for anything. We were like the stupid country of the world and we’re not going to be the stupid country of the world any longer.”
Trump’s comment that the U.S. would not defend a NATO ally attacked by Russia, and that he would “encourage” the attack, is a rejection of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in 1949, in which NATO alliance members “agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” According to the treaty, NATO countries “will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”
It’s also not true that NATO was “busted” until Trump stepped in — even in terms of indirect spending by countries on defense, that was going up before Trump took office. As we have written, after years of decreases, combined defense spending by non-U.S. NATO members has increased every year since 2015 — two years before Trump assumed office. Combined NATO defense spending increased about 11.5% between 2016, the year before Trump took office, and 2020, Trump’s last year in office, according to NATO. The amount paid by NATO members other than the U.S. increased by about 19.8% over the same period.>>>
As an aside, do you believe for half a second that a leader of another country asked that question, particularly in the wheedling way Trump described?
Any, Pete, have at it! What is YOUR best understand of what Trump was saying?
PS Reading the full text is a challenge. Maybe with your journalist tools you will find it quicker than I did.
The full text of a Trump speech? Are they even transcribed? SEriously, though, what do you think I'm missing?
Maybe some background may be helpful. Go to any number of websites and view the comparison of NATO forces versus Russia. NATO has an overwhelming advantage.
Given that Russia has the bulk of its forces tied up in the Ukraine and has lost a lot of men and machinery, the likelihood that Russia could mount any kind of successful offensive is very very small.
However you view Trump’s speech…or outburst…or brain fart, it is just Trump blowing smoke in his made up narcissistic world.
He can not give permission to Russia to attack a country nor does he have power over NATO to defend or not defend specific countries.
It was a statement by a blithering idiot that the media took seriously and duly reported to the world as potentially realistic.
Trump was recounting an actual discussion/negotiation with some NATO leaders. He was trying to get them to pay their long-delinquent obligations by explaining that continuing to default will mean they aren't going to get defended under the treaty. This threat has already improved payments. But, in Trump's telling, some president tried to call his bluff and say, you wouldn't really do that, would you? Trump called HIS bluff by saying, oh yeah, Russia can do whatever they want with you if you're delinquent, as far as I'm concerned. Would you expect him to say, yeah, of course your equal participation is optional and we'll defend you anyway? But please, begin to pay your share, OK?
It's like a parent telling his kid to clean up his laundry on the floor or it's all going to Goodwill; no one expects the clothes to end up in Goodwill. The parent certainly doesn't want that. Everyone expects the kid to clean up. If the kid is brat, like that president, he'll try to call his parent's bluff. The parent is left with saying something like, oh yeah, make my day. If the kid actually refuses to co-operate, AFTER REPEATED WARNINGS, the clothes SHOULD go to Goodwill.
I approve of that kind of negotiation. I don't approve of bragging about it in public, because it might well mean that the tactic won't work anymore. As I said, and even NYT / NPR agree, Germany and others did make progress toward their treaty obligations under Trump's threats. And, they haven't continued to make progress with Trump gone.
I think your analogy is flawed. Instead of sending the cloths to Goodwill why not change it to something on the same scale? Afterall, we are talking about a certain percentage of the population (of the country being invaded by Russia) losing their lives. What if the kid trips on the junk lying about his room and falls resulting in a broken arm? Would you expect the parents to tell the kid he or she is on their own because they did not clean up their room?
Where’s the threat in your analogy?
You needed a 'both choices stink but Biden stinks a lot less'. Like most voters, the last thing I wanted was a Trump-Biden rematch. I would normally cast a third-party vote, which is probably still safe in Illinois, but I would not want my vote to facilitate a Trump win; so, Biden it is for me. I want to see a complete collapse of the GOP in the election. Only a thorough trouncing can result in any change. But I am not looking forward to a Dem controlled legislative and executive.
I think if Biden had not run, then the factions of the Democratic party would fight as they did in 2016 and 2020 weakening whoever got nominated. Just my opinion, but I think there is a better shot at electing a Dem with a Trump-Biden match than there would be with Trump-Warren, Trump-Sanders, or Trump-Harris.
btw, Warren's comment on Intuit ignores the fact that the tax code was very complicated long before tax prep software. I am sure she knows this, but like Trump, she knows she can whip up support telling people they are victims and she is their defender.
Thank you! These are the candidates we have and it's time to stop whining (I'm looking g at you Jon Stewart), and get the candidate in who has shown he wants to actually govern, and not just perform a one-man show, fiddling while Ukraine burns.
I thought the Warren comment was pretty laughable. But it reminded me of Sen. Klobuchar (?) at the hearing for the tech executives. She said something similar, 'that the tech company lobbying had prevented the legislation that was obviously necessary'. Neither of them seems to understand that they are saying that the majority of Senators and Congress people are either ignorant, corrupt, or easily manipulated stooges of any lobbyist that walks through the door.
" the majority of Senators and Congress people are either ignorant, corrupt, or easily manipulated stooges of any lobbyist that walks through the door." But yes, they are. They don't want to let the IRS offer the choice of a free, robust tax-filing software because they are exactly that -- ignorant, corrupt, or easily manipulated stooges. You can't doubt that.
Most of them are just plain dumb. I always think back to people like Trent Lott. He was a doctor, for kreistsake, and a total bucket of hair.
Trent Lott was not and is not a medical doctor. He has a juris doctor, which is a law degree. While we receive doctorate degrees when graduating law school and wear the doctorate regalia (robe, cowl, funny hat), no attorney in the US calls themself a doctor.
Thanks for the correction. I may have mixed him up with someone else during the Terry Schiavo controversy, though he seemed to make pronouncements as if he were a doctor, which makes him even dimmer than I thought.
She's right, though. Those software companies don't want to allow the IRS to be able to offer free software for filing -- it would not be hard for the government to distribute a free versions of TurboTax, say. And why don't they? Lobbying.
Actually, most economists have said, the government already knows what your income is & could fill out your tax forms for you & then you could decide if that form needed updating or just accept it as is.
Her statement is not false, but the message is not right. There is a long list of special interests that want specific things in the tax code, which is the main source of complexity. Warren's message is to blame tax prep software companies for your frustration with computing your tax liability. Jerry Brown made a "flat tax" as part of his platform when running for the Democratic nomination for president in 1992 because the tax code was so complicated. It is an old problem.
Also, there is a reasonable argument against having the taxing authority monopolize tax prep software (I know others can make tax software, but they would be force out of business competing with the free option).
thank you, Marc - you said it all for me.
I'd've voted 'Relunctantly yes' in the poll - but EZ defines that to include being a big fan of Biden's so-called accomplishments - which i'm not, even if they were accomplishments. i don't consider stoking the worst inflation in the USA since the 1980s as an 'accomplishment' - or, at least, not one to be proud of.
Biden is a terrible option, trump is magnitudes worse. if egotistical biden stays in the race [please, Joe, it's not to late to quit the race!], i will reluctantly vote for him over the megalomaniacal, vicious, criminal trump.
I am hoping the all artists with digital representations of their work will employ the new AI-poison that is available. A tool called Nightshade adds data to every pixel in an image that is invisible to the human eye but confuses AI image scraping engines. For example, the image of a flower will appear to be a rock or abstract garbage. Generative AI will either not select the image, or it will produce garbage. The fact that this works should also reenforce the obvious - AI is a sophisticated plagiarism engine with zero knowledge or understanding of what it is scraping. Only a person with a severe mental defect would look at a flower and think it was a rock. AI will happily accept it. I agree with a prof at UIUC, 'imitation intelligence' is more apt than 'artificial intelligence'.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/23/1082189/data-poisoning-artists-fight-generative-ai/
As I've written before, what AI does isn't "plagiarism," it's synthesism -- it absorbs numerous images of flowers, say, and then generates an image that contains elements of whatever it has perceived as "floral." It's a lot like what human artists do, when you think about it. The fact that it's done with 1s and 0s instead of neurons sets on fire the hair of those who think there is some mystical something about being human that means only humans can "create." I don't know the answers to what amounts to philosophical questions -- what is consciousness, what is creativity? -- but it begs the question to say they are uniquely human.
Nice use of "begs the question."
Synthesism is a good characterization. A more technically accurate description is that it synthesizes or constructs a probabilistically most-likely real-world result to a prompt based on all its known examples. You can think of it as Family Feud, where the AI produces an answer that is the most likely thing the world, instead of the survey, says. There is a ton of room for artful adjustment of what "the world would say" means. For example, the AI can weight certain reliable or prolific sources more than unreliable or unusual sources.
The average life span in 1776 was 36 years and most men entered the workforce between seven and ten. Many left home at that age to begin apprenticeships or to complete their education. John Quincy Adams traveled from England to St. Petersburg, overland, alone when he was 14. Even young founders had far more life experience and the ones over 40 were certainly elders.
The average lifespan figures are kind of skewed by infant mortality which was large back when. If you made it to age two or so, you were pretty likely to make it to middle age and beyond. The discovery of antibiotics in the 1940s added a nice chunk, of course, both in general and in the reduction of maternal mortality. But Ben Franklin lived to be 84. Thomas Jefferson 83. Patrick Henry 63. John Hancock 56. George Washington 67. John Adams 90.