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Post by brucemacneill on Aug 6, 2019 15:51:46 GMT -5
Russell doesn't "get" to define words. Russell is a fucking language professional. Russell knows how lexicography works. Russell knows what he's talking about when he's on his own fucking turf. (Russell also acknowledges and honors his blue-collar background and really enjoys punching up his posts with a bit of profanity.) Russell is very careful to point out the proper use of words and their meanings, until it suits his purpose to redefine them to his needs. |
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Post by epaul on Aug 6, 2019 15:52:53 GMT -5
Or flowers. Flowers are nice.
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Post by epaul on Aug 6, 2019 16:00:30 GMT -5
The eagerness to use this tragedy as an opportunity to dump on Trump has an oily feel to it.
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Post by Russell Letson on Aug 6, 2019 16:12:18 GMT -5
I am resisting the urge to redeploy one of the words in my post in Bruce's direction. Only my respect for the board's moderators prevents me.
Oh, shit, I give up.
Bruce, you will never be a lexicographer.
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Post by casualplayerpaul on Aug 6, 2019 16:30:58 GMT -5
The eagerness to use this tragedy as an opportunity to dump on Trump has an oily feel to it. Hmmm. The killer's manifesto explains that he wanted to kill the brown people "invading" TX. Trump’s ugly demonization of Hispanic immigrants and their supposed “invasion” has been going on for several years. Trump's soapbox is the largest available anywhere on the planet. But, yeah, connecting these two facts is oily. OK. |
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Post by dradtke on Aug 6, 2019 16:36:34 GMT -5
If you need definitions, ask Hitler. (It's page 7 you know). Incidentally, Mexican isn't a race and neither is Hispanic. They're ethnicities. I can't tell you how comforting it is that this isn't racist. I feel so much better now. Thoughts and prayers. We can't do anything about it anyway. And it's nobody I know. |
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Post by aquaduct on Aug 6, 2019 16:37:22 GMT -5
I'm getting the distinct whiff of Arch Monkey in here. Did someone forget to flush?
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Post by John B on Aug 6, 2019 19:09:26 GMT -5
FLAG ON THE PLAY!
Flagrant invocation of a past forumite who has not been heard from in 13 years (and has never been on this forum).
Repeat the down.
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Post by Cornflake on Aug 6, 2019 19:23:07 GMT -5
I'm laughing, John, but if we threw flags the internet would be awash in red fabric.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Aug 6, 2019 20:59:35 GMT -5
I don’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I can’t help thinking that anyone who doesn’t see the bigotry, racism and fear mongering in Trump, it’s because they don’t want to see it. People on this board and across the country who fall into the category may have a wide assortment of motivations and beliefs for their opinions, but it still, IMO, comes down to not wanting to see it.
A few weeks ago I was thinking about posting a poll or checklist of fictional statements that came from either a capitalist or socialist. I would ask any volunteers to identify each statement as capitalist, socialist, or neither. I would then try to connect three or more capitalist or socialist comments to a particular theoretical individual, and ask if that individual was a capitalist, socialist, or couldn’t be identified as either.
I didn’t post it for a couple reasons. For one, I don’t know how I’d set that up as a poll. The main reason I didn’t do it was because it was intended as a trap. If I didn’t do it well, people would spot it and get pissed off at me for trying to trick them. If I did do it well, people would be tricked and then get pissed off at me for having tricked them.
Still, if that description wasn’t too confusing, the real point is that we’d have no hesitation in identifying capitalist or socialist comments. (Maybe some confusion about borderline issues that have become politically weaponized, like Social Security.) And we’d have no hesitation in drawing conclusions as to whether we thought someone was capitalist or socialist, based on the given comments.
The poll didn’t have to be about capitalism and socialism. It could be about virtually any subject. The real intent was to show how sensitive “racism” has become. We’re splitting hairs so fine that nothing short of a lynching could be universally be called racist.
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Post by Cornflake on Aug 6, 2019 21:11:28 GMT -5
Jim, I'm very slow to use the word "racism" but I don't think it's because I don't want to see it. The major reasons, I think, are (a) that the word is so malleable, (b) that I can't read minds, and (c) because attaching that label to a problem seldom solves anything.
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Post by Cornflake on Aug 6, 2019 21:13:18 GMT -5
PS: Trump's comments about Baltimore, the women in Congress and so much else deserve condemnation whether they qualify as racist or not. They're petty, childish and divisive. They're not what a president of all the people should be saying.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Aug 6, 2019 21:19:37 GMT -5
Jim, I'm very slow to use the word "racism" but I don't think it's because I don't want to see it. The major reasons, I think, are (a) that the word is so malleable, (b) that I can't read minds, and (c) because attaching that label to a problem seldom solves anything. When you put it that way, I can’t disagree. |
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Post by aquaduct on Aug 6, 2019 21:45:27 GMT -5
FLAG ON THE PLAY! Flagrant invocation of a past forumite who has not been heard from in 13 years (and has never been on this forum). Repeat the down. Remember, there's a reason he wasn't invited here. |
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Aug 6, 2019 23:27:33 GMT -5
Sidhe, do you know of any thorough and credible studies of the causes of our gun violence? Anything you can refer us to? My problem with this whole issue is that I don't think you can tackle a problem without a good idea of what's causing it. Sorry for the delay. The general consensus is "people." People are the cause. Or, if one prefers, "life." Just google up some time lapse footage of plants grappling for light. But, yeah, the thing all these shooters have in common is a long back record of violent ideation. Evil has always been, and it always will be. Until primates are gone. But that’s not very helpful, true though it may be. The smaller answer is ‘media." I personally view rapid mass murder/school shooting-type events as a 1st amendment issue, more than a 2A causality. Guns have been around longer than any of us; what’s changed since the 80s is the instant level of superstardom granted these misguided losers by a 24/7 media cycle eager for scoops, clicks, and eyeballs. That’s really the only angle that has had any conclusive data from study. All the other stuff; SSRI prescriptions, violent social media posts, gun culture, fatherless homes, mental illness; the studies are non-conclusive—yielding at best a uni-directional correlation for the above mentioned factors (eg many spree shooters come from fatherless homes, but the vast majority of fatherless kids don’t even come close to being spree killers), and no hard causation. The violent video game angle has been pretty much thoroughly debunked as a causal factor. So, we are down to media, modeling, and copycatting. There, we have some data. Per NPR—hardly the first to break the story; www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/08/06/748767807/mass-shootings-can-be-contagious-research-shows"There were three high-profile shootings across the country in one week: The shooting in Gilroy, Calif., on July 28, and then the back-to-back shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, this past weekend.
That's no surprise, say scientists who study mass shootings. Research shows that these incidents usually occur in clusters and tend to be contagious. Intensive media coverage seems to drive the contagion, the researchers say."We’d be a lot better off if the media agreed to black out any mention of the shooters, and stopped making them more famous than lady gaga. |
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Post by Marshall on Aug 7, 2019 7:56:04 GMT -5
I blame Lady Gaga
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Post by Cornflake on Aug 7, 2019 8:00:53 GMT -5
Sidhe, the copycat element is certainly real. The First Amendment makes it very hard to deal with that part.
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Aug 7, 2019 9:00:38 GMT -5
It used to be that the disturbed’s route to fame was assassination directed at the famous: Lennon, Reagan. Now anyone can be a star just by picking from the usual menu of places convenient to location.
38% Schools, (Pre-school and K-12)
17% Colleges and Universities
10% Church/Religious facility
8% Restaurant/Coffee House
6% Mall/Shopping Center
4% Hospital/Nursing Home
3% Military Base/Facility, tied with Bus Stop/Train
14% Other
We are currently at 62 dead from mass shootings in 2019 so far, nationwide. That’s like a bad month for opioid ODs in just Vancouver BC alone, or gang/drug trade shootings in Chicago—which is already at 8 deaths and 56 injured from shootings so far this month (August). There are a lot bigger problems than high media-profile mass shootings in the US right now. Opioids, for sure. Incidentally, the arrest rate for homicides in Chicago is 8 percent. Not conviction; arrest rate. That’s a 92 percent chance that the people who’ve killed 8 so far this month will get away with it. Incredible, really.
Also, if you removed the 5 most violent cities—or, more specifically—the top 2 percent of US zip codes for violent crime from the stats, the US wouldn’t even be in the top 100 countries for per capita annual homicide. As is, the last year I have data for (2016) the US was #11 for homicide, including Chicago, Baltimore, etc. Syria was #1, and Iraq was #3 (go figure) but Mexico was #2. I’m told that Mexico is now in first place (for total homicide; Venezuela leads for gun violence). If stuff going on across the southern border was reported with as much energy as mass shootings in the US, our spree shootings would be pretty distant in our collective fear consciousness. JMO. We have an incredible number of shootings, because we’ve got a lot of guns, but we’ve also got a 3rd of a billion people. Adjusted for population, and minus a few neighborhoods, we are a surprisingly peaceful nation.
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Post by lar on Aug 7, 2019 9:01:14 GMT -5
Very interesting article. My take is that the similarities that the various shooters had, in terms of early childhood trauma and a recent identifiable crisis point can also be applied to many people who have not turned to mass murder. Assuming my that is true, it seems to me that there must be some difference between the shooters and non-shooters that would provide a key to possible prevention. That is my primary concern about "red flag" laws. We can't deny every person with a history of childhood trauma and violence, and a recent crisis point, the right to own a gun. Who sets the standards for something like this? Do we really trust the government or psychiatric profession enough to put them in charge of an effort that will take away constitutional rights because of the potential, but not proven, threat to the safety of others? Seems like a slippery slope. In the article the author talked about denying mass killers the validation and notoriety they seek. She mentioned content on media and social media and slowing the dissemination of violent content and manifestos. I doubt if there is much chance of that happening. The media is all over these events and the coverage is nearly wall-to-wall. The shooters lives and possible motivations are the subject of endless scrutiny, speculation, and debate. To the extent that the shooters are looking for notoriety they are getting it. Lots of it. |
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Aug 7, 2019 9:21:54 GMT -5
[That is my primary concern about "red flag" laws. We can't deny every person with a history of childhood trauma and violence, and a recent crisis point, the right to own a gun. Who sets the standards for something like this? Do we really trust the government or psychiatric profession enough to put them in charge of an effort that will take away constitutional rights because of the potential, but not proven, threat to the safety of others? Seems like a slippery slope. Brings to mind an old quote: "It's dangerous to challenge a system unless you're completely at peace with the thought that you're not going to miss it when it collapses." I’ll go read that article now... |
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