GENESIS: Artists Who Changed Music – Part 2
Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
December 11, 2022
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Three Songs You Didn’t Know the Late Actress Carrie Fisher Co-Wrote.
The late actress Carrie Fisher will forever be known as a cinnamon-bunned space princess-turned-blaster-sporting heroine from a galaxy far, far away. But she was so much more than Princess Leia from Star Wars. She was a novelist, memoirist, screenplay writer, and all-around wordsmith, a skill that she eventually translated into song.
Here are three songs you didn’t know Carrie Fisher co-wrote.
Hey you can’t fool me: how could Fisher have played a “space princess-turned-blaster-sporting heroine,” when it was actually Jennifer Lawrence who pioneered those roles for women?
QUESTION ASKED: Are we finally reaching peak climate hysteria?
WELL, NOW WE KNOW WHY LIBS OF TIKTOK GOT PUT THROUGH THE WRINGER: Christopher Rufo looks at Yoel Roth’s academic publications and concludes ‘dude’s research background is wild.’
On Halloween, Elon Musk recommended that everyone on Twitter follow Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of Trust and Safety. Conservatives asked Musk to rethink that recommendation. Roth has had some very interesting opinions about Republicans and conservatives, tweeting that “I’m just saying, we fly over those states that voted for a racist tangerine for a reason,” among many others. A little more than a week later, Roth left the company, but we sure are learning a lot about the work he did at Twitter from messages on the company’s Slack channels.
We know this came up earlier, but Roth has a Ph.D. in communication, and his dissertation took a good look at the gay hook-up app Grindr. We’re cool with Roth being gay, but it’s interesting to see the works he had published before taking over Trust and Safety at Twitter.
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We don’t care if Roth is super, super gay or not, but it does make us wonder why accounts like Libs of TikTok were so heavily on the radar of the people with their fingers on the “suspend” button.
And then there’s this:
Flashback: OK, Groomer: Phrase Calling Out Predators Banned on Twitter: 15 People, Groups Censored by Twitter for Questioning Gender Ideology.
20 MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE: Hunter Biden’s Friends Are Preparing to Go After Those Who Investigate Him.
JUST NBC THE AIRBRUSHING! NBC reported Russia offered ‘Griner OR Whelan’ — then they stealth edited to match Biden claims.
GREAT MOMENTS IN STOCKHOLM SYNDROME: Just What Did the Times Walkout Change?
The picketing outside the Times’ Renzo Piano–designed headquarters went on for more than an hour this afternoon. Over a hundred people gathered under the scaffolding on West 40th Street, surrounded by a crush of cameras. Nikole Hannah-Jones, their star magazine correspondent and the intellectual force behind “The 1619 Project,” stood next to Scabby the giant inflatable rat and spoke into a microphone: “Let me tell you, I know what it’s like to work at a newspaper and not make enough to pay your bills. I worked two jobs until I was 30 years old. I reported at my local newspaper and then I had to sell mattresses on nights and weekends just to make ends meet. I loved my job, but we shouldn’t have to struggle financially to work at a place like the New York Times, no matter what position we hold.”
Donald McNeil was there, wearing an old union T-shirt and a brown leather coat with a shearling collar. He was ousted from the paper last year, and Hannah-Jones had played a minor role in that, but he’d always been a dedicated union man. He nodded along while she spoke. “I thought she was great,” he told me.
But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Sister.
(Found via Guy Benson, who tweets, “Damn, Don, have some self-respect.”)
GENESIS: Artists Who Changed Music – Part 1 (Video).
IN A SANE WORLD, YES. BUT, ALAS: Top Gun: Maverick Should Win Best Picture.
Some will argue that Top Gun: Maverick doesn’t “deserve” the Oscar, that it wasn’t the “best” movie of the year. I’d, frankly, agree with that. It’s not even at the top of my own list, and it’s likely to be up against the movie I do think is the best of the year (Tár) in the best picture category. But to quote another Oscar favorite: Deserve’s got nothing to do with it. This is a moment for self-preservation, pure and simple, not just for a Hollywood struggling to retain relevance in an increasingly niche-ified entertainment universe but also for The Academy Awards themselves, which have seen ratings decline year after year and can’t expect the rousing triumph of Coda to remind people that, hey, the Oscars are a thing.
So, I beg you, Academy: nominate Top Gun: Maverick in all the Oscar categories for which it is eligible. Heap gold upon it on Oscar night. And bask in praise from masses who remain at least a little confused by the suggestion that the greatest film of all time is a three-plus-hour foreign flick about a woman peeling potatoes in her apartment.
As Sonny Bunch writes, “the Oscars are a trade show. But they’re a trade show that has its nose a bit up in the air.” The latter is obvious, the former is absolutely true — just ask the men who founded Hollywood. And they in particular would like to see Hollywood give itself a jump-start, before it’s too late.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: White English Teacher Refuses to Teach Grammar Because it is ‘White Supremacy.’
REPORT: Parents of FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried not teaching at Stanford in ’23.
There’s still much to unpack about the nuclear explosion that was crypto exchange FTX, founded and run by former billionaire and “effective altruist” Sam Bankman-Fried. The 30-year-old, who’s already earned the acronym/moniker “SBF” — normally a cool accomplishment, unless you become infamous rather than famous, as is the case here — has been on an ill-advised media tour attempting to prove he isn’t a completely-over-his-head fraudster. Good luck to him on that front.
Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried’s parents have reportedly been (figuratively) struck by the collateral damage of their son’s reckless exploits. Bankman-Fried’s father, Joseph Bankman, has canceled the one law class he was scheduled to teach at Stanford early next year, according to the Stanford Daily. Bankman-Fried’s mother, Barbara Fried, also isn’t teaching any classes next quarter.
So no more seminars on how “free will is a myth and that we should not blame people for committing crimes?”
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Editor of Prestigious Psychology Journal Fired for Soliciting Criticism of Tendentious Article by Black Academic Claiming that Color-Blindness is Akshually Racism.
That led to a petition, published December 2 and signed by over 1,000 psychologists, that called for Fielder’s dismissal — and, shortly thereafter, to an email from Robert Gropp, the executive director of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), which publishes the journal, arguing that Fiedler had violated the journal’s “diversity and inclusion policies,” according to an email obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Gropp demanded that Fiedler resign or, he said, “the APS will move forward with terminating your editorship.”
Fielder told the Free Beacon on Tuesday that he had submitted his resignation, adding that Gropp and his colleagues never asked for his version of events.
Though Roberts, the Stanford psychologist, was invited to reply to the critiques, which are forthcoming with the journal, he pulled his paper after becoming convinced that the debate was “rigged” against him, he told the Chronicle of Higher Education. He then published the paper on a preprint service, PsyArXiv, on December 2, along with his email exchanges with Fiedler, which he claimed provided evidence of his unfair treatment–and, he implied, of Fiedler’s own racism.
Plot twist! I never saw that coming!
More at the link.
…”In some ways, there’s no news here,” Jussim said. “This is now normal in academia.”
Yup. There is no more academia, there is no more science.
How long before the bridges start collapsing, planes start falling from the sky, and people start getting the wrong limbs amputated on the regular?
You mean more bridges start collapsing, right? We’ve already had at least one where political correctness led to its collapse: The 2018 Florida International University pedestrian bridge that killed six and injured eight, but whose engineers were praised beforehand for their environmentalism and gender equality.
BRAVO, KYRSTEN SINEMA. YOU REPRESENT MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WHO HATE BOTH PARTIES:
This is a major blow for Democrats. But they really only have their own side to blame. Sinema votes reliably center-Left on everything from abortion to immigration to LGBT issues, but because she has centrist views on economics, opposing tax hikes, for example, the far Left has viciously harassed her.
Protesters at Arizona State University even followed her into the women’s bathroom and screamed at her, reportedly breaking the law. More broadly, she has faced vitriolic criticism and attacks for positions that until very recently were mainstream among Democrats, such as maintaining the Senate filibuster.
Is it any wonder she’s leaving a party that has treated her so poorly?
There will, unfortunately, be serious downsides to Sinema’s move.
Exit question: Will Manchin follow Sinema — and take control of the Senate?
FAFO: Elon Musk Pulls a Reagan vs. Air Traffic Controllers Move by Firing Janitors Protesting at Twitter.
It’s a Reaganesque move, showing that Musk has little to no time to waste on these matters as he deals with severe internal issues, namely how a former FBI official scrubbed internal documents detailing how Twitter censored the Hunter Biden laptop story. This person, James Baker, was formerly with the FBI’s general counsel. Before his role was discovered, Baker was Twitter’s deputy general counsel, and Musk fired him on Tuesday.
Mr. Baker was revealed to be part of the group reviewing the files about the social media giant’s Hunter Biden protocols, the first batch of which was reported by former Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi last Friday. Baker was one of the main stooges who kept the Russian collusion hoax alive within the walls of the DOJ.
Exit quote: “20 janitors lose their jobs and it’s national news and the Dems are outraged. 11,000 pipeline workers lost their job thanks to Biden and it was (mostly) crickets. Enjoy the show!”
REPUBLICANS POUNCE! GOP Jump On Biden Official Sam Brinton’s 2nd Theft Allegation—Blames ‘Wokeness’ For Their [sic] Hire.
Evergreen:
Related: “Sam Brinton, A Fraud Our Media Helped Create.”
They won’t do better, because too many of them regard their job as nurturing, confirming, and advancing a Narrative. Some decades from now, people will look back at this insane time in American history, and wonder how so many important institutions failed, and bankrupted their own authority. It will be interesting to see which, if any, major media outlets look into Brinton’s past in light of his felony theft arrest. Or will this too just go down the memory hole?
Fortunately, there is a way to avoid being the victim of Brinton’s alleged crimes:
THE TWITTER FILES: Bari Weiss Twitter Files Reveal Systematic ‘Blacklisting’ of Disfavored Content.
The previous installment, released by independent journalist Matt Taibbi, focused on the confused and chaotic decision on the part of Twitter executives to offer a “hacked materials” rationale for suppressing the New York Post‘s Hunter Biden laptop story; as such, the files mostly provided more evidence of what was already fairly well-known.
The Weiss installment, on the other hand, offers significant evidence of something that many people merely suspected was taking place: wholesale blacklisting of Twitter accounts that were perceived to be causing harm.
Weiss provides several examples of ways in which the platform limited the reach of various high-profile users: Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University professor of medicine who opposed various COVID-19 mandates and lockdowns, was on a “trends blacklist,” which meant that his tweets would not appear in the trending topics section; right-wing radio host Dan Bongino landed on a “search blacklist,” which meant that he did not show up in searches; and conservative activist and media personality Charlie Kirk was slapped with a “do not amplify” label. At no point did anyone at Twitter communicate to these individuals that their content was being limited in such a manner.
These actions, of course, sound a lot like “shadow banning,” which is the theory that Twitter surreptitiously restricts users’ content, even in cases where the platform has not formally issued a ban or suspension. For years, various figures on the right and contrarian left have complained that the reach of their tweets had substantially and artificially diminished for nonobvious reasons, contrary to the stated claims of top-level Twitter staffers who steadfastly asserted: “We do not shadow ban.”
This claim depends upon how the term is defined. To be clear, Twitter has publicly admitted that it suppresses tweets that “detract from the conversation,” though the platform’s plan was to eventually move toward a policy of informing users about suppression efforts—a move that never took place.
Related: The Twitter Files are damning to the government.
Second, we are learning that Twitter worked closely with like-minded government bureaucrats to squelch legitimate news, information, and discussion. They did so to protect favored candidates (Democrats) and political positions (progressive). We will undoubtedly learn that Facebook, Google and other media giants had similar ties to Washington. We certainly need to know.
The government’s role here is damning. Its primary job under the First Amendment is to protect free speech, not to kill it. It botched that vital job, and it did so deliberately to increase its own control over private speech in public fora and, apparently, to promote certain political views.
The only good news here is that Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, is exposing the old management’s efforts to suppress speech and promote political bias on its platform. To expose those malign efforts, he ordered some of Twitter’s internal documents be given to two journalists: Matt Taibbi (who quickly published some of his findings as tweets) and Bari Weiss (who is beginning to publish some findings and promises to publish a longer analysis).
We have now learned that some of Twitter’s holdover executives worked secretly to prevent the transfer of those documents to Taibbi and Weiss. The key figure here seems to be Twitter’s second-ranking attorney, James Baker, who came to the company from his post as the FBI’s top lawyer. When Musk discovered Baker was undermining him, Musk fired him immediately. We don’t know if Baker was trying to shield bad behavior by Twitter’s old management, or by the FBI and CIA, or by all of them. In any case, Baker seems to be one of those swamp creatures who routinely slide through revolving doors, forging profitable links between their private employers and government agencies.
As bad as Twitter’s old management was, the reaction of left-leaning journalists to Elon Musk’s efforts has been frankly astonishing. Instead of seeking full disclosure, as reporters normally would (and should), they have attacked Musk for trying to ensure it. Instead of demanding free speech, as honorable journalists would (and should), they have demanded even more censorship to stop legally permissible content from appearing on the social media platform. They believe in “free speech for me, but not for thee.”
Just think of the media as Democratic party operatives with bylines (who recently lost many of their inside sources within Twitter after Musk’s purchase), and it all makes sense. Such as the Stig Bensmithing breaking news: NBC News’ Ben Collins offers an emoji to express his disinterest in Twitter Files Part 2.
December 9, 2022
FASTER, PLEASE: Report: Washington Post Lost Half a Million Subscribers Since Biden Took Office. Trump was right. He was ‘the best thing to ever happen’ to the Bezos-owned paper.
THE CRITICAL DRINKER: Andor — The Best Show At The Worst Time (Video).
TO BE FAIR, SHE’S ALWAYS SWUNG BOTH WAYS: Senator Sinema Leaves the Democratic Party, Registers as an Independent.