politics – Batfort

Tag: politics (page 1 of 4)

The Reader: Human beings are important and the emptiness of leaning in

Red Velvet repack coming soon. This image of Yeri is amazing.

» Melania Trump goes after the haters in a way that Sarah Palin never did on that scale. Respect.

» Speaking of the Trumps, Barron is getting really tall!

» Bullshit jobs and managerial feudalism (or as I like to call it, “petty turtle battles”)

» Favorite performances in k-pop (feat. Taemin and TOP)

» The truth about Cheryl Sandberg and “lean in”

“Lean In” is not fundamentally a feminist manifesto. It is a road map for operating within the existing system, perhaps changing it at the margins to make it easier for other women to, well, operate within the system. Sandberg does not spend much time asking whether the system is so screwed up that pushing against it might be the better route toward meaningful change.

» Always learn more biology

» “We are not servants of an economic system. We are human beings.”

» The infrastructure behind the influencer beauty industry (Seed, the company behind Colourpop and Kylie Cosmetics, is one to watch):

Landver believes that the next big lifestyle brand—the next Tory Burch or Martha Stewart, say — will be founded by an influencer. Or several, actually. “As opposed to looking at one big hundred million-dollar brand, we’re looking at building many ten million dollar brands,” says Landver. “I say longtail five times a day. The future is going to be many more small brands focused on smaller segments.”

» Further proof that SM Entertainment’s audio engineers are the real MVPs

The Reader: Media Misrepresentation and K-pop Controversy

2018-11-18 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

» The fake news media is once again manipulating images to make perfectly reasonable people look like Nazis.

» Caitlin Johnstone took one for the team

» It still blows my mind that more people don’t know about this study on how everybody else can predict liberal behavior but liberals don’t have a clue about anybody but themselves:

Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who described themselves as “very liberal.” The biggest errors in the whole study came when liberals answered the Care and Fairness questions while pretending to be conservatives.

» To make a cup of coffee, it takes more than a village

» BTS may not have factored in cultural differences, especially their American fanbase’s tendency toward SJWism, when they went hard for the North American market this year. K-pop groups use American and European style tropes out-of-context all the time—except now they’re going to get called on it.

» Yet more proof that regulators don’t care about us, and that the people who speak out are smeared or silenced.

In 2004, a world no-one anticipated came into view. As part of an FDA review of paediatric antidepressant trials at this point, it became clear that all trials in paediatric depression were negative, that all published studies were ghost or company written, in all cases the data were inaccessible and in the case of the published studies, the publications were at odds with the data regulators revealed. The data on both benefits and harms was systematically distorted in publications even in the leading medical journals (5). This came to a head over the issue of suicide in 2004, when New York State filed a fraud action against GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), primarily on the basis that a ghost-written publication of Study 329¹ claimed paroxetine worked for and was safe for children who were depressed, when in an internal review it had recognised it didn’t work and had opted to pick out the good bits of this study and publish them (6).

» Related: I don’t really know what’s going on with the Cochrane/Gotzsche situation, but it doesn’t look good.

» A whole thread of favorite k-pop stages.

Virtue-Signal Voting

2018-11-06 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

The story begins as it always begins. A girl—with a social media account, of course—wakes. She showers, puts on her makeup, and selects an outfit of the day. Perhaps today’s is a little more thematic than most. There’s somewhere special to go, something special to do.

Today is, of course, election day.

“tell me something I don’t know”

Next comes, a perfectly photographed spread of fruit or a food-styled smoothie bowl. Maybe she drinks a smoothie with a scoop of matcha and some kale. A celebratory brunch with friends. Whatever.

Now is today’s big event: a trip to the polls, where she can vote—but more importantly, beg the attendant to give her a couple extra “I voted stickers” just in case her first one ruins the shot.

She has planned this moment for days. The outfit, the styling, how to set off that sticker in just the right way. The vibe must fit with the rest of her feed. Aesthetics first, anything else second. After all, we vote because it’s the cause du jour, not because we genuinely want to.

The caption must be non-partisan, as to not alienate her followers, but with enough of an undertone that everyone knows who she voted for anyway. A blue heart emoji will do.

A check on the social media account to match the check on her ballot. Just like every other instagirl, she has voted and told the world about it.

The Divide

2018-11-02 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

When I was 23, I moved to a very liberal city. It’s not the most liberal city on the West Coast, but it’s famous for its, shall we say, really enthusiastic prayer rallies.

At the time, I was fresh out of undergrad—bright eyed and hella libertarian. I hadn’t yet discovered the difference between a state and a nation, and thought that borders were stupid since as far as I knew they were basically arbitrary.

In my new city, I settled into my new life. I walked to the grocery store and cooked myself dinners. I hung out with my roommate and watched the Westminster dog show on TV as I studied. Eventually, I went through the requisite mental breakdown as a graduate student, and spent too much money on coffee (because I was flat broke).

Amidst this backdrop of normalcy, a steady drip-drip-drip of leftism dropped against my forehead. You can’t escape it in this city—in most cities. It’s everywhere, softly emanating from the newsstands and whispered by the rustle of umbrellas (which are mostly wielded by out-of-staters). It’s implicit in nearly every conversation and behind every knowing glance over a glib reference to capitalism or the patriarchy.

Many people would go along with this—and I didn’t appear to resist on the outside. But inside my head I started to notice, to wonder. I had questions.

Eventually I searched the internet for answers to some of my questions, and found that other people were asking them too. I read their answers. I read everything I could find. I was offended—some of the mental scars are still with me to this day.

Still, I was intrigued. There was Truth here. And gradually I found myself drifting farther and farther to the right, even as I was surrounded in a softly smothering sea of leftism.

Now as an older, hopefully-wiser woman, I see graphics like “Moving to the Extreme,” and I understand. It’s terrifying to think about, but I myself am one of those tiny red dots that has moved away from the center toward one of the opposing poles.

Even though (or maybe especially because) many of our differences are fake, entirely-engineered scams cooked up by a media that is incentivized by an unholy combination of money, clicks, and hidden special interests, the divide is very real and very much growing.

Just ask my 23-year-old self.

Another day, another alt-right hitpiece (now with pictures)

2018-10-29 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

There was an article posted on Politico today: Trump’s Culture Warriors Go Home. It’s the same article we’ve all read a million times before: a seemingly-even toned piece of writing that simply describes a phenomenon, and never ever ever tries to influence you not even a little bit of how to feel about it.

Factually, it’s mostly true:

Loosely lumped together as the celebrities of the “alt-right”—a label most of them have since disavowed—they hailed from different corners of the web and professed different views, but they were united by a shared disdain for progressives and establishment Republicans, and a shared faith that the disruptive outsider named Donald Trump could usher in the change they believed America needed.

Sure. If you’re going to lump Milo and Mike Cernovich together with Richard Spencer, this is how you would describe the group. It’s clear later in the article that the author understands the animosity between the two factions, but doesn’t care. They’re all equally bad, equally alt-right.

There’s been a lot of kerfuffle lately about how words matter. But you know what else matters? Word choice. Words and phrases that color how you experience the story in your mind.

Words like these:

Cernovich was there to vent
Cernovich complained
Cernovich griped
Fringe web firebrands
Fake news and conspiracy theories
Plotting a move to an undisclosed location
He tweeted glumly
Riding the president’s coattails into a hostile capital with dreams of revolution
Culture warriors
Motley band of online fans
A livestream rant
Grandiose vision of cultural revolution

There’s more, but I’m bored. Another disingenuous media piece that is entirely wrong even though it is mostly factually correct. It’s designed to paint its subject in the worst possible light without actually saying anything untrue.

For instance, take this choice paragraph, dropped after a passage that is clearly designed to make Milo look desperate.

In response to questions from Politico Magazine for this story, Yiannopoulos responded only, “Go fuck yourself,” via text message.

I’d wager to guess that Milo’s response has more to do with DON’T TALK TO THE MEDIA than anything (it’s a common occurrence on his Instagram), and yet it’s used as evidence for the narrative that “Milo is out of control.”

This is most evidence in the illustrations that were commissioned to accompany the article. What’s the best way to portray patriotism, yet make it weird and threatening? Go with a red, white, and blue color palette but change the white to yellow. That gives both the in-your-face punch of a the primary triad while also subverting a familiar trope into something that makes human beings look like sick, IRL versions of The Simpsons.

The opening illustration basically portrays an apocalypse. Perhaps this is what leftists envision when they think back to election day? If they were even aware of any of these people back then. I feel like they’ve been “elevated” by the media to the status of post-hoc boogeymen more than anything. If they were serious about talking about people who were active during the campaign, the would also mention people like Baked Alaska and Pax Dickinson.

Anyway, the illustration. Richard Spencer has been given a briefcase with a cross on it, despite him being about the farthest thing from Christian as I can think of. Milo is given a Napoleon complex. Chuck C Johnson is…having a heart attack? And Mike, of course, has been given pizza in reference to #pizzagate—the media’s favorite conspiracy to debunk because their version of it was designed to be ridiculous and completely debunkable. I also note the inclusion of a “Trump that Bitch” campaign sign, which was never a thing.

Even if you don’t read the article, this illustration shows you what you’re supposed to see, the WASTELAND of TRUMP SUPPORTERS in a SEA OF TRASH. This is not the type of illustration you give to a balanced, nuanced piece of writing.

The portraits don’t get any better. Here’s the one of Mike Cernovich.

This illustration kinda makes you sick when you look at it, and that is the whole point. The blue/yellow gradient is an inspired touch, as are the tattered campaign flags. And there’s more pizza. Stacks of MAGA hats crossed out tryin to make him look like some kind of obsessive who hates MAGA with a passion. For the record, Mike Cernovich has responded to this article with love.

These kinds of articles (hitpieces, really) are tiring. They’re really not worth it to respond to the way that I have with this post, but sometimes the bald, mean-spirited rhetoric of the media just gets to me. I feel compelled to point out all of the ways that they color the facts, literally and figuratively.

There is no possible way to read the original article and give any one of the subjects in it the benefit of the doubt. All the room that a good journalist might have left in for the reader’s objective consideration of the facts has been squeezed out by rhetorical tricks and malice.

I can see exactly what they’re doing, and I hope that this post will help you to see it, too.

Book covers of politics and social sciences bestsellers

2018-10-27 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I’ve noticed that right-leaning book covers differ drastically from left-leaning book covers, and I’m trying to figure out why. To get started, I decided to look at Amazon’s list of Best Sellers in Politics & Social Sciences this afternoon. Originally I started in the Political Philosophy subcategory, but instead I decided to go up a level to the main category.

That proved to be an interesting decision, because it changes the mix drastically. The only books that are actually about politics in the top five are right-leaning. The others are self-help books.

These are the first five actual books listen. I skipped extra editions and audiobooks—12 Rules for Life, Fear: Trump in the White House, and Sapiens.

FYI: I have read precisely zero of these books.

Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be

Author: Rachel Hollis
Publisher: Thomas Nelson (Harper Collins/News Corp)

“Lifestyle expert Rachel Hollis” somehow made it to the top of the Politics & Social Sciences category. Based on the other categories listed in its description, I’d guess that the publishers put it in as many categories as possible. I’m not sure how that works, but whatever.

#1 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Christian Living > Self Help
#2 in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships > Motherhood
#2 in Books > Self-Help > Motivational

I see that the handwriting trend is making its way to book covers. This on in particular makes sense with the tone and title of the book, so it’s appropriate. I like how they made the pop of red in the “#1 bestseller” bubble match her shoes—gives it a nice sense of completeness without being overly matchy, which would go counter to the message of the title. Not really sure what’s going on in that photo, but I think that’s the point.

Go crazy! Be wild! Do stuff! Put your book in a category that doesn’t really make sense!

The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

Authors: Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt
Publisher: Penguin Press (Bertelsmann/Pearson)

I would not be surprised to find an interview with the cover designer of this book and hear them saying “Yeah I did this cover in like 20 minutes.” It reminds me of something I would have turned in for a critique when I was a graphic design student when I had zero time to work on something and was working on it at 2 am the night before. The typography is self-consciously large without being bold, and unfortunately wordy. I’m not sure where to look, and I really don’t want to.

This cover is certainly not doing the book any favors, and from what I can tell of Haidt and Lukianoff, their ideas are worth far more than this.

Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution

Author: Tucker Carlson
Publisher: Free Press (Simon & Schuster/CBS)

The caricatures are fun. The rest of it is…not. This is criminal abuse of white space. The major elements are too crowded, yet the rest of the space is off balance and uncomfortable. The end result is not something that’s spacious and pleasing, but that gives one the anxiety of balancing a tower of elephants on a ball.

Is the boat supposed to be going over a waterfall? Are they going to crash into the red “NY Times Bestseller” bubble? How long did it take you to figure out that there was a subtitle? So many questions.

21 Rituals to Change Your Life: Daily Practices to Bring Greater Inner Peace and Happiness

Author: Theresa Cheung
Publisher: Watkins House (Penguin/Random House, Bertelsmann/Pearson)

Ahh, what a change in tone. This is the type of cover that tricks you into thinking that it’s good, until you start looking at the details. I’m not a fan of the leading, especially between “21” and “rituals to,” but I do like the polka-dot treatment. The colors are good, but I just noticed the…is that supposed to be texture? Like water stains or something?

Nitpicks aside, this is a balanced, classy-looking cover that would catch any Pinterester’s eye. (And I’m sure that’s their audience.)

Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity

Author: Charles Duhigg
Publisher: Random House (Bertelsmann/Pearson)

This is fine, if a bit obnoxious. But that’s on purpose, so whatever.

Two thoughts:

A book title that evokes a song satirizing the NPC lifestyle might not exactly be the best thing…? Radiohead’s “Fitter, Happier, More Productive” is 20 years old and yet I feel like it’s more relevant than ever. (And yet I myself am guilty of doing this exact thing.)
This cover was obviously designed to compliment Duhigg’s other book.

After all of that—is there any conclusion we can draw about these book covers?

The political books (Ship of Fools, The Coddling of the American Mind) come across as less refined, like they’re still in the draft or concept stage. I have a hard time imagining how someone would think the Coddling cover would be effective, for one. Even the color red seems off. It’s too cool to be truly alarming. It’s a book cover that pulls its punches. It bothers me the most out of all of these, almost like someone wanted the book to fail.

The Girl, Wash Your Face cover is the most successful. It’s simple, yet communicates all that it needs to. There are no awkward text additions (like the Duhigg book) or weird line spacing (like the rituals book).

We won’t solve the right vs left book covers mystery in this post, most obviously because of the lack of explicitly left-leaning political books. Putting politics and social science together certainly blunts that impact, even though (today, at least) the right’s books are more popular.

Republicans found their spines

2018-10-06 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Republican politicians have been cucking, selling out, and otherwise compromising for a long time now.

That’s how we got President Trump.

Even with the absolute struggle that we went through to get him elected, many of the old guard Boomer Republicans never quite got it: that it does not make you a better person to be civil with an opponent that has no intention of being civil back. It makes you stupid.

With the Kavanaugh debacle, some of them have finally woken up to what’s really going on.

How do we know this?

From Chad Pergram:

After Kavanaugh vote, Pence walked from the chamber with his detail to the exit which would open the doors up to the Senate steps. They swing the doors open…and all you can see is a throng of protesters across the plaza…and hear are protesters shouting “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

As Pence stands in doorway of Capitol at top of Senate steps, protesters across the plaza spot him and start shouting louder. His motorcade waits at the bottom of the Capitol steps.

Pence stands for a moment in Senate doorway, indecisive, w/protesters hollering. Pence then reverses course to exit Capitol another way. Pence walks a few steps. Pivots & says “let’s do it.” Pence then defiantly walks down the Capitol steps and waves to Kavanaugh protesters

Pence—Mike Pence—the mildest mannered complete opposite of Trump’s brash manner, has embraced the villain role that he has been given by the leftist mob.

This is significant.

(Some of) the people who used to want to play nice now understand that it’s not possible. They didn’t capitulate to the mob, didn’t back down on the vote. Kavanaugh himself personified this by not withdrawing or buckling under the pressure.

Despite the absolute batshit insanity shown by the protesters on the left, the Republicans held firm. They didn’t go through quite the gauntlet that Trump or Kavanaugh ran, but they withstood the heat and they stood firm.

It seems like after years of never-Trump whining and ~bipartisan cooperation~ which leads to horrific things like Obamacare, the Repubs finally decided that they were not going to take it anymore.

This makes me feel marginally better about the future.

See also Lindsay Graham. I’m going to start paying attention to him.

Images of the week: RIP Alex Jones

2018-09-07 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

It’s another one of those instantly-iconic photos. So much to see, so much subtext, and yet the subtext is somewhat visible.

The photo that got AJ banned from Twitter.

Social Media Giants

2018-08-10 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

It was a big week for social media.

Everything I can think of to say sounds histrionic.

They banned Alex Jones.

This is a real fight, and yet “our side” just sits back and takes it – every single time.

How much longer can we go on like this?

Video of the week: body language edition

2018-07-13 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

It’s Friday, I’m drinking a Gin Pellegrino, and it’s time to post an image of the week.

I’m tempted to post the image of Trump sitting in Winston Churchill’s chair, but really any of the photos of Trump would be good this week.

However, another notable event happened in the form of Peter Strzok’s Congressional hearing. And if you took the time to view it in any form, you would have seen some…interesting…body language from him.

Fortunately for us, we have Mandy at Bombard’s Body Language to interpret. I particularly liked her video on Strzok. It covers not only him, but the FBI lawyer and some of the power squabbles amongst the congressmen.

Direct link

What struck me about Strzok’s body language is how much of his energy is sitting right behind his eyes, really forward in his head. He’s probably stressed out, and fully engaged, and trying to remember all of what the FBI has told him to lie about, but it’s a really weird look. He feels imbalanced somehow, like he’s only focused outwardly and not internally at all, like a normal person. Usually we’re somewhat balanced between inner and outer perception.

Anyway, this observation is what really caught my attention. Bombard began talking about the roles that the different congressmen were playing as they jockeyed for power.

“If you took out all of the crazy people then there wouldn’t be any crazy people.” No, that is not true. In any group, no matter the size, you’re going to have a leader, you’re going to have an enforcer, you’re going to have a believer, you’re going to have a clown, you’re going to have an idiot, and you’re going to have a crazy person. No matter what the size. You could take all those people out who stand out [in the crowd], and another leader would arise, another enforcer would arise, another idiot would arise, and so on. The only reason that they all don’t rise is because those with stronger minds suppress those who don’t have the strong minds.

This is why it’s important to have a strong mind–and to show it.

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Batfort

Style reveals substance