Bookmarks: Donald Sterling sex tape • Police chokehold death • Child border crisis follow-up • Facebook is cracking down on click-bait • Chronic lateness
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Donald Sterling Sex Tape
Just kidding.(*)
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Sunday 2014-08-24
I am not too much interested in what different publicity-seeking figures said to the crowds at one point or another. I am just glad that the death of Eric Garner has finally made it into the news. In contrast to the death of Michael Brown, this entire incident was caught very plainly on video, and there is no question at all of what happened.
I see no racial overtones in the death of Eric Garner. It is merely a blatant case of fatal abuse of power.
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This suggests that the very first analysis I read about the situation was correct. As I remarked on August 12 here:
“The U.S. faces a crisis in that tens of thousands of unaccompanied children, mainly from Guatemala and Honduras (?!), are crossing over the border into this country from Mexico. In the mistaken belief that the U.S. has taken upon itself to feed, clothe, house and school every orphan that arrives here (link), parents in many cases pay traffickers thousands of dollars per child to bring them here.”
This is a different notion than that children were fleeing violence and crime.
Earlier posts: Child immigration crisis; The border crisis
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I have little familiarity with Facebook, and less with its news feeds.
The article says FB will begin weeding out “news” items that users prove to find useless. It has specific ways to do this.
I’m wondering how much time it will take the system to decide to keep or weed out any particular item.
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Carolyn Hax: Reader chooses to buck society’s on-time fixation
Carolyn Hax’s column for August 26 begins with these remarks from “Albuquerque,” who apparently is perfectly happy to have lived a life of chronic lateness:
Chronic lateness is a personality characteristic just as much as smiling or shyness or empathy or mothering or wool-gathering to name a few of the more benign.
None, but none, of these characteristics is changed lightly or, usually, at all in a lifetime. I know, I have struggled with lateness the same way others have struggled with more blatantly damaging qualities. I know when I am hungry and when I am full. I know what drink must be the final one. I have a terrific sense of direction. With all of these, of course, over a lifetime I have wondered why others do not — gee, it’s so easy.
It is not at all straightforward. I have been tyrannized by the absolutists just the same as they think they are inconvenienced by the late-arriving. How often I have arrived — punctually — at a meeting only to think, “I rushed for this? I could have driven more cautiously, not been so rude to that old guy, not have indigestion, edited my e-mail more thoroughly, read that article.”
I often find people are more concerned about the schedule than the occasion, somehow desperately fixated on that aspect of the event. And, I often wonder why we have created a society that values punctuality among frenzy.
Now that I am retired I try, oh try hard, to set an engagement for between 11 and 11:15, to make appointments for later in the day, to announce clearly that I wish others would start the meeting without me if they are not “on a retirement schedule.”
In fact, whatever direction these “beliefs” move, they are ONLY beliefs. I suggest some tolerance both ways. I will try to tolerate your absolutism, if you will recognize my right to believe differently. I will try to accommodate your beliefs — even though I do not share them. I will not ridicule your “god” if you do not denounce my apostasy.
I e-mailed her this response:
“Albuquerque” struck me as overly judgmental of the normal population.
I have struggled with chronic lateness all my life, re: which more shortly. I note that some other societies, such as Germany, put far more stress on punctuality than even Americans do.
What clinched it for me was his remark, “Now that I am retired I try, oh try hard, to set an engagement for between 11 and 11:15 …” It’s not that he is customarily late for just any appointment at just any time of day. The hours before 11:00 are key. This suggests to me that he has (not “suffers from,” as he’s obviously completely happy with his condition) delayed sleep phase syndrome. A person with this condition typically finds it exceptionally hard to keep any appointment earlier than 10:00 a.m., which has been so for me.
Not until I read the Wikipedia article did I learn that there appears to be a genetic basis.
I highly recommend the Wikipedia article. This is a real disorder that most normal people can hardly believe exists, but it really can cause real suffering. I was interested in the article’s final statement, “Persons with obsessive-compulsive disorder are also diagnosed with DSPD at a much higher rate than the general public;” as I have OCD as well.
Update, 2014-09-26: Since the above posts, I have realized that DSPS is specifically the “foible of the flesh” mentioned in “A short route to agony.”
(Reblogged 2019-11-07.)
(*)Edit, 2019-09-19: For those who may not remember, Donald Sterling owned the Los Angeles Clipper NBA franchise. Here he is with his paramour, V. Stiviano:
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