Thanks for posting this. I mostly gave up on viewing the one or two Twitter feeds that interest me after nitter stopped working. It wasn't ideological, I just wasn't able to reliably view and navigate without an account, and when I made an account it just kept showing me like "black HS football player bad sportsmanship".
Look like I've got about two years of James Cage White story arcs to check in on.
I recall being flabbergasted the first time I saw someone watching (what I think was) tick tock. An adolescent boy a few rows in front of me at an amphitheater was watching what I believe was comedic content at full volume, but the jump cuts and sound effects were so jarring and constant that even when I focused for a minute and tried to force myself to understand what he was watching, I couldn't follow what was happening.
I can recall being that age and being overwhelmed and exhausted after watching a Pokemon TV show battle sequence, but this has nothing on what I assume is the worst kind of short form content today. "The weed is different now bro".
I'm reminded of the time GPT4 refused to help me assess the viability of parking a helium zeppelin an inch off of the ground to bypass health department regulations because, as an aircraft in transit, I wasn't under their jurisdiction.
Is the title an intentional mirror of Carver's short story collection "What we talk about when we talk about love"? If so, can someone smarter than me explain what the author means by this connection?
This might be the wrong place to ask these questions, but this comment caused me to think about the situation. Russia and/or Putin has been sold to me as "crazy" since the 90s. I don't really believe that, and presume it's because it's an explanation for their behavior which doesn't require America to consider how seriously we've been dicking over Russia. This is not to say Russia wouldn't dick us if they could (they most certainly would).
The Ukrainian war has been presented to me as a mad man trying to take over the world a la Hitler. I think it's more complicated and concerns about NATO expansion, the US Dollar as the world reserve currency, and Russia controlling warm water naval access make sense as motivations for the war, even though they are also be tools of propaganda. It seems clear that Russia believed they had the opportunity to establish themselves as a great power once again alongside China and the US in the "new multipolar world" they harp about.
My question is this: In light of this information, why has the Ukrainian conflict become seemingly (based on resources allocated and increasingly provocative drone incursions into NATO territories) existential for Russia? Are the us sanctions crippling long term without Ukrankan resources? Why are they willing to sacrifice so much if they already have Crimea free and clear?
I recall seeing a clip of an interviewee who is a cave diver. He was giving a description of the time he came closest to death while cave diving, and it came down to someone in his group losing it, and him attempting to prevent that person's death, and then being stuck without a guide line and functionally blind in a muddy cave underwater after the person freaking out sped out of the cave. He said he was able to get out by slowly crawling back and forth upside down on the surface of the cave with his face pressed against it trying to find a thin crack he remembered led back to the surface.
What struck me the most was him saying "calm the f down cowboy, calm the f down or you're going to die", and his face when he said it. I can't imagine the sangfroid required. I also can't imagine the conversation when they both reached the surface.
A few years back I decided to finally learn correct cursive so I was able to sign my name to documents correctly. When I discovered there were multiple types of cursive, I landed on Kurrent (the predecessor of Sütterlin) and now frequently sign my name with it to the general dissatisfaction of everyone in my life.
I'm sure there's some sort of point I'm making about the absurdity of a signature being used to verify anything (when the nice old lady volunteering at the polling station makes me sign again because it doesn't quite look like my signature even though I have photo ID and have arrived in person at the correct polling location I want to do a backflip, but I of course don't because I want to be nice to the old lady), but mostly it just makes me smile.
No sorry, I was including that example because it's something "political" that is also pretty universally accepted and uncontroversial, and as a consequence could only really upset the most upsetable. I meant it as a contrast to the other more controversial political topics that would require more consideration before putting into a children's show.
The original premise of the first comment I replied to was that PBS kids programming does not include political content, and I wanted to provide examples of two kinds of political content it included.
I don't in any way blame you for misunderstanding what I was trying to say, because I think a lot of people who read my comment did based on the negative point score (?) it ended up with. I think that we (and I include myself in this we) tend to jump past the specific content of a response, and only "hear" the tone of the response and presume intention from it. This isn't necessary an ineffective strategy online where there's a Tsunami of legitimately (from my perspective) evil positions (some of which I previously held and now am ashamed of, shout out God) and the odds are that a person (or bot or person working for an influence campaign) stating anything other than complete excited agreement is probably trying to convince people they should also hold a particular evil view.
The trouble is, this tends to kill nuanced conversation. I get it, I'd be furious if I thought the person I was replying to online was telling me they don't want me to be able to vote, but it's entirely possible that's not what they're saying.
Another example might be "How many Jewish people died in the Holocaust". If you asked me this I would answer, based on my limited knowledge "Somewhere between five and a half and six and a half million, probably closer to six.". I would do better socially if I simply said "like six million what a terrible tragedy", but my goal wouldn't be honesty it'd be social positioning. I understand that most people who don't instantly say "six million what a terrible tragedy" are doing so because they are trying to do an evil thing (Holocaust denial/revisionism), but that's not the only possible reason someone could do it.
I agree with you generally, but the two points I want to make are that these shows are messaging politically (I know you agree with this, and I appreciate you saying so as many others in this thread do not agree), and that this political messaging is not inherently good in and of itself, and must be evaluated on a case by case basis, both for the "correctness" of the political messaging, and for potential concerns of alienating audiences when a specific case is included in a children's program.
I agree that it's generally important to respect other people and other cultures, both ethically because it is a ethical thing to do, and practically because it helps us all "get along".
I find, if we strip this from the colonial context, or remove it from the racial context entirely (this is now a conversation between two Han Chinese people of the same social class, for example) there is some relationship between what I perceive to be an increasing focus on the critical importance of a child being called their exact name and no abbreviation, mispronunciation, standard nickname, or contextually assigned nickname, to be a symptom of an American hyper individualism and "rights culture".
As an aside I have been told by more than one person with a foreign name before even attempting their name that they would prefer I just call them an Americanized abbreviation of their name for convenience. Obviously I want to try to do what they would like, but if they were to insist on a name I struggled with, I would consider them to be a generally annoying person.
I agree with you in that the question of something being "political" is inherently related to the context, and that some things some people might find political (like the importance of voting from my original comment) are not "political enough" to be something which shouldn't be in a children's show.
I would also agree with you that pronouncing names generally is not (and largely probably should not be) a political topic, but that it necessarily is in this context because of it being included in a show about native Alaskans. If the teacher were inuit, or the student also white, or it was presented a simple misunderstanding along the lines of "can I call you T" "No please don't" "okay sorry I'll do my best" it would not be "political". Because it's in this show in this context and explicitly connected to previous abuses of native people being made to use "white names", my contention is that the creators of the show intend for it to be political .
I understand and sympathize with the desire to directly equate every current social issue no matter how small with a social issue from the past as part of a larger "chain of social progress" because I think it originates with the desire to correct past injustices and treat everyone with respect and decency.
I disagree that this is a useful or accurate way to engage in discussion about an entirely different and specific subject in an entirely different context. The only way they are related is with this "chain of social progress" framework, and even within that framework, they are not the same issue.
I perceive it to be a dismissive approach which shuts down conversation, and I think it's clear when viewed plainly in the opposite direction: "If you have concerns with any of the political messaging in children's shows, you would not allow a person of a different race into your swimming pool", or in a slightly different way, "If you have concerns about this you are explicitly the "bad guy"".
I might be missing what you mean, but I tried to explain as best as I could how I would understand these things to be "related to "politics" ".
Offensiveness of difficultly in pronouncing native Alaskan name - I believe this would be grouped under the umbrella of something like "linguistic imperialism" by people of particular political bents, which is an issue that at least heavily relates to politics.
Land acknowledgements - As far as I can tell, these have always been politicized because they originated "with indigenous Australian political movements and the arts" at least according to Wikipedia. I don't know much about the subject
Rude clueless white trope - I think this is to some extent a "positive" inversion of the "noble savage" trope, which Wikipedia tells me was historically political.
I appreciate the poetic response and think that the point I believe you're making: "people who are inclined to criticize anything which isn't exactly as they'd like it will never be pleased, so you can't spend all of your time trying to please them." is correct and useful generally.
Where I might disagree with you, if I understand you correctly, is in how applicable your comment is as a response to my mine. At the outset I attempted to communicate that some of the things that the most likely to be outraged people would take issue with (the importance of exercising the right to vote - especially if your ancestors didn't enjoy the right) are pretty universally accepted and even presenting it without nuance inside of a children's show is acceptable because it is done so with a positive focus (be involved in the democratic process).
I don't want to be "that guy", but I often find myself as the "intolerable lib" in some situations and the "intolerable con" in others, so here we go:
There is a degree of quasi-political messaging in PBS children's shows. I can say this because I've watched more hours than I'd like of several of them, but I'd like to focus on on Molly Of Denali. It's a good children's show about an inuit girl who lives in Alaska and teaches children general good morals and specifics of inuit and Alaskan culture.
When I say it's political, I mean that it makes points without nuance on historical and current issues which range from widely accepted and important ideas (example: They didn't let Native Alaskan People vote in the past, so it's important to exercise the right to vote now), to what I would consider less widely agreed upon and important ideas, such as it being deeply upsetting and disrespectful for a "white" teacher to call a native child "T", because she had trouble pronouncing his native name. Another example is them introducing the importance of "land acknowledgements" in a children's show. A final example is the "clueless white" trope wherein the offensive rude white visitor has to be educated by the wise natives over and over and over.
I'm not trying to say that any of these examples are "right" or "wrong", but they do represent "politics" in the mind of wide sections of the population.
This said I like the show and of course we need to fund public broadcasting, I would just prefer if we did our best to keep the most controversial stuff for when the kids are a bit older to make it a smaller target for outrage (from the right or left).
The most jarring part, to me personally, is the drastic shift in tone and presentation for injustices with wildly different levels of impact. Perhaps rudely, I think to myself in the voice of the Inuit grandfather from the show "The white man took me from my family, did not allow me to speak my language, beat me and did not allow me to vote, and worst of all...... He did not let me smile in photos"
I don't mean any of this as racist or disrespectful and I hope this is a nuanced comment for consideration and not a kneeejerk reaction or evidence of my subconscious biases run wild.
Sorry Tom. I apologize to the moderators and other posters and will attempt to only post high quality discussion moving forward.
I notice that my initial comments are generally high quality but that I feel compelled to respond to everything and something about the increased volume, the thing I'm responding to not being directly something I picked from 30 different articles I read, and the inherent sub-current of challenge to my sometimes obstinate initial comments causes me to get defensive and snippy, and I need to work on that. A simple fix is to not respond to responses, but the edifying fix is to think about why I respond this way (inferiority complex when reading and commenting with generally higher than average internet users and/or not wanting to look stupid in front of the brainy computer people, possibly) to consider this as my bias, and to attempt to counteract it.
"To be shot" murmured Alyosha, lifting his eyes to Ivan with a pale, twisted smile."
"Bravo!" Cried Ivan delighted.