{"id":775,"date":"2010-03-18T09:58:39","date_gmt":"2010-03-18T16:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=775"},"modified":"2010-03-18T09:58:39","modified_gmt":"2010-03-18T16:58:39","slug":"thursday-miscellany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/18\/thursday-miscellany\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday Miscellany"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Okay, I&#8217;ve missed a few &#8220;Monday Miscellany&#8221; posts. So here&#8217;s some Thursday Miscellany to make up for that.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We already know that even mild pressure from authority figures can make <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Milgram_experiment\" target=\"_blank\">most people commit evil acts<\/a>. And we know that placing ordinary people in authority over helpless others <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prisonexp.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">can be just as disastrous<\/a>. (Although some skeptics <a href=\"http:\/\/skeptoid.com\/episodes\/4102\" target=\"_blank\">question specifics of that experiment<\/a>). Now, a French documentarian <a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/arts\/article\/0,8599,1972981,00.html\" target=\"_blank\">shows us that the power of TV<\/a> can do the same. Humans are scary critters.\n<li>On the other hand, it&#8217;s amazingly good news when the most mainstreamy of mainstream media suddenly gives respectful treatment to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/03\/17\/us\/17states.html\" target=\"_blank\">the 10th-amendment movement.<\/a>\n<li>Speaking of that, can anybody come up with a better term than &#8220;states&#8217; rights&#8221;? That term just sucks. Aside from its dire (even if partly unfair) connection to ancient racism, states just can&#8217;t have rights.\n<li>And <i>be still my beating heart!<\/i> Another major media outlet gives fair treatment to &#8220;wing-nut fringe-oids.&#8221; This time the issue is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/news\/local\/ct-met-census-resistors-20100316,0,2742337.story\" target=\"_blank\">the census<\/a> &#8212; and why some perfectly sensible people want nothing to do with it. This is the <i>first<\/i> mainstream article I&#8217;ve seen on the 2010 census that hasn&#8217;t read like a propaganda release from the Census Bureau\n<li>Finally, this comes a day late for St. Patrick. But it&#8217;s never too late to remember <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vivasancarlos.com\/patrick.html\" target=\"_blank\">the San Patricios<\/a>. And <a href=\"http:\/\/flag.blackened.net\/revolt\/mexico\/img\/more_san_ps.html\" target=\"_blank\">learn more about them<\/a>. Some staunch militarists may still want to hate them 160+ years later because they deserted the U.S. Army. But they&#8217;re revered in Mexico as freedom fighters.\n<li>And just this month, the inventive Irish group the Chieftans and the equally inventive Ry Cooder <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0033AX26I?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=livifree07-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=B0033AX26I\">released a musical collaboration<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=livifree07-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=B0033AX26I\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/> with a variety of other musicians to tell the sad story of the Irish heroes of Mexico. Can&#8217;t wait to get my hands on a copy.\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Okay, I&#8217;ve missed a few &#8220;Monday Miscellany&#8221; posts. So here&#8217;s some Thursday Miscellany to make up for that. We already know that even mild pressure from authority figures can make most people commit evil acts. And we know that placing ordinary people in authority over helpless others can be just as disastrous. (Although some skeptics question specifics of that experiment). Now, a French documentarian shows us that the power of TV can do the same. Humans are scary critters. On the other hand, it&#8217;s amazingly good news when the most mainstreamy of mainstream media suddenly gives respectful treatment to the&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/18\/thursday-miscellany\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Thursday Miscellany<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}