COVID broke America's brain
How to understand Activist Journalism
I’m still getting used to Texas. They say everyone is so nice but the 911 operator was very rude when I called to find the nearest farmer’s market with over 60% BIPOC representation. Oh well, here is the newsletter…
What is wrong with you people? And other COVID recovery thoughts
Seriously, what’s wrong with you?
You! Mr. COVID Is Just The Flu and the CDC shouldn’t have changed their guidance on masks last year and Fauci is a political clown here to shut down business! Yeah you! What the hell is wrong with you?
This is obviously not the flu even if you’re healthy you can spread it. Whatever the clowns at the CDC did a year ago happened A YEAR AGO! You don’t have to listen to Fauci if you don’t want to, he’s a member of the government! You don’t have to take what they say seriously! This is a defining characteristic of being an American! In fact, now I can send you the same video I sent all my liberal friends when they wouldn’t shut up about Trump.
AND YOU! Mr. I Still Lysol My Groceries and I Hope Hand Shakes Never Come Back. Yeah you! The guy who still won’t meet your friend for an outdoor coffee because you secretly liked the last year and can’t wait for COVID Year Two: Electric Boogaloo. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Transmission of the virus on inanimate objects has been debunked, you got vaccinated, now live your life! COVID Shots = Body Shots! Enjoy some of the creature comforts you sacrificed for. Your friends and family would love to see you. Isolation is the breeding ground for depression and sacrificing your mental health for a percentage chance you might get sick is not a wise trade off.
The CDC advises that a group of vaccinated folks can hang indoors with unvaccinated people from the same family pod. That’s the science! If we are following the science on this then go call up your friend and watch a baseball game or something!
I’m not here to tell you to get a vaccine. I’m not your dad. Do what you want.
I got one because vaccines are a medical miracle that defends us against the greatest killer known to man: Mother Nature. Even if humans made this thing worse in a lab, the original evil came from her. She has killed before, she kills currently, she will continue to kill. I want to take every advantage our species has to stay ahead of her wrath.
If you don’t: cool beans.
Just know when I donate to your surviving family’s GoFundMe I am going to write “I said she’d come for him” under my donation.
Let’s break this down to what really matters.
The buck-wild people are too reckless. The sheltered are too timid.
Sure this is probably a failure of messaging and COVID spreading during an election year continues to have dire consequences. This divide didn’t matter when everything was locked down but we have a way out now. If we can meet in the middle on this we can be among the world’s shining examples of how to survive this plague.
Because it’s only together we truly thrive.
Only with each other we truly live.
And it’s mandatory ya’ll get your shit together by ‘22 because Rage Against The Machine pushed their reunion tour back again and for it happen we need people healthy enough for governments to approve arena shows as well as people willing to leave their shells and go to the show.
So knock it off! The both of you!
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How To Read The News: Activist Journalism
Hey Justin, just curious what you think about activist journalism, and if you think it might be an informative subject in your newsletter? - ANDY
Activist Journalism is a hard thing to define. Mostly because it’s often a slur for journalism that unearths things you don’t like or plays off the of reputation of an organization that goes beyond the work done by the reporters and editors. However, it is a open debate in journalism. Wesley Lowery put it into words last June, arguing that it was high time journalism operated with moral clarity on issues like race.
Activist journalism, in the minds of the proponents, is the opposite site of the “GoTta HeAr BotH SiDeS” argument. Both make assertions that news isn’t being delivered optimally. One says that inherent bias of the the reporter and editors are, at best, tainting the final product and, at worst, turning it into political propaganda. The other says that the archaic dogma of objectivity obscures the hard-earned progress of our modern society. Why do we need to cover people we know are wrong or racist or liars with the same gusto we do others?
What no one seems to be able to agree on is what is best in terms of building trust with their audience. News is not the word of God, it’s a community of people finding stuff and people whose lives will be better when they read the stuff.
I am more of an absolutist when it comes to news reporting. If you are reporting on an active underage sex trafficking ring operated by and for racists it is incumbent upon you to describe the event with intense precision. Deliver the facts as you see them. Verify them as if your reputation depended on it. You should leave it up to the readership to be disgusted.
But I understand the pull to shape the reality more. It generates more clicks. It makes more stars. As we discussed with Josh Rubin on Friday’s Px3 show the economics of news is in a massive sea change. I don’t blame reporters and editors for trying to keep afloat.
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Ha! I double fooled you! I told you I wasn’t going to do a feedback two weeks ago and I did. Then I said I would and I didn’t!
I am actually on a normal schedule this week so everything will be back to normal but here is the feedback from last week’s newsletter.
Mobile Online Voting
You couldn't be more wrong Justin... we won't be putting people on Mars in our lifetime. Well, Elon Musk might, but not the US government. You're absolutely right about mobile voting though. - KEITH
It’s not like, the American “we” but like the HUMAN “we”… (exhales massive bong rip)
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Who says we need to vote? I say let me decide! What we really need is less people voting or having an opinion... what we really need is a couple elite smart people to do all our voting and decision making for us, to decide what's best for us. We need betters, to understand they are better, and to genuflect to our betters. - ERIC
It’s all fun and games until the Vlog Squad becomes co-presidents and you’re en route to federally mandatory pranks before you’ve got your first cup of coffee.
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I can see bigger issues to online voting like you’re describing than just the hackable aspect - the pure logistical challenges.
First, and foremost, is server and infrastructure load. Online voting happens all the time, sure - American Idol has done it for two decades. This would be far different, though - the potential for millions upon millions of members of the voting public outing a strain upon the system is quite real. Now, that can be mitigated by having an expanded voting window that allows for the spreading out of that server load - but the servers have to be there in the first place, and now we come to the next problem.
Standardization.
You’re going to have fifty states and additional territories voting, and they will need to have equipment that can handle that strain. Who gets those contracts? Who handles the networking challenges? What level of security will be expected? Will there be an app - or worse, dozens of apps since the states will likely not have one supplier for all? What happens if the server access goes down?
Or, do we see the Federal Government declare a standard that the states must meet? If so, how long will it take for the inevitable lawsuits to play out since the states don’t always cotton too well to the Federals chiming in on how they run their elections?
Again, I’d love to see this happen. There are definite hurdles, more than the ones I’ve described here. - BEAU
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It's not the hackability that's at issue with online voting (mobile or not). Voting is a different sort of problem, at least in the US.
Both myself and the government need to be certain that I voted. The government needs to know who I voted for, but not be able to tie that particular vote back to me, and definitely not store that information, and that lack of linkage needs to verifiable. This is tricky, before we even get into the idea of ballot receipts. This is tricky because of how many "anonymized" datasets have been processed to reveal personal information over the years.
In the paper world, we drop our ballots in a big box with no distinction between the papers. In person electronic was an anonymous tabulator last time I used it, and mail in typically shows footage of the outer envelopes being cast off before the votes are counted. Step one in any online voting system would need to be a similar validation, and nothing has led me to believe that it will be.
I don't say any of this as a luddite, though. I'm a software engineer with almost 20 years under my belt, and the last 5 in government-related work. Our current standard set of tech is a not up to the task of ensuring our votes' privacy, and until then, we should de-tech elections, pure and simple. Same reason I don't have smart locks. - ANDREW
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First off... I want online elections. Desperately. I think it's the future and believe it will happen at some point. But, and this is a big but, we are no where near secure enough for an election online. You mention that "online voting is trustworthy, we already use our smartphones to manage the most precious things in life including money, home and family". And every single day it's hacked. I don't trust my phone for these things. I use it because it's convenient and it's a numbers game. I'm one of millions so my chance to get hacked is low. I believe the chance for the election to be hacked is immeasurably large. - ALAN
My new living room
Your couches definitely look like something a Cali douche would have but welcome to Texas happy to have you! Austin is a wanna be California city so don’t judge us by them. - PHOENIX
Thing I’ve learned: people really say “howdy” here. It’s not just in the movies.
COVID
Looks like the city of New Orleans took your idea to heart. - BEAU
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The "Deadbeat Dad" Summer continues... - BEN
I swear, Gavin is going to go to an outdoor music festival or concert this summer.
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That’s it!
Twitch streams are back this week!
- Justin