Zuck owns Facebook. Jack owns Twitter. Biden is president. At Reason, Robby Soave argues that the war over Section 230, reining in disinformation, hate speech, harassment and whatever other ills come at you through the ether, is really about the big question: Who should be in charge of the web?

Note as well that bowing to the Vietnamese government’s demand for greater censorship is being treated as a bad thing by some of the same outlets that are shaming Facebook for not bowing to the U.S. government’s request for greater censorship. The site’s failure to take down extremism, hate speech, and misinformation related to U.S. presidential elections and the COVID-19 pandemic is considered a grave moral failing. U.S. senators scream at Facebook for doing the bidding of other governments while engaged in the very act of trying to compel Facebook to do the bidding of the U.S. Senate. Continue reading →

There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that the land beneath our feet, upon which our homes stand and where our children play once belonged to others. Whether that’s the horror of colonization or the normal trend of humanity as reflected in how peoples have rise and fall is a different matter. Were the people from whom the last colonizers took the land the rightful “owners,” or did their ancestors take it from their predecessors? Does it matter? It does if you work at the Toronto Zoo. Continue reading →

As happens occasionally, I scroll through the usual suspects to see what strikes my interest and to which I think something else needs to be said. Today was one of those interesting days when all I found was more of the same, more culture war battles over issues beaten to death and more predictions of legal doom that have yet to happen but are carefully worded to put the fear of disaster into the hearts of those with more fear than knowledge.

I didn’t feel like playing today. There was nothing new or interesting, and I prefer not to repeat myself if there is no nuance that raises some variation on a theme. I started to write a post this morning, and after getting about three paragraphs in, realized that it was nothing new, had nowhere to go and offered nothing of even arguable insight. Continue reading →

I’m not sure that Wesley Yang’s point about why LGBT+ has a plus on the end is correct, that it’s not just a shorthand to include the recent invention of 31 flavors of gender, as opposed to an invitation to add new gender labels. There is a penchant for creating labels, and rules that define them, for the sort of stuff that has always been but didn’t need a label before. Even the New York Post has gotten into the deal, explaining the meaning of “fluid bonding” between “demisexuals,” or as others might call it, unprotected sex with someone you love.

“Fluid bonding” — the act of intentionally sharing bodily juices with a sexual partner — is purportedly becoming a popular practice in bedrooms across the nation.

Continue reading →

It would seem too obvious to mention that different colleges, different majors, are going to attract different students and produce different outcomes. Preston Cooper calculated the Return on Investment for 30,000 bachelor’s degrees. This may thrill you or not, but it’s a valuable tool, even if anyone’s personal experience doesn’t match it. When  you’re about to invest a lot of time and money, at least have a working understanding of what to expect when you come out on the other end.

To the extent you can get it, you get to choose. Choose wisely. Continue reading →

So last week was a bit of a feel good story involving my two children.

Today, not so much. You see, last Friday I really did have to take both kids to the dentist’s office for their annual cleaning and exam.

We scheduled the session for a Friday on Fall Break so both Mom and I could attend. Due to COVID restrictions, the dentist’s office told us prior to coming that only one parent would be allowed in the exam area with the kids. Continue reading →

It took Dr. SJ and me three tries to make it through the first episode of the new “phenomenon” Netflix series “Squid Games.” We found it repugnant. We found nothing likeable about the characters. We were repulsed by the violence. We were not, to be clear, fans of the show.

I mentioned this on the twitters and was told by a follower I respect that it went on to be inspirational, an exploration of human motivations and growth, greed v. fear v. life situations for people who had never been exposed to inhumanity. I wasn’t persuaded, but I told him I hoped it had a less nihilist message than appeared. Continue reading →

When asked by a senator who gave her the authority to make up her own rules, Catherine Lhamon smugly responded that the Senate did when it confirmed her. She had a point, that they knew who they were confirming and did so anyway. The Senate did so knowing that the administrative apparatus of the Department of Education had gone rogue, pushing Title IX to places it was never meant to go for reasons that had become sacred to a certain virulent strain of neo-feminists for whom neither fairness nor innocence mattered.

Women, the rationalization went, were sexually oppressed and they were going to end it, no matter how many innocent men were lost in the war. They didn’t care about the collateral damage. And the Senate, knowing this, confirmed Catherine Lhamon anyway. Who gave her the authority to reinvent Title IX? Continue reading →

There probably aren’t many people left who aren’t online in one way or another, making internet access something of a universal necessity. The issue of access was elevated to woke status during the early days of the pandemic, when schools went virtual and pretended it  actually served to teach students so we didn’t feel badly about denying students an education as we went into lockdown.

But two things became clear. Many poor students lacked internet access at home, making it difficult if not impossible for them to attend virtual school. And when schools acted to provide emergency access to students, they either didn’t bother to take advantage of it or didn’t bother to zoom in anyway. Continue reading →

There wasn’t much to say about the outrage over Netflix airing Dave Chappelle’s special, The Closer, until I saw it and found out what all the outrage was about. Now I have, and I get it. It was Chappelle being Chappelle, as he’s always been and still was, and that’s the problem Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos faced.

Netflix Inc. Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos said he “screwed up” in his efforts to communicate with employees who were upset over “The Closer,” a recent comedy special by Dave Chappelle in which he made remarks that some viewed as offensive to the transgender community. Continue reading →