IT IS A SIGN
Rain is predicted for noon in DC on Inauguration day, but no rain for the protest march the next day. The number of people who say they are coming on the 21st is up to 194,000, and twice as many bus permits have been issued for that event as have been issued for the Inauguration itself. Up to 700,000 people are expected at "sister marches" around the country, and there will be 55 marches overseas. Donald Trump may turn out to be the best mobilizer of the Left ever.
Totally off topic: I've been reading Monty Newborn's book, Deep Blue: An Artificial Milestone, about the computer defeating Kasparov. Your son appears here and there.
ReplyDeleteI will have to take a look.
ReplyDeleteAlso off topic, but am I the only one increasingly angry with US journalists and news media over their (lack of) coverage of negative Trump stories (e.g. conflicts of interest upon winning)?
ReplyDeleteOver the past month and and a half I can't count how many stories I've heard or read that I thought to myself "For fuck's sake, why was this not reported on BEFORE the election?" (On the other hand, I also still feel that what WAS covered of Trump ought to have been bad enough to dissuade people from voting for him, so who knows if coverage of such stories would have made a difference; and as Mencken said, "No one in this world, so far as I know ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."
Dude Diogenes,
ReplyDeleteThe Guardian, which as you know, is based in the U.K., has been fairly good on covering the sins of Trump. Do you really want to hear more about them?
s. wallerstein, I only read the Guardian spottily (especially since I quit social media, except for this blog) so I can't speak to them specifically.
ReplyDeleteI just feel that the media coverage I came across pre-election didn't cover Trump's (then potential) conflicts of interests nearly as much (if at all) as they have post-election - but those then potential-conflicts of interest might have concerned/influenced voters. (Of course, we can never know for sure.)
I'm especially annoyed, however, with my State's Public Radio (Minnesota Public Radio), which may have mentioned tax returns pre-election, but now coverage of conflicts of interest more generally is almost ferocious (by public radio standards). Where was that ferocity before?! I think the same is probably true of NPR (National Public Radio) as well, and I feel like it's also accurate about the WaPo as well.
Dudes Diogenes,
ReplyDeleteThere seems to a tendency in the establishment media to assume that important people and that includes all politicians from major parties are equally worthy, because they are equally important. That rule only functions with important people from the society in question, and thus, the gloves are off in the U.S. media for Putin or Berlusconi or President Maduro of Venezuela.
It takes a lot of evidence of wrong-doing for the establishment to attack a major political figure and it takes a long time for that evidence to sink into the minds of the establishment media.
Class solidarity is almost always stronger among the elite than among the peasants, it seems.
That is the case in the Chilean establishment media as well as the U.S. establishment media.