Writing tip: Adding “man-” turns your complaint into a take

By Dan Brooks in Rhetoric 0 Comment

Women manspreading.

Yesterday, Twitter user and self-described strategic analyst Eric Garland posted a long, threaded rant about the condition of contemporary politics. It began with this tweet:

As you can see, it’s pretty popular. I came across it when it was shared by Clara Jeffery, editor of Mother Jones, who likened it to the Federalist Papers. She’s clearly the expert, but I disagree with her assessment. Garland doesn’t advance a point so much as vent his frustration. You can read the whole million-tweet thread on this Google doc, thoughtfully assembled by Libby Watson. It digresses. A wag might summarize his argument as “What is game theory?” But over at Gizmodo, Alana Hope Levinson takes issue with the <THREAD> part. Men, she admonishes, Please Stop Manthreading:

There is this thing that people (mostly men) love to do on Twitter, something other than harass women and send DMs of their half chubs. It’s called threading, and it’s one of the many things ruining my Twitter experience.

That last sentence is great, and I bet she meant it as a joke. Still, maybe it’s just because my gender requires me to think about few other problems, but I don’t like what Levinson is doing, here. You can attach “man” to any complaint about annoying public behavior and turn it into a take. Every writer knows this. But we have sworn in the darkened chambers of our society never to abuse it, the same way Masons promise not to kill anyone with a trowel.

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Circle of heroes expands to include CIA

By Dan Brooks in Rhetoric 0 Comment

CIA Director John Brennan defends the use of waterboarding in 2013.

On Friday, the CIA announced that “the consensus view” of US intelligence agencies is that Russia used computer hackers to influence the election in favor of Donald Trump. Democrats agree. Can you blame them? It’s comforting to think Americans didn’t really choose Trump. Like the Michigan recount, the CIA report holds out the possibility that last month’s disturbing vote didn’t really happen. And even if it did, blaming Russian cyberspies lets Democrats off the hook. They wouldn’t have lost to the worst major-party candidate in history, if Vladimir Putin hadn’t put his thumb on the scale. Never mind that we don’t know how much this possible Russian hacking actually influenced the election. The important thing is that the CIA is right, and to suggest that they might be mistaken is unconscionable. After all, those people are heroes:

Updated head count of sacred cows after the jump.

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Forced to work for money, Combat! sucks

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment

The free market at work

Remember yesterday, when I said I’d see you today with Friday links? Tough news, champ. The management at Combat! blog loves you very much, but someone bought our time today. You guys know you’re my favorites. But you pay me very little. I must conform my life to those endeavors likely to sustain it, and talking that mess on the old yakbox, as blogging is called, sustains little. It’s probably because my dad isn’t a wealthy blogger, either. The whole blog-based American economy is rigged—a maze with no exit, designed to keep us in roughly the same place we started. If you don’t believe me, ask the Washington Post.

They’re one of several outlets to cite a study of how many Americans have earned more than their parents, from 1940 to the present day. I’ll give you the good news first: we won World War II. The bad news is that since then, the percentage of adults who make more than their parents has declined—sharply. While 92% of children born in 1940 wound up earning more than their parents, only 46% of adults born in 1990 do. If you’ve been born since then, and your version of the American Dream involves buying anything, you have half the chance your grandparents did.

Maybe that’s because there’s been no economic growth since the 1970s—even when you adjust income for taxes and transfers, or tax-funded benefits—for half of American households. Spoiler alert: It’s the bottom half. But half! That’s astonishing. Even as it doubled in size, the economy managed to do nothing for half of us, for the last 40 years. That’s from your boy Thomas Piketty, that dude Emmanuel Saez, and some new jack named Gabriel Zucman who was probably in charge of writing everything down.

Anyway, there’s quantitative proof that we live in a less just society. Or maybe it’s just a more efficient one. How that looks probably depends on where you sit. If I had to estimate it, I’d say there’s about a 50 percent chance of you coming down on either side. What a time to be alive.

Now that Engstrom is gone, maybe a teacher should run the school

By Dan Brooks in Montana Politics 0 Comment

One of the few images of former UM president Royce Engstrom left undestroyed

Enrollment at the University of Montana here in beautiful Missoula, Montana has declined almost 25 percent in the last five years. This drop roughly coincides with the tenure of President Royce Engstrom, who stepped down last week in a mutual decision with the Board of Regents that they announced. Here’s regent chief Clayton Christian:

After careful discussion and consideration, University of Montana President Royce Engstrom and I have decided that he will step down as UM’s president effective December 31. I asked President Engstrom to consider this transition at this time based on my belief that a change in leadership direction is the right step for UM going forward.

Sounds like an amicable discussion to me. Engstrom is probably just one of the many Americans who quit their jobs right before Christmas to focus on family. But maybe he got fired. If that’s the case, the most interesting phrase in Christian’s statement might be “at this time.”

Why now? Engstrom got through the first few years of declining enrollment, big cuts to teaching budgets, and a Department of Justice investigation with his job intact. So what prompted the regents to cut him loose last week, in the middle of the school year?

You can read my speculation on that and other subjects in this week’s column for the Missoula Independent, which advances the piping-hot take that maybe a teacher should run the school. Never forget that when declining enrollment forced UM to lay people off last year, 98% of the planned cuts went to classroom instruction. Administrators don’t cut administration. But instruction is what UM is selling. Facing an enrollment crisis, the Engstrom administration decided to offer fewer services for the same price. Maybe there’s fat to be trimmed somewhere else. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links!

Joke book “literally kills lives,” says person so right I cannot agree

By Dan Brooks in Rhetoric 2 Comments

A satirical cover from the recently-pulled Bad Little Children’s Books

Following accusations of racism, Abrams has taken the collection of satirical illustrations Bad Little Children’s Books off the market at the author’s request. The pseudonymous Arthur Gackley maintains that neither he nor his book is prejudiced, but that public outcry has made it impossible to have “the kind of dialogue I hoped to promote.” If that sounds suspiciously high-minded to you, you’ll love his quote in The Guardian:

This act of censorship is dangerous on so many levels, as free speech, satire and parody are tools to help make us a stronger society, not a more divided one.

Totally true re: speech and satire, but I question his use of the phrase “act of censorship.” When you pull your own book because people said you were a jerk for writing it, that’s not censorship. That’s free speech convincing you. I’m kind of surprised it did, though, because the speech used to condemn Bad Little Children’s Books seems like the wrong way to convince anybody. Example after the jump.

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