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2016 Analysis Election Op-Ed Review Speculation

for center-left, big data more useful for finding racists than understanding elections

Vox is center-left opinion with well-documented conflicts of interest masquerading as objective analysis, but every now and again they have something resembling reporting. Such was actually the case — despite the explosive headline “Persuasive proof that America is full of racist and selfish people” — when they interviewed Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a former Google data scientist and occasional New York Times contributor. In addition to backing up the assertion that anonymity fosters both nastiness and honesty, that article established an apparently strong correlation between the frequency of certain internet searches and broader trends in our polarized voter population around election day. I found the interesting big data analysis lurking behind the volatile headline to be most fascinating for supporting what I believe to be a general dysfunction of the mainstream progressive dialogue today and a major liability for Democrats.

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Analysis Music Review

2016 Music Review: Top 10 Albums, 20-song Playlist

I haven’t usually gotten these things out before the springtime, and for a number of reasons 2016 is more delayed than ever. But since ‘better late than never’ is usually well-applied — especially when this kind of analysis will serve future me with a (near-)real-time document of the day — and since 2016 was no 2015 but was also no slouch as far as new music goes, here again is my personal take on the best of the best of the last calendar year: general notes, the top ten albums, and a 20-track playlist of highlights. At least I beat the Summer Solstice on this one!

Categories
Analysis Domestic Policy Review

digital privacy at risk under modern self-incrimination jurisprudence

Late last year I read some interesting reporting from BBC about privacy in the digital age. The case at issue involved the state of Florida compelling an alleged voyeur to reveal the lock code of his iPhone which had been seized with probable cause. The defendant refused, citing his Fifth Amendment privilege not to incriminate himself, but a Florida appeals court has ruled that the privilege could not have been invoked to block surrender of the code.

bbc stock footage never looked so corporate and scary.

That’s an interesting result by itself; though, as a state-level appeal, that decision only has controlling precedent (for now) in Florida. But the BBC reporting really caught my attention for revealing some of the rationale of the appeals court’s decision, authored by Judge Anthony Black, in the story’s second half:

Judge Black referred to a famous Supreme Court case, Doe v US 1988, in which Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that a defendant could be made to surrender a key to a strongbox containing incriminating documents but they could not “be compelled to reveal the combination to his wall safe”.

“We question whether identifying the key which will open the strongbox – such that the key is surrendered – is, in fact, distinct from telling an officer the combination,” wrote Judge Black. “More importantly, we question the continuing viability of any distinction as technology advances.”

It happens that Justice Stevens was a favourite of mine before his retirement from the bench in 2010, and in fact this blog reviewed his 2014 book detailing his proposed constitutional amendments. I understood him to be a left-leaning civil libertarian, so it was surprising to hear an opinion of his cited to diminish the reach of one of the pillars of the Bill of Rights. I found the Doe opinion to be a quite interesting exercise in linguistic gymnastics, particularly, as Judge Black noted, amid the rapid advance of technology and the numerous and contentious questions about privacy that it has created. But beyond that, the case history led me down a 60-year-long rabbit hole of jurisprudence that I believe serves as a cautionary tale of how the Court can get it very wrong and the dramatic effects it can have on basic rights. With great care taken to exclude superfluous detail, I summarize that epic journey for you here.

Categories
2016 Analysis Election Op-Ed Review

Clinton apologists and the popular vote

A lot of people have been trying to make sense of Clinton’s loss to Trump last week. Conservative pundits not necessarily pleased with the rise of Trump have blamed an aggressive backlash to “weaponized” political correctness. On the left are continued complaints about Russian interference, even motivating calls that the Electoral College deny Trump the office when they vote next month. And extremist elements to both the far-right and far-left have responded with vandalism and violence.

The situation is frantic and there doesn’t seem to be consensus on what got us here. Many blame racism at a high level, but that charge lacks specificity and therefore explanatory power. All meaningful approaches rightly address the Electoral College, but the underyling forces seem yet to be clearly articulated. A careful study of two pro-Clinton apologetic flavours of voting analysis is instructive in understanding just how Trump won in 2016.

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Analysis Book History Nonfiction Review

Book Review: “Zealot” by Reza Aslan

Subtitled The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, Aslan’s New York Times #1 Bestseller takes a purely secular look at the historical Jesus to draw the apparently uncontroversial conclusion that he was primarily a Jewish political agitator. Complete with exhaustive endnotes and a seemingly endless bibliography, Aslan shows he has studied the available literature in many languages — original source material in Greek and Aramaic as well as scholarly works in English and German. Because of its sometimes overly drawn out and mellifluous language, I don’t necessarily recommend reading Zealot unless the motivations of the historical Jesus in the context of his times and the evolution of his following is of particular interest to the reader. While not a novelization, the prose is both flowery and verbose, with chapters often repeating key facts probably with an eye to making them more independently consumable. Even so, the book is undeniably engaging and offers several profoundly interesting secular takeaways that help us to better understand how Jesus became the influential spiritual and religious figure he is seen as today. I offer a summary, or even a reorganization to taste, of the highlights.

Categories
Analysis Op-Ed Review

The Intercept v. McDonnell v. United States

One of the great journalistic developments of the last few years is the rise of The Intercept, the self-styled adversarial journal cofounded by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill. Founded in the immediate aftermath of Edward Snowden’s NSA leak as an avenue for publication and analysis of those documents, the site has become a relatively fearless and eloquent site for objective reporting and progressive editorials.

But like any media group with an ideological agenda, the temptation for an unsubstantiated stretch to support a general claim is high. A short op-ed at the close of the Supreme Court’s term in late June by staff contributor Jon Schwarz raised my eyebrows for its sharp and sarcastic rhetoric accusing the Court of being self-contradictory and even activist in legitimizing the corrupting role of money in politics. The prevalence of pay-to-play corruption as a talking point in coverage of this election cycle motivates a closer look at both the editorial and the case.

Categories
Analysis Review

The New York Times, the Supreme Court, and the slow death of the Fourth Amendment

It’s Supreme Court decision season as its term ends. On Tuesday, the New York Times ran a giant graphic on its front page purporting to document a leftward shift in the ideological bias of the Supreme Court. I learned about this from a damning takedown of the attribution of that graphic in an article on the blog of the nonprofit media watchdog FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting). What’s particularly interesting about that FAIR article is that it cites, in mockingly discrediting the assertion of any kind of progressive “golden age” for the Court, a shocking case that I had only days before learned about from a friend. The opportunity to criticize both the Times and the Court in one go was too much for FAIR to resist, and the same goes for me now.

Categories
Analysis Op-Ed Review

Scott Simon: NPR Commentator or TSA Propagandist?

Scott Simon ran a story today classified as ‘Commentary’ but which is closer to state propaganda — and bad propaganda at that.

Categories
Analysis Music Review

2015 Music Review: Top 10 Albums, 20-song Playlist

It’s well past time again for me to pick winners among all the fantastic music released in 2015, truly a bumper year in my experience. Now for the fourth time, I’ll review the ten albums I loved the most from last year; discuss many others that were somehow notable; and also serve up a 20-track, 20-artist mix of highlight singles, half of which appeared on those best-loved albums. If you have a pulse, you should dig it!

Categories
2016 Analysis Election

understanding black support for Clinton

As the primary race creeps along we keep hearing about Hillary Clinton’s popularity among blacks. That apparently explains her sweeps in southern states: “according to exit polls, Clinton won more than 80 percent of black votes in Tennessee and Georgia, and 90 percent in Arkansas in Alabama.” I’ve been trying to understand what can explain this.