The Illusion of Knowledge

~ "A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.” --Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

The Illusion of Knowledge

Monthly Archives: February 2014

Crimes Against Yourself – Child Pornography

23 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by Milton in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

From Virginia: “A local teenager is facing child pornography charges after police say she shared nude photographs of herself on the social networking site Twitter.”  According to the story:

Officials with the James City County Police Department told the station that teenagers sometimes fail to grasp the severity of the situation when publicly sharing private materials.

“It’s not just friends that see what they post but also strangers and everyone else out there,” Stephanie Williams-Ortery, a representative of the department, told WAVY. “You have no idea who’s out there watching. You never know who’s going to see what you post.”

…Authorities then confiscated her phone and charged her with one count of distribution of child pornography.

So, the police in Virginia think that the proper way to discipline a teenager for taking a nude photo of herself is to charge her with a felony.  Perhaps they also think that people who attempt suicide should be charged with attempted murder.  It’s nice to know that the cops have nothing better to do than, at best, prosecute the victims of the crimes they want to prevent.

 

LZ Granderson – Minority Is All He Sees

09 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by Milton in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a Comment

LZ Granderson has a piece on CNN.com criticizing Jerry Seinfeld for the comments he recently made that “[p]eople think (comedy) is the census or something, it’s gotta represent the actual pie chart of America.  Who cares?”  Mr. Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, faults Seinfeld because Granderson believes Seinfeld’s comments “while not malicious in intent, do highlight some of the nuances of privilege those in power enjoy but are unable or unwilling to see. And unless measures are taken to point out some of those privileges, those who have been inadvertently excluded will continue to be so.”

As is so often the case with the minority & gender studies community, when the only tool you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.  Granderson is incapable of seeing beyond race, creed and gender.  Even a non-issue where a comedian says that all he cares about is the quality of the work product becomes the basis for complaints about discrimination because every issue is about discrimination.  To Granderson, Seinfeld is a white male, and that is all you need to know about his opinion.  Because he is a white male, his opinion is reduced to being representative of a particular pallor and gender.

It’s too bad that Granderson (I assume, based on his commentary) doesn’t watch Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.  If he did, he might have seen the episode with Don Rickles, entitled “You’ll Never Play the Copa.”  Had he seen the episode, he might have encountered, around the one minute forty second mark, Seinfeld’s introduction to Rickles, where Seinfeld says that Rickles would be one of the four faces on the Mount Rushmore of Comedy.  That is followed by this comment: “the other three are Pryor, Carlin and Cosby, by the way.”

Now, given the comments by Seinfeld of which Granderson is critical, I think we can be pretty confident that when Seinfeld mentions Pryor, Carlin and Cosby it is a genuine reflection of his view that they represent the pinnacle of comedy genius.  He doesn’t toss out a couple of black names in the interests of diversity, which so transfixes Granderson.  He simply states his opinion, which is devoid of calculations about the optimal mix of race, gender, religion, national origin or any other category which is completely irrelevant to whether a comedian is funny.

Granderson and other race and gender writers and activists take every opportunity to turn race-neutral statements into issues of controversy.  If they are truly interested in promoting equality, then they should celebrate people like Jerry Seinfeld – a man for whom quality is all that matters.

♣ Search

♣ Archives

  • May 2017 (1)
  • November 2016 (1)
  • February 2016 (2)
  • November 2015 (1)
  • October 2015 (1)
  • September 2015 (1)
  • August 2015 (1)
  • May 2015 (1)
  • March 2015 (3)
  • February 2015 (3)
  • January 2015 (2)
  • December 2014 (4)
  • November 2014 (3)
  • October 2014 (3)
  • September 2014 (1)
  • August 2014 (2)
  • July 2014 (1)
  • June 2014 (1)
  • May 2014 (1)
  • March 2014 (1)
  • February 2014 (2)
  • December 2013 (7)
  • November 2013 (3)
  • September 2013 (4)
  • August 2013 (4)
  • July 2013 (1)
  • May 2013 (5)
  • April 2013 (5)
  • March 2013 (2)
  • January 2013 (1)
  • December 2012 (2)
  • October 2012 (2)
  • August 2012 (4)
  • July 2012 (7)
  • June 2012 (1)
  • May 2012 (4)
  • April 2012 (5)
  • March 2012 (7)
  • February 2012 (1)
  • January 2012 (2)
  • December 2011 (5)
  • November 2011 (2)

Blogroll

  • Cost of Government
  • Greg Mankiw's Blog
  • Reason
  • The American

Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Chateau by Ignacio Ricci.