Category: Social Order & Disorder

The Moreness of Everything

Books & Reviews / Media / Musings / Psychology & Sociology4 Comments

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The title of this post comes from a subhead in Thomas De Zengotita’s book, Mediated: How the Media Shape the World Around You (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005) in which the author writes about choices, and “how much the screen of human consciousness can register at a given moment.” This is an important question for today, with so many people (younger people, especially) glued to their phones, always online, always engaged, always scrolling, clicking, texting. And scrolling past the headlines, not reading the whole story, getting only a few words before scrolling on to the next headline or jumping to another source … click below for more ↓

Recovering Knee and Doomscrolling, 27

Daily life / Memes; Internet & Social / Musings / Politics / Surgery & MedicineLeave a comment

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Tuesday morning, not long after I finished my morning knee exercises, I drove to Barrie for my annual visit to my urologist — and the surgeon who removed my cancer-riddled prostate, back in 2020. You can read more about my journey with prostate cancer here. I also visit my oncologist once a year, usually in the spring. Both visits involve a prior PSA blood test to check if I have any of that hormone showing. And I don’t. Haven’t had a positive PSA result since my surgery. What matters for me about today’s visit is that I drove there and … click below for more ↓

Doomscrolling Notes, and Knee Recovery, 26

Daily life / Memes; Internet & Social / Musings / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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Well, I am happy to say I was wrong. Despite more than seven million people (possibly as many as 8.2 million) participating in the USA’s No King’s protest, the events were all peaceful, and the dictator Trump was unable to use any of them as a pretext to invoke the Insurrection Act, declare martial law, and start shooting and jailing American citizens. Trump spent his night posting AI videos and images of himself wearing a crown, including a video in which a crowned Trump in a fighter jet bombs No Kings protestors with feces. Yeah, he’s that childish. Can you … click below for more ↓

The Troubling Lack of Empathy Among Conservatives

MAGA cultists / Psychology & Sociology / Rightwing claptrap / Talibangelists and pseudo-Christians / What I'm Reading Now9 Comments

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Empathy is a nasty word to conservatives. Elon Musk recently showed his contempt for the very notion of considering another’s feelings, calling it “civilizational suicidal empathy.” And then, to make sure everyone knew his views, the technocrat added in an interview with fellow rightwing MAGA cultist Joe Rogan, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit.” Which means he sees empathy as a weakness he can exploit. Information-warfare.com noted, “Musk’s perspective on empathy aligns with certain ideological frameworks, particularly technocracy and the Dark Enlightenment [DE] movement. These ideologies do not prioritize empathy as a guiding principle but … click below for more ↓

Blue Skies, Nothing But Blueskies…

Musings / Social media issues / Social Order & Disorder3 Comments

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Enshittification is a delightful neologism coined by author Cory Doctrow in 2022 to describe how things decline in quality and service. While it initially meant to describe how vendors would gradually change their services to move the focus from users to business interests, it has expanded to include the way Elon Musk has turned Twitter-aka-X-aka-Xitter into a fetid swamp of rightwing toxins: racism, misogyny, Russian disinformation, lies, and, of course, his conspiracy-addled pronouncements from the throne, which no user is allowed to block. Ever click a link to a site and when it opens you get flooded by pop-ups, ads, … click below for more ↓

The Litter That’s Killing Everything and Everyone

Collingwood / Environment / Ineptitude and bungling / Manners & Civility / Politics / Social Order & DisorderOne Comment

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Four and a half trillion. That’s how many cigarette butts are estimated to be littered every year on our streets, sidewalks, parks, downtowns, parking lots, lawns, and everywhere else smokers feel entitled to leave them. That’s 4,500,000,000,000 pieces of toxic, non-biodegradable, chemical-soaked plastic waste that smokers — and smokers alone — pollute the earth with every year. That’s litter deliberately left to poison the water, kill plants and wildlife, and remain in the environment for more than a decade, doing their damage. An estimated 1.69 billion pounds (845,000 tons) of cigarette butts are littered into the environment, every year. EVERY … click below for more ↓

Why Local Media Has Failed Us

Collingwood / Local media / Media / Media Issues8 Comments

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The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024, released this week, identifies the biggest short-term risk to the planet is from misinformation and disinformation, even above extreme weather events. The risk is highest during the next two years when “more than 3 billion people due to head to the polls in 2024 and 2025, including in major economies like the United States, India and the United Kingdom” where rightwing dictators and fascists like Trump, Putin, Poilievre, and Modi will be on the political stage.* What has the WEF report got to do with local media? Trust. We need to trust … click below for more ↓

The Book of Knowledge: 3

Books & Reviews / Language & Grammar / Learning & Education / Media / Musings / Politics / Reading & Literacy / Social Order & Disorder / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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Back in the Mesozoic of my life, I came across a quotation from Giacomo Casanova that, as far as I can remember these days, went “No man can know everything, but every man should attempt to.” For many decades, I didn’t know the source, or whether it was misquoted, misattributed, or simply a fake as we experience so often on most internet quote sites (aka clickbait sites). But it stuck with me. I recently found a more fulsome translation of his words from Chapter V of his memoirs: No one in this world can obtain a knowledge of everything, but … click below for more ↓

Milton Was Wrong

Books & Reviews / Books about books / Censorship / Media Issues / Political fads / Politics / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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In 1644, the English poet and pamphleteer John Milton wrote an impassioned defence of free speech (or, more factually, against censorship of print and in favour of restriction-free publication) called the Areopagitica. It was subtitled A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England. In it, Milton argued that, given the choice between truth and lies, people were wise enough to see what was true. And that people’s character grew stronger when presented with a wide variety of viewpoints, even if those included lies and falsifications. It’s a bit of a dense … click below for more ↓

Smith, Rock, and the Trivialization of Western Culture

Books & Reviews / Culture / Media / Media Issues / Memes; Internet & Social / Musings / Social Order & Disorder / TV / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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If Neil Postman were alive today, sitting in a bar or café with Chris Hedges, I wonder which one would say “I told you so!” first after seeing social media this past week? The story that clogged the social media pipes this week was the slap one actor gave another on stage during the performance of the annual onanism festival called the Oscars. And as soon as it happened, even while it was occurring, a shitstorm of comments, opinions and reportage flooded social media. Every social media feed was clogged with pieces like tarry stercus and then flooded by the … click below for more ↓

Conservatives Eat Their Own

Canadian Politics / Ideologies / Politics / Social Order & Disorder6 Comments

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So the alt-right segment of the Conservative Party dumped Erin O’Toole, its latest leader, for being too moderate. Too much like a human, methinks, and that made him vulnerable. The alt-right members are dragging the party into the Repugnican side of politics: an authoritarian, pseudo-Christian, racist, and separatist/libertarian ideology. The elect-then-dump-’em routine would be comical if it weren’t scary because one day these neo-fascists might become the government. And, seeing the disaster of Trump’s four years when the alt-right had power, it scares the crap out of me that it could happen here. Couldn’t it? Consider that the far-right organizer … click below for more ↓

Don’t Blame the Liberals

Canadian Politics / Politics / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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Risible rightwing piffle still circulates online about who is responsible for the rising costs of fuel and food. Conservatives and libertarians love to blame the Liberals, but that’s self-serving claptrap from people who love to give handouts and tax cuts to corporations and billionaires and then wonder why governments have no money. Oil and gas prices are set by the oil corporations (most of which are offshore entities) mostly based on what OPEC decides on for per-barrel prices; our government taxes on gasoline are added to what these companies set for pump prices. There are many non-governmental factors that affect … click below for more ↓

Jail the Unvaccinated

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Health & Medicine / Politics / Pseudoscience & Quackery / Social Order & Disorder / Uncategorized8 Comments

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In a recent opinion piece in Macleans Magazine, Scott Gilmore wrote what I expect many vaccinated Canadians felt about those who still refuse to get vaccinated and help end this pandemic: We need to begin treating the vaccine holdouts as the fools they are. It is not fair that reasonable and responsible Canadians should pay the price for their deadly selfishness. No more soothing tones and patience. Time for the stick. The stick in question that Gilmore suggests is withholding services and access to the unvaccinated, as was recently announced in France and Italy: without proof of vaccinations, people there … click below for more ↓

A Quick Word for the Internet Trolls

Collingwood / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Social media & cyberbullying / Social Order & Disorder2 Comments

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For the social media trolls and whingers who never take the time to read, or listen, or check facts before spewing out their bile, here are a dozen points to consider before you bloviate further (yes, I realize the chance that the hard-of-thinking will actually read this is slim, but I live in hope): The judicial inquiry (or as it’s known locally, the Saunderson Vindictive Judicial Inquiry or SVJI) was NOT a criminal investigation. It was an examination of processes. No criminal charges resulted. No one went to jail. Not everyone agrees with the opinions, recommendations, or conclusions presented in … click below for more ↓

We’re Doomed. Doomed, I tell you.

Aging / Conspiracy Theories / Cults / Health & Medicine / Personal Reminiscences / Pseudoscience & Quackery / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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While walking our dog recently, we encountered another couple “our age” (somewhere between 65 and 90) also walking their dog. While the two pets sniffed and frolicked, we chatted with them (at a safe distance, of course). And, as might be expected during a lengthy pandemic, one of the first questions we asked them was, “Have you had your shot yet?” Shockingly, they both answered, “No! And we’re not going to get one.” My first thought when I heard this, “We’re doomed.” These are people we’ve spoken with before while our dogs met. They aren’t friends, merely acquaintances. Yet before … click below for more ↓

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