{"id":26184,"date":"2025-11-07T17:23:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T01:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=26184"},"modified":"2025-11-10T11:42:50","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T19:42:50","slug":"the-absence-of-empathy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/11\/07\/the-absence-of-empathy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Absence of Empathy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m still working this past week on summarizing and assessing the 2006 Jonathan Haidt book THE HAPPINESS HYPOTHESIS. I can&#8217;t quite wrap it up today, or soon, because we&#8217;re doing a quick trip down and back to LA tomorrow and Sunday, and probably won&#8217;t do any posts over the weekend. For now, I&#8217;ll note the usual political items.<\/p>\n<p>The story all over the news yesterday and today:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.newrepublic.com\/20b7a8dab76ce37e28e941a353935f3cc0cce977.jpeg?auto=format&amp;fit=crop&amp;crop=faces&amp;ar=3%3A2&amp;ixlib=react-9.10.0&amp;q=65&amp;w=768&amp;dpr=1\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The New Republic, 6 Nov 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/post\/202825\/donald-trump-novo-nordisk-executive-collapses-drugs\">Trump Just Stands There After Man Collapses During Press Conference<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;One of the guests at Donald Trump\u2019s press conference on weight loss drugs passed out during the event.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A man appeared to collapse Thursday during a press conference to debut a deal to make those drugs more affordable, while President Donald Trump simply looked on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As if annoyed that his press conference had been interrupted. Concern? Of course not; that would betray compassion. Trump (and MAGA) is not compassionate, or empathetic.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Briefly noted items:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Media Matters, 6 Nov 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediamatters.org\/fox-news\/fox-news-demanded-presidents-know-whom-they-pardoned-then-trump-said-he-didnt-know-crypto\">Fox News demanded that presidents know whom they pardoned. Then Trump said he didn\u2019t know the crypto tycoon he pardoned.<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Fox News has spent 1 hour and 23 minutes discussing Biden\u2019s use of the autopen while airing only 3 minutes of coverage on Trump&#8217;s pardon of founder of Binance. Trump claimed on 60 Minutes that he knew &#8216;nothing about&#8217; the pardon.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Heather Cox Richardson<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/heathercoxrichardson.substack.com\/p\/november-3-2025\">covered this too<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>More nonsensical claims from the current administration:\n<ul>\n<li><strong>JMG, 7 Nov 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2025\/11\/oz-every-american-will-lose-400-lbs-by-midterms\/\">Oz: Every American Will Lose 400 Pounds By Midterms<\/a> &#8212; &#8212; Dr. Mehmet Oz predicted that &#8220;Americans will lose 135 billion pounds by the midterms.&#8221; The current US population is 342 million. Do the arithmetic.<\/li>\n<li><strong>JMG, 7 Nov 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2025\/11\/cnn-busts-trump-on-walmarts-thanksgiving-deal\/\">CNN Busts Trump On Walmart\u2019s Thanksgiving Deal<\/a> &#8212; &#8212; Trump claims that Walmart&#8217;s Thanksgiving meal baskets are cheaper this year than last year, ignoring the fact that this year&#8217;s basket are significantly smaller.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>JMG, 7 Nov 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2025\/11\/trump-pardons-corrupt-ex-tennessee-gop-speaker\/\">Trump Pardons Corrupt Ex-Tennessee GOP Speaker<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Right Wing Watch, Kyle Mantyla, 6 Nov 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.peoplefor.org\/rightwingwatch\/josh-bernstein-urges-ice-become-gestapo-good-cause\">Josh Bernstein Urges ICE To &#8216;Become The Gestapo, But For A Good Cause&#8217;<\/a> &#8212; &#8212; Does this need to be said? They think they are the good people. History will regard them as evil.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m still working this past week on summarizing and assessing the 2006 Jonathan Haidt book THE HAPPINESS HYPOTHESIS. I can&#8217;t quite wrap it up today, or soon, because we&#8217;re doing a quick trip down and back to LA tomorrow and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/11\/07\/the-absence-of-empathy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-morality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26184"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26199,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26184\/revisions\/26199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}