"We want diversity of opinion. We don't want diversity of facts. And how do we train and teach our kids to distinguish between those things?"

"That, I think, is one of the big tasks of social media. By the way, it will require some government, I believe, some government regulatory constraints around some of these business models in a way that's consistent with the First Amendment, but that also says, look, there is a difference between these platforms letting all voices be heard versus a business model that elevates the most hateful voices or the most polarizing voices or the most dangerous, in the sense of inciting violence...."

Said Barack Obama, in a conversation with a historian a few days ago. Video at the link.

So it seems he thinks it's "the big task of social media" to teach children to distinguish between fact and opinion. But what does it mean to say "We don't want diversity of facts"? Does it mean you don't want differences of opinion about what the facts are?

It must, because facts are facts. There is no diversity of facts. Whatever is true is true, even if not one human being knows the truth. The facts are out there, to be found, and you can think you've found the facts and be wrong. There's a sense in which to say "We don't want diversity of facts" is to say we want to be able to be able to cling to mistaken findings of fact and even to silence those who want to continue to search for the truth.

I'm irritated by how casually Obama dropped in "By the way, it will require some government." Perhaps he knew his audience at the event was eager to hear about a role for government. But he did not say that government should enforce an official version of the facts — e.g., the covid vaccine is safe and effective, the 2020 election was fair and square. Instead of content-based regulation of speech, he's talking about the manner of the speech. Is it "hateful," "polarizing," or "dangerous"? He adds the phrase "in the sense of inciting violence" to gesture at some concern for the First Amendment.

Obama's speech is incredibly convoluted and mushy. That sentence that begins "By the way" — what is he proposing? Government control of the social media algorithm to suppress the voices it deems polarizing? Yeah, I think we know what that means: Suppress my political opponents, like you did before Elon Musk bought Twitter. Can we agree about that fact or is that an opinion?

***

I'm giving this post my old "alternative facts" tag. Remember "alternative facts"?

"Play the Beatles music to your kids.... We need this music in the world. We need peace and love. And we need the magic of the 60s to stay alive."

Said Sean Lennon, accepting a Grammy — for "best rock performance" — and uttering an ambiguity (does "to stay alive" refer to the 60s magic or to us (we'll die without it)):

Watch Sean Lennon's acceptance speech as they accept the GRAMMY for BEST ROCK PERFORMANCE for "NOW AND THEN" at the 2025 GRAMMYs. #TheBeatles#NowAndThen#SeanOnoLennon #GRAMMYS2025 #Grammys pic.twitter.com/zWWzpygPkO

— Carlos 🎧 🇦🇷 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@carlosgvizcaino) February 3, 2025

And here's the "performance" that won:

The Beatles have won a GRAMMY Award for “Best Rock Performance” for their song “Now and Then”pic.twitter.com/W6fYGSZjbL

— The Beatles Earth (@BeatlesEarth) February 3, 2025

"[Thomas Matthew Crooks] was a straight A student. He participated in class discussions. He truly excelled in science and math and...."

"... was also known to be very competent working with technical stuff and computers. But he was also kind of isolated and quiet. People say he did not have a large circle of friends and he had virtually no social media presence.... He was online playing video games. And also he did a lot of searches.... he searched famous politicians. He, in addition to President Trump, he searched Joe Biden, but he also searched Merrick Garland, the Attorney General and Christopher Wray, the FBI director. And he looked up the dates of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago along with dates of Trump rallies. And he also seems to have looked into the British royal family.... They have not found a manifesto and they didn't even find any sort of political paraphernalia in his room. So there's a sense, I think, among investigators that he was really interested in famous people more than pursuing any kind of a partisan path.... With the caveat that investigators might find some connection, he looks a lot like the alienated young men that have been responsible for school shootings and other mass shootings.... In many of these shootings we've learned to accept some level of ambiguity. It's less about finding one cut and dried motive than a set of circumstances in a person's life. And I think that's where we're headed on this one."

Says Glenn Thrush, interviewed on today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "How the Secret Service Failed to Protect Trump."

Thrush does have that caveat — he says it twice in the interview — that investigators may find something more, but you see how a lone gunman theory emerges: He was another one of those isolated, alienated young men. It wasn't about ordinary political partisanship. He was looking for famous people, looking for fame. We'll probably never really know and will need to accept some level of ambiguity... that's where we're headed on this one.

"[I]n the hours after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, we saw J.D. Vance come out with... the most strongly worded of anyone seeking to be his VP."

"Yeah. And it has some factual problems. Here's what he said. He said: "Today [the attempted assassination] is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination.' We should say there's no evidence that that's true. We don't know the motivations of the shooter. We don't know that he consumed any of that rhetoric or that Vance is even characterizing it correctly.... I think Vance in a lot of ways, kind of embodies the id of Trump and that instinct to fight. And even though these sort of manufactured statements from the campaign are calling for unity and calling for peace, what Trump really wants... is someone who is going to keep fighting, you know, factual or not."

Said Michael C. Bender on yesterday's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Trump Picks His Running Mate and Political Heir."

AND: This morning, I'm seeing "'They' didn’t shoot Donald Trump/Despite the lack of any clear motive, the actions of Thomas Crooks have been attributed to the Democratic Party at large," by Philip Bump (in WaPo). It's funny to use the passive voice — "actions... have been attributed" — exactly when you are complaining about the amorphous "They." Once again, I think of the Saul Steinberg image:

Find that image in Saul Steinberg's "The Inspector."

Bump writes: "There is no evidence that Crooks shot at Trump because he had been influenced by anti-Trump political rhetoric, and there is no evidence that Crooks was literally or figuratively part of a collective effort to sideline or kill the former president.... There’s no known connection between the known shooter and the broad, nebulous galaxy of opponents Trump and his allies envision.... So Crooks and his actions become abstract. They did it or they facilitated it or they caused it. And, for the purposes of political rhetoric, that will have to suffice."

Another flag to interpret... perhaps...

When I grow up I want to become Cate Blanchett, and have the subtlety to think the carpet is already red, so I can just wear a black & white dress with green lining to make such a strong point. #cannes2024 pic.twitter.com/5OiJRBOZ5D

— Dr Zahira Jaser (@ZahiraJaser) May 21, 2024

I know it's a puff piece, but I want to quote the first 2 paragraphs of this WaPo article about Joe Biden.

From "The private chats and chance encounters that shape Joe Biden’s thinking/After conversations with his grandchildren, fellow churchgoers and Delaware neighbors, the president brings their worries to the Oval Office" (WaPo):

In the early months of his presidency, as the pandemic dragged on with its stifling restrictions, President Biden often delivered a favorite monologue to aides: He was worried about young people’s mental health, he said. High school seniors were missing prom and graduation. He wanted to know how college students went on dates.

Specifically, Biden wondered how young people could “make love” under the circumstances, according to two aides who heard the president use that phrase multiple times during his first year in office. Biden’s fixation on loneliness among young people, the aides said, grew out of his near-daily conversations with his grandchildren.

Biden had a "favorite monologue" about teenagers "making love."

"Those favoring the disqualification of Mr. Trump insist that there is nothing antidemocratic about constraining the presidential choices of the national electorate."

"The Constitution, after all, contains a number of provisions that deny the people the right to elect whomever they wish. Article II, Section One, for example, prevents the people from electing anyone who is under age 35 or who is a foreign-born candidate. Those qualifications are expressly declared in the text, and they received robust vetting and debate in the ratifying conventions. In the case of Section 3 [of the Fourteenth Amendment], the Supreme Court is being asked to impose new constraints on the democratic process by way of textual implication and in the absence of any public debate whatsoever.... At best, the text of Section 3 is ambiguous regarding the office of president. The Supreme Court should limit the clause to its historically verifiable meaning and scope. Let the people make their own decisions about Donald Trump."

Writes lawprof Kurt Lash, author of "A Troubled Birth of Freedom: The Struggle to Amend the Constitution in the Aftermath of the Civil War," in "Trump Should Not Be Disqualified by an Ambiguous Clause" (NYT).

The fundamental principle is "the people should choose whom they please to govern them." Ambiguity must be resolved in that direction.

"Elon Musk voiced support Tuesday for Pizzagate, the long-debunked conspiracy theory that... the Clintons and Democratic Party leaders ran a secret satanic child sex ring..."

"...in a D.C. pizzeria known as Comet Ping Pong. The theory, a mainstay of fringe Donald Trump supporters during the 2016 presidential campaign, was labeled 'fictitious' by D.C. police investigators. Musk’s post was the latest in what has become a string of tweets in which Musk boosted debunked theories and comes just one day after he visited Israel to try to tamp down anger over an explosion of antisemitism on X that has caused a growing number of advertisers to flee."

Writes Drew Harwell, in "Elon Musk boosts Pizzagate conspiracy theory that led to D.C. gunfire/The far-right theory motivated a gunman to fire multiple rounds inside the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Northwest Washington in 2016. Musk boosted the theory to his 164 million followers anyway" (WaPo).

Musk wants action and gets it. WaPo feeds the... I don't want to call Musk a troll, but he's seeking to be fed and WaPo is feeding him. I like to quote my mother: You'll only encourage him.

Meanwhile, I wish these WaPo articles would put the precise text of the tweet in question much closer to vague characterizations like "voiced support." He's not absolved from all blame if he sticks to merely referring to things and expressing wonderment, but I need to know how close he came to saying something false or evil. The harder it is to find the actual text of the tweet, the more likely it seems that the characterization is slanted and inflammatory.

Ah. Here it is. The 7th paragraph:

An ambiguous "ought" in The New Yorker's "Why Trump’s Trials Should Be on TV."

This is an opinion column — subtitled "The conduct of the trials, their fairness, and their possibly damning verdicts will be at the center of the 2024 election. Transparency is crucial" — by Amy Davidson Sorkin.

I agree that the trials should be televised, as I wrote in "The ACLU sides with Trump: The gag order is unconstitutional" (October 26, 2023) and — quoting Trump's lawyers — "The prosecution wishes to continue this travesty in darkness. President Trump calls for sunlight" (November 11, 2023).

Here are the last few sentences of the column:

There is apprehension about what [Trump] might say, and what his supporters might then do if they heed him.... Yet to believe that allowing the country to watch as Trump takes the stand would be more of a threat to the Republic than it would be to his defense is to accept his own myths about himself. The evidence against Trump ought to stand up to scrutiny far better than he will. Everybody should see that. Trump isn’t camera-shy; prosecutors have no reason to be, either.

Now, I know very well which of 2 possible meanings of "ought" Sorkin intended.

"The Lord loves us as we are. This is God’s crazy love."

Said Pope Francis, quoted in "Pope tells transgender person: ‘God loves us as we are’/Pope Francis has previously said 'who am I to judge?' when asked about the LGBTQ community" (NBC News).

Responding to a question asked by a transgender person, Francis also said "the Lord always walks with us. ... Even if we are sinners, he draws near to help us."

"The Lord loves us as we are" is ambiguous in this context. Perhaps he means to be ambiguous, but one could read that statement as advising the transgender person not to change their physical body but to stay as they are, as a person with a mind that seems not to match their body. But he may mean, do whatever you do, perhaps it is sin, perhaps not, but don't worry, God always loves us. 

"Teachers nationwide are flummoxed by students’ newfound chess obsession/The fad, fueled by social media stars, has left teachers divided between displeasure and delight."

That's the headline at WaPo.

Why on earth would there be displeasure?

Some teachers have mixed feelings about the clandestine playing of chess in their classes....

Why wouldn't all teachers have unmixed negative feelings about the unauthorized playing of chess in class? 

Justine Wewers, a high school geography teacher... wishes her students would stop clicking to Chess.com on their Chromebooks and iPhones mid-lesson, as roughly one-third of her 150 ninth-graders... try to do each day...

"Many divorcing Moms throw up all sorts of reasons why they alone must have sole physical custody, or limit a father’s parenting time to an absolute minimum, for a nursing child."

"Thousands of children have thrived and grown exclusively on formula, while the supposed benefits (smarter children, healthier babies, more serene mothers) do not always hold up to scientific scrutiny."

A website for a law firm called "The Firm for Men" is quoted in "In child custody dispute, breastfeeding mom is ordered to use bottle 'It’s about using breastfeeding as a weapon against visitation,' said a lawyer for the baby’s father" (WaPo).

The most-liked comment over there is: "If that man really cared about the child he wouldn’t try to make the infant adjust to his convenience. The man must come first! His indifference to the needs of the infant should be a giant red flag. He’s not showing love or care for her. It’s a power play. It’s sickening that the law comes down on a mother and child. That baby is not property!"

I wonder why this is the first time I'm noticing this basis for fighting over child custody. How do people work this out?

"The take of the 'feminist art historian' is that a painting of a paid model, 'a fat woman' who’s 'old' as she states, 'can only be grotesque' and is 'truly horrible.'"

"That doesn’t seem very feminist, does it? Does the self-identified feminist think Freud should only paint beautiful young models with perfect bodies instead of normal human beings? I’m so confused."

A comment on the NYT article "Lucian Freud, Stripped of Fame and Scandal/A major London exhibition asks viewers to put aside the details of the artist’s tumultuous life and concentrate on his paintings." 

"Museums are indeed the churches of progressive-minded people, since they celebrate just the qualities that fanatics and dogmatists want to quelch..."

"... the vigorous acceptance of uncertainty that lets us ask new questions and leaves us unsure about which way is up. Not knowing which way is up is indeed part of the point. 'If I turn the work around, I risk destroying it,' the curator in charge of the exhibition where the Mondrian was to be shown said... adding that 'maybe there is no right or wrong orientation at all?'... Abstract art was meant to interrogate premises... The reason that pictures of Mondrian’s kind are inestimably precious to the human spirit... is that they are the last place where individual purpose and human pluralism are so ferociously honored. The values that are most important—and ones which progressives are most inclined to honor—are those which empower the greatest range of people to self-expression with the greatest possible individuality."

Writes Adam Gopnik in "The Case of the Upside-Down Mondrian/A great work of art always produces a vital disorientation" (The New Yorker).

Why does Gopnik keep saying "progressive"? It doesn't sound like the so-called "progressives" in American politics today.

To view the "vigorous acceptance of uncertainty" as the central quality of progressivism runs directly counter to the idea Biden proclaimed in his speech last night. Am I progressive if I vigorously accept that we can never really know who won the 2020 election or am I a dark demon of chaos? Is Biden a fanatic or dogmatist for wanting to quelch those who won't embrace the "right" answer?

"Police cameras show confusion, anger over DeSantis’ voter fraud arrests/Local police carrying out the arrests were patient, understanding — almost apologetic."

The Tampa Bay Times reports. 

Here's the video: 

There really is some unfortunate confusion with a 2018 statute permitting voting even if you've been convicted of a felony but not if the felony was murder or a sex offense.

I want to see voting laws enforced, but the laws shouldn't be a trap for the unwary. I feel sorry for these people and you can see that the police officers feel sorry for them too.

"'It was chaotic,' he said. The senators were in 'shock,' he said, and some were crying."

From "FBI agent investigating Oath Keepers guarded crying senators on Jan. 6" (WaPo).

At 7:30 p.m., [FBI special agent Michael Palian] and about 70 other FBI agents walked the senators back to the Capitol building and into the Senate chamber. 

“It looked like a bomb had gone off in there,” Palian testified. Tear gas and pepper spray were in the air; windows and doors were broken.

 Were Senators crying in sorrow or because of the tear gas?

"At Zucker’s Trump-baiting CNN, Stelter thrived.... But Zucker was forced to resign from the network, and a new regime under Chris Licht stepped in..."

"... with a goal of rejiggering CNN’s programming, scrubbing it of liberal political valence....Under new ownership, CNN’s parent company was in thrall to the libertarian billionaire John Malone, who said that he wanted to see 'CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing.'"

Writes Clare Malone in "A TV Face of the Trump Resistance Exits/Brian Stelter, the host of the CNN show 'Reliable Sources,' which was cancelled this week, went from media chronicler to media-chronicled" (The New Yorker).

I had trouble understanding that headline because I have been using the tag "the Trump resistance" to refer Trump and his supporters as they've resisted accepting Biden's victory in the 2020 election. That includes the January 6th riot/insurrection and the investigation into it. So it took me a couple seconds to see "the Trump resistance" as meaning the resistance to Trump and not the resistance by and on behalf of Trump. That reveals how little I have bothered with the CNN eminence that was Brian Stelter. The truth is, I don't watch any TV news channels.

Back to the article. This next sentence had me almost changing course and inviting readers to participate in a sentence-diagramming contest (or just to rewrite this in as few words as possible):

"Although he doesn’t provide abortion care right now, laws limiting the procedure have created confusion and uncertainty over what treatments are legal for miscarriage..."

"... and keep him from even advising pregnant patients on the option of abortion, he said. Aiding and abetting an abortion in Texas also exposes doctors to civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution."

From "A challenge for antiabortion states: Doctors reluctant to work there/Recruiters say OB/GYNs are turning down offers, a warning for conservative-dominated states already experiencing shortages" (WaPo).

"I am Kamala Harris, my pronouns are she and her, and I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit."

I do not know the context, but that happened today. I'd just like to say that if she's trying to display respect for the new "pronouns" convention, she's doing a terrible job. To follow "My pronouns are she and her" with "I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit" is like saying "My pronouns are she and her — duh!"

ADDED: Now, I'm remembering the viral Microsoft clip from last year:

If you’re not announcing your pronouns, race, hairstyle and accessories, you’re on the wrong side of history.pic.twitter.com/cfmynPoFX4

— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) November 5, 2021

The idea there, we were told, was to be inclusive toward the visually impaired.

"If there’s one consolation in Biden’s age, it’s that he can step aside without conceding failure. There’s no shame in not running for president in your 80s."

"He emerged from semiretirement to save the country from a second Trump term, and for that we all owe him a great debt. But now we need someone who can stand up to the still-roiling forces of Trumpism. There are plenty of possibilities: If Vice President Kamala Harris’s approval ratings remain underwater, Democrats have a number of charismatic governors and senators they can turn to. Biden said, during the 2020 campaign, that he wanted to be a 'bridge' to a new generation of Democrats. Soon it will be time to cross it."

That's the end of the new Michelle Goldberg column, "Joe Biden Is Too Old to Be President Again" (NYT).

There's a link on "underwater" and "bridge" but not on "a number of charismatic governors and senators." I wonder who that refers to but guess that they sound more charismatic without names attached. Those wonderful governors and senators out there somewhere. Gavin Newsom, presumably. One is a number, after all. Two can be as bad as one. 

Anyway, did the NYT notice the ambiguity in the headline. Does it mean he wasn't too old the first time, but if he wants to be "president again," we must inform him that now he's aged out? Or does it mean he was too old before and he's too old again?