Posts by Sacha
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to BenWilson,
Heh, I thought you were going to say Low = wankers.
Not sure if that would imply happiness or another form of drowning sorrows..
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Neil Morrison,
the other positions someone as a target.
A bullseye positions some thing as a target - another difference.
I have yet to see a crosshair used as a common metaphor for a goal of any sort other than killing.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to BenWilson,
a feeling of excitement that drags even the most dour stay-at-home out to stick their hands in the air.
Seems a good success measure - average crowd hand position. High = happy, Level = probably scrapping or jostling, Low = meh.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Angus Robertson,
One of them positions you as the shooter
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Sacha,
the boomer term seems to be becoming a bit of a red rag
Bernard Hickey is probably not helping - see comments.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to BenWilson,
determined that I would not forget what it is to be young
That's the problem though - what it *was* like to be young is not the same as what it is now. Paying attention to current evidence is handy (including anything you can glean from actual young people) but not easy. Sometimes the results are not what we'd expect - like the World Internet Project survey that Russell mentioned recently.
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I read Ben's point as that younger generations had little of that particular rural experience to feel nostalgic about. Can't disagree, though the boomer term seems to be becoming a bit of a red rag.
Most of what we say here are generalisations so I guess it helps when you've sussed out that someone's intent is genuine during other conversations or by meeting them elsewhere.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to James Bremner,
It seems like the shooter is a left wing pothead
I have yet to meet a violent stoner - they're usually way too busy laughing or looking for snacks.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
It's not as if the efforts to dig out material that portray this man as a deranged loner are unpolitical. They started right away, just like the left's linkages of the event with Teabagger hate speech did.
Regardless of affiliation, most humans will try to paint a perpetrator as "other", as not like us. Anyone sporting dark skin, a minority accent or a turban can tell us about that. Mental illness provides a convenient scapegoat, despite evidence about actual propensity to violence. Means we can tut tut and go about our business without any of that awful dissonance stuff to deal with.
But anyone trying to paint the broader violent rhetoric as evenly distributed should be laughed out of the room. Paul Krugman agrees.
I’ve had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since the final stages of the 2008 campaign. I remembered the upsurge in political hatred after Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 — an upsurge that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. And you could see, just by watching the crowds at McCain-Palin rallies, that it was ready to happen again. The Department of Homeland Security reached the same conclusion: in April 2009 an internal report warned that right-wing extremism was on the rise, with a growing potential for violence.
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As Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff responsible for dealing with the Arizona shootings, put it, it’s “the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.” The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.
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The point is that there’s room in a democracy for people who ridicule and denounce those who disagree with them; there isn’t any place for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary.
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Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right.
I doubt the First Amendment was intended to safeguard exhortations to murder.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to BenWilson,
And getting involved in a massive event like the RWC is also justifiable on many levels.
Also the small matter of our bid only succeeding because of visible govt backing - especially after the previous debacle with the Australian joint effort.
But I share some disquiet that the events industry (and fecking cruise ship compaines) feel that taxpayers owe them a level of public subsidy well beyond what other revenue earners like software get. Build your own bloody terminal or stadium..