Tag: Witches

Our Current Situation: Building Trust

TRUSTING JOURNALISM: Jay Rosen is convinced people will pay for high-quality journalism and building trust is the key. Inspired by a Dutch news organization he’s working to develop a US news organization built on trust (and grant funding). This is what a news organization built on reader trust looks like.

I agree with Rosen that some sort of subscription model will probably be necessary to build a trustworthy news site. I’m less confident about the vision he puts forth. I hope it works! At they say, it’s a process.

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TRUSTING COMMERCE: You know journalism is in dire straits when people trust advertisers more than they trust reporters.

“…61% of people trust the advertising they see…”

“…68% of Americans don’t trust the news…”

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FRIENDLY TRUST: Of course, it may not matter if Rosen builds a reliable news source since people trust people more than they trust organizations.

“The main factor in determining a reader’s trust in an article appears to be who shared it, not the news organization that published it, according to a study out Monday from The Media Insight Project,…”

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WITCH POWER: Is Fox News worried about witches?

“After one of their spells worked just days ahead of the American Health Care Act’s defeat, a group of self-proclaimed witches are set to cast another “binding spell” on Sunday night in an effort to kick Trump out of office…”

One. Of. Their. Spells. Worked.

Fortunately a devoted follower calls out this fake news.

“This is such BS. Trump is covered by the blood of Christ to which no evil can stand. If he has trouble it is not from witches”

Who needs trustworthy news when we have Fox?

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TROOP TRUST: Most people trust the military.

And why wouldn’t they?

Military Members Stole Millions in Afghan Rebuilding Effort

“John Sopko, head of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), said Thursday evening in a speech at Duke University that his team identified nearly $1 billion in questionable costs and funds that could be put to better use.”

Though, I guess $1 billion misspent out of $117 billion isn’t so bad.

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TRUMP TRUSTS NEWS: In this interview with TIME, Trump excuses his bullshit by saying “I’m just quoting the newspaper.”

TRUMP: Well that was in a newspaper. No, no, I like Ted Cruz, he’s a friend of mine. But that was in the newspaper. I wasn’t, I didn’t say that. I was referring to a newspaper. A Ted Cruz article referred to a newspaper story with, had a picture of Ted Cruz, his father, and Lee Harvey Oswald, having breakfast.

TIME: That gets close to the heart…

TRUMP: Why do you say that I have to apologize? I’m just quoting the newspaper, just like I quoted the judge the other day, Judge Napolitano, I quoted Judge Napolitano, just like I quoted Bret Baier, I mean Bret Baier mentioned the word wiretap. Now he can now deny it, or whatever he is doing, you know. But I watched Bret Baier, and he used that term. I have a lot of respect for Judge Napolitano, and he said that three sources have told him things that would make me right. I don’t know where he has gone with it since then. But I’m quoting highly respected people from highly respected television networks.

By that logic…Hairy Space Alien Lives on Donald Trump’s Head. I’m just quoting the newspaper. Maybe ICE will expel his hair?

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EDITORIAL: While my professional conferencing annoyed me more than inspired me this year, I did come away with a silver lining. I know where to focus my professional attention next.

At the conference I attended Roxane Gay mentioned in passing (responding to a question about the demise of Toast), “No one will pay for content.” I think she wasn’t fully cognizant to whom she was speaking. Within that room were representatives of institutions that pay tens of millions of dollars every year for content. Depending on who was in the room it could be hundreds of millions.

Every. Year.

What they are paying for is trust. They are trusting that there is a structure in place that weeds out inaccurate, invalid, untrustworthy information, and promotes accurate, trustworthy, valid information. They are paying for information that most accurately interprets the natural world and the human experience. This system isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we’ve come up with so far. My professional task for the foreseeable future is to see how that scholarly trust developed, what its current challenges are, and how it can be improved.

So, at least I have that to look forward to.

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Sunday Spectacle: Trappist-1 or Bust!

THE MAGICAL WAR HEATS UP: Witch spells vs. Christian prayer. Buzzfeed continues its efforts to become a legitimate news source by reporting on the magical conflict outside Trump Tower Friday night/Saturday morning.

Binding spells will be cast with every new moon. Find out more here.

Witchery, I’m happy to say, has seen a bit of a resurgence lately. A Brief History Of The Tumblr Witch

“‘Tumblr Witch’ is not an identity, but the Tumblr witch is concerned with identities. Unlike the Wicca bloggers, the Tumblr witch is unlikely to define herself seriously as a witch. But undeniably the concept of the Tumblr witch is tied up in intersectional feminism, in a desire to reclaim power, and to laugh as she does so.”

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FUTURE WATCH: MIT Technology Review predicts technology advances we’ll see this year. They see major advances in paralysis reversal, the trucking industry’s embrace of self-driving trucks, and major leaps in quantum computing, among others.

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TRAPPIST-1 OR BUST!: Dictionary.com, of all places, has a nice summary of the NASA announcement about finding a cluster of exoplanets around Trappist-1.

“Seven worlds orbit the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, a mere 40 light-years away. In May 2016 astronomers using the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) announced the discovery of three planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. Just announced, additional confirmations and discoveries by the Spitzer Space Telescope and supporting ESO ground-based telescopes have increased the number of known planets to seven. The TRAPPIST-1 planets are likely all rocky and similar in size to Earth, the largest treasure trove of terrestrial planets ever detected around a single star. Because they orbit very close to their faint, tiny star they could also have regions where surface temperatures allow for the presence of liquid water, a key ingredient for life.”

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BOT EXPLAINER: O’Reilly has a provides a brief introduction to our bot-filled future. And, by future, I mean present.

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SPEAKING OF BOTS: The release date of the new MST3K has been announced. In the not-too-distant-future, next April 14 AD, the bots and a new cast will launch on Netflix.

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READING IRAN: Some Iranian authors worth checking out.

“Things We Left Unsaid is set in Abadan—a city built around a major old refinery—in the early 1960s during the era of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Pirzad, who was born and raised in Abadan, writes with great precision and detail about a woman’s everyday experiences and emotions. Her style is casual, natural, and subtle, which was new for Iranian novels. The narrator, Clarice Ayvzaian, is an unfulfilled Armenian housewife whose life changes when Emile and her family move next door. Clarice slowly finds herself falling in love with Emile as the families’ lives get entangled. She also gets involved with the women’s movement. Although the book does provide a sense of the place, and references to social events such as women’s suffrage and the Armenian genocide, it is not a political or social realist novel.”

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READING HORROR: Nominees for Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker awards are announced.

Superior Achievement in a Novel

Hand, Elizabeth – Hard Light: A Cass Neary Crime Novel (Minotaur Books)
Jones, Stephen Graham – Mongrels (William Morrow)
Langan, John – The Fisherman (Word Horde)
MacLeod, Bracken – Stranded: A Novel (Tor Books)
Tremblay, Paul – Disappearance at Devil’s Rock (William Morrow)

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FREE MONEY: The NYT looks at an effort to provide a Universal Basic Income to villagers in Kenya. The Future of Not Working.

“GiveDirectly wants to show the world that a basic income is a cheap, scalable way to aid the poorest people on the planet. “We have the resources to eliminate extreme poverty this year,” Michael Faye, a founder of GiveDirectly, told me. But these resources are often misallocated or wasted. His nonprofit wants to upend incumbent charities, offering major donors a platform to push money to the world’s neediest immediately and practically without cost.”

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SK8: Girls in India take up skateboarding.

“In 2013, Atita and her friends built a skate park in Bengaluru with the help of the HolyStoked Collective, and began teaching skateboarding to underprivileged children. She eventually launched Girl Skate India — an initiative to teach girls how to skate, promote gender equality in skating and highlight up-and-coming female skaters in India. Girl Skate India works with Holystoked to host classes for young girls and aims to make skate parks open to skaters of all genders.”

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SATAN: