BC CULTURE
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

If a critical mass of people on twitter generate enough Section 230 hot takes, all that energy fuses to create renewed interest in the #FairnessDoctrine.

I wrote a book on the FD so let me walk you through why reviving it would be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea.

 First, the Fairness Doctrine was responsible for the most successful episode of government censorship of the past half century. While the Fairness Doctrine was technically created to encourage fair and balanced coverage of “controversial issues of public importance"...
...in the 1960s the Kennedy administration weaponized it to punish conservative radio critics. You see, fairness is in the eye of the beholder--which is the FCC--and the person who appoints the commissioners--the president--gets a say in what looks fair or foul.
(JFK also launched targeted IRS audits of his right-wing radio antagonists; the power to tax is the power to destroy, after all.) Stations responded to the secretly government-organized pressure by dropping conservative broadcasters in order to avoid Fairness Doctrine complaints.
And lest you think this Fairness Doctrine stuff is just conservative bellyaching, bear in mind that the Nixon administration used the threat of Fairness Doctrine enforcement to help bring television network heads to heel.
For example, Nixon sent Chuck Colson over to CBS to complain about their coverage of the Vietnam War; the implied threat of Fairness Doctrine enforcement resulted in the executives being “accommodating, cordial, and almost apologetic.”
Indeed, it’s notable that tv and radio networks—which don’t have the same free speech protections as print media—were submissive, leaving it to the Washington Post to do the crucial journalism that resulted in exposing the Watergate scandal.
Nixon even tried to get the WaPo’s owner, Katharine Graham, to back off by the FCC forcing her to divest of a very lucrative television station. The Fairness Doctrine (& other public interest regulations) were invaluable & bipartisan tools for suppressing political dissent.
But this wasn’t a novel habit in the 60s/70s. Indeed, as far back as the 1930s, at the birth of the regulated era of the radio industry, the temptation to mess with political opponents via media regulation was just as intense.
For instance, FDR didn’t like it when conservative newspaper owners criticized the New Deal, and they were expanding into radio station ownership. So FDR “put the blowtorch” on his FCC chairman to use various proposed regulations to punish anti-New Dealers.
In short, the history of the Fairness Doctrine shows that it ought to be more properly labeled the Un-Fairness Doctrine. It is a nearly unbroken succession of government censorship, partisan regulatory capture, and political ratfuckery.
Applying these kinds of regulations to the internet would be a disaster and result in a chilling effect on free speech, the routinization of partisan gamesmanship in internet regulation, and, I suppose, a new class of wealthy communications lawyers.
On another occasion, I’ll flesh out the implications for today in greater detail. But If you’re interested in reading more about the history of the Fairness Doctrine, here’s a link to my book.

https://t.co/Y0UNuumUMg
If you want the short, free version, here’s a link to a piece I wrote for the Cato Institute. https://t.co/TrF3woOapP
And here’s a paper I wrote with @JohnSamplesCato for @knightcolumbia that touches in greater length on the FDR and Nixon episodes.

https://t.co/3ppLTMrYjH

More from Paul Matzko

Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
Having spent 2020 telling covid denalists that they were overly optimistic about the pandemic, I now look forward to spending 2021 telling covid maximalists that they are overly pessimistic about the end of the pandemic.

Telling a denialist in May that we shouldn't open bars back up = telling a maximalist in February that we should open schools back up.

Look, folks, the math is straightforward. ~13% of Americans have been vaccinated as of this

And the 7 day average continues to rise; we're approach 2 million vaccine doses per day. Meaning that we'll double that ~13% much faster than the two months it took us to get there.


So it's entirely reasonable that absent any other intervention, we should expect to hit ~30% vaccinated by the end of March.
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Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
Based on the latest info I could find, here's why what happened on Jan. 6th was worse than we thought.

It was coordinated. This was not merely a crowd of protestors accidentally incited to storm the Capitol by the intemperance of the President & other speakers at the rally.

Security experts are combing through the online chatter leading up to the rally and have found extremist groups planning violence. People came w/ malice aforethought, thus armored insurrectionists pushing to the front of the crowd, pipe bombs, & so

But it gets worse. The feds seem to be investigating several Republican members of Congress for connections to the organizers of the rally. (The FBI has warned lawmakers in closed door hearings that they may be shocked with what comes out.)

Indeed, at least one member of Congress, Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) alleges that these GOP members gave some of the insurrectionists tours of the Capitol building on January 5th, the day before.

The implication is that these GOP congressmen used the walkthroughs to familiarize the insurrectionists with the building layout so that they could push into the building and confront their colleagues who were opposed to overturning the electoral ballot count.
GOVERNMENT
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Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
The New York Times article about SlateStarCodex is finally out and it is...bad. There's a lot I could parse, but let me just walk you through one paragraph that is so misleading as to be

Take the first sentence of this paragraph. Now, technically the clause--"who proposed a link between race and IQ"--could simply modify "Murray" and have nothing to do w/ SSC.


But 99% of readers are going to assume that the clause actually defines SSC's alignment with Murray. In other words, the author is strongly implying that SSC shares Murray's racist beliefs.

And that would be big(!)...if it were at all true. It is not. Indeed, if you go to the hyperlink, you'll find that SSC's purported "alignment" has nothing to do with Murray's "Bell Curve."

What SSC & Murray agree about is that poverty is partly hereditable and thus very sticky, so much so that the proposition job retraining programs will meaningfully address mass economic disruption is a pie-in-the-sky fantasy.
TECH
Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
I wrote a book about the Fairness Doctrine and how it was responsible for one of the worst episodes of government censorship in US history.

So I am somewhat alarmed at the calls percolating on Twitter for a new, internet Fairness Doctrine. This is a thread about why that is.

Let's start with what most people think when they hear "Fairness Doctrine." They imagine a time at an indeterminate point in the past when mass media was reasonable, balanced, equitable, and fair. It was a veritable golden age of mass media and the Fairness Doctrine was to thank.

Back then, radio & tv stations couldn't just air their opinions, spreading unchecked misinformation. No, they had to let the other side of any given issue have a say, giving the good guys a chance to check the bad guys when they told bald lies.


However, the problem with this narrative is that it is almost entirely a myth. In actuality, the Fairness Doctrine was a tool wielded by political interests in order to suppress dissident speech & prevent activists (from both Left & Right) from exposing the lies of the powerful.

But telling that story requires going back before the first major test of the Fairness Doctrine in 1963, before the rules were created in 1949, all the way back to the first meaningful attempt at federal regulation of radio in 1927.
CULTURE
Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
This is a great question from @HeerJeet and it has very old roots. In my book, I discuss a similar period of anxiety in the 1960s about the possibility of Air Force officers being involved in a coup. Thread.


Given the size of the US military in WW2, afterwards there was a spike in concern that some of these demilitarized veterans would be amenable to radicalization and supportive of insurrection. These fears heightened after the coups in France/Algiers in 1958 and 1961.

This was the peak era of the Cold War, so anti-communist anxiety was layered over top. The Right feared that communist infiltrators in the government would subvert the Republic. The Left feared that anti-communist military officers would launch a preemptive, paranoid coup.

Note as well that the foundation for these fears was rooted in a novel concept that journalist Edward Hunter had recently coined, "brainwashing." The idea was that US POWs held by North Korea had been brainwashed into accepting communism & might act as a fifth column back home.

You can see that particular paranoia in cultural artifacts from the time like "The Manchurian Candidate," novel in 1959 and the hit 1962 movie starring Frank Sinatra and the incomparable Angela Lansbury. Those sneaky commies nearly infiltrated the Oval Office itself, oh no!!
GOVERNMENT

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A thread of business related TV series..... Which is your favorite?

1. Billions vs Suits


2. Better call saul vs Ozark


3. Madmen vs The profit


4. Start up vs shark tank


5. Ballers vs Dirty Money
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At it's #NewYearsEve we're going to end the year by playing the Agatha Christie game!

I'll show you the book cover artwork by Tom Adams, and you guess the Fontana edition Agatha Christie novel it's from.

Here's your first one...


A little bit trickier for question 2...


A lot trickier for number 3, but the clues are there if you know your Christie...


And here's your last Agatha Christie cover for this round - quite a famous one.

I'll post the answers in a bit, so get your guesses in now please!


Here are the answers to round 1 of the Agatha Christie game. I hope you got a few right, as round 2 will exercise your little grey cells a little bit more...
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one of the things i like about Batman is that it's fundamentally about being orphaned, and being an orphan — how this guy stays tethered to the world in his own weird, abstract, extrajudicial way when he feels that his link to it has been violently severed

Batman does this by permanently recapitulating his own trauma: solving crimes for other people, protecting them. But that's actually just the beginning; he also recapitulates his own experience of orphanness by essentially raising several orphans

Dick is an orphan in the traditional sense: dead parents. Batman sees it happen. Jason, less so: missing dad, known mom who eventually dies. Tim, even less so: parents are around a while, and involved, before both dying. Carrie, even less than that: negligent parents.

Steph: evil father, who openly works against her. And then there's Damian, whose parents are both alive and yet both have identities that totally obliterate their role as his parents. He doesn't relate to them as a mother and father; he can't, and neither can they.

In all these different cases, Batman tries all these different ways of making orphanness for them not what it was for him: Either by trying to teach them the (arguably poor) coping skills early that he learned over a very long time, or by literally legally adopting them, etc.
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Chris Pramas
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Today’s game supplement is Death in Freeport (2000) from Green Ronin Publishing. I haven’t really featured my own work on #CuratedQuarantine to date but it is relevant to the d20 story.


D&D 3E, which I talked about yesterday, was released with two attached licenses: the Open Game License and the d20 System Trademark License. #CuratedQuarantine

The basic idea was to give other publishers a legal way to release D&D compatible material and to be able to indicate that with a special d20 System logo. This would eliminate a lot of legal headaches that TSR and then WotC had to deal with. #CuratedQuarantine

It was also hoped that certain types of support books that WotC had difficulty selling in large numbers—short adventures in particular—could be taken up by third party companies. I remember the work meeting where all this was pitched to the staff. #CuratedQuarantine

WotC was too big to be agile, it was argued, so let other companies provide support material. The more people kept playing D&D, the more WotC would benefit. #CuratedQuarantine
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Dear hearts, some terrific news that I can now share❗️I got a book deal❗️YAS! I am overjoyed that my next book, ABUNDANT BLACK JOY: THE LIFE AND WORK OF PATRICK KELLY, will be published by @AmistadBooks @HarperCollins in Fall 2023! 💜💜💜💜❤️❤️❤️🎊🎉😍🥰🙏🏿✊🏿


There’s much more work to do, but those who know me know that I’m a gratitude girl, so right now I want to pause and sit fully in this moment and just be grateful and express that gratitude.

I’m so grateful to my agent, Tanya McKinnon, & Carol Taylor, editorial director at @McKinnonLit ,for their wisdom, kindness, & artful guidance in process, but also in the ways they’ve inspired me to be open to new ways to think about my work as a scholar, writer, & creative.

I’m grateful to my Soul Sister, @alexispauline, for connecting me w/Tanya. I’m grateful also for ways Alexis & @SangodareJulia, also my kindred and who I consider my pastor, have been a loving presence beside me & encourage me in this ancestrally held work. I love y’all so much.

I’m excited to work w/ my editor, the other Patri(c)k, Patrik Henry Bass. To be shepherded through process by a longtime & proven talent in publishing, and someone who knows books and fashion/beauty industries through his years as an editor at Essence, is a dream come true.
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So, first we have to talk about what stochastic terrorism actually is. Remember when there was a conspiracy that there was a pedophile ring operating out of a pizza parlour basement, and a crazed gunman showed up? It's that sort of incitement that stochastic terrorism describes.

It's the demonisation or incitement against a group of people or individuals with the intent that other, unaffiliated parties will act upon it; it's the releasing doctored footage and a shooter show up at Planned Parenthood as a direct result of what he's been led to believe.

So with that in mind, let's talk about Russia's extreme anti-LGBT laws that banned the "promotion" of LGBT lifestyles to children. A move that specifically marked LGBT people as a threat to children, and resulted in neo-nazis meting out vigilante "justice" against gay men.


Groups such as this would lure unsuspecting gay men via dating sites, and brutalise and humiliate them on camera. They did so under the guise of combating child abusers, one group calling themselves "Occupy
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THREAD: Meditations on marriage metaphors in Ruth

The book of Ruth is, of course, a story about a beautiful marriage. But even before the courtship and the wedding and the important genealogy at the end, we find interesting language that is strikingly reminiscent of Genesis 2:24


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'Therefore a man shall leave [יַֽעֲזָב] his father and his mother and hold fast [וְדָבַ֣ק] to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.'

The verb עזב can be quite strong in force. For example, Joseph leaves behind [וַיַּעֲזֹ֤ב] his garment as he flees from Pharaoh's wife's sexual advances. Countless times, Israel is depicted abandoning the LORD, for example in Judg 2:12 [וַיַּעַזְב֞וּ], and going after other gods.

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Something very similar to this takes places in Ruth's life.
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Velimalai Kumaraswamy Temple is a Murugan temple located in Kanyakumari District of Tamilnadu.

Muruga faces east and is said to be facing Sthanumalayan (Paramashiva) of Suchindram. Muruga is of


eight feet vigraham and Valli thayar is six feet tall. Eventhough Thiruthani is believed to be the place where Subrahmanya married Valli, it is also believed that Valli’s thayar's marriage took place with Murugan here.

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Wedding of Valli and Murugan is celebrated here in the Tamil month of Panguni (March-April).

Om Muruga
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A thread of images from a Japanese illustrated history of America from 1861.

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Here is Christopher Columbus (seated at center) reporting his discovery of America to Queen Isabella of Spain.

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“We don’t negotiate salaries” is a negotiation tactic.

Always. No, your company is not an exception.

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Listen to Aditya


And by the way, you should never be worried that an offer would be withdrawn if you politely negotiate.

I have seen this happen *extremely* rarely, mostly to women, and anyway is a giant red flag. It suggests you probably didn’t want to work there.

You wish there was no negotiating so it would all be more fair? I feel you, but it’s not happening.

Instead, negotiate hard, use your privilege, and then go and share numbers with your underrepresented and underpaid colleagues. […]
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