BC TRUMP
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

Oh, my. Former FT Editor @lionelbarber defends bothsideism, impartiality, objectivity and other recent journalistic tradition.

 In it, @lionelbarber laments the loss of trust in Walter Cronkite; "newspaper of record." That was trust imagined by the institution & limited to white privilege & power. Now, on the net, we hear people never included in the institution, who never trusted it. See: #BLM, #metoo
Barber quotes @WesleyLowery, which is good, but misses his point: that these institutional notions of objectivity, impartiality, trust were fictions those in power told themselves because they had the power to do so. It was journalism's fatal tautology. 3/
The bothsideism Barber defends was an invention, too, aimed at securing power journalism's hold on its claims of objectivity, &c. Of course, I advocate completeness, fairness, accuracy, openness. But then I advocate judgment. 4/
One irony of the age is that journalists are demanding that platforms make judgments that journalists themselves--like Barber--refuse to make. That is not onesideism. It is a sin of journalistic omission. What do I mean by that? 5/
Journalists were afraid to judge Trump's sanity, his lying, his criminality, his competence, his character. Bothsideism & objectivity led to hiring Hugh Hewitt or having Kellyanne booked on air. 6/
Journalists were and are also afraid of judging the systemic racism and inequity in society's other institutions. How, after COVID, George Floyd, Trum, & 2020 can that continue? To not report on & call out these ills is journalistic malpractice. 7/
To seek out the "other side" regarding racism, inequity, and crime--hallmarks of Trump's reign--is to amplify these ills, to normalize them. Thus, The Times tells us a Nazi wears khakis & goes to Panera just like real people. That, too, is journalistic malpractice. 8/
Says Barber: "But reporting—reflecting what other people think or say—does not amount to an endorsement of a particular point of view." If Zuckerberg or @jack said that, media would draw and quarter them. Journalism? Oh, that's our job. 9/
Reflecting "what other people think or say" without necessary context--judgment--merely amplifies their thoughts, regularizing lies & racism. Note that I want the same thing from both journalists & platforms: judgment. Both are allergic to it, but one demands it of the other. 10/
Barber is a damned good editor, wicked smart, impeccably informed. Same for his old paper. But we need to discuss journalism's shibboleths and failures in the same breath without relying on the kinds of obvious tactics he lists. 11/
This old journalism failed America and Britain. The evidence: Liars & their lies took over both nations. Now is the time for us in journalism to examine that failure with brutal honesty and to imagine a new journalism that will not fail our societies again. We must learn. 12/
So consider all this another side to Barber's ringing of the bells in journalism's church tower. Consider it my bothsideism. 13/
This is where the journalists says: I am not like you. I saw that the president of the United States was mad, bad, and dangerous. But my professional speciality is in muting that judgment for the sake of a fair hearing -- of madness, badness, and danger. 14/
To be clear, I, too, am asking for reporting to back up those judgments. I have been dying for journalists to talk with psychiatrists to diagnose Trump's madness but our field ignored it instead. Why? Fairness? Balance? This, I believe, as our greatest malpractice. 15/
Here, Barber accuses journalists who enter into dialog with the public, now possible on social media, of seeking fame. Odd thing for famous editors to say. To "muddle personal views" could also be called openness and transparency, which some also call journalistic virtues. 16/
It's not just the diversity in our newsrooms. It is the quality of our coverage, the fact that we did not report what happened to Black Americans every day until #LivingWhileBlack showed us and did not report on murderous inequity in health care until COVID showed us. /17
Confessing our chronic sin regarding diversity in newsrooms is only a first, tiny step. Fixing it is a next step. Acknowledging the resulting failures in journalistic coverage is the next big step necessary before fixing that. /18
And don't get me started on viewing treatment of James Bennet and Bari Weis as "intolerance and censorship" and "activist journalism [that] risks polarizing people further" or this thread will never end. /19
But now I'm going to leave you to write a piece of a chapter about John Wilkes, a journalist who would make modern editors' blood curdle but whom they have to thank for so much of the freedom of the press they enjoy today. /fin /maybe
https://t.co/mqEstQbPDD

More from Trump

Akiva Cohen
Akiva Cohen
@AkivaMCohen
OK, #Squidigation fans, I think we need to talk about the new Wisconsin suit Donald Trump filed - personally - in Federal Court last night. The suit is (as usual) meritless. But it's meritless in new and disturbing ways. This thread will be


Not, I hope, Seth Abramson long. But will see.

I apologize in advance to my wife, who would very much prefer I be billing time (today's a light day, though) and to my assistant, to whom I owe some administrative stuff this will likely keep me from 😃

First, some background. Trump's suit essentially tries to Federalize the Wisconsin Supreme Court complaint his campaign filed, which we discussed here.


If you haven't already, go read that thread. I'm not going to be re-doing the same analysis, and I'm not going to be cross-linking to that discussion as we go. (Sorry, I like you guys, and I see this as public service, but there are limits)

Also, @5DollarFeminist has a good stand-alone thread analyzing the new Federal complaint - it's worth reading as well, though some of the analysis will overlap.
TRUMP
Dan Alexander
Dan Alexander
@DanAlexander21
1/ In a Trump Tower press conference, held nine days before he took office, Donald Trump described his plan to separate his business from his presidency. Over the last few years, the key pillars of that plan have crumbled. Let’s go through them one-by-one.

2/ Promise 1 of Trump’s ethics plan: “No new foreign deals will be made whatsoever during the duration of President Trump’s presidency,” his attorney said. Trump did at least one new foreign deal anyway.

(See the promise at 31:57 of the video

3/ We know that the president did new a new foreign deal in office because he himself admitted it—on a financial disclosure report filed with federal ethics officials. You can see here that he sold $3.2M of land in the Dominican Republic on Jan. 29, 2018. https://t.co/U7r3VCiJPM


4/ Promise 2 of Trump’s ethics plan: He said he wasn’t going to talk about the business with his sons, Eric and Don Jr., who he put in charge of day-to-day operations. Doesn’t look like he kept that promise either.

(See promise 25:00 into the

5/ Contradicting his father, Eric Trump later told me that he did in fact plan to update his dad on the business. “Yeah, on the bottom line, profitability reports and stuff like that. But you know, that’s about it.”
TRUMP
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Andrew Stroehlein
Andrew Stroehlein
@astroehlein
Having a Twitter account is not a right.

If you incite violence on Twitter, the company can - and should - stop you. Good call.


Plans for “future armed protests” are spreading on Twitter and elsewhere, the company warned, “including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021”.

Yes, people who boosted their careers off of Trump - his sycophants, his kids & people like Haley, who helped him attack and undermine human rights around the world - are boo-hooing right now.

Always beware of powerful people pretending to be victims.

https://t.co/0A5D5eJFvL


But no one should react with glee. The president of the United States has been inciting violence, and Republican Party leaders, along with a willing, violent mob, have been aiding his attempts to overthrow the democratic process.

That's the real story here.

The dangers are real, and we've all seen them. That Twitter even had to contemplate banning any politician for inciting violence is awful. That they had to ban the sitting president for it is even worse.
TRUMP
Michael Beaton
Michael Beaton
@mhbx
When you boil Trump (& the consequent Trumpism) down to its essentials at root it is Lying.
Trump has made a life of being a liar.
It is "Trump Rule#1" expressed years ago "Trump is a liar. He does not simply tell lies, he IS a liar. Thus what he does is quintessentially a lie".

Now we are embroiled in an impeachment trial, the consequence of the ultimate Donald Trump lie.
That he won the election.

This is so fundamental a lie, that when pressed, as Trump has done, & married to a demagoguery, as he had utilized to enflame his believers, you get

what we got. A mob. Playing at an insurrection.

All because of a Lie. Propounded by a liar.

Here then is the first brick in the edifice that is the newly submerged & subjugated Republican Party:

Renounce the Founding Lie.

If they will not, then nothing else matters.

The impeachment trial itself is become a farce, not for the lack of an impenetrable prosecution case.
But by the dint and opportunity allowed the structure of the impeachment process, to avoid all and any facts by the simple tactic of embracing, and advancing, a lie.

The Republicans as a Party have subordinated themselves to a Lie.
The Republicans as a Party have accepted as their functional premise for governance and leadership a Liar.

Until these cornerstones of what unifies the Republicans, devoted to their party, and not the country,
TRUMP
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Stop saying "it's not censorship if it's not the government"; Trump's swamp gators find corporate refuge; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/7JMcAbaULj

#Pluralistic

1/


Monday night, I'll be helping William Gibson launch the paperback edition of his novel AGENCY at a Strand Bookstore videoconference. Come say hi!

https://t.co/k3fvBdqOK0

2/


Stop saying "it's not censorship if it's not the government": I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

https://t.co/7I0MpCTez5

3/


Trump's swamp gators find corporate refuge: The Swamped project.

https://t.co/MUJyIOr2iw

4/


#15yrsago A-Hole bill would make a secret technology into the law of the land https://t.co/57bJaM1Byr

#15yrsago Hollywood’s MP loses the election — hit the road, Sam! https://t.co/12ssYpV46B

#15yrsago How William Gibson discovered science fiction https://t.co/MYR0go37nW

5/
TRUMP

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Maurice Casey
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I am reading through reams of late-1920s communist poetry and easily my favourite title so far is: "To a Lady who Rejected a Poem about Spring as a Petit-Bourgeois Deviation"

The last lines:
"So here's my hat into the air,
Three cheers for your amazing hair,
For coal mines, and for turbines, too,
For steel, the Comintern and you!"

A not exactly graceful (though possibly satirical) title: "Lines Disassociating Myself from Yessenin and Supporting the Otherwise Unfounded Legend that I am a Foremost Proletarian Writer"

An excerpt:
"Goodbye verses of Yessenin
Goodbye literary slop-
You are not the line of Lenin
You are not the line of WAPP

Never shall I moan a
simple lyric from the heart
I'll devote my new corona
to the proletarian art"

The poet was Joseph Freeman, who published much of his revolutionary verse in the New Masses, a stylish journal of the interwar American literary Left.
CULTURE
Anu Satheesh
Anu Satheesh
@AnuSatheesh5
Thrikkangode Sree Randu Moorthy Temple
Ottappalam, Kerala. 🚩
#keralatemples

This is very unique temple as Shiva and Vishnu both are in the “linga” form in the same Garbhagriham. The Srikovil is in a circular pattern. Temple's Prathishta was done by Parasurama.


Mahadeva and Maha Vishnu in the same Srikovil is very rare Prathishta, but poojas are done separately Dhara is done to Maha Vishnu here. People suffering from “KAIVISHAM” and mental illness are fully cured on drinking a medicinal herb supplied by a nearby family here.


The root of the banyan tree around the Ayyappa Sannidhanam is said to have great powers for skin ailments.

Very ancient temple but was covered with forest for many years.
Later two persons Chakki and Chaathan, while cutting trees their axe hit on the nearby
@SriramKannan77


Vigrahams and it suddenly started bleeding. Later Devaprashnam was held and thus found out that these were murthy's of Shiva and Vishnu which was worshipped long back. And thus temple is constructed here.
Om Namah Sivaye
Om Namo Narayanaya
🕉🙏🕉
ALL
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Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
WEAPONS OF MAHADEV

Sarvaripati Shiva is one of the most fearsome manifestations of Mahadev. Assigned with destroying all of the universes at the end of time, Shiva is one of the most fearsome warriors. He is the Mrityunjaya.
Here are some weapons associated with him:


TRISHULA: the 3 pointed blades denote creation, maintenance, and destruction or the 3 Kalas – Past, Present and Future. They also represent 3 Gunas – Sattva, Rajas and Tamas).
Shiva’s trishul can only be stopped by Shiva himself.
@onlyonenetra @DetheEsha


Trishul is also said to represent Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna. These are the three basic nadis – the left, the right and the central – in the pranamaya kosha, or the energy body of the human system.
@iamkamyabuch @unever_followme


PARASHU: axe with 4 cutting edges which Shiva gave to Parashurama. In his anger, Parashurama used the parashu to get rid of the all the Earth’s tyrannical kshatriya caste twenty-one times over.
@harshasherni


CHANDRAHASA SWORD: The divine sword Chandrahasa literally means ‘the laughter of the moon’. Ravana gave this sword to Indrajit on different occasions especially to fight against Devas.
GIRISH: A special sword of Shiva with unique characteristics.
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Kevin Murphy
Kevin Murphy
@kwmurphy
Okay look - I didn’t grow up with comic books. But I read stacks of science fiction digests and I kit-bashed model cars into fantasy rods, and just tried to maintain a low profile until I could get out of the house. So you could say I’m a distant cousin of the comic book fan. /1

And sometimes one’s childhood passion follows them into adulthood, sometimes not, sometimes as an adult one finds a passion they never had as a child and embraces it. For me, that must include getting involved with a puppet show at the age of thirty. /2

So who’s to say whose passion’s legitimate and whose is bogus? Nobody. Someone might indict your passion but they have no ground to stand on and should be dismissed out of hand. /3

Maybe they’re envious that you have a passion, maybe they think that their passion is cooler than yours, or maybe they’re just insecure, who knows. Doesn’t matter. /4

What matters is that if something gives you joy, and in the process doesn’t hurt others, then by all means follow it. It’s how we explore our secret hopes, our shadow sides, our inner character. /5
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Enigma
Enigma
@ainittomai
On December 25 Mr Pool retweeted August 16 message about the Phoenix and that the worst was still on the horizon to come. 1/*


Maybe now we can assume that November 3 message meant "FUD" nor "FUN". Putting the word in capital letters seems to indicate the aspect the word fud has in our space, FUD. 2/*


Brad started it on December 22 (1/3 posts (Don't say? Sure) = 13 = Plan B). 3/*


And immediately the SEC followed dropping the bomb (1.3 billions (Don't say? Sure) = 13 = Plan B). 4/*


FUD materializes, Bitstamp is one of the first that haltes XRP trading and so on. 5/*
FOR LATER READ