Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

DaTechGuy’s 3rd Law of Media Outrage and Secoriea Turner,

Posted: July 6, 2020 by datechguy in crime, culture, News/opinion, politics, Uncomfortable Truths
Tags: , , ,

DaTechGuy’s 3rd law of media outrage states

The MSM’s elevation and continued classification of any story as Nationally Newsworthy rather than only of local interest is in direct correlation to said story’s current ability to affirm any current Democrat/Liberal/Media meme/talking point, particularly on the subject of race or sexuality.

Thus when a local cop in Minneapolis exceeded his authority causing the death of George Floyd it became national news.

However when the riots which broke out pretty much destroyed a chunk of Minneapolis, when a part of Seattle was taken over by Antifa these stories were downplayed and ignored (until POTUS pushed the 2nd forward) as were the 20 deaths attributable to said riots.

Make that 21

Police said Turner was riding in a car with her mother and her mother’s friend when they exited the interstate at University Avenue. The driver tried to turn into the parking lot at 1238 Pryor Road when he was confronted by an “group of armed individuals” who had blocked the entrance.

“At some point, someone in that group opened fire on the vehicle, striking it multiple times and striking the child who was inside. The driver then drove to Atlanta Medical Center for help,” police said in a statement.

Police said the 911 caller told them they were heading to Atlanta Medical Center with the victim. The child died at the hospital.

But the real news here isn’t the shooting of eight year old Secoriea Turner it’s how the BLM riot / protest deaths are being reported or not, as David Bernstein notes concerning another Black lives matter protest related death this weekend…

I had to go to an Australian news source to discover that the driver of the vehicle that sped into BLM protesters in Seattle is an African American. (Apologies if one of my colleagues at Instapundit covered this, I have been away for the holiday weekend.) I have to assume that American media outlets know this, and decided intentionally not to mention it to create the implication that this was a racist murder, rather than a guy driving recklessly on what he thought was an abandoned highway. I increasingly feel like I’m living somewhere akin to the former USSR, in terms of the way the media are dedicated to a particular narrative regardless of the facts. At least unlike in the USSR I can access alternative sources to our equivalent of Pravda.

He’s talking about the death of 24 year old Summer Taylor a white “non-binary” BLM protester who was run down while blocking a freeway by a black driver who likely didn’t anticipate a bunch of people protesting in the middle of it at 1:36 AM in the morning.

The murder of Secoriea Turner is a huge inconvenience to those who have gone all in on the protests being “mostly peaceful” (which is as accurate as saying my vegan soup recipe is “mostly unpoisoned” but the real question will be what happens next

If Black Lives Matter was true to its name, there would be as much global outrage over the death of eight year old Secoriea Turner, gunned down by anti-police protesters in Atlanta Sunday night, as there was for George Floyd….Or as Secoriea Turner’s tearful father, Secoriya Williamson, told local media in Atlanta, “They say black lives matter … but you killed your own this time. You killed a child. She didn’t do nothing to nobody.”

Of course, there won’t be any BLM protest marches held in honour of Jomo, little Secoriea, or any of the other innocents of any race slain in the ensuing crime wave.

No they won’t because highlighting her death would not cause sports leagues to funnel billions to the BLM front group to elect democrats in fact it might retard such cash. And of course there is the 4th law of media outrage:

The degree of media exposure of the corruption or illegality committed by any individual or organization under investigation is directly proportional to its distance from the media’s ideology.

Now I think the President won’t allow them to downplay this action by BLM but their media/democrat/blm left will do their best.

The truth is they don’t give a damn that Secoriea Turner was murdered, they just regret that it wasn’t done by someone who looks or votes like me.

THEN her life or rather her death would matter.

Update: Dad speaks out:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

I predict that none of the money that the NBA, NFL or MLB gave to BLM will be spent remembering her, nor do I expect her name to be painted on any NBA court or her name worn on the jersey of any player as a social justice statement.

Although it would be nice

Statue wars come to Alaska

Posted: July 5, 2020 by John Ruberry in culture, News/opinion, politics
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Captain Cook statue and Cook Inlet in Anchorage

By John Ruberry

There was no post from me last week here as I was on vacation in Alaska with Mrs. Marathon Pundit celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary and getting away from all of the craziness in what Alaskans call “the lower 48.”

Surely leftists’ obsession with tearing down statues hadn’t come to the Last Frontier?

Wrong. It is there too.

While listening to a Talkeetna, Alaska NPR station–which was apparently the only FM station I could pick up in “Gateway to Denali”–I heard a Native American artist from Sitka say, “Take them all down.” The statues, that is. Well, presumably not all of them, just ones of old dead white guys.

A friend of mine who lives in Anchorage urged me to get a photograph of the Captain James Cook statue in Resolution Park, where the bronze likeness of the English explorer, who led the first expedition of Europeans into what is now known as Cook Inlet in 1778, looks over his eponymous bay.

Why?

“Before Cook is taken away,” he warned me.

I believe the Cook statue is a goner. A Change.org petition to remove Cook from Resolution Park, which is named after his flagship, went online last month and attracted a lot of attention, including that of Anchorage’s Democratic mayor, San Francisco native Ethan Berkowitz. He’s a weasel and he punted the decision to an Anchorage native community of 70 to decide the statue’s fate.

Cook haters and everyone who despises white explorers should be able to take solace in knowing that the captain was killed by native Hawaiians on the Big Island several months after sailing into Cook Inlet. But no.

Anchorage is a sister city of Whitby, England, the town where Cook began his maritime career, and the Resolution Park statue is a replica of the Whitby one. Yes, there is a drive in the UK to topple that Cook statue, although the member of parliament who represents Whitby says it will be removed “over my dead body.”

But like hungry sharks, the first kill is never enough for that haters of white man statues. Even in Alaska. What was then known as Russian America was purchased by the United States in 1867; the driver of that purchase was William H. Seward, the US secretary of state. Seward, a rival of Abraham Lincoln for the 1860 presidential nomination, was seen as more anti-slavery than Lincoln. Along with the Great Emancipator, Seward successfully used diplomacy to keep Great Britain and France from recognizing the Confederacy and intervening in our Civil War. On the night Lincoln was assassinated Seward was seriously wounded as well.

In short, most people agree Seward was one of history’s good guys.

We stayed in the village of Seward for a couple of days last month–there’s bust of him there, which is so far safe. That is not the case with the Seward statue in Juneau, Alaska’s capital. Yes, there is a Change.org petition calling for getting rid of it.

Seward’s Day is a state holiday it Alaska, it commemorates that signing of the Alaska Purchase treaty. There is a Seward Highway–which we traveled on last month–and a Seward Peninsula in our 49th state. Clearly, the usually overlooked Seward is a noticeable presence in Alaska. If Juneau’s Seward statue goes, which Seward remembrance will be next?

In Sitka, there is a Change.org petition to remove the statue of Alexander Baranov, who once headed the Russian-American company.

Mrs. Marathon Pundit and I journeyed to the Last Frontier, among other things, to get away from the craziness in the continental United States.

But that was not possible.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

DaTechGuy off DaRadio Podcast 3 PM EST: Do all Lives Matter to UMass Lowell Nurses?

Posted: July 3, 2020 by datechguy in education, elections, media, News/opinion, politics, primaries
Tags: , , , ,

Today at 3 PM EST comes the lastest DaTechGuy off DaRadio Podcast livestream (right after rush). On our podcast today we will talk about:

  1. The firing of a tenured Dean at Umass Lowell Nursing department for stating in writing that all lives matter
  2. The Parable of the Woke Pharisee Protesters and the humble historian
  3. What we’ve learned over the last month
  4. What our new civil war will look like

We will discuss these things, and whatever else tickles my fancy at 3 PM EST. You can watch the podcast live here

Incidentally I’ve reached out to UMass Lowell for comment with a 2:30 deadline. They sent me this statement:

“Leslie Neal-Boylan’s employment at UMass Lowell ended on June 19, after she was informed she would no longer serve as dean of the Solomont School of Nursing. She had been in that role for 10 months. Although a tenured full faculty member, she declined to join the nursing faculty. As with all such employment decisions, it was made in the best interests of the university and its students. Although we are not able to discuss specifics of a personnel matter, it would be incorrect to assume any statement by Dr. Neal-Boylan was the cause of that decision.”

I followed up asking two questions:

  1. Is it the position of the Nursing Department of UMASS Lowell that all lives matter
  2. Are the nursing students being taught by the nursing department at UMASS Lowell that all lives in their care matter?

I’ll let you know if they answer before the show

Quaint Mount Rushmore Reactions

Posted: June 30, 2020 by datechguy in elections, politics
Tags: , , ,

Last night after a trip to the reopened Funspot in NH (more on that later this week) got home and finally checked the net after a day of ignoring it (highly recommended) when the story broke of the democrats tweeting and then deleting this about a Donald Trump event scheduled for Mount Rushmore:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

As you might expect they deleted it right away but not before it was screen grabbed and displayed for all too see.

I found both things rather quaint.

I particularly found it quaint that anyone would be surprised at this point by this opinion but beyond that…

I found it quaint that the democrats would delete the tweet as if they would actually pretend that this is not the opinion of their base

I found it quaint that the Democrats thought such a tweet could be deleted without notice.

I found it quaint that supporters of the President might thing, at a time when democrats are defending riots and arson nationwide might be embarrassed over hitting Mount Rushmore in a tweet.

But what I really find quaint is that at this point, with Democrat cities burning and preparing to jettison the police and promising more of the same that there are people actually undecided on how they will vote to the point where both sides might think this tweet will make any difference?

Older Entries
Newer Entries