Thanks for the tip about that amazing QVC appliance. I'm really on the fence about which color to choose. Puce? Greige? I'm leaning toward yellow-ish. I was relieved to hear they're all in stock.
And Joanie: amazing song. Proof that music can save our lives. It's playing in my head now and I'm happy about that.
Re: National Anthem. There is that condescending word again - "cling". I am not a sports fan or a religious person, and I agree that some people, including the guv, are blowing this issue WAY out of proportion. However, I believe standing at a ceremony, such as the national anthem, or at Christian weddings when the bride proceeds down the aisle, are a sincere way to be part of a group activity, or at the very least, to show respect for the group.
Calling out people for their overreaction is fine, and will appeal fairly broadly, though not universally, to sports fans. But denigrating a practice of signaling group identity will unnecessarily alienate many.
Surely the point is that the playing of the national anthem is inappropriate at sporting events. If you are in a church, stand when it is appropriate. If you are at a Cubs game, stand when Suzuki hits a long homer.
I disagree with you, MIchael. Sports fandom is about group identity and it is wrapped up with national identity -- it seems to me. But your comment and EZ's article does raise the question of when is it appropriate to have group participation as part of an event. To that I do not have a good answer.
How is being a sports fan “wrapped up with national identity”, unless the teams themselves have been selected to represent a nation? Makes sense during the Olympics, I suppose, but at a mid-season game between the Cubs and Astros? Not seeing it.
Good question. Group identity is a funny thing. I am not claiming to understand it completely. It is my observation that sports fandom and national identity have been wrapped together. Do you disagree with that as a matter of fact?
Yes, I do disagree. It is my understanding that the custom began in the early days of WWI as a way to acknowledge the gravity of the days ahead, especially since many of the players and fans in the stadium would soon be called up for active duty. So essentially it is propaganda, serving no clear purpose during ordinary, private sporting events—other than offering the sheer human joy of singing in unison with thousands of people. The Cubs’ 7th inning stretch and English Premier football games make that clear!
I wish the whole Wrap it up in performative "patriotic' theater for sporting events would disappear! It is especially annoying when the announcer says Honor America and sing the national anthem.
It violates the concept of honor. We cannot and do not honor ourselves.
I guess the someone who will tell that halfwit Louisiana Governor his proposed law is so obviously unconstitutional, will be a federal judge, knocking down his truly moronic law!
And no, I never stand at home for it.
In fact I flat out hate our national anthem, it was written by a creep who was an active supporter of slavery, as told in the third stanza of his godawful poem, that was then set to the music of a 1775 British drinking song called Anacreon in Heaven.
Here are those vile words of Key's:
"No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave"
Our anthem should be "America the Beautiful", which is about the entire country, not one stupid battle in a supremely stupid war!
You are obviously intense about the subject at least concerning the words. I wonder how many know that melody goes back to an old English drinking song. On the other hand, that might be appropriate considering how much sports fans drink. That's like Black Hawks fans that go nuts for the song played after goals. Do the more conservative fans realize it is a song about a stripper?
And on a related note, Hawks fans have that bizarre custom of screaming at the tops of their lungs while the national anthem is being sung, which would seem to be at odds with the usual reverence and solemnity that one would expect. They’ve been doing it forever too; I attended my first game in 1980 when I was 9 years old, and I was thrown for a loop by it. It just seemed obnoxious and disrespectful.
Agreed. Is it any more respectful for fans to scream at the top of their lungs, bringing attention on themselves rather than the flag and drowning out the song than kneeling?
Would you include standing for a national anthem in that?
If I were in Canada at a hockey game, I would stand with the crowd for "Oh Canada" at the start of the game to show respect for the custom at that event. Do you consider that to be disrespectful?
A valid argument for outlawing simulated child pornography is those who are charged with producing real child porn sometimes argue that the prosecution must prove that the content is not simulated imagery. I have a cousin who is an expert in photography. Years ago he would sometimes be an expert witness in cases against alleged child pornographers. This pre-dates digital images. Based on his expertise, he could analyze photographs and determine if they were composite photographs.
Correct but the idea that Skeptic is talking about is when no child is actually involved in creating the pornography. Instead composite and manipulated images are used from many sources, including young adults as well as children . No real child is recognizable nor endured any sort of process that would have had a goal of producing porn. With AI it is even easier to do this and in no way involves a real child in the process. So the harm created by the process can’t be a basis for the law against it.
I am fine allowing the legal right to make composite pictures or computer animation of child porn --- in theory. I am not okay with actual child porn. The case against the former is provides a legal defense to those who produce real child porn. This is not a theoretical argument. I am told this actually happens. So of simulated child porn is also a crime, then it becomes a less attractive legal defense.
Shameful, deeply disappointing cuts at WBEZ/SunTimes. Thanks for your reporting on this. And thanks to current and former staff for courageously speaking out, at great professional risk.
I was very surprised to learn today that the "AI" magic of shopping at Amazon Fresh groceries stores isn't really AI at all - it's thousands of Indian workers watching you on the gazillion cameras to keep track of what you put in your cart so you can "check out" by just leaving the store. Guess AI alone wasn't cutting it. Now they are reportedly going to carts that scan what you put in them and you'll have to check out with a human cashier instead of just walking out with your acquisitions. As much as I thought the supposed-AI watching me shop was creepy, I'm a little disappointed it was really humans in India watching me shop.
The idea of AI created child porn was a repeated topic of Socratic discussion more than 40 years ago. Well obviously not called AI but the idea was either based on realistic animation or using some sort of “movie magic” that was theoretical. It was obviously a purely intellectual exercise back then and involved discussions of the First Amendment and issues of use of the sort of stats and studies discussed in your post. I guess it’s all too real now.
One problem with the news media is seeing everything through the lens of a political competition. Seeing the endangering of women’s rights in Florida as a “gift” to Biden is the kind of cynicism that adds to the cratering of regular folks’ ability to discuss issues in good faith. The “NYT Pitchbot” Twitter/X account skewers the practice: “Inflation Back Down to Pre-Pandemic Lows; Here’s Why that’s Trouble for Biden.” Old news habits die hard, but let’s keep our focus on what these laws will mean to women, not to the perceived odds of a politician’s success in the next election.
About losing the reporters at the Sun Times. People complain about the mainstream media but the alternative world isn't any better. For example, I couldn't take Matt Taibbi's Covid-19 "reporting" because he refused to contact virologist Vincent Racaniello to find out the reality behind the bullshit conspiracy theories he was "reporting" and the Useful Idiots keep using saying "Russiagate" as if Trump didn't lie about his ties to Russians, his Russian deals and his contacts with those he believed to be Russian officials and thus brought Mueller's attention on himself, it wasn't a Democratic Party conspiracy.
So, what do we have here, Eric? What do you think will happen to Chicagoland news? Will it devolve into alternative conspiracistland?
I tend to think that the people who complain the most about a lack of patriotism in others are actually the least patriotic. To quote Shakespeare, they “doth protest too much.” When I pass a home that grandly displays the American flag, I tend to think whoever is living there would gladly turn this country into a dictatorship in order to “make American great again.”
Depictions of heinous crimes on video games has been allowed for decades, so has pornography, except that involving children. The only restrictions, if any, involve age of the viewer. I think the legality of AI produced child porn will end up in court at some point.
Indeed. It has been argued many times that realistic violence in movies or video games does / doesn't make it more likely that consumers of same will be more likely to imitate what they see. Presumably whichever is true there likewise is true of child pornography -- but where does the real truth lie? At least creating wholly imaginary depictions affects no actual children.
I’m a monthly NPR donator and a Sun-Times subscriber. Part of NPR’s problem is, I’d be willing to bet, the drift to identity programming. Any time I turn on the station, I think I have a very high probability of hitting a segment about <insert identity group here> as part of the programming.
I don’t mind talking or hearing about marginalized groups, but if you are going to take that slant with every segment, many people are going to tune out because “this isn’t relevant to me”. And people who tune out aren’t going to be donors so you better make sure the ones who stay are enough to support your station. Sometimes I’d like to hear a restaurant review that did not lead with the owner’s orientation, immigration status, or marginalization statistics. Sometimes I’d just like to hear the answer to the question, “how’s the food?”
I don’t disagree with your assessment of why people may be tuning out, but then you basically identify yourself as one of those people. So I ask you, why DON’T you want to know about those identities and stories of how that may shape the food and experience? Yelp and other services have plenty of non-identity info about the food for us.
Which is more important to the story, the fact that someone has opened a restaurant that serves good food or the chef’s sexual orientation? NPR seems to have chosen the latter every time and then beats you over the head with it. Not just restaurants, I’m generalizing heavily, but the focus is on “the first <insert string of identity modifiers here> to do <insert whatever you are trying to prove or highlight>”.
The accomplishment gets lost in their identity instead of becoming just an important part of their background.
If I were king: This person is fantastic at X. Here’s what they do and the way in which it’s fantastic. Person got interested in doing X in part because of <background>.
Instead it’s Person is a <whatever> followed by a string of identity stuff. And then, oh yeah, they do X well too.
I find most of NPR’s daytime stuff to just be unlistenable and off-putting. I find other stuff that I do like on non-weekday afternoons.
Craig says it well. I listen to WBEZ in the car, if I stop by for a listen, sometimes it's really good and I stay with it, other times really depressing, I move to another station. They are losing their listeners, and therefore their donors. They have a problem. They need to figure it out and fix it. And giving a raise to a CEO who is leaving? You gotta be kiddin' me? How stupid.
Thank you for the Fix the News link. We should be more aware of the many good things going on. Oddly, we don't seem to want to hear it. The next step in such an initiative, however, might be to attempt to weave such stories into larger narratives that, while not sanguine, are not so downbeat on the big picture. As it stands, many concerned about climate change, for example, could shrug off all the good news under the "Planet" tab as "meh, not enough."
"How popular is women’s college basketball right now? At this writing (early Thursday morning) the cheapest ticket for this weekend’s Women’s Final Four in Cleveland is $707. For the Men’s Final Four in Glendale, Arizona, the cheapest ticket is $518."
Well... the women's games will be in a 19,000-seat arena. The men are playing in a stadium with 60,000-plus seats.
Thanks for the tip about that amazing QVC appliance. I'm really on the fence about which color to choose. Puce? Greige? I'm leaning toward yellow-ish. I was relieved to hear they're all in stock.
And Joanie: amazing song. Proof that music can save our lives. It's playing in my head now and I'm happy about that.
Re: National Anthem. There is that condescending word again - "cling". I am not a sports fan or a religious person, and I agree that some people, including the guv, are blowing this issue WAY out of proportion. However, I believe standing at a ceremony, such as the national anthem, or at Christian weddings when the bride proceeds down the aisle, are a sincere way to be part of a group activity, or at the very least, to show respect for the group.
Calling out people for their overreaction is fine, and will appeal fairly broadly, though not universally, to sports fans. But denigrating a practice of signaling group identity will unnecessarily alienate many.
Surely the point is that the playing of the national anthem is inappropriate at sporting events. If you are in a church, stand when it is appropriate. If you are at a Cubs game, stand when Suzuki hits a long homer.
I disagree with you, MIchael. Sports fandom is about group identity and it is wrapped up with national identity -- it seems to me. But your comment and EZ's article does raise the question of when is it appropriate to have group participation as part of an event. To that I do not have a good answer.
How is being a sports fan “wrapped up with national identity”, unless the teams themselves have been selected to represent a nation? Makes sense during the Olympics, I suppose, but at a mid-season game between the Cubs and Astros? Not seeing it.
Good question. Group identity is a funny thing. I am not claiming to understand it completely. It is my observation that sports fandom and national identity have been wrapped together. Do you disagree with that as a matter of fact?
Yes, I do disagree. It is my understanding that the custom began in the early days of WWI as a way to acknowledge the gravity of the days ahead, especially since many of the players and fans in the stadium would soon be called up for active duty. So essentially it is propaganda, serving no clear purpose during ordinary, private sporting events—other than offering the sheer human joy of singing in unison with thousands of people. The Cubs’ 7th inning stretch and English Premier football games make that clear!
I wish the whole Wrap it up in performative "patriotic' theater for sporting events would disappear! It is especially annoying when the announcer says Honor America and sing the national anthem.
It violates the concept of honor. We cannot and do not honor ourselves.
I guess the someone who will tell that halfwit Louisiana Governor his proposed law is so obviously unconstitutional, will be a federal judge, knocking down his truly moronic law!
And no, I never stand at home for it.
In fact I flat out hate our national anthem, it was written by a creep who was an active supporter of slavery, as told in the third stanza of his godawful poem, that was then set to the music of a 1775 British drinking song called Anacreon in Heaven.
Here are those vile words of Key's:
"No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave"
Our anthem should be "America the Beautiful", which is about the entire country, not one stupid battle in a supremely stupid war!
You are obviously intense about the subject at least concerning the words. I wonder how many know that melody goes back to an old English drinking song. On the other hand, that might be appropriate considering how much sports fans drink. That's like Black Hawks fans that go nuts for the song played after goals. Do the more conservative fans realize it is a song about a stripper?
And on a related note, Hawks fans have that bizarre custom of screaming at the tops of their lungs while the national anthem is being sung, which would seem to be at odds with the usual reverence and solemnity that one would expect. They’ve been doing it forever too; I attended my first game in 1980 when I was 9 years old, and I was thrown for a loop by it. It just seemed obnoxious and disrespectful.
Agreed. Is it any more respectful for fans to scream at the top of their lungs, bringing attention on themselves rather than the flag and drowning out the song than kneeling?
Respect for who? I'll bet members of violent militias attempting to overthrow the government stand with their hands over their hearts.
Respect for the group at whatever event you have chosen to attend when the event has an established ritual of standing at specified moment.
Standing when a group stands as part of a worship service is disrespectful unless you share those beliefs.
Would you include standing for a national anthem in that?
If I were in Canada at a hockey game, I would stand with the crowd for "Oh Canada" at the start of the game to show respect for the custom at that event. Do you consider that to be disrespectful?
A valid argument for outlawing simulated child pornography is those who are charged with producing real child porn sometimes argue that the prosecution must prove that the content is not simulated imagery. I have a cousin who is an expert in photography. Years ago he would sometimes be an expert witness in cases against alleged child pornographers. This pre-dates digital images. Based on his expertise, he could analyze photographs and determine if they were composite photographs.
The real problem with child porn isn't with those that just look at it, it's those who make it, thus ruining some children's lives in the process.
Correct but the idea that Skeptic is talking about is when no child is actually involved in creating the pornography. Instead composite and manipulated images are used from many sources, including young adults as well as children . No real child is recognizable nor endured any sort of process that would have had a goal of producing porn. With AI it is even easier to do this and in no way involves a real child in the process. So the harm created by the process can’t be a basis for the law against it.
I am fine allowing the legal right to make composite pictures or computer animation of child porn --- in theory. I am not okay with actual child porn. The case against the former is provides a legal defense to those who produce real child porn. This is not a theoretical argument. I am told this actually happens. So of simulated child porn is also a crime, then it becomes a less attractive legal defense.
Nooooo - not NERDETTE? I love Nerdette, have Nerdette swag even. My niece and my non-binary child love their Nerdette swag too.
Shameful, deeply disappointing cuts at WBEZ/SunTimes. Thanks for your reporting on this. And thanks to current and former staff for courageously speaking out, at great professional risk.
It's never new that the boss comes in, fires people & raises his pay, to buy more booze, to assuage his conscience at firing those people.
I was very surprised to learn today that the "AI" magic of shopping at Amazon Fresh groceries stores isn't really AI at all - it's thousands of Indian workers watching you on the gazillion cameras to keep track of what you put in your cart so you can "check out" by just leaving the store. Guess AI alone wasn't cutting it. Now they are reportedly going to carts that scan what you put in them and you'll have to check out with a human cashier instead of just walking out with your acquisitions. As much as I thought the supposed-AI watching me shop was creepy, I'm a little disappointed it was really humans in India watching me shop.
AI = Actual Indians?
LOL!
Chicago baseball certainly does reflect national identity, what with the whole North versus South thing.
The idea of AI created child porn was a repeated topic of Socratic discussion more than 40 years ago. Well obviously not called AI but the idea was either based on realistic animation or using some sort of “movie magic” that was theoretical. It was obviously a purely intellectual exercise back then and involved discussions of the First Amendment and issues of use of the sort of stats and studies discussed in your post. I guess it’s all too real now.
One problem with the news media is seeing everything through the lens of a political competition. Seeing the endangering of women’s rights in Florida as a “gift” to Biden is the kind of cynicism that adds to the cratering of regular folks’ ability to discuss issues in good faith. The “NYT Pitchbot” Twitter/X account skewers the practice: “Inflation Back Down to Pre-Pandemic Lows; Here’s Why that’s Trouble for Biden.” Old news habits die hard, but let’s keep our focus on what these laws will mean to women, not to the perceived odds of a politician’s success in the next election.
You are aware that chewing gum whilst simultaneously walking is a function that most humans are capable of, aren’t you?
About losing the reporters at the Sun Times. People complain about the mainstream media but the alternative world isn't any better. For example, I couldn't take Matt Taibbi's Covid-19 "reporting" because he refused to contact virologist Vincent Racaniello to find out the reality behind the bullshit conspiracy theories he was "reporting" and the Useful Idiots keep using saying "Russiagate" as if Trump didn't lie about his ties to Russians, his Russian deals and his contacts with those he believed to be Russian officials and thus brought Mueller's attention on himself, it wasn't a Democratic Party conspiracy.
So, what do we have here, Eric? What do you think will happen to Chicagoland news? Will it devolve into alternative conspiracistland?
I tend to think that the people who complain the most about a lack of patriotism in others are actually the least patriotic. To quote Shakespeare, they “doth protest too much.” When I pass a home that grandly displays the American flag, I tend to think whoever is living there would gladly turn this country into a dictatorship in order to “make American great again.”
Secular Pharisees.
Oh my God can QVC win an Emmy for the bologna folder? Can the actress win an Emmy? They must be elevated somehow for this master work.
Depictions of heinous crimes on video games has been allowed for decades, so has pornography, except that involving children. The only restrictions, if any, involve age of the viewer. I think the legality of AI produced child porn will end up in court at some point.
Indeed. It has been argued many times that realistic violence in movies or video games does / doesn't make it more likely that consumers of same will be more likely to imitate what they see. Presumably whichever is true there likewise is true of child pornography -- but where does the real truth lie? At least creating wholly imaginary depictions affects no actual children.
I’m a monthly NPR donator and a Sun-Times subscriber. Part of NPR’s problem is, I’d be willing to bet, the drift to identity programming. Any time I turn on the station, I think I have a very high probability of hitting a segment about <insert identity group here> as part of the programming.
I don’t mind talking or hearing about marginalized groups, but if you are going to take that slant with every segment, many people are going to tune out because “this isn’t relevant to me”. And people who tune out aren’t going to be donors so you better make sure the ones who stay are enough to support your station. Sometimes I’d like to hear a restaurant review that did not lead with the owner’s orientation, immigration status, or marginalization statistics. Sometimes I’d just like to hear the answer to the question, “how’s the food?”
I don’t disagree with your assessment of why people may be tuning out, but then you basically identify yourself as one of those people. So I ask you, why DON’T you want to know about those identities and stories of how that may shape the food and experience? Yelp and other services have plenty of non-identity info about the food for us.
Which is more important to the story, the fact that someone has opened a restaurant that serves good food or the chef’s sexual orientation? NPR seems to have chosen the latter every time and then beats you over the head with it. Not just restaurants, I’m generalizing heavily, but the focus is on “the first <insert string of identity modifiers here> to do <insert whatever you are trying to prove or highlight>”.
The accomplishment gets lost in their identity instead of becoming just an important part of their background.
If I were king: This person is fantastic at X. Here’s what they do and the way in which it’s fantastic. Person got interested in doing X in part because of <background>.
Instead it’s Person is a <whatever> followed by a string of identity stuff. And then, oh yeah, they do X well too.
I find most of NPR’s daytime stuff to just be unlistenable and off-putting. I find other stuff that I do like on non-weekday afternoons.
Craig says it well. I listen to WBEZ in the car, if I stop by for a listen, sometimes it's really good and I stay with it, other times really depressing, I move to another station. They are losing their listeners, and therefore their donors. They have a problem. They need to figure it out and fix it. And giving a raise to a CEO who is leaving? You gotta be kiddin' me? How stupid.
Thank you for the Fix the News link. We should be more aware of the many good things going on. Oddly, we don't seem to want to hear it. The next step in such an initiative, however, might be to attempt to weave such stories into larger narratives that, while not sanguine, are not so downbeat on the big picture. As it stands, many concerned about climate change, for example, could shrug off all the good news under the "Planet" tab as "meh, not enough."
"How popular is women’s college basketball right now? At this writing (early Thursday morning) the cheapest ticket for this weekend’s Women’s Final Four in Cleveland is $707. For the Men’s Final Four in Glendale, Arizona, the cheapest ticket is $518."
Well... the women's games will be in a 19,000-seat arena. The men are playing in a stadium with 60,000-plus seats.