media
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Thoughlets. LXX. Trust me, I’m Rational.
…Maintaining an appearance of rationality is crucial to one’s reputation, i.e. the credibility one requires to be a trusted source of information among her peers, e.g. colleagues, co-workers, hiring committees.[1] [1] This charade is akin to inflating one’s resume to outperform equally qualified applicants for a job position, which, unless stretched beyond all plausibility, is not Continue reading
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Thoughtlets. xxxvi. (Repost; January 27,2021)
Tacitus, an Roman historian, writes these words in the Annals sometime around 117 CE: “I wanted to dispel the fictions of hearsay, and to ask people into whose hands my book may come not to prefer widely circulated and eagerly accepted fantasies over truth uncorrupted by sensationalism.” Tacitus. The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Continue reading
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Thoughtlets.XLVII.
Just when news anchors’ hemorrhoid-inducing overuse of mindless phrases such as walk it back and double down starts to wane, another wave of brain-deadening soundbites inevitably waxes. And at its crest is the phrase bad actors. This phrase doesn’t refer to thespian hacks. Rather bad actors refers to those people the anchor doesn’t like and Continue reading
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Thoughtlets. XLV. Theodicy revisited.
News media characteristically brings us one story after another about the kinds of things humans to do each other which are broadly characterized as ‘evil.’ And these stories tend to generate accusations of ‘evil-doers’ which are then dispatched with the speed and clamour of emergency vehicles headed to a five alarm fire. I’m not here Continue reading
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Thoughtlets . xxxviii.
Lately I’ve been troubled by laughing-at-stupid-people infotainment, especially in partisan news media, and on both sides of the political spectrum. I’d like to watch a broadcast that doesn’t devolve into some version of nanny-nanny-poo-poo-you-have-stinky-pants. That the frowning anchor wears a suit and tie, or a presentable dress, makes the content no less childish and vitriolic. But Continue reading
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