Headlines that signal that the story will be misleading and/or stupid

[Meadmaker]

"17 Phrases Gen Z Says Don’t Belong in Today’s Society"

Well, really, this is just the same as the last one, but something caught my eye about the first "offensive" term on the list.

Cake Walk


I remember cake walks. Dimly. Well, I remember one. I was five years old. It was a school function, and I remember seeing a group of adults walking, as I recall they were walking, not dancing More on that later. My memory is pretty dim. I was five years old at the time. I just knew that somehow they were doing something and one of them was going to win a cake. My mom was part of the cake walk. I think it was basically something vaguely like a non competitive musical chairs game. Maybe there was something taped to the chairs and if you sat in the right chair, you "took the cake". (Another phrase, offensive for the same reason as cake walk.)

So, anyway, thinking that the phrase was not at all racist, I looked it up, and found it was originally a form of a dance competition held originally by slaves.

So, now I know that.....it still isn't racist, but it has a lot in commone with a lot of other things that are supposedly racist. If it originated in the South, and was in any way associated with African Americans (were they African Americans, or just plain Africans at that point? By the Civil War, most slaves were born in the US, so I guess African Americans.) uhhh....where was I? If it came from black southerners, it's racist.

Isn't that ironic? "Cake walk" is racist, because it came from African-American culture. Like "Cotton Eyed Joe" and "Song of the South", these remnants of authentic culture originating with black people, is racist.

Does that happen in other colonized lands? Over in your hemisphere, I can only assume that there are loan words and some holidays, celebrations, or activities that started with the aboriginal people of Australia and New Zealand. Are some considered racist? I don;t mean the nasty things that were said about them, but the things they do themselves?

(Anyway....kind of rambling. But certain things about some headlines and/or content just catches my eye.)

[stanky]

it's open season on Appalachian hillbillies.

[Admin]

Isn't that ironic? "Cake walk" is racist, because it came from African-American culture. Like "Cotton Eyed Joe" and "Song of the South", these remnants of authentic culture originating with black people, is racist.

Does that happen in other colonized lands? Over in your hemisphere, I can only assume that there are loan words and some holidays, celebrations, or activities that started with the aboriginal people of Australia and New Zealand. Are some considered racist? I don;t mean the nasty things that were said about them, but the things they do themselves?

Definitely not. As long as it doesn't have racist undertones, it's not a problem.

[arthwollipot]

Does that happen in other colonized lands? Over in your hemisphere, I can only assume that there are loan words and some holidays, celebrations, or activities that started with the aboriginal people of Australia and New Zealand. Are some considered racist? I don;t mean the nasty things that were said about them, but the things they do themselves?

I've seen "walkabout" used pretty freely. It was a part of a character arc in Babylon 5.

[Meadmaker]

I had heard the term "walkabout", but didn't know it was connected to aborigines.

I just pictured wandering around in the wilderness for kicks.

[Meadmaker]

"New bill would convict teachers of felony, put on sex offender list for trans support"

It's probably a stupid bill, but I'm pretty sure that headline is heavily misleading. Now I'll read the article.



I read the article. I was wrong. It was every bit as stupid as the headline implied. The bill is exactly as described in the headline.

Now, it is just a bill, not a law, and it will never got anywhere near a governor's pen, but I was not correct in my assumption that the headline had to be a wild exagggeration.

[Admin]

Given it's America I'd have been surprised if it wasn't true.

[Meadmaker]

Given it's America I'd have been surprised if it wasn't true.

I've followed so many that aren't. When I see "other party does something so evil you won't believe it", I generally don't believe it.


But sometimes, it turns out to be true. This particular bill was collosally, wildly, bad. Usually, the truly awful bills are ones where the avowed intent is something benign, but under just the right circumstances and with a prosecutor willing to stretch the law, bad things could happen. That's not the situation with this bill. With this bill, it's very obvious that the intent is to prosecute anyone who supports any sort of gender transition, and they very specifically go out of their way to define "support" as broadly as possible. It's really extreme.

It won't pass. Even in the South, it goes too far.

And, sadly, it is a feature of American politics for attention seeking politicians to go out of their way to appeal to their base with legislation as extreme as possible. It got our last president elected, and I grow more convinced it will get him elected again.

[Admin]

I've followed so many that aren't.

I'd be interested to see where. When it comes to LGBT and the GOP I've only seen extreme homo/transphobia in play.

[Meadmaker]

Any time court rulings appear in the media, there's potential for stupid. Here's the headline:

"Supreme Court poised to block Biden administration's plan to limit health threat: '[It] would undermine … the public interest" (sic)

Media doesn't really "get" law. If they don't like the result, the court is being bad. "Separation of powers" isn't a chapter they paid attention to. (To be fair, neither do a lot of judges) So, from the headline, we are expected to believe that the Supreme Court is going to block measures that would help eliminate a health threat, because it's not in the public interest to do so. Hmmm.....

I think limiting health threats is in the public interest. However, it's really not court's job to protect the public interest most of the time. It's their job to say what the law is, not whether the law is good or bad. So, if SCOTUS really did block a public health measure, the reason wouldn't be likely to be based on their judgment of what's in the public interest. And, that ellipsis and the [it] make me think they did some manipulation of the ruling. Let's see what I can find. Off to the article....

(Read....read...read...)

So, first of all, it's a pollution case. That's sort of like limiting a health threat, so that's not horribly distorted, but simply referencing pollution would be more straightforward.. Second, the court hasn't ruled on anything at all, yet. A lot of court watchers, though, expect a ruling in favor of the polluters. Third, the "undermine the public interest" quote is by the people opposing the ruling. I think the headline makes it seem as if the SC was saying something undermined the public interest. The case is about whether EPA has the authority to limit pollution from one state if it drifts into a different state. Specifically, can the EPA limit emissions in West Virginia on the grounds that it affects people in Virginia.

My big problem with this article is the same problem I have wiht so many legal articles. It says literally nothing about what the legal issue involved is. Not a word. The article says it's important to limit pollution from Indiana because it drifts downwind and affects the public interest.

I totally agree with the principle, but is that the law? It ought to be, but is it? Does the EPA have that power, under the law as it currently exists? The article doesn't say anything at all about the question.