Gary McGath

About Gary McGath

I am a freelance technical writer in Plaistow, NH.

Censoring networks by intimidation 1

This entry was posted in Censorship Commentary and tagged censorship Trump on by

Hardly a day goes by that Donald Trump doesn’t commit an impeachable offense. Among them is his attempt to intimidate broadcast networks into making their coverage of him more favorable and his opponents less favorable. He has filed a nonsense lawsuit against CBS, claiming that editing a Kamala Harris interview in a way he didn’t like constituted election interference. All the analysis I’ve read says the suit doesn’t stand a chance on its merits, but the government has the power to approve or block a merger CBS is seeking, and the implied threat to disallow it has CBS ready to fold. The FCC, under Trump appointee Brendan Carr, is also applying pressure. NPR says “CBS’ parent company appears to be inching toward capitulation, as its controlling owner wants to drag CBS out of the headlines and wrap up a corporate sale.”
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Video vs. text

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged literacy SanityProject video on by

At their best, videos are a great source of information. They let you see events and look at the faces of people advancing their aims. But when it comes to analyzing and evaluating an issue, they’re a poor substitute for text. With the decline in reading by Americans, this is a serious concern.

The shift from large screens and paper materials to phones helps to explain the popularity of videos. It’s hard to read text on a pocket-sized screen. People often listen to videos more than they watch them. Or they half-listen while doing other things. This isn’t good for developing informed opinions.
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Rewriting the news in place

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged fake news journalism on by

This weekend I was informed of a truly outrageous statement by Karoline Leavitt. At least it would have been truly outrageous if it were true, but it now looks like fake news. A response I got on Bluesky pointed at an article on the news aggregator Newsbreak, with the headline “Karoline Leavitt shocks as she tells press ‘Jesus didn’t have electricity either’.” This seemed outrageous even for the Trump team; it wouldn’t fit their line to admit that tariffs could result in privations. I checked for confirmation and found an MSN article with the same claim. This made me think it was reliable. I was wrong.
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Spring cleaning in February 1

This entry was posted in Administrative and tagged blogs on by

It’s time to give this site a new focus and look, now that I’m not spending as much time writing for income. See the homepage for a discussion of the changes.

I should replace the site’s default image, a medieval scribe, with something more exciting. That will come later.

Update: I now have a new image, of the author of Common Sense and The Age of Reason. I hope you like it.
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Vigilante violence for tolerance?

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged ethics liberty Massachusetts on by

Lately I’ve been dealing with some people on Bluesky who advocate violence against people whose ideas are sufficiently repugnant. One of them, a supposed “libertarian,” cited Popper’s “paradox of tolerance” at me, then descended into outright trolling when I linked to my article on the topic in response. I immediately blocked him, of course.

Laws restricting which ideas may be freely expressed are bad enough. Direct violence by individuals or mobs won’t have so broad an effect, but the outcomes in individual cases may be worse. Let’s look at the threats allegedly made by John Reardon of Millis, Massachusetts. According to the DoJ release, called a Jewish synagogue and reportedly said: “You do realize that by supporting genocide that means it’s ok for people to commit genocide against you.” “With supporting the killing of innocent little children, that means it’s OK to kill your children.” “End the genocide, or it is time to end Israel and all the Jews.”
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The speech police

This entry was posted in Censorship and tagged censorship freedom on by

Several states have set up hotlines where people can report legal, constitutionally protected speech to the government. There is no indication — so far — that people are being prosecuted for exercising their First Amendment rights, but a call from the cops saying you’ve been named in a “hate incident” is intimidating enough.

In Oregon, someone contacted a hotline run by the Oregon Department of Justice and reported a neighbor for having an Israeli flag on his door. The hotline operator treated the bigot’s complaint as a report of a valid “bias incident” and the bigot as a “victim.” The operator said the caller could get rewarded with money from the state’s Crime Victim Compensation Program, even though there was no crime.
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Is an era of free speech ending?

This entry was posted in Writing on by

In his first days back in office, Donald Trump is launching a campaign against freedom of speech. He has declared that MSNBC “shouldn’t have the right to broadcast” and called for the revocation of CBS’s broadcast license (even though there is no license to revoke at the network level). His extension on the TikTok ban sounded good at first, but he has suggested that its future presence in the USA may be contingent on its turning over 50% ownership to the United States (which seems to mean the government but isn’t fully clear). (Update: Recent reports indicate he’s shifted to wanting a consortium of US companies to acquire a majority stake, which at least wouldn’t be American socialism.)

We need to remember that current levels of freedom of speech in the United States haven’t always prevailed. It was only around 1960 to 1970 that the Supreme Court recognized their present broad status.
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Stan Laurel in Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged music silent movies on by

Stan Laurel was a well-known silent film actor before he teamed up with Oliver Hardy. I’ve uploaded his 1925 film, Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde, to YouTube with my accompaniment. The two-reel comedy plays off two earlier Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde films, both released in 1920. In this version, Laurel’s character turns into a prankster rather than a real menace. He escapes from the angry crowd by returning to Jekyll’s lab and drinking the reversing potion, but his supply is limited.
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Peak insanity day

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged politics Trump on by

Today insanity peaks in the US as we come to coronation — I mean inauguration — day. It should take no more than an hour to get the necessary people together and administer the oath of office, but then people might think the president is a mere chief executive rather than a monarch. (Though these days monarchs usually have less power than the president of the US. So do the chief executives of most relatively free countries.) The imperial presidency is a distinctively American feature, having more in common with authoritarian states like Russia and China.
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