America's Appetite for Fake News

Soldiers from the 42nd Infantry Division, several of whom read newspapers, stand aboard the U.S. troop transport USS President Lincoln in October 1917. US NAVY/INTERIM ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES


Do Americans even want the news media to tell them the truth? After reading journalist and historian Andie Tucher’s important new history of fakery in U.S. journalism, I’m not so sure.

From the very first American newspaper in 1690, sham journalism—for power, profit, politics, entertainment, or mischief—has held center stage in U.S. media. Permutations varied from the penny press in the 1830s, to the yellow press in the 1890s, to the tabloids in the 1920s, to much of Fox News today—all feeding entertainment, propaganda, and sensational conspiracy theories to a hungry public.


Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History, Andie Tucher, Columbia University Press, 384 pp., $28, March 2022

As the United States faces an ongoing pandemic, reverberations from an insurrection, and a devastating war in Europe, the stakes for democracy could not be higher. More than 100 years ago, journalist and critic Walter Lippmann lamented that “the present crisis of Western democracy is a crisis of journalism.” 

He may as well have been speaking of today. The overwhelming volume of misinformation these days might feel like an aberration, but as Tucher makes clear, it is not. The U.S. public has always been all too eager to consume narratives that titillate, distract, or accord with what they want to believe—true or not.

False news almost entirely dominated the media market for the first 200 years of the U.S. press. It was not until the turn of the last century that something we might recognize as responsible journalism in the public interest took hold. 

Tucher tells lively anecdotes from the 19th and 20th centuries, clearly relishing the more outrageous fictions masquerading as news. Along the way, we learn some surprising tidbits about the history of U.S. journalism, such as the birth of the interview: an American media invention that dates back only to 1836 when the New York Herald, covering the murder of a prostitute, featured a verbatim conversation with a local madam. 

Unfortunately, like much of the media at the time, the reporter’s goal was to be as sensational as possible. When the madam proved not quite salacious, he filled his piece with made-up quotes.  READ MORE...

Stealing Dog

 

Cheating College Students

Mariam Aly, an assistant professor at Columbia University, has tried everything to keep her students from cheating. In her cognitive neuroscience class, she gives her students a week to complete an open-book exam. And, as part of that exam, the nearly 180 students in the class have to sign an honor code.

But they're still cheating. And dealing with student misconduct, she says, is the worst part of her job. "It's just awkward and painful for everybody involved," Aly says. "And it's really hard to blame them for it. You do feel disappointed and frustrated."

Her students are facing unprecedented levels of stress and uncertainty, she says, and she gets that. "I didn't go to school during a pandemic."

As college moved online in the COVID-19 crisis, many universities are reporting increases, sometimes dramatic ones, in academic misconduct. At Virginia Commonwealth University, reports of academic misconduct soared during the 2020-21 school year, to 1,077 — more than three times the previous year's number. 

At the University of Georgia, cases more than doubled; from 228 in the fall of 2019 to more than 600 last fall. And, at The Ohio State University, reported incidents of cheating were up more than 50% over the year before.  READ MORE...

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/27/1031255390/reports-of-cheating-at-colleges-soar-during-the-pandemic

Terminator

 

The Great Slap

 

Metal Man

 

Disney's Gay Agenda

During a staff meeting on Florida’s recent enactment of the Parental Rights in Education bill, an executive producer at Disney said she was advancing a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” to insert queerness into children’s animation.

Latoya Raveneau, executive producer for Disney Television Animation, talked about how the studio’s treatment of her progressive ideas defied her negative expectations of the company, in a video obtained by journalist Christopher Rufo. Instead of vetoing her pitches for LGBTQ-friendly Easter eggs or overt references in her series, Disney gladly accepted and included them, she claimed.

“In my little pocket of Proud Family Disney TVA, the showrunners were super welcoming . . . to my not-at-all-secret gay agenda,” she said. “Maybe it was that way in the past, but I guess something must have happened . . . and then like all that momentum that I felt, that sense of ‘I don’t have to be afraid to have these two characters kiss in the background.’ I was just, wherever I could, adding queerness. . . . No one would stop me, and no one was trying to stop me.”

She said that when she joined, she assumed Disney would try to keep LGBTQ elements out of content for younger audiences, but she was pleasantly surprised.

“I love Disney’s content. I grew up watching all of the classics. They have been a huge informative part of my life, but at the same time, I worked at small studios most of my career, and I’d heard whispers. I’d heard things like, ‘They won’t let you show this in a Disney show.’ So I was a little sus when I started, but then my experience was bafflingly the opposite of what I had heard,” she said.  READ MORE...

Bears

 

Immigration in France

Far-right polemicist Éric Zemmour has vowed to reverse the immigration he blames for undermining France’s identity and core values if he wins the country’s upcoming presidential election. FRANCE 24 spoke to his supporters who gathered by the thousands in Paris on Sunday.


A writer and talk show pundit known for his polarising attacks on Muslims and immigrants, Zemmour emerged as the election’s dark horse early on in the campaign, drawing from both the mainstream conservative camp and voters disappointed by the far right’s traditional champion, Marine Le Pen. He has since slipped down the table in voter surveys, polling at around 10-11 percent, though his supporters still rank among the most raucous and motivated ahead of the first round of the election on April 10.

On Sunday, tens of thousands gathered at the Trocadéro in Paris, facing the Eiffel Tower, hoping to inject new momentum into his campaign. They included veteran far-rightists, staunch Catholics, anti-LGBT activists and anti-vaxxers for whom Zemmour is the best candidate to halt immigration, restore order and uphold traditional French values.


Donning a “Zemmour 2022” cap and a baptism medal wrapped around her neck, 18-year-old Eugénie is getting ready to cast her very first ballot on April 10 – and she could hardly be more thrilled about her choice of candidate. “I never thought I’d support someone with such fervour,” she says. “I’m lucky to be casting my first vote for a candidate I really like.” The philosophy student was just 9 years old when she first took part in a Paris rally, back in 2013, to oppose marriage for same-sex couples. Nine years on, she’s back on the streets of the French capital to “prove that Zemmour is not alone, contrary to what the media claim”.

A practising Catholic, Eugénie stresses the former pundit’s “love of France (...) and the fact that he’s the only candidate to defend Christian values”. He’s also “the only one to challenge the transhumanist movement [advocates of human-enhancement technologies]”, she argues, praising Zemmour’s conservative stance on “bioethical debates that undermine society”. While she acknowledges that transhumanism is a niche concern, even for the far-right candidate, Eugénie wholeheartedly subscribes to his core policy: his pledge to halt, and indeed reverse, immigration.  READ MORE...

Elk

 

Abortions Protested in Madrid

Thousands of people marched though Madrid on Sunday to protest against abortion, as Spain's leftist government prepares a law to guarantee access to the procedure at public hospitals.

Carrying signs that read "Abortion is not right" and chanting "More respect for life", demonstrators walked through the centre of the Spanish capital to Cibeles square in central Madrid where a manifesto was read aloud.

"There are other alternatives. After an abortion there is always trauma but that is not talked about," said Yolanda Torosio, a 44-year-old secretary who attended the protest with her daughter.

The protest was organised by the "Yes to Life" platform which estimated that some 20,000 people took part. The central government's representative in Madrid put the number of marchers at about 9,000.

The crowd included parents pushing strollers, retired couples and groups of youths, some carrying Spanish flags.

While Spain decriminalised abortion in 1985, women in the predominantly Catholic country still face obstacles when choosing to terminate a pregnancy since many doctors refuse to care out the procedure.

According to the OMC Spanish doctors' association, "most" obstetrician-gynaecologists who work in the public sector consider themselves "conscientious objectors" and refuse to carry out abortions.

As a result women in some regions must travel hundreds of kilometres for an abortion because there is no private clinic nearby and the local hospital will not perform them.

Socialist Prime Pedro Sanchez's government is preparing a law to ensure that all public hospitals perform abortions, and wants to ban protests outside of abortion clinics as "harassment".

IT also wants to modify the law so minors of 16 and 17 can terminate a pregnancy without their parents' consent, as is the case in Britain and France.

Polls show a majority of Spaniards are in favour of keeping the country's existing abortion laws, which allow the procedure on demand in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

Upset Boss

Off My Rocker...

It is beyond our comprehension to our universe as INFINITE...  that is to say without end...  and, it is beyond our comprehension to perceive and believe that we live in a universe that is multi-dimensional...  nor is it within our capacity to understand that our universe in actuality is a MULTIVERSE...

Infinite

Multi-dimensional

Multiverse

So...  if I were to speculate that there is a cosmic consciousness that floats around in our universe and contains all knowledge that was, is, or will be...  then it would be difficult for me not to expect that only a few people would agree with me...

Yet...  this is what I believe...  when we use our mental capacities, we generate some sort of mental energy that dissipates out of our bodies...   and, like the commercial asks where does this stress go?    Where do these mental energy thoughts go?

Human beings typically disagree with anything that they don't understand or that they cannot see right in front of them...  Case in point:  Religious Faith.

Ironically, years ago, we did not believe in UFOs and yet today, many of our government leaders and educational leaders believe that we were visited by aliens and that aliens are still visiting us...  and, they believe this because the evidence is changing in the sense that it can only be explained by aliens visiting us...

WE NEED TO OPEN OUR MINDS...  to all sorts of possibilities...
 

My Biased Views

My thoughts this morning are on China...  and, the fact that as the USA, Canada, Europe, and Australia GOES GREEN, China, Russia, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Central America, and South America DOES NOT GO GREEN.

How in the hell are our efforts going to make any difference?  In fact, we are getting played by China because according to Reuters:   BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters) - China will boost the production of more modern coal mines and enhance coal reserve capacity, and aims to increase the government-deployable storage to 5% of local consumption, the country's state economic planner said on Saturday.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) also said in a statement during the annual parliament gathering that it will guarantee coal transportation and further improve coal pricing mechanisms.

Do you want to be laughed at by the rest of the world because we are being played by China?  This has nothing to do with being Democratic or Republican...  but it has everything to do with being an American...  and, I am rather pissed off that we are not smart enough as an administration to see what is going on throughout the rest of the world...  and, those of us who are not wealthy continued to get SCREWED OVER by those who are wealthy...  and, the sad thing is that we just seem to bend over and spread our ass cheeks so that it can happen more easily...

ALL OF US CANNOT SIMPLY BE THAT STUPID...

Dog & Cat

Top Problem is INFLATION Since 1985

The share of Americans who rate inflation as the top issue facing the country is at the highest in nearly 40 years, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday.

About one in five Americans, or 17%, surveyed March 1-18 cited inflation as the nation’s most important problem. That’s up from 10% in February, and compares with 4% who pointed to fuel prices in particular.

U.S. consumer prices are rising at the fastest pace in four decades, outpacing wage gains and fanned further by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Gas prices are near record highs -- well over $4 a gallon nationwide -- especially straining lower-income families.

Among those polled -- a little over 1,000 U.S. adults -- 22% say the government is the top problem outside of the economy, while 9% cited the war in Ukraine. The share citing the coronavirus fell to the lowest level since the pandemic began.

Similar to a University of Michigan survey -- which showed U.S. consumer sentiment remained at a decade low in March -- inflation concerns diverge sharply from a political perspective. Nearly 80% of Republicans are worried about inflation, more than double the proportion of Democrats, according to Gallup.   SOURCE:  Bloomberg      READ MORE...

Food

 

Covid Tests No Longer Free

The first real-world consequences of dwindling federal COVID-19 funds have started to be felt in recent days.

Coronavirus tests for uninsured patients are no longer free in some places. That's because the program that reimbursed clinics and hospitals for the testing, as well as for treating uninsured patients with COVID-19, stopped accepting claims last week "due to lack of sufficient funds." Some clinics have already started to turn away people without insurance who come to get tested and can't afford to pay for it.

Free vaccines for uninsured people are next — that funding will run out next week. After that, the vaccines themselves will still be covered by the government — for now — but the costs of administering them will no longer be billed to the federal program.

In another blow to the COVID-19 response, federal shipments of monoclonal antibody treatments to states — drugs designed to keep people infected with the coronavirus out of the hospital — were also slashed last week by 35%, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.

Biden administration officials such as Becerra warn that this is just the beginning. They've cited a long list of consequences — short and long term — as they plead with lawmakers to allocate $22.5 billion more for pandemic relief.

At the moment, that request for funding appears stalled in Congress. That has hospitals and public health experts worried that the U.S. will be poorly equipped to identify — let alone manage — whatever happens next with the pandemic.  READ MORE...

Goodnight

 

Resign or Face Impeachment

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday called on Justice Clarence Thomas to resign or face impeachment for what she depicted as a pattern of ethical breaches.

“Clarence Thomas should resign,” she wrote on Twitter. “If not, his failure to disclose income from right-wing organizations, recuse himself from matters involving his wife, and his vote to block the Jan 6th commission from key information must be investigated and could serve as grounds for impeachment.”

Ocasio-Cortez is just the latest in a series of Democratic lawmakers and legal experts to intensify ethical scrutiny of Thomas in the wake of explosive reports last week that exposed his wife’s aggressive efforts to help overturn former President Trump’s electoral defeat.

Those revelations raised fresh questions about the justice’s refusal to step aside from related cases before the Supreme Court, including at least 10 rulings concerning the 2020 presidential election, without any indication of him recusing.

The ruling that has drawn the sharpest criticism came in January, when Thomas was the only justice who dissented in an 8-1 ruling that cleared the way for House investigators probing the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection to obtain Trump-era White House records.  READ MORE...