Memories of the 28th Century

In recent years there has been discussion regarding the funding of police. Some people seem to want to eliminate police, while others want them retained. My opinion is a little different. I want the police to enforce the laws, and I think that more police will be necessary for that. As it is, the police enforce those laws that they feel like enforcing for people they feel like working for. I have complained to the police several times over the past several years, but neither arrest nor prosecution ...

Recently, I was talking to someone about some of the works of Samuel L. Clemens, AKA Mark Twain. I was encouraging the other person to read Roughing It and Life on the Mississippi, both of which are memoirs, rather than fiction. Then we touched on the matter of most of Twain’s fiction not being all that good. But that made sense, because Twain was a reporter of considerable experience, so he wrote in a reportorial fashion.

Good reporters are honest people who are inclined to accurately ...

The recent retraction by Rolling Stone of their story about the University of Virginia rape story brought to mind some of the major problems with journalism. I have linked the Columbia University School of Journalism report below. There were specific problems, and that’s what the report is about, but there are more general problems with journalism, and those are the underlying reasons for the specific problems. I learned decades ago that news outlets don’t report news as much as they try to get ...