I joined Substack a long time ago in what I hoped would be part of my wildly successful freelance career. I never really figured out what I was doing there, or with my freelance career. Regardless, I had a little series I did that was mainly for fun, and exercise in critical thinking and writing. It was called Consuming Journalism.
I’ve waffled on it several times. Sometimes it seems useful, but I’ve finally made the final really final decision to retire it. It’s a waste of time. Those sorts of discussions are really only valuable with kids. Give them the tools to think critically about information.
I did one final post or episode or whatever. It’s over on Substack if you want to have a look.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do with that Substack account. The platform is getting more and more attention. Matt Taibbi is there full-time now, and Andrew Sullivan just started up there. It’s becoming the home of independent journalism.
If I can figure out something I’d like to focus on that would work well on the platform, I might do it, but it would be separate from here. I like it here and am staying. Different platforms for different purposes.
I had to subscribe there because…well…Russians and mini-vans. But I’ll comment here briefly…the thing that bothers me most (obviously the concerns are many) about the NY protestor grab is that it’s a trans woman. And the NYPD (and elsewhere but especially NYPD) has a history of horrid abuse of trans women in jail, often forcing them to be detained in the men’s jail. It’s extremely dangerous for trans women. I’m sure her protest buddies fought back extra hard when she was being grabbed, knowing the high stakes. Abd I don’t believe for a second that she couldn’t be detained another way. Spray paint on cameras? Please. This is to show Americans what can happen if they resist.
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Exactly. As usual, you hit the point I wanted to make. They could have chosen a different way. Graffiti on cameras to this? No. Hell no. In a functional society, that warrants a – hey, this person graffiti’d some things or spray painted them. We should talk to them and let them know that we have to ticket that kind of stuff, next time….There’s potential for middle ground responses here. The snatch and grab is not middle ground, it’s wildly excessive.
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Absofreakinlutely
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I’ve enjoyed your Consuming Journalism series while it lasted. Looking forward to your short story series. 😁
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I’ll miss the Consuming Journalism articles.
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