WendyMcMahon’s tenure atop #CBSNews, which she took over in Aug 2023, has been rocky at times
…#ShariRedstone openly criticized McMahon’s handling of an Oct incident involving the “CBS Mornings” anchor #TonyDokoupil, who in an interview had challenged the author #TaNehisiCoates’s views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
#CBS #Paramount #60Minutes #Skydance
#ethics #journalism #democracy #FourthEstate #law #censorship #propaganda #AmericanAutocracy
“A #history professor who leads a course on genocide was instructed not to mention atrocities committed against Native Americans, according to several academy officials. The English department purged works by well-known Black authors, such as #ToniMorrison, #JamesBaldwin and #TaNehisiCoates, the officials said.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/us/politics/west-point-hegseth-culture-wars.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Fk8.O5Jr.AnHC5rwItZPR&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=g
Phenomenal interview with #AshSarkar and #TaNehisiCoates.
Is #America More #Racist Than #Britain?
Reading The Message by Ta-nehisi Coates this morning and man, does it hit hard right now. #tanehisicoates #bookstodon #books @bookstodon
Continuing...
#TheMessage #TaNehisiCoates #LaundryReadings #MastoBooks #Livrostodon #WhitePriviledge #Bookstodon #BlackAuthors
Books everyone should read. Not least because they are beautifully written.
#TheMessage #TaNehisiCoates #LaundryReadings #MastoBooks #Livrostodon #WhitePriviledge #Bookstodon #BlackAuthors
#TaNehisiCoates:
If #Democrats can’t draw the Line at #Genocide, they can’t Draw the Line at #Democracy
https://www.juancole.com/2025/02/democrats-genocide-democracy.html
Ta-Nehisi Coates about today's Democratic Party
“If you can ship 2K pound bombs to be dropped on hospitals, to be dropped on schools, to watch on your TVs as people hooked up to IVs are burned alive;
if you know people are being taken into prisons & raped & tortured; if you are talking about hostages but you have no concerns about an entire justice system that is effectively hostage taking;
if you can’t stand up against genocide, why should I believe you can stand up for democracy?”
#USpol #TanehisiCoates #Democracy #Democrats #Gaza #Palestine #Apartheid #Genocide #Israel
Ich lese gerade Der Wassertänzer von Ta-Nehisi Coates auf deutsch. Der Hauptprotagonist, nennt versklavte Menschen immer "die Verpflichteten" und irgendwie hört sich das für mich sehr verharmlosend an.
Edit: Habe die Antwort "the Tasked"
Weiß jemand wie das im Original geschrieben wurde? Oder hat jemand das Buch daheim und kann das mal für mich nachlesen?
https://www.jpost.com/bds-threat/article-833231
Twenty years ago, advocates of the US invasion of Iraq urged those hesitant in their support to stop wavering and instead embrace "moral clarity".
Today, we often hear that to describe the Israel/Palestine conflict as complicated is "horseshit".
Wrong then and wrong now.
Of course the needless killing of noncombatants is wrong, but the complexity of the dispute goes way beyond the scope of that justifiable condemnation.
The Middle East is a complicated place and we should resist the urge to dismiss that complexity, just as we should resist the urge to dismiss the complexities of freedom of expression, of gender fluidity...
#Cinemamed #LaBelleDeGaza #IsraelPalestine #LGBTQ #Film #Censorship #MENA #TaNehisiCoates
@velshi I hope people of #colonial states read #TaNehisiCoates' brilliant book. He courageously speaks from a personal place to call us all especially #journalists, #academics, and #leaders to be critical of narratives and constructed histories that erase, dehumanize and subjugate. He speaks of the narratives that justify the theft of land, who has rights, and the tactics of dehumanization and violent erasure. Highly recommended!
Media — October 2024
November kind of got away from me between the election and recovering from being sick and the holiday… so you’re getting an October post in December. Oops. Maybe November’s list will follow shortly?
Also thinking about whether I want to reorder these sections to highlight things a bit differently… I might need to make the distinction between produced media like movies and TV (where the distinction is blurring anyway) and other video content?
Movies
This was my pick for a movie night. I played the Mysterious Man in a high school production in 1999, so naturally I was a little disappointed how little this role was in the movie. As with the stage musical, I think the first act is a lot stronger and the second act is a lot weirder. The prince duet is great, especially with Chris Pine hamming it up.
I did remember a lot of the songs even though it’s 25 years later and I haven’t listened to the cast recording or seen the movie before. Still a fun bit of nostalgia.
I think kid saw part of this on a plane last year; he wasn’t super into the graphic novels. The cel shaded animation style is great, tons of dynamic action, but the story is a little too predictable. Probably fine for kids, in that it educates them in heist film cliches? Kinda funny that it tries to look like it’s filmed entirely in LA and the thirty-mile zone when everything had to be animated.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
It’s another MCU movie, but definitely one of the better ones. Watched this while I was on flu bedrest. I think the franchise is at its best when it does goofy sci-fi instead of serious characters seriously punching one another; that was certainly true of some of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. arcs.
The animal vivisection sequences from Rocket’s backstory are pretty intense; I’m almost surprised they didn’t push it into R territory. (Incidentally the real world equivalent of this kind of lab testing is why we support the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and their efforts to end it.)
Television
We continued to work our way through S1 of Enterprise (my first rewatch since original airing, Andrle’s first watch ever). I don’t remember a lot of details beyond rough premise, so the endings are sometimes a surprise.
I also enjoyed a lot of the preview videos from Wizards on the then-upcoming Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Only Murders in the Building S4
Another hilarious entry in the show. I think S3 might still be my favorite (maybe because of the musical theater angle) but this one felt less predictable. (I did correctly guess at the murderer early on for trope reasons, but had no idea about motive.)
Not TV exactly but while I was sick I binged all of the talks from XOXO. They’re all great, with a real emphasis on what creation means today on the modern web. Found a few new people and blogs to follow, and a lot of them contain some fun storytelling.
Music
I was a little young for the original album release but of course familiar with the hit singles off of it. Neat retrocomputing project.
Books
Kid and I finished our bedtime read aloud of The Silmarillion and I posted my full review of the new D&D PHB which I also finished (even though I mostly read it in September).
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest is a short but difficult read, and not what I expected. We got a copy of the book as part of signing up for his upcoming Seattle Arts & Lectures talk.
The framing is sort of an open letter to his writing class at Howard University, and the first part of the book is really more about the act of writing. The part everyone is talking about (his trip to the West Bank, which was before the current war) is only the last third or so of the book. He makes a strong connection between the apartheid system there and the history of American racism, especially in the post-Reconstruction South.
Some quotes about why he writes:
But books work when no one else is looking, mind-melding author and audience, forging an imagined world that only the reader can see.
The Message p. 87
The danger we present, as writers, is not that we will simply convince their children of a different dogma but that we will convince them that they have the power to form their own.
The Message p. 88
And a bit of the core of confronting his (and our, as Americans) complicity in oppression:
This effort that I saw, the use of archaeology, the destruction of ancient sites, the pushing of Palestinians out of their homes, had the specific imprimatur of the United States of America. Which means that it had my imprimatur. This was not just another evil done by another state, but an evil done in my name.
The Message p. 203
Overall it’s worth the read and I definitely recommend it, even though it feels like there’s even less that we can do about the ongoing genocide in light of the election outcome.
Podcasts
Still listening to all my usual shows, and no new subscriptions this month.
Who Owns Epic Fantasy? — Our Opinions Are Correct E120
This was an older episode, touching on how Tolkien’s writing lands in a modern context and how to engage with its sometimes racist and sexist legacy as it continues to influence the fantasy genre.
Video Games
Kid got Breath of the Wild for his birthday but I haven’t played it myself yet.
A great riff on classic Tiger Electronics games from Lucas Pope, the creator of among other things Papers, Please, a favorite of mine. After I figured out the mechanic I was able to rescue everyone. Nice little mini game experience.
Articles
I read a lot of stuff in the lead-up to the election which seems silly to link to now.
Debiasing the BoardGameGeek Ranking
A really interesting statistical analysis of trends in game ratings on BGG, like recency bias and complexity bias.
I suspect a lot of this is driven by the “core” board gamers who use the site most?
Wouldn’t be a media post without some article about current trends in generative AI; Ed does a great deep dive into how OpenAI’s business model and revenue appear to be untenable.
The Dark Forest and the Cozy Web
This is an older post I found via Erin Kissane’s xoxo talk; I like the idea of cozy being a defining characteristic of the community-focused web I first found when I got online.
I love how ppl are not accepting the premise of the question in the mainstream media - which is usually framed: do you condemn hamas, what about the suicide bombings, Palestinian violence/ conflict/unrest.
Now, ppl say i don't accept genocide, slavery, apartheid or occupation no matter what the other side did.
You can't start the conversation at the reaction to oppression. But this is what Israel's supporters did & do.
#TaNehisiCoates here:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCjeirNp2GZ/
ta-nehisi coates: my life will never be the same.
#freePalestine #gaza #apartheid #tanehisiCoates
https://aje.io/jr19f5
“I’ve been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagues me after #JamesBaldwin died. Clearly it is #TaNehisiCoates.” Toni Morrison
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/28/1197958398/james-baldwin-israel
The Atlantic accidentally published something on Gaza that's not garbage (not mentioning Coates explicitly, but clearly prompted by the attention to his essay):
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/black-americans-solidarity-gaza/680433/
One interesting tidbit: the claim that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians cannot be compared to Jim Crow because the situation is too "complicated" is ironic, because the US South literally defended Jim Crow with the exact same argument...
I really think many Americans would benefit from listening to Coates' description of what has happened, is happening, in Palestine.
What happens in Palestine is the prototype of what will happen to you, even in the west.
And for news nerds: "the elevation of factual complexity over self-evident morality".
