Try to find a news source that just gives you the facts, instead of trying to sway your opinion in every story. You can find some on the local level, but national news sources that care about objective reporting are rare. You only have a choice between sites with “left-wing” and “right-wing” agendas. The result is that people don’t trust the news they get. They especially notice when people they like are hit with distortion and selective criticism. They’re likely to turn to sources whose biases match theirs, even if they’re less trustworthy than the mainstream ones.
This is a big factor behind Trumpism. A site which bashes him day in and out, pulling quotes out of context and picking on minor things, is less convincing than one which presents the facts and lets people draw their conclusions. When they repeatedly note that Trump has failed to back up a claim with evidence, yet never do the same with Democrats who do the same, people dismiss the stories as hit pieces. I just came across a CNN top headline: “Trump’s wild and lewd rhetoric reaches a new extreme.” I try to keep myself informed, I know Trump is horrible, and I don’t want to read that article. Do they really think anyone inclined even a little favorably to Trump is going to think, “This article may contain important facts. I should read it.”?
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Yesterday I logged into LinkedIn, and shortly afterward I got an email saying:
Your request to activate Remember me on your Firefox, Mac OS X in Boston, Massachusetts, United States was not successful. This is because you have 2-Factor Authentication enabled on your account for additional security.
This was followed by information plausibly matching my last login. However, I didn’t know what “Remember me” is, and I certainly didn’t intentionally activate any feature by that name yesterday. This sounded like a bug. I went into LinkedIn’s help, which makes it difficult to contact a human, and eventually figured out how to report it. If it was happening to me, I figured, it must be happening to others.
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Multi-factor authentication is a valuable security measure. If someone guesses or steals your password, it’s another barrier to their getting into your account. Using an application that generates access codes is one of the better ways to do it. Several applications are available, most of which use the same protocol. The Open Authentication architecture sets the standard, and many applications implement it, offering advantages or disadvantages. I’ve used Authy from Twilio for some time, but it’s time to leave.
The biggest dangers of using a 2FA application are a breach in its security and the loss of its availability. Authy has been deficient on both counts. In June, Twilio suffered a data breach. The exposed information wasn’t critical, but it could aid malicious parties in getting 2FA codes by trickery. Worse, Authy’s availability on various devices and computers has been erratic.
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On September 17, 2024, Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote wore pink armbands with an “XX” on them to a game as a protest against the Bow, New Hampshire school district’s transgender policies. They did not interfere with the game, annoy the players, or do anything else. However, the school officials didn’t like the protest, so they called it “harassment” and issued an order banning the two from subsequent games. This was a classic violation of First Amendment rights, and the two took the town to court. United States District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe has overturned the ban, though for the present they may not wear the armbands at the games.
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A year ago today, Hamas conducted an orgy of brutality against innocent civilians. Such things have happened many times, but this case was unusual in attracting the support of a small but significant number of Americans. I don’t normally venture this deep into politics, aside from First Amendment issues relevant to writing, but I have to say something today.
I’m not talking about people who want peace or who object to Israel’s conduct in the war that followed. I’m talking about people who supported the massacre and want Israel wiped off the map. Also, we have to recognize that even groups with despicable goals have the right of free speech. They do not, however, have the right to physically interfere with other people’s legitimate activity.
Yesterday, as reported in the news, “Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators temporarily blocked traffic on Storrow Drive in Boston on Sunday during an emotional rally on the eve of the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel.” Given the timing, any protest should have said something against that slaughter. The report doesn’t mention anything of the kind.
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I don’t know whether headline writing is a low-paying job that attracts incompetent people or they’re under time pressure and can’t do a decent job. Or perhaps their bosses tell them, “Never mind respect for the reader, write clickbait!” A headline that I just saw on Yahoo News tops them all: “No, Donald Trump Isn’t Wading Through Hurricane Floodwaters, You Absolute Morons.” I don’t know why Yahoo decided it was a good idea to grossly insult all its readers, but I won’t reward them with a link. You know the search-engine routine. Here’s a screenshot, in case the people responsible have been sacked by the time you read this.
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This week I came upon a bizarre claim in an Associated Press article: “The federal law that President Joe Biden signed at the end of 2021 followed allegations of human rights abuses by Beijing against members of the ethnic Uyghur group and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. The Chinese government has refuted the claims as lies and defended its practice and policy in Xinjiang as fighting terror and ensuring stability.” If AP was using the established meaning of “refute,” it was claiming that these allegations were lies and China had proven they were. The article didn’t say what this proof was.
However, it was called to my attention that some dictionaries give a new, second meaning for “refute.” Merriam-Webster gives two definitions: (1) to prove wrong by argument or evidence : show to be false or erroneous. (2) to deny the truth or accuracy of. Dictionary.com, on the other hand, gives two definitions that both entail proof: (1) to prove to be false or erroneous, as an opinion or charge. (2) to prove (a person) to be in error.
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On Wednesday, October 9, at 8 PM Eastern US time, I’ll livestream the 1920 silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with my live accompaniment. This early horror film deals with a showman who controls a sleepwalker, making him commit murders. Or at least it seems that way. Nothing is quite real in this movie, which is as famous for its bizarre landscapes and buildings as for its story. Conrad Veidt, who plays the sleepwalker, is probably best known to modern audiences as Major Strasser in Casablanca.
As usual, I’ll improvise most of the music. However, there’s one classical piece which suits the movie so well that I’ll incorporate an excerpt from it.
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On September 28 I saw a presentation of Abel Gance’s 1923 silent film, La Roue, in its newly restored version, nearly seven hours long. Jeff Rapsis provided live accompaniment for the whole thing at the Brattle Cinema, and he made it to the end in fine form. Not a lot of people have seen the movie, especially in its full-length form, so I should say a few words on it even though I don’t often write movie reviews.
Gance is best known for Napoleon, another silent film of astonishing length. La Roue is divided into four parts or “epoques,” so perhaps the original idea was to present it in four sessions. It was presented in Cambridge with short intermissions after the first and third parts, and a longer break to eat after the second part. The focus is mainly on three characters, yet the movie doesn’t drag. It’s just depressing as hell. It starts with a train wreck, spectacularly presented for the time, and things just get worse from there. There is a certain amount of consolation at the end.
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