Using a bookshelf as a background for your home video setup is almost de rigueur these days. Most of them look… staged? … to me. Every book facing the same way. Titles that demonstrate erudition. Always makes me wonder if the person read these books or are they simply props. I think political commentator Bill Kristol has read the books in his shelf.
If you read a lot, you invariably run out of shelf space and you wind up jamming books and journals wherever they’ll fit.
Dr. Werner Klopek posted the following:
“I’m a registered Democrat in Texas. After seeing several other posts, I checked my registration. I’m “suspended.” It says I can still vote if I update my information (it’s already correct) but this has never happened in my 20 years of voting in Texas. Check your registration.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and his daughter Hope at the Minnesota State Fair.
Don’t know who produced this. Don’t know if it was the Harris-Walz campaign (doesn’t look like it to me). What I do know is it didn’t come across as a slick political ad. Whoever is doing the social media stuff for the campaign knows what they’re doing. But this really works because these are two, real, normal people…not mouthing talking points (and looking creepy). NO talking points. Just father and daughter at the state fair.
Now, let’s take a look at how legacy media (WRAL TV in Raleigh, North Carolina) covered Governor Walz and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper when they stopped by Cook Out for milkshakes.
Compare that with the same “event” as it appeared on Tim Walz’ YouTube channel. See how WRAL sucked all the life, all the humanity out of the moment. Why would you ever talk to a local reporter when someone with an iPhone can do this so much better.
I’m old enough to remember a time when political discourse at least pretended to be civil.
“The gentleman from West Virginia apparently believes his constituents prefer not having clean water or affordable health care.”
Those days are long gone and it’s common to hear a member of congress insult —often using vile language— another member or that person’s family. Nothing is off-limits. Since we’ve come this far (down), let’s go one step further. Fistfights.
If you insult me or my wife or my children, I can invite you to join me in the parking lot and we settle or differences like adults. Okay, not adults. Like, high school kids. I seem to recall a long, proud tradition of duels in American politics. Are they really any less dignified than what we’re seeing today? And if the loud-mouth declines to “step outside,” we wait for him/her in the parking lot.
In my 76 years I have never met anyone who admitted to being racist/bigoted. Not once. Are these concepts totally “in the eye of the beholder” I wondered. I asked ChatGPT if she (I don’t like *it*) has the ability to recognize bigotry or racism? In a video or written essay, for example? Her response was TLDR by today’s standards. About 5 pages of double-space. Once again, it was a conversation I can’t imagine having with a human.