Skip to main content

"The Media has a big responsibility to life and safety in our Country. Fake News has contributed greatly to the anger and rage that has built up over many years."

"News coverage has got to start being fair, balanced and unbiased, or these terrible problems will only get worse!"

Tweets Donald Trump this morning.

He also has this:
We cannot let those killed in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, die in vain. Likewise for those so seriously wounded. We can never forget them, and those many who came before them. Republicans and Democrats must come together and get strong background checks, perhaps marrying this legislation with desperately needed immigration reform. We must have something good, if not GREAT, come out of these two tragic events!
I'm reading his tweets this morning because I see the NYT has a headline "Trump Condemns White Supremacy but Doesn’t Propose Gun Laws After Shootings." I guess he condemned white supremacy somewhere other than on Twitter. Let me read this NYT thing:
“In one voice our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy,” Mr. Trump said....

He warned of “the perils of the internet and social media” with no acknowledgment of his use of those platforms to promote his brand of divisive politics.

It remained unclear whether Mr. Trump’s 10-minute remarks....
Let's find the video. Here:



ADDED: Trump's main proposal is to develop methods of detecting mass murderers before they act. The idea is then to prevent them from buying guns and to provide mental health treatment and, in some cases, involuntary confinement.

ALSO: Trump read the speech stiffly and with some awkwardness. I think that's his style when he needs to be serious, but to some it may sound as though he's feeling forced. He seemed short of breath, as if he was tired, but he didn't look tired. There was a lot of talk about the need for bipartisanship, but I don't have any hope that the mass killings of the past weekend will lead to any new bipartisanship.

On the subject of white supremacy, mental illness, and detecting murder before it happens, I wonder if there is any expert opinion about where the white supremacy arises in the process. Do mentally ill people get drawn into the delusions and distortions of white supremacy as they move forward toward acting out murderously or is the white supremacy there at the outset, drawing the future murderer into insanity? Are there white supremacists in the United States who are not mentally ill? I guess that depends in part on how you define white supremacy. But if you use a narrow definition... aren't they all mentally ill? Is it perhaps a way for the mentally ill to exacerbate existing illness and feel reinforced and dedicated and to lose track of right and wrong?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

"The theory that we are living in a computer simulation may sound bizarre, but it has found adherents."

"The technology entrepreneur Elon Musk has said that the odds that we are not simulated are 'one in billions.' Professor Smoot estimates that the ratio of simulated to real people might be as high as 10¹² to 1.... [I]f our universe has been created by an advanced civilization for research purposes, then it is reasonable to assume that it is crucial to the researchers that we don’t find out that we’re in a simulation. If we were to prove that we live inside a simulation, this could cause our creators to terminate the simulation — to destroy our world. Of course, the proposed experiments may not detect anything that suggests we live in a computer simulation. In that case, the results will prove nothing. This is my point: The results of the proposed experiments will be interesting only when they are dangerous." From "Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Let’s Not Find Out/Experimental findings will be either boring or extremely dangerous" by philosophy pro...

"It's just a type of berry from Japan, unfortunately. Very cool though!"

Went to a small fruit farm were they grew strawberries crossed with raspberries. from r/pics Rubus illecebrosus — "a red-fruited species of Rubus that originally came from Japan (where is it called バライチゴ, roseberry), but is also very popular in some European countries like Lithuania. Common names include balloon berry and strawberry raspberry."

"Are You Rich? This Income- Rank Quiz Might Change How You See Yourself."

This is a little 5-question quiz in the NYT. One of the questions is "In your view, being 'rich' means having an income in the ..." — with various choices: "top 25%, top 20%, top 15%, top 10%, top 5%, top 1%." So the answer you get to "Are you rich?" is based on your own definition of who is rich. I only need to make $153,000 to be in the top 5% where I live and only $175,000 to be in the top 5% in the NYC metropolitan area. Who thinks they're rich if they make $175,000 in NYC? Can you even afford a 1-bedroom apartment?! From the article accompanying the quiz: The researchers found that a “vast majority” of their respondents believed they were poorer, relative to others, than they actually were. The people who thought they were right in the middle of the income distribution – perfectly middle class, you might say — were, on average, closer to the 75th percentile. And as a group, respondents whose incomes actually resembled the true median thou...