On Black Lives Matter...

[l***@yahoo.com]

https://www.city-journal.org/reflections-on-race-riots-and-police

Unless I missed something (I skimmed it just now) it seems pretty reasonable.

At any rate, it reminds me of a theory I have - one that no one else seems to have come up with, though I'm not sure if the author would agree.

Which is, maybe an awful lot of white people just don't care when poor, unarmed, WHITE people get killed by the police; they figure "well, the cops MUST have had a good reason to kill them."

So they don't understand what the big deal is when unarmed black men get killed by the police.

(I mentioned that at Amy Alkon's blog and one white(?) man immediately took offense - but no one else did. As I said, if Fox News doesn't regularly have videos of white people getting killed by the police, maybe no one cares enough to film the killings, or else Fox just doesn't want to acknowledge that cops ever commit unwarranted killings - right?)

More in a sec...

[l***@yahoo.com]

Just to clarify - the man who took offense at my words was apparently accusing me of being anti-white.

And the author of the article, Coleman Hughes, is black, as it happens.

Two more black writers - one of whom is from Yale and well-known:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-11/george-floyd-protesters-can-fight-racism-while-tolerating-dissent

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/anonymous-berkeley-professor-shreds-blm-injustice-narrative-damning-stats-and-logic


Lenona.

[Bryan Styble]

Thanks a bundle there for finding this, Lenona. It's unusual to find a twenty-something who is familiar with not only the 19th Century, but quite a few prior. He's a fine writer, to boot.

Merriam-Webster's 11th Edition does no entry for "clapback"; is that slang from the 'hood?

Also, a minor factual correction: the Civil Rights Act was 1964, not '65; its follow-up Voting Rights Act was in '65, as was, of course, Edward Kennedy's radical re-write of U.S. immigration policy.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

[l***@yahoo.com]

Um, did you not Google?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/clapback-meaning-origin

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clap%20back

[Bryan Styble]

No, Lenona, I didn't employ Google, or any other search engine for that matter; it so happens this 650--I mean this 65 year old still prefers 15th Century media to these confounding 21st Century computer thingamabobs.

Plus, as an ultra-serious armchair mathematician, I've yet to forgive Google for arrogantly and smugly misspelling googol! But in the meantime, I thank you for your graciously finding that entry for me; I'm sure Merriam-Webster shall include it in their 12th Edition, which has been in the offing for many years now. (It ain't tardy; they release a new edition less than once a decade.*)

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
________________________________________
* I'm fannishly proud that Frederick Misch, M-W Editor-in-Chief during the 1990s and the early 21st Century, was a frequent guest on my call-in commercial newstalk broadcasts over the airwaves of Detroit [1993-98], Albuquerque [2000-2004] and Seattle [2005-2008]. As you would imagine, Misch enlightened me--and vastly more important, my audiences--in all manner of the downright herculean lexicographical task M-W has been shouldering so painstakingly there in Springfield Mass since the 1800s. There's a dozen or more publishers putting dictionaries out there, mind you; some are fine, but many remain seriously substandard, and a bunch of them even get away with using the Webster's name**. But the gold standard has always been M-W. ESPECIALLY in the ever-elegant precision with which their definitions are written. And among their MANY lexicographical innovations were (several now copied by competing publishers): the segregation of biographical and geographical names into respective appendixes, thus MASSIVELY decluttering the main text; adjectival and adverbial semantic-discernment paragraphs; brief historical usage discussions when occasionally (needed for any of a variety of reasons) embedded at the foot of the entry, and the provision of the year--or at least century--when every given word entered the written language.
** A historical quirk that is detailed in the Introduction of every M-W dictionary.

[Bryan Styble]

Oh, and while we're getting so lexicographical here--that field's just a hop, skip and a jump away from literature, y'know!

AND since today is the 116th Bloomsday*, may I suggest everyone commemorate it by reading ""Ulysses" cover to cover, a multi-style novel whose entire inches-thick narrative takes place in Dublin on that now-fabled Thursday in 1904**.

Okay, doing so might well take you into Watergate Break-In Day [June 17th, the original of course back in 1974].

SO: instead why not merely read in toto the fine Wikipedia synopsis of "Ulysses"? THAT should take less than an hour (unless like me you move your lips whilst you read). And hopefully you'll come away with a higher assessment of Joyce's prose than I held back in freshman literature at Boston University, after struggling with the admittedly-much-shorter "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"...which is to say, utter flummoxing bewilderment.

STYBLE/Florida
_____________________________________________________
* Often misconfigured in North American text as Bloom's Day***.
** Here's a calendrical bonus for y'all obits fans: the day following that fictively-adventuresome Thursday [Friday, June 17, 1904] saw the births both of actor Ralph Bellamy and "Through the Bible" radio preacher J. Vernon McGee.
*** Either way it's represented in print, the good athletic folk of Spokane in my former talk radio home of Washington State (for some reason unbeknownst to me) stages their marathon**** every Bloomsday/Bloom's Day, and I sure hope the Kung Flu didn't nix this year's race.
**** I proudly and oh-so-improbably completed the 1974 Boston Marathon, my sole 26-miler, finishing darned close to last at 5:22.

[Bryan Styble]

SPACED-OUT POSTER ALERT!

Sorry, Kids, the Watergate break-in--or at least the moment when late security guard Frank Wills discovered the illicit tape keeping unlocked the Watergate stairwell door in the wee hours of Saturday morning, June 17th after G. Gordon Liddy and his CREEP-funded crew had first broken into Democrat HQ late on Friday, June 16th--was of course in 1972, NOT 1974 (as I so dunderheadedly posted above).

I just had 1974 on my mind, I suppose. And, of course, 1974 WAS the year President Milhous resigned on Friday, August 9th, and was presidentially pardoned 30 days later* by (the former) Leslie King and (the then) Mr. Betty Ford.

Sorry for the slipped digit.

STYBLE/Florida
________________________________
* The pardon came down on the same Sunday, September 9, 1974 when Evel Knievel attempted to "SkyCycle" the Snake River Canyon at Twin Falls, Idaho**.
** When I was at the site in 1990, the earthen ramp from which the daredevil so unsuccessfully launched was still there and available for close-up inspection by hands-on landmark tourists like me, and then about a decade ago I was informed that it was still there then.

[Scott Brady]

Post by Bryan Styble
Plus, as an ultra-serious armchair mathematician, I've yet to forgive Google for arrogantly and smugly misspelling googol!

So you reject the theory that googol was a corruption of Barney Google?

[Louis Epstein]

Post by Scott Brady

Post by Bryan Styble
Plus, as an ultra-serious armchair mathematician, I've yet to forgive Google for arrogantly and smugly misspelling googol!

So you reject the theory that googol was a corruption of Barney Google?

As a macro-numerist of intellectual aspirations,I deplore any treatment
of little Milton's babytalk alias for ten sexecilliards long scale or
duotrigintillions short scale as a legitimate name of that number.

http://www.put.com/A/bignumb.html

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[d***@gmail.com]

On the fourth anniversary of his death, Muhammad Ali’s only biological son says that his father would be against Black Lives Matter, calling the movement “racist” and the protesters “devils.”

The legendary boxer and activist stood up against racism throughout his life, but Muhammad Ali Jr. says his dad would have been sickened by how the protests have turned to violence and looting after the death of George Floyd.

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by d***@gmail.com
On the fourth anniversary of his death, Muhammad Ali’s only biological son says that his father would be against Black Lives Matter, calling the movement “racist” and the protesters “devils.”
The legendary boxer and activist stood up against racism throughout his life, but Muhammad Ali Jr. says his dad would have been sickened by how the protests have turned to violence and looting after the death of George Floyd.

Well, Congratulations, at last Ali says something that you wanted to hear as channeled through his son. Of course, it ignores that the vast majority of protesters were peaceful. Also ignores the racism that Ali had to endure.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Post by m***@gmail.com

On the fourth anniversary of his death, Muhammad Ali's only biological son says that his father would be against Black Lives Matter, calling the movement "racist" and the protesters "devils."
The legendary boxer and activist stood up against racism throughout his life, but Muhammad Ali Jr. says his dad would have been sickened by how the protests have turned to violence and looting after the death of George Floyd.

Well, Congratulations, at last Ali says something that you wanted to
hear as channeled through his son.

We don't know. We just know what his son claims.

Post by m***@gmail.com
Of course, it ignores that the vast majority of protesters were peaceful.

It's curious how you whitewash the looting. You also whitewash the
vandalism, destruction, and the few murders that have occurred during
the violent outbreaks and the looting. You don't need to slam Darrell.
Perhaps you should reconsider your personal world view and ask yourself
the hard question why it's not based in any kind of morality.

"how the protests have turned to violence and looting" is a comment that
expresses the sentiments of right-thinking people everywhere. Can't you
join the people on the side of morality?

Your position is off the rails criticizing Darrell. It's not all that
controversial to oppose protests that turned violent. Funny, that, a
minority of protestors were potentially violent and we got a few
instances of national media coverage of police officers who took the
initiative to reduce stress and defuse the situation.

You're also ignoring that the protestors' indirect culpability for the
looting taking place. You r silence screams volumes.

We have you ignoring that the vast majority of police officers don't
commit felonies when taking suspects into custody yet you've joined in
repeating the false narrative that police underly racism in this
country, racism that's at a relatively low level versus slavery or the
Jim Crow South. America isn't perfect but things are pretty good today.

Post by m***@gmail.com
Also ignores the racism that Ali had to endure.

The protestors of the death of George Floyd universally ignore actual racism
that other people endured over the decades to falsely claim that police
are the underlying issue for what they are personally suffering, and
that Floyd's death is representative in any way of how any other black
detainee is treated.

I strongly suggest that the vast majority of the protestors have endured
nothing like anything Muhammad Ali suffered in his life. Today's America
isn't the Jim Crow South, and there's simply no slavery.

Did you know that in 1967, he refused draft induction, was convicted and
could have been sentenced to five years in the federal pen? He was
harmed professionally as boxing commissions in state after state refused
to let him box. Instead of fleeing to Canada, he spoke to college kids
on almost a regular circuit.

That's admiral, a moral stance in favor of one's principles, actual civil
disobedience without causing harm to anyone else. That's a truly genuine
political protest.

That's entirely different than anything taking place today. It's
irrelevant what his son claims he would have said. It's historical fact
what he actually did versus shouting empty slogans and waiving signs to
protest a war.

Too bad you can't tell the difference.

[m***@gmail.com]

On Sunday, June 21, 2020 at 2:08:50 PM UTC-4, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Pretty obvious that you don't get what African-americans go through on a daily basis

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Did you know that in 1967, he refused draft induction, was convicted and
could have been sentenced to five years in the federal pen? He was
harmed professionally as boxing commissions in state after state refused
to let him box. Instead of fleeing to Canada, he spoke to college kids
on almost a regular circuit.
That's admiral, a moral stance in favor of one's principles, actual civil
disobedience without causing harm to anyone else. That's a truly genuine
political protest.
That's entirely different than anything taking place today. It's
irrelevant what his son claims he would have said. It's historical fact
what he actually did versus shouting empty slogans and waiving signs to
protest a war.
Too bad you can't tell the difference.

Really, Muhammad Ali did that? Gosh, I had no idea...tell me more.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Post by m***@gmail.com
Pretty obvious that you don't get what African-americans go through on a daily basis

Now we have the sockpuppet pretending to have growm up black in the Jim
Crow South in yet another followup. Now that's irony.

I'll never be black like you.

Post by m***@gmail.com

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Did you know that in 1967, he refused draft induction, was convicted and
could have been sentenced to five years in the federal pen? He was
harmed professionally as boxing commissions in state after state refused
to let him box. Instead of fleeing to Canada, he spoke to college kids
on almost a regular circuit.
That's admiral, a moral stance in favor of one's principles, actual civil
disobedience without causing harm to anyone else. That's a truly genuine
political protest.
That's entirely different than anything taking place today. It's
irrelevant what his son claims he would have said. It's historical fact
what he actually did versus shouting empty slogans and waiving signs to
protest a war.
Too bad you can't tell the difference.

Really, Muhammad Ali did that? Gosh, I had no idea...tell me more.

Your condemnation of a position assigned to him by his son, which might
have been perfectly reasonable but we just don't know, was outrageous.
It displayed your refusal to acknowledge who he truly was.

Today's protestors are a joke, cannot be compared to what he sacrificed.

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by Adam H. Kerman

Post by m***@gmail.com
Pretty obvious that you don't get what African-americans go through on a daily basis

Now we have the sockpuppet pretending to have growm up black in the Jim
Crow South in yet another followup. Now that's irony.
I'll never be black like you.

Post by m***@gmail.com

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Did you know that in 1967, he refused draft induction, was convicted and
could have been sentenced to five years in the federal pen? He was
harmed professionally as boxing commissions in state after state refused
to let him box. Instead of fleeing to Canada, he spoke to college kids
on almost a regular circuit.
That's admiral, a moral stance in favor of one's principles, actual civil
disobedience without causing harm to anyone else. That's a truly genuine
political protest.
That's entirely different than anything taking place today. It's
irrelevant what his son claims he would have said. It's historical fact
what he actually did versus shouting empty slogans and waiving signs to
protest a war.
Too bad you can't tell the difference.

Really, Muhammad Ali did that? Gosh, I had no idea...tell me more.

Your condemnation of a position assigned to him by his son, which might
have been perfectly reasonable but we just don't know, was outrageous.
It displayed your refusal to acknowledge who he truly was.
Today's protestors are a joke, cannot be compared to what he sacrificed.

If you knew me, you'd know how wrong you are.

You make assumptions and they are incorrect.

But that's OK, you just keep thinking what you want to think.

I don't feel the need to explain myself to the likes of you.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Post by m***@gmail.com

Post by Adam H. Kerman

Post by m***@gmail.com
Pretty obvious that you don't get what African-americans go through on a daily basis

Now we have the sockpuppet pretending to have growm up black in the Jim
Crow South in yet another followup. Now that's irony.
I'll never be black like you.

Post by m***@gmail.com

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Did you know that in 1967, he refused draft induction, was convicted and
could have been sentenced to five years in the federal pen? He was
harmed professionally as boxing commissions in state after state refused
to let him box. Instead of fleeing to Canada, he spoke to college kids
on almost a regular circuit.
That's admiral, a moral stance in favor of one's principles, actual civil
disobedience without causing harm to anyone else. That's a truly genuine
political protest.
That's entirely different than anything taking place today. It's
irrelevant what his son claims he would have said. It's historical fact
what he actually did versus shouting empty slogans and waiving signs to
protest a war.
Too bad you can't tell the difference.

Really, Muhammad Ali did that? Gosh, I had no idea...tell me more.

Your condemnation of a position assigned to him by his son, which might
have been perfectly reasonable but we just don't know, was outrageous.
It displayed your refusal to acknowledge who he truly was.
Today's protestors are a joke, cannot be compared to what he sacrificed.

If you knew me, you'd know how wrong you are.
You make assumptions and they are incorrect.
But that's OK, you just keep thinking what you want to think.
I don't feel the need to explain myself to the likes of you.

It's not Usenet's problem that you give a poor account of yourself if
you are truly unlike the persona you created for Usenet.

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by Adam H. Kerman

Post by m***@gmail.com

Post by Adam H. Kerman

Post by m***@gmail.com
Pretty obvious that you don't get what African-americans go through on a
daily basis

Now we have the sockpuppet pretending to have growm up black in the Jim
Crow South in yet another followup. Now that's irony.
I'll never be black like you.

Post by m***@gmail.com

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Did you know that in 1967, he refused draft induction, was convicted and
could have been sentenced to five years in the federal pen? He was
harmed professionally as boxing commissions in state after state refused
to let him box. Instead of fleeing to Canada, he spoke to college kids
on almost a regular circuit.
That's admiral, a moral stance in favor of one's principles, actual civil
disobedience without causing harm to anyone else. That's a truly genuine
political protest.
That's entirely different than anything taking place today. It's
irrelevant what his son claims he would have said. It's historical fact
what he actually did versus shouting empty slogans and waiving signs to
protest a war.
Too bad you can't tell the difference.

Really, Muhammad Ali did that? Gosh, I had no idea...tell me more.

Your condemnation of a position assigned to him by his son, which might
have been perfectly reasonable but we just don't know, was outrageous.
It displayed your refusal to acknowledge who he truly was.
Today's protestors are a joke, cannot be compared to what he sacrificed.

If you knew me, you'd know how wrong you are.
You make assumptions and they are incorrect.
But that's OK, you just keep thinking what you want to think.
I don't feel the need to explain myself to the likes of you.

It's not Usenet's problem that you give a poor account of yourself if
you are truly unlike the persona you created for Usenet.

Thank you for reminding me why after posting on various newsgroups from 1999-2017, I reduced my activity.

It's people like you who ruined Usenet. Drama queens, attention grabbers, and prima donnas abound.

[c***@aol.com]

This “Marc” is the least self-aware person who has ever lived. It just described itself.

[d***@gmail.com]

To Adam H Kerman

You totally rock. I will answer ANY legal question you ask. You are a CLASS ACT. 😘

[Scott Brady]

Post by m***@gmail.com
Of course, it ignores that the vast majority of protesters were peaceful.

Not by the same logic you judge, America, asshole.

Violence, savagery and jaw-dropping stupidity is inevitable whenever the Marxist left gets involved. It was entirely systemic.

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by Scott Brady

Post by m***@gmail.com
Of course, it ignores that the vast majority of protesters were peaceful.

Not by the same logic you judge, America, asshole.
Violence, savagery and jaw-dropping stupidity is inevitable whenever the Marxist left gets involved. It was entirely systemic.

There is no Marxist Left, asswipe.

[Louis Epstein]

Post by Bryan Styble
No, Lenona, I didn't employ Google, or any other search engine for that matter; it so happens this 650--I mean this 65 year old still prefers 15th Century media to these confounding 21st Century computer thingamabobs.
Plus, as an ultra-serious armchair mathematician, I've yet to forgive Google for arrogantly and smugly misspelling googol! But in the meantime, I thank you for your graciously finding that entry for me; I'm sure Merriam-Webster shall include it in their 12th Edition, which has been in the offing for many years now. (It ain't tardy; they release a new edition less than once a decade.*)
BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
________________________________________
* I'm fannishly proud that Frederick Misch, M-W Editor-in-Chief during the
1990s and the early 21st Century, was a frequent guest on my call-in commercial
newstalk broadcasts over the airwaves of Detroit [1993-98], Albuquerque
[2000-2004] and Seattle [2005-2008]. As you would imagine, Misch enlightened
me--and vastly more important, my audiences--in all manner of the downright
herculean lexicographical task M-W has been shouldering so painstakingly there
in Springfield Mass since the 1800s.

I was more aware of the editorial leadership of Merriam-Webster dictionaries
during the prior era of Henry Bosley Woolf,though I learned that even his
predecessor Philip Babcock Gove was considered too trendy by those who
share my prescriptivist sensibilities.

Post by Bryan Styble
There's a dozen or more publishers
putting dictionaries out there, mind you; some are fine, but many remain
seriously substandard, and a bunch of them even get away with using the
Webster's name**. But the gold standard has always been M-W. ESPECIALLY in
the ever-elegant precision with which their definitions are written. And
among their MANY lexicographical innovations were (several now copied by
competing publishers): the segregation of biographical and geographical names
into respective appendixes, thus MASSIVELY decluttering the main text;
adjectival and adverbial semantic-discernment paragraphs; brief historical
usage discussions when occasionally (needed for any of a variety of reasons)
embedded at the foot of the entry, and the provision of the year--or at least
century--when every given word entered the written language.

I would call that dating more of a hallmark of the main Oxford dictionaries.

The American Heritage dictionaries have in marketing gone to pains to
paint themselves as the more highbrow alternative in American usage;
the bestselling Merriam-Webster line being seen more as the dictionary
for the masses.

Post by Bryan Styble
** A historical quirk that is detailed in the Introduction of every M-W dictionary.

The point being that G&C Merriam actually was Noah Webster's publisher
during the latter part of his lexicographic career,while his name
became public domain...the "Merriam-Webster" trademark eventually
becoming the corporate name not that long ago relatively speaking.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[l***@yahoo.com]

I should have said that I can't be certain the anonymous Berkeley professor is black - but the professor made it clear he/she is a person of color. (And almost certainly not East Asian or Indian.)

[Terry del Fuego]

Post by l***@yahoo.com
Which is, maybe an awful lot of white people just don't care when poor,
unarmed, WHITE people get killed by the police; they figure "well, the
cops MUST have had a good reason to kill them."

"The cops probably aren't racist because they obviously enjoy killing
*everyone*" is an interesting defense. Though, based on what we've
seen captured on video over and over and over and over and over again
just during the past month, probably a reasonable one. And probably
why Black Lives Matter seems to be turning into the unfortunately
nuance-free Defund The Police. (The slogan is nuance-free,
many--though not all--of the people supporting it have fairly nuanced
ideas of how to go about it.)

One thing that's really striking--but isn't scientific proof by any
means--is the number of different situations caught on video where
white people are obviously having problems and the police
non-violently talk them down while they simply shoot the black people
in similar or often seemingly even less dangerous circumstances. But
of course, we see what gets randomly recorded/shared and can't
necessarily extrapolate to the entire population from it.

We're also up against the reality that a *lot* of people really,
really, really trust Authority and seem to get a special little tingle
Down There when they obey, no matter how absurd, offensive or immoral
the order is.

Consequently, despite the fact that a LOT of the over the top police
violence that's recently been captured on video is unmotivated, there
are "people" out there who still insist that the root of the problem
is somehow some random, ill-defined disobedience. You know, like how
Breonna Taylor was openly, blatantly...[checking notes]...asleep in
her own bed.

At this point, while it definitely matters from a statistical and
sociological and probably a bunch more -al standpoints, who(m) the
police are abusing is becoming increasingly irrelevant--it's painfully
clear that too many cops are violently abusive and have a history of
getting away with it. If starting off with Black Lives Matter leads to
major reforms even if the race angle turns out to be a red herring in
the end, we're probably still better off. Though reading that back,
I'm not sure that I can't credibly be accused of using fancy words to
say the end justifies the means. All I'm truly sure of is that *major*
changes are absolutely necessary, we may finally really get them this
time and, if we do, BLM will have been a major part of why that
happened.

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by l***@yahoo.com
Which is, maybe an awful lot of white people just don't care when poor, unarmed, WHITE people get killed by the police; they figure "well, the cops MUST have had a good reason to kill them."
So they don't understand what the big deal is when unarmed black men get killed by the police.

What rationalizations people will draw to justify their beliefs.

White people don't care if a lot of white people are killed by the police???

Puh-leeeese give me a fucking break.

[l***@yahoo.com]

Um, there's a reason I included the word "poor."

We know pretty well what the reaction would be if unarmed white suburbanites regularly got killed by police.

Homeless people, for starters, are another matter altogether.


Lenona.