Reading List Special

Everyone goes long.

• In memoriam:  Doris Roberts, actress, whom I mostly saw on Remington Steele.
• Lambert Strether on "Credentialism and Corruption." Economics, dishonesty, and weaseling.
• As part of "Confederate Heritage Month," Dave Neiwert (Orcinus) has been examining the ugly history of the murderous "white supremacy" campaigns after the Civil War.  His archive is a weekly one, though, so I will, for the moment, link to the 4/10 - 4/17 set, which contains five articles covering the main themes.  ETA:  The 4/17 - 4/24 set continuing the series, which will require a strong stomach.  Seriously.
• Lance Mannion and three somewhat linked pieces:
• Review of Truth and what is omitted:

  Something else is left out of Truth. The whole wider world. It’s not vitally present visually or dramatically. We don’t get accidental glimpses of it. It doesn’t enter in the form of props or pieces of the set or activity in the background. We don’t hear about it in snatches of dialog as characters talk about their lives apart from their roles in the plot. It isn’t brought in by ancillary characters. Characters who aren’t directly connected to Mapes and her investigation enter as if from nowhere and exit on their way to nowhere except out of the scene. Truth takes place almost entirely within the cozy work world of Mapes’ relatively small circle of friends and colleagues, which means it often feels and looks like a television workplace drama…
  
  ...or comedy. It reminded me of one of those in particular.
  
  Watching Truth didn’t put me in mind of other movies about journalists at work on big stories. I didn’t reflect back on All the President’s Men or look forward toSpotlight.
  
  I kept thinking about The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

• More about Truth and what news has become:

  But the truth is that it’s been a very long time since any of the major television news outlets, network or cable, has produced anything like Harvest of Shame and there’s nothing on the air like 60 Minutes as it once was, not even 60 minutes. News divisions are expected to make money and they do it by packaging news as what makes money on television generally---entertainment.

• Cabaret and Trump:

  It doesn't look like a roomful of goofy and bewildered middle-aged white people manipulated by a self-glorified game show host into limply raising their right hands and promising to vote for him. It looks like thousands and thousands of seemingly decent, intelligent, and civilized white people of all ages consciously and ecstatically giving themselves over to the subversion of the beautiful and joyful by what is essentially a death cult.
  
  Class dismissed.

• Speaking of Mr. T, Stephanie Land of Salon (at AlterNet) speaks from Trump's supposed demographic to decry him.
• You have to wonder about this guy.  Because I don't think he actually understands just how divorced-from-reality he sounds.