More about the Crazy Fringes

Posted on Sunday 26 February 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

The crazy fringes being Fox News, Fox & Friends, Arizona Republicans, and conservatives who believe in witches and demons. With a palette cleansing quote from Carl Sagan.

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I do not think this study means what this writer thinks it means

Posted on Saturday 25 February 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

(Added Sunday: another take on the same study from a writer at Vox.)

NYT, Bret Stephens, 21 Feb 2023: The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?

A conservative columnist for the NY Times claims a meta-study on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illness has concluded that they didn’t work.

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Two Philosophical Bits

Posted on Friday 24 February 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Are you the same person you were last week? How long should you shop?

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Arguing to Win, Not to Be Right

Posted on Thursday 23 February 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Two books about how to argue; more on the “national divorce”; and items about the right-wing battle for the next century, train deregulation, a new target list of enemies, and buying your way onto bestseller lists.

Here’s a review in today’s NYT of two books about arguing.

NYT, Jennifer Szalai, 22 Feb 2023: Fight or Make Nice? Two Books Consider How to Listen and Be Heard., subtitled “‘Win Every Argument,’ by Mehdi Hasan, and ‘Say the Right Thing,’ by Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, offer different approaches to talking to others.

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Red and Blue and Diversity

Posted on Wednesday 22 February 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

About a fringe notion to split the US into separate nations of red and blue states; and about the range of human nature and the value of diversity.

Haven’t run this item yet; it seemed so fringe, a couple days ago. But reactions are still echoing, two days later.

Via, Fox News 20 Feb 2023: “Rep. Taylor Greene suggests ‘national divorce’ on Presidents Day, subtitled “Georgia congresswoman calls to ‘separate by red states and blue states'”

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The Gaps Between Beliefs and Reality

Posted on Tuesday 21 February 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Items today about how Americans treat Presidents’ Day and other holidays; about more Republicans lying on their resumes; why Fox News viewers don’t care the network is lying to them; and why Putin’s fabulations about his war in Ukraine appeal to conservatives’ own fabulations. And how reality might eventually come crashing down.

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The Western Tradition

Posted on Monday 20 February 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Two related items today. Florida’s idea of a Christian, Western tradition that students should be tested to, instead of SAT; and a professor’s debunking of a “grand narrative of Western Civilization”, via a book review at PW.

Hemant Mehta, Friendly Atheist, 20 Feb 2023: Florida’s “Christian” alternative to the SAT won’t help students, subtitled “The Classic Learning Test offers no real value to students”

This is his take on an item I mentioned yesterday, how Florida wants to replace the SAT (apparently now referred to simply as “SAT” without the ‘the’) with tests about Christianity and the “western tradition.”
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Political News, Ratings Forward

Posted on Sunday 19 February 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

How Fox News prioritizes ratings above truth or principles of journalism; How Florida is seeking to replace SAT with “Christian” testing; How and why to shame Republican judges; How the far-right is ascendant on college campuses.

NY Times, Michelle Goldberg, 17 Feb 2023: What Fox News Says When You’re Not Listening

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Brockman, This Explains Everything, 1

Posted on Saturday 18 February 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Key topics so far: Evolution by means of natural selection. How life is a digital code. Reflective equilibrium and the evolution of non-objective morality. How evolution explains the conflicts in human social life. And how levels of such “variation-selection processes” are everywhere.

Subtitled “Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works”
Harper Perennial, 2013, xx + 411pp, including 9-page index.

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Stickiness of Nonbelief

Posted on Friday 17 February 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

How nonbelief is stickier than belief. Plus: Fox News lied! Who would have thought? And: how UFOs and CRT go together; the number of respectable Republicans.

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OnlySky, Andrew Fiala, 15 Feb 2023: What the stickiness of nonbelief says about the ‘religious instinct’, subtitled “As nonbelief is normalized, the assumption that human beings have a natural religious instinct no longer makes sense.”

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