December 19, 2016

What Indeed is Time?

I have always tried to hold a simple explanation of quantum mechanics in my head just to keep it from exploding. To wit, time doesn't really exist at the particle level, but emerges when you progress to the atomic level and continue outward. This is what allows particles to be 'two different places at the same time.' I hope this new concept doesn't blow my simplification out of the water, because I hate having to treat science like 'magic happens here.'

Quantum Gravity Research Could Unearth the True Nature of Time Natalie Wolchover | Wired

December 17, 2016

White Liberals are Only Human

"And likewise, white people who truly want to be allies can find their path to ally-ship without black validation and without us having to take time out of our days to educate them. They can find their own curriculum and figure out for themselves how they can do their part in fighting the good fight. And, again, they can do so without the promise of black praise. I’m no longer asking decent white people to “get their cousins”, I’m only expecting them to “get” themselves. And, I’m not even about to keep checking to see if they’re doing that much. Because it’s not my goddamn job – and it’s not yours either."

I get the exhaustion. But African-Americans constitute only about 13% of the US population. Without allies, progress against racism will be slow if at all. Contemptuous attitudes like this toward allies is going to demoralize them and make them less likely to speak out against racism. After all, people are only human.
Why It’s Time Black People Simply Disengage With White People In Discussing Race
We need to stop arguing with them because, in the end, they aren’t invested like we are.
Zacklinly - Thought for Food

The Obligation to be Reasonable

"...the demand to be reasonable is a disingenuous demand. Black folks have been reasoning with white people forever. Racism is unreasonable, and that means reason has limited currency in the fight against it. Black folks understand, just like white folks do, that reason should be wielded as a tactic, not adhered to as a rule." I think the final statement in this article from 2.5 years ago sums up where we are in our conversation about diversity in America today. I could not disagree with it more, as I believe that being reasonable is one of the fundamentals of society and is almost as important an aspect of our social contract as the rejection of violence. If everyone in America decided today that being reasonable is just an option, to be used when it is beneficial to our own goals, we would collapse -- and that is not an exaggeration. (Really, just imagine people behaving absolutely unreasonably in almost every situation and what living in a world like that would be.) I want to be enlightened about the challenges and injustices endured by people in different life situations and adjust my own behavior accordingly. But, if your approach is insulting, condemnatory, dismissive, hysterical... i.e. unreasonable, I will tune you out and you will have defeated your purpose.

It’s not about you, white liberals: Why attacks on radical people of color are so misguided
With anti-racism politics flaring up on the left, too many are making it personal -- when it's really about policy
Brittney Cooper - Salon

August 28, 2016

Expecting More from the AP

The AP misled its Twitter followers with this tweet. Per CNN
In examining people Clinton had met with during her tenure at the State Department and how many of them had given to the Clinton Foundation, the AP had excluded those with whom Clinton would be expected to meet as Secretary of State -- U.S. government employees and officials from foreign countries, for example.
Kathleen Carroll, the Executive Editor at AP, defended the tweet saying that it was "sloppy" and "imprecise," but would not admit that it was incorrect. Additionally, the tweet did not include a link to the full story. In my opinion, the phrase "more than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary" is an exact number that can be measured and has no ambiguity. The tweet was incorrect and misled the AP's Twitter followers.

August 27, 2016

Today's STFU Award





...and today's STFU award goes to filmmaker Nate Parker for his comments about gay film roles, specifically “to preserve the black man… you will never see me take a gay role.” Shame on him and his ignorance.

August 22, 2016

Voting is a Right, Not a Privilege

August 17, 2016

The Empire of Illusion

"I am not naïve about violence, tyranny, and war. I have seen enough of human cruelty. But I have also seen in conflict after conflict that we underestimate the power of love, the power of a Salvadorian archbishop, even though he was assassinated, to defy the killing, the power of a mayor in a small Balkan village to halt the attacks on his Muslim neighbors. These champions of the sacred, even long after they are gone, become invisible witnesses to those who follow, condemning through their courage their own executioners. They may be few in number but their voices ripple outward over time. The mediocrities who mask their feelings of worthlessness and emptiness behind the façade of power and illusion, who seek to make us serve their perverse ideologies, fear most those who speak in the language of love. They seek, as others have sought throughout human history, to silence these lonely voices, and yet these voices always rise in magnificent defiance. All ages, all cultures, and all religions produce those who challenge the oppressor and fight for the oppressed. Ours is no exception. The ability to stand as 'an ironic point of light' that 'flashes out wherever the just exchange their messages,' is the ability to sustain a life of meaning." ― from Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle by Chris Hedges

July 17, 2016

Children and Class

This does surprise me. Maybe unaccompanied street children are so prevalent in Georgia that people have become inured?

July 09, 2016

Bad Actors

The Good and the Bad

It is not only possible, but necessary for us to hold two thoughts in our heads simultaneously and in equal measure: (1) police, in general are good people who want to protect us, and (2) some police are really bad, need to be identified, winnowed out, and (if appropriate) prosecuted.