Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,530 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 64 of 153).

Folks don’t appreciate this

I mostly agreed with this McLean’s story about America Dumbing Down, until the author quoted Susan Jacoby’s nitpicking the word “folks.”

By 2008, journalist Susan Jacoby was warning that the denseness—“a virulent mixture of anti-rationalism and low expectations”—was more of a permanent state. In her book, The Age of American Unreason, she posited that it trickled down from the top, fuelled by faux-populist politicians striving to make themselves sound approachable rather than smart. Their creeping tendency to refer to everyone—voters, experts, government officials—as “folks” is “symptomatic of a debasement of public speech inseparable from a more general erosion of American cultural standards,” she wrote. “Casual, colloquial language also conveys an implicit denial of the seriousness of whatever issue is being debated: talking about folks going off to war is the equivalent of describing rape victims as girls.”

Whoa. Talking about “folks” is like denigrating rape victims? Hyperbole much?

Obama can be “the most cerebral and eloquent American leader in a generation” and still say “folks” in a speech. Bill Clinton is brilliant and also … well, a “hayseed.” Can he not say “folks?”

There’s nothing wrong with the word “folks.” Unless you’re an elitist, that is.

via America dumbs down: a rising tide of anti-intellectual thinking.

The world of threats to the US is an illusion – Opinion – The Boston Globe

When Americans look out at the world, we see a swarm of threats. China seems resurgent and ambitious. Russia is aggressive. Iran menaces our allies. Middle East nations we once relied on are collapsing in flames. Latin American leaders sound steadily more anti-Yankee. Terror groups capture territory and commit horrific atrocities. We fight Ebola with one hand while fending off Central American children with the other.

In fact, this world of threats is an illusion. The United States has no potent enemies. We are not only safe, but safer than any big power has been in all of modern history.

via The world of threats to the US is an illusion – Opinion – The Boston Globe.

The “Entitlement Generation” : Anchor Mom

I had a few friends repost this on their Facebook pages, holding it up perhaps as an example of ideal parenting:

“If your parents had to use a wooden spoon on you, then they clearly didn’t know how to parent you.”

Yep. I got that email last night after I posted my blog. I honestly had to laugh. Here was a stranger criticizing my parents. I tend to think they did a pretty good job. They raised three, well-rounded children. One is a successful HR exec, one is a journalist and the other is a doctor. Clearly they did something right. 😉 And let’s be real for a minute, it wasn’t all about a wooden spoon. It was about manners and respect.

Put me in the camp of the person who told this woman “If your parents had to use a wooden spoon on you, then they clearly didn’t know how to parent you.”

There are better ways to earn respect than by beating your child. If you have to beat your child, you are doing it wrong. You. Are. Doing. It. Wrong.

You know, maybe if we stop teaching kids that might makes right and that violence is a legitimate solution to a problem, we would have fewer domestic abuse issues, murders, riots, and maybe even wars. Maybe adults could try acting like adults and work a little bit at the parenting thing, rather than striking out like a three-year-old would?

I don’t hit my kids, I’ve never hit my kids, and the thought of hitting my kids makes me sick. And you know what? They are awesome. They can be frustrating at times because they’re kids, but they respect me because I model the kind of behavior that I expect from them. If my kids make a mistake, they don’t feel the need to be deceitful in an effort to escape a beating. The lesson we teach is to own up to your mistakes and fix them. They claim both their successes and failures.

My ultimate job as a parent is to teach my kids how to interact with the adult world. If my friends or coworkers don’t do what I say, I don’t go punch them in the face. I talk with them and sort things out. This is what grown-ups do. This is how we solve problems.

I’m sick of corporal punishment apologists blaming the “sparing of the rod” for a kid’s issues. If a rod is all you’ve got in your parental toolbox, you’re a poor parent. And it’s not just your kid who will suffer.

via The “Entitlement Generation” : Anchor Mom.

David Simon: ‘There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show’ | US news | The Guardian

More of David Simon.

America is a country that is now utterly divided when it comes to its society, its economy, its politics. There are definitely two Americas. I live in one, on one block in Baltimore that is part of the viable America, the America that is connected to its own economy, where there is a plausible future for the people born into it. About 20 blocks away is another America entirely. It’s astonishing how little we have to do with each other, and yet we are living in such proximity.

There’s no barbed wire around West Baltimore or around East Baltimore, around Pimlico, the areas in my city that have been utterly divorced from the American experience that I know. But there might as well be. We’ve somehow managed to march on to two separate futures and I think you’re seeing this more and more in the west. I don’t think it’s unique to America.

via David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show' | US news | The Guardian.

David Simon on Baltimore’s Anguish | The Marshall Project

Great interview of David Simon on the Baltimore police situation.

David Simon is Baltimore’s best-known chronicler of life on the hard streets. He worked for The Baltimore Sun city desk for a dozen years, wrote “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets” (1991) and with former homicide detective Ed Burns co-wrote “The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood”(1997), which Simon adapted into an HBO miniseries. He is the creator, executive producer and head writer of the HBO television series “The Wire” (2002–2008). Simon is a member of The Marshall Project’s advisory board. He spoke with Bill Keller on Tuesday.

via David Simon on Baltimore’s Anguish | The Marshall Project.

We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership | WIRED

You should have the right to use anything you own the way you want to use it. John Deere needs to get a grip.

It’s official: John Deere and General Motors want to eviscerate the notion of ownership. Sure, we pay for their vehicles. But we don’t own them. Not according to their corporate lawyers, anyway.

In a particularly spectacular display of corporate delusion, John Deere—the world’s largest agricultural machinery maker —told the Copyright Office that farmers don’t own their tractors. Because computer code snakes through the DNA of modern tractors, farmers receive “an implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle.

”It’s John Deere’s tractor, folks. You’re just driving it.

via We Can't Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership | WIRED.

Former Obama Pilot: TWA Flight 800 was shot down, here’s why – NY Daily News

I’m glad I’m not the only one.

Was TWA Flight 800 shot out of the sky?As a former pilot, that is a question I get asked about all the time.

I’m no conspiracy theorist, but let’s be clear: Yes. I say it was. And I believe the FBI covered it up.

There are many reasons to disbelieve the official explanation of what happened to TWA 800 almost 19 years ago, on July 17, 1996, off the South Shore of Long Island. There’s hardly an airline pilot among the hundreds I know who buys the official explanation — that it was a fuel-tank explosion — offered by the National Transportation Safety Board some four years later.

Lots can go wrong with an airplane. Engines can fail; they can catch fire. Devices can malfunction. Pilots make errors.

But jets do not explode in midair.

via Former Obama Pilot: TWA Flight 800 was shot down, here's why – NY Daily News.

Obama to Remove Cuba From State Sponsor of Terror List – ABC News

Obama removes Cuba from the terror sponsor list. I wonder if Raul Castro will remove America from Cuba’s terror sponsor list?

The terror designation has been a stain on Cuba’s pride and a major stumbling block for efforts to mend ties between Washington and Havana.In a message to Congress, Obama said the government of Cuba "has not provided any support for international terrorism" over the last six months. He also told lawmakers that Cuba "has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future."

via Obama to Remove Cuba From State Sponsor of Terror List – ABC News.

Lessons learned from a month of EV ownership — Technology Musings — Medium

Good advice from a new EV driver.

I’ve lusted after a Tesla since they debuted, thought seriously about getting a Nissan Leaf too, but it was after I took a test ride in a BMW i3 that I found a perfect happy medium. I picked one up last month and learned plenty in the short time I’ve been driving it. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live with an electric vehicle (EV), here’s a list of things I’ve learned since taking the plunge.

via Lessons learned from a month of EV ownership — Technology Musings — Medium.

Why skeptics think a South Carolina sailor lied about being lost at sea for 66 days – The Washington Post

This guy is a liar and a nutcase to boot.

It’s rare that a man is lost at sea and returns home looking even healthier than before he disappeared.

But that’s exactly what skeptics of Louis Jordan have pointed out as they question the 37-year-old’s miraculous account of surviving 66 days adrift in the Atlantic Ocean.

via Why skeptics think a South Carolina sailor lied about being lost at sea for 66 days – The Washington Post.