Thoughts on cultural appropriation for graduation, beyond

The Utah student rocking the qipao or cheongsam dress for a prom a couple of years ago still sticks in my mind, and other things have added to it since then, namely claims that certain foodstuffs are also cultural appropriation.

The claim is usually, though not always, raised by social justice warrior types. And it's usually an ahistorical claim that:

• First, believes that cultural appropriation is evil, rather than simply borrowing; that
• Second, from this, cultural appropriation (like racism) can only be done by a colonial / conquest culture; and
• Third, within this, that it's usually done by Euro-white culture, like racism — thereby ignoring a long history of East Asian racism, Indian caste-connected racism (the Aryan conquest was 3,500 years ago, and they themselves weren't "white" by skin color anyway), and more.

Let's start with the dress.

First, the fact it has two different names should tell the SJW types they are a bit off base. (But it won't.)

Second, the fact that it was originally Manchu, not Han Chinese, should say more.

Third, the fact that it further evolved in southern China in the first half of the 20th century after the fall of the Manchus — and said further evolution happened under Western fashion influence — should say yet more.

Fourth, per all of the above, the fact that modern Chinese (other than some Chinese American SJWs) were OK with it as a prom dress, or even saluted it, should say yet more.

That said, I haven't seen European Americans of the SJW persuasion giving up ice cream et al because Marco Polo expropriated them from the Chinese. Or spaghetti because tomatoes were expropriated.

Speaking of, let's go to food.

The so-called "Columbian Exchange" went both ways. Europe got tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes and maize, above all, from the Americas, and eventually, yams from sub-Saharan Africa.

BUT! The Americas got back meat livestock, wheat, dairy livestock and other things. And yams from Africa. And both Europe and the Americas got soybeans, sesame and more from East Asia.

This is cultural appropriation, SJW-ers.

So, are you going to give up that chimichanga or burrito because of the beef, or chicken, and the flour tortilla? Or if you're vegetarian, is tofu now verboten?

Do you admire Navajo rugs? Well, again, you're in trouble. While South American Indians had alpaca wool, and the Hohokam of the Gila River did have the forerunner of today's Pima cotton, the Navajos had nothing for weaving until Spanish sheep.

Or if you're Indian-American, are you going to give up any of your India-Indian foods with appropriated chiles in them? Ditto if you were a Chinese-American complaining about the qipao — have you given up your Szechuan food because of American Indian chiles?

What is mislabeled "cultural appropriation" is actually "cultural interaction."

As for the parallels with racism? As I said on a Patheos page of a secular humanist who may be a bit SJW — not all racism is "institutional," and non-institutional racism can be and has been practiced by member of any race against members of any other race. She admitted tribalism exists, but still seemed to want to hang on to the idea of almost all racism being institutional in nature. And, even if we allow for China, or Japan, being colonizers themselves, she was focused on white racism in Latin America.

Anybody who knows a lot about East Asia knows there's a shitload of racism there that originated almost entirely independently of white folks, too. (Well, other than, especially with China, some of it being directed AGAINST white folks.)

The SJWs will then say, "But Columbus passed on European diseases." That he did. Though not as a genocide. (However, wingnuts, Sir Jeffrey Amherst DID try germ warfare against Indians in 1763.) And the New World gave syphilis back.

David Frum offers his own thoughts.

Is Julian Assange a journalist? Updated with Espionage Act superseding indictment

Update, May 23, 2019: Julian Assange has now received a superseding indictment on Espionage Act charges. 

Quick thoughts for now?

1. Whether this puts a crimp or not on the freedom of the press portion of the First Amendment (and courts have ruled the Espionage Act does not violate the free speech portion of the amendment) is a secondary issue.

2. To me, the main issue is whether or not the Espionage Act is legally applicable to foreign nationals. I argue it is not.

3. Other than the "yes, but ..." below, I still haven't — and can't — come down squarely on "yes, he's a journalist."

3A. Strike that. As of 2022, I come down squarely on "he's not a journalist." As we see how odious the Seth Rich conspiracy theory was, along with the increasing likelihood that Assange at some point knew the source of his information, plus the fact that he told Snowden to go to Russia not Latin America? Maybe he was a journalist long ago, but that long ago is long gone.

More thoughts at bottom.

Now, the original post:

I promised in my initial post about Assange's arrest that I would address this further. And here we are.

A simple answer is two words: "Yes, but ..."

And, that's with everything implied by folk psychology tropes by adding "but" after the "yes."

So, I'm going to break that out more, with a nutgraf of sorts kept down at the bottom.

So, here we go ...

Journalists don't just seek out, gather and collate information.

They analyze it.

Then they write about it.

Assange did little of the analysis or writing work even with the initial information he got from Chelsea Manning, when he had much greater degrees of freedom of space, time, and working space than he does now.

Writers, and even more, editors, make judgment calls with information they receive. Some of those judgments are whether the material is true or not. Others are whether it would be harmful to release some of it.

I think Glenn Greenwald, for whatever reasons, has gone overboard on what Edward Snowden information he and Laura Poitras have chosen not to release, but, they have made a judgment call.

Assange? In the past, at a point after his working space freedom started to close up but was not that tight, made decisions to dump information without redactions, and in the case of some Afghanistan material, was rightly criticized for an endangerment factor.

That's just one issue. As Wikipedia's page on Wikileaks notes, it's released Social Security numbers, credit card numbers and more. With basically no effort at redaction.

I also said in my initial piece on the actual "yes," that to the degree it's true, he's actually like a Beltway steno in reverse in some way. He's an opiner, not a news writer, to the degree we consider him a journalist, by what he gathers, and what he solicits. I've already, along with others, criticized him for not seeking and encouraging leakers inside places like Russia and China. I've criticized more his response to that initial criticism. Today, Russia has a home-grown version of something like Wikileaks — no thanks to Assange.

And, when Assange, or Wikileaks as its mouthpiece, has made editorial judgment calls, sometimes they've been off the wall. Like criticizing the leak of the Panama Papers.

Here? I suspect 190-proof red-eyed jealousy at work — as one motive.

Another? I'm still not ready to call him a Russian agent, but the Panama Papers' attacks on Russian businessmen (Mafiyya, let's be honest) is another reason Assange attacked their release, claiming the U.S. government was behind this, which is nonsense. Ken Silverstein had done some work on Mossack Fonseca even before the main Panama Papers leak and I KNOW he's not a government agent. (Actually, him routing Snowden to Russia? Maybe he IS a Russian agent. UPDATE, March 14, 2022. Dick Tofel, why he's not a journalist, references just that, among other things.)

And? Vlad the Impaler Putin himself cited Wikileaks in fighting to defend Russkies with likely government ties. Again, Assange may not be a Russian agent, but he has certainly left himself open to accusations of such.

Worsening the case against Assange here is that, in hosting his own show on RT, per Wiki's page about RT (and yes, selective Wiki-haters when your ox is gored, there's a link at the site), he admitted he RT would be less comfortable with him if he had encouraged anti-Russia leaks or written anti-Russia items.

(Greenwald and others like him — and the likes of Mark Ames and Yasha Levine may partially fall here, though I've not seen anything explicit so far — fall into their own version, that of certain leftists and certain semi-libertarians on US foreign policy — of #twosiderism in lumping legitimate and illegitimate attacks against RT and Sputnik together.)

Jealousy is not a one-off issue with Assange, either. Edward Snowden was among those who criticized Assange for not sufficiently curating and editing leaked materials, a charge he repeats in his memoir as reason why he didn't work through Wikileaks, and Assange claimed Snowden was pandering to Hillary Clinton.

Good journalists also have good ethics. In promoting the totally base and vile Seth Rich conspiracy theory, primarily to try to cover up that the initial DNC emails came from a Russian hack, Assange has shown his lack of ethics and his willingness to outrightly lie. (Given that nobody — not Assange, Patrick Lawrence, Adam Carter or anybody else that I know of — has tried to explicitly claim that the spearphishing attack that got the later emails was not Russian-done, why the lie was engaged in was perplexing, too, and remains so.)

And, related, Silverstein thinks Snowden, if not originally a Russian agent, got compromised at some point, so who knows?

Wikipedia also raises the issue of whether or not Assange is anti-Semitic. First, to the Assange nutbar fanbois, I know well myself the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and the use of the latter as a weapon against people calling out the former. As with Russian agent questions, at a minimum, I think Assange has left himself open to anti-Semitism claims.

And, per Andrew Stewart at Washington Babylon, Assange is definitely anti-feminist, which ties back to his troubles in Sweden (which have now been opened legally AGAIN!) He's also, weirdly but openly, anti-atheist, at least on Tweets that Stew collated. And his call for more births in Europe make him come off a bit like an Anders Breivik, or other white nationalists in Europe and America.

Per the Intercept in 2016, right after the DNC hack, how Assange chose to frame the hack, as well as claiming they're absolutely not from Russia, which he actually couldn't know if Wikileaks does actually have as robust of source anonymity as Assange claims, means that if he IS doing journalism, it's not news reporting — it's as much or more op-ed only as the Gnu Media, Beltway stenos division.

Assange is also an idiot at times. In the link above, I mentioned his previous issues with lack of password protection. His belief that Trump would give him a pardon or something for all the DNC leaks further shows this idiocy. By the way, to riff on Janice Joplin, schadenfreude is just another word for someone else who arrogantly still has plenty to lose.

Journalism is also a collaborate effort in some way. Even at a small community newspaper, the managing editor will bounce ideas off other staff. A publisher will be a check, if the editor doesn't voluntarily include the publisher in his or her advisors.

Assange is managing editor and publisher all in one, with a sycophantic, perhaps even cowering, editorial board, even if Kristinn Hrafnsson is listed as editor in chief.

Whether it is, if not autism, being "on the spectrum" somewhere, as the man hired to ghost Assange's autobiography details in writing about a six-month nightmare, or simple narcissism, or both, Assange simply doesn't play ball except on his terms.

Journalism is an art or a craft, not a science. It will always have a demarcation problem, per philosopher friend Massimo Pigliucci and his writings (in the sciences) on demarcation issues.

I wouldn't put Assange outside the bounds of journalism. But I would put him in the borderlands.

And I'm comfortable with saying that.

And if we stopped calling him a journalist, I'd be OK with that, too. We don't call Snowden one, nor has he ever presented himself as one. We didn't call Daniel Ellsberg one 40 years ago, and he doesn't call himself one, today, either. And, that's that buried nutgraf.

So, why IS Assange a journalist, if he is one, and Snowden is not? Is it anything other than Assange having an organized backing behind him and Snowden not? Is it Assange-generated PR related to that?

Here's option three — we call Wikileaks a journalistic organization but don't call Assange a journalist. For my personal value, this has the petard-hoisting factor of, on paper, forcing Hrafnsson and others to defend Wikileaks separately from defending Assange. Judging by Hrafnsson's comments — and many others — this ain't happening.

==

Sadly, the whataboutism and twosiderism on this issue, beyond the question of "is Assange a journalist" is ramping up.

Should Mueller be faulted if his Internet 12 indictments are based only, as far as computer evidence, on Crowdstrike mirrors of DNC servers? I'd argue yes.

But, that doesn't mean that the case is flimsy, let alone that by default, Seth Rich (or even a non-Seth Richer at DNC) stole the initial set of emails.

Update, Nov. 22, 2019, related to that and Crowdstrike:

Well put on Crowdstrike, & a  I didn't think of before that at least partially refudiates #TrumpTrain riders, #SethRich #conspiracytheory mongers like Ty Clevenger, and their fellow travelers in the VIPS world over #Forensicator. There was/is no single server to "hand over." https://t.co/pOZOehl5ZL

— reallyDonaldTrump  🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) November 22, 2019

Back to the original.

I've covered ALL of this in depth before. I'm sure Consortium News and others are still going to peddle the Patrick Lawrence BS, since Ray McGovern is a chief peddler. AND, the two-siders should stop trying to claim that a burden of proof exists with the VIPS minority plus Ritter et al. Beyond that, I specifically commented on this related to Assange's arrest six weeks ago.

AND, if you're going to criticize Mueller, you need to criticize this Forensicator in spades. Or, Adam Carter, I should say. If you want Mueller to interview someone, toady Craig Murray, it's "interesting" how you want him to interview Bill Binney from VIPS, but not Thomas Drake, the man who said Binney and McGovern found their own "Curveball." Murray claimed early on, with comments here here, that he not only explicitly knew it was not Russians, but without naming Rich, talk about a DNC "insider."

And, sorry ... going down conspiracy theory lane in general?

Some mutes or blocks might be coming up. It's who I am.

It's why I continue to call myself a skeptical leftist.

==

UPDATE, March 14, 2022. Dick Tofel, why he's not a journalist. I agree.

More teh stupidz from Ted Rall spread: He now deliberately spreads misinformation

If Frederick Theodore Rall didn't have a sense of pomposity (which extends to past lawsuits he has filed, and not just the anti-anti-SLAPP one against the LA Times), and if he didn't have groupies who were ignorant of these issues, if not deliberately dismissive, I wouldn't blog about him, and I'd have a small bit less fun.

It's really fun when Rall has four teh stupidz in the same column.

He talks about US MSM "censorship," and does so in the context of claiming that RT and Sputnik have never censored him.

Well, there's two of teh stupidz right there.

First, even for someone trying, and failing, to reinterpret anti-SLAPP laws, using "censorship" in the colloquial instead of the legally proper sense is not acceptable. American media may well decline to write about the number of people in the US who like socialism (Rall's pet peeve that led to the column) but that's not censorship.

ONLY governments — including state controlled media — censor. In the US, if the Voice of America omitted information from a story, especially if it were just rerunning an AP story, THAT would be censorship. Nothing else is.

Second teh stupidz is his claim about RT and Sputnik.

Of course they haven't censored you. You're writing about Merika. Try writing about Pussy Riot, or even worse Russian government thuggery, on RT, Ted, then call us back. Given that RT is a spinoff of Russian state media, only lightly spun off and arguably at least "semi-official," if RT doesn't let you talk about Putin's authoritarianism THAT would be censorship in the proper use of the term, too. Given that former RT staff, per links at Wiki, have complained about it distorting their stories, in addition, it has an actual known history in this area that you have also chosen to ignore.

And, yes, it's not that you're uninformed, Ted. You've chosen to ignore information that I know you have.

Third, the actual issue he wrongly claimed was being censored?

Rall, again willfully is the only logical assumption, misinterprets a USA Today story.

There's a big, BIG difference between 37 percent of people having a positive view of socialism than 37 percent of Americans "being socialist," let alone communist, which wasn't even discussed in USA Today's piece.

Fourth? I love it when the likes of Rall engage in petard-hoisting.

Ted, how is stuff like this being "censored" by the American MSM when you linked to a USA Today story which cited the factual information you claim is being censored? And USA was citing a Gallup Poll, surely read, and surely written about, by other MSM. Damn.

I kept Ted on my blogroll, for laughs, after my previous cleanup. But he's getting close to conspiracy theory land now. And, in the service of RT.

==

Update, May 27: Carl Beijer reports in detail on the actual Gallup Poll and shows that, contra Ted, it doesn't say people support socialism after all. The big takeaway is that a majority of Americans say they still want the free market to run health care.

Snooze takes bath on Belo Building sale

Last fall, after moving out of the historic Belo Building, AND not even spending money to move "The Rock of Truth" to its rented digs, the, I am sorry, The Dallas Morning News sold the building for $33 million.

Although nobody would officially tie this to Amazon's national Grifting for Dollars work as it hunted for a second headquarters, which it eventually of course split into two parts and has now pulled back on the NYC part, everybody saw it that way, especially since KDC and Hoque backed out soon after Amazon said sorry to Dallas.

Well, the Snooze has now sold it again.

For $5 million less.

In addition, original buyer KDC said that if it resold to Amazon, the Snooze would get a cut. New buyer Ray Washburne made no such pledge, even though, technically, Amazon could come calling. He's also paying less than $6M of it up front.

There's that anti-Midas touch at work! And, it should be noted that Belo, at the time of the original sale and the run-up to it, had said it thought the site was worth more than $30 million. Guess again.

Per that second link, which is from D Magazine, it seems hard not to see a push by an activist shareholder for Belo to go private and/or sell the paper as being behind this in some way. A letter from said shareholder notes that Belo's digital marketing has tanked even more than the paper itself.

I think, re the digital marketing, what we have is a signature moment mix of Belo arrogance and Belo stupidity. That said, said activist investor could have found 15-20 straight years of semi-regular occurrences of that; nobody forced him to buy his shares.

Meanwhile, back to the buildings.

The Snooze had first semi-promised the legend-hoary Rock of Truth would move. Then it didn't.

And on that legend-hoariness? Per D Magazine, Jim Schutze hoist teh Snooze by its own petard three years ago.

TX Progressives wrangle the Lege's nuttery and more

Stupidity abounds on the political landscape in the Pointy Abandoned Object State™ this week, from the Texas Legislature through the city of Dallas and on to that city's daily ink-waster, the Dallas Morning Snooze.

Dive in as the Texas Progressives tackle that and more.

Buckle your seat belt, because this version of the roundup has lost of high-octane snark.

The Lege

It's "hell week" in Austin, when bill authors scramble to avoid poison pill amendments, calendar back-burner placement and other problems and try to cross the finish line, then hope Gov. Strangeabbott puts his scrawl on their pet legislation.

Yesterday was the last day for Senate bills to get first consideration in the House. Today is the last day for that if they're on the consent calendar — which always can be torpedoed, and was in the previous Lege by Former Fetus and Forever Fuckwad Jonathan Stickland. Friday is the last day for the House to accept negotiations or changes on its bills as suggested by the Senate; Saturday is the last day to vote on such bills.

As of Monday, here's a big picture look on various bills from the Trib. Following is a pullout on some specific bills.

Off the Kuff analyzes the relentless Republican attack on local control this session.

Stephen Young reported on the Lege’s progress in a “born alive” bill and the pandering behind it. 

Sophie Novack at the Texas Observer reports on SB 22, the “anti-Planned Parenthood” bill. 

Also at the Texas Observer, Megan Kimble details how Kelly Hancock is leading the charge to let apartment owners jack up the late fees they can charge. 

Another wingers’ pet project, a campus free speech bill, has passed both houses. It ignores the reality that, in high-profile cases elsewhere, off-campus agitators, often themselves conservatives, caused the problems, and that speeches organized by campus-based political groups have high security costs said groups dump back on the university. It also ignores that wingers' support for free speech is just as selective as that of many of the librulz they condemn.

The Texas bullet train dodged a legal bullet about its ability to use eminent domain but it still retains a stupid route, as I have said before. Whether Brains is right that it’s too late for that to be addresses or not, along with other issues, remains to be seen. Kuff, like Brains, likes the bullet train. Whether it actually gets built and then, whether as a privately financed line, it asks for state help because of its stupid route and stupid stops, also remains to be seen. (After all, stupid routing ideas are part of what derailed California's bullet train, at least for now.) And, before the end of this year, I'll surely have more on this issue. Nuff ced for now. No ... not enough ... there's several people that agree with me on ever-growing comments on Kuff's link that Texas Central was, has been and is selling a pig in a poke. A lot of libertarian-type wingers at groups who know how to crunch numbers, like Reason, are also saying that ride counts are not just inflated but WILDLY inflated. (That said, contra the wingers, airports are subsidized in various ways, too.)

The "save Chick-fil-A" bill has risen from the dead.

For the second straight Lege, a "disobedient presidential electors" bill has failed.

SB 9, Hughes' vote suppression bill, is dead.

Rachel Pearson flaunts her sorcery in the face of Forever Fuckup's antivaxxerism.

HB 2504, which would make it much easier for third parties to have statewide ballot access, was very alive and well and has now passed all three Senate readings and heads to Abbott's desk. Progress Texas showed it is part of the duopoly by not even listing it under good bills in its late-session bill watch blog (NOT linking) which got a smackdown on Twitter from me:

@WesleyStory0 If HB 2504 to ease third party ballot access ain't on your list of "good bills" in the #txlege you and .@progresstx are watching (and I saw it ain't), then you're not really so progressive, are you? I "understand"; you're part of the #duopoly. But I don't "accept."

— reallyDonaldTrump  🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) May 20, 2019

And that's that for what's happening in Austin.

All things Dallas area

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the “Tropical Trump,” showed up in Dallas and got protested. 

Stephen Young also calls out the abysmal editorial page of the dying Dallas Snooze for its blank-check support of Trump’s nutteries. 

Jim Schutze notes how all the people that allegedly “matter” in Dallas, the “endorserati,” are lining up behind Eric Johnson in the mayoral runoff, just like they did for the Trinity toll road. He also talks about the runoff debate between Johnson and Scott Griggs. 

Schutze also kicks former Observer peer Robert Wilonsky, now at the Snooze, in the nads, for buying the official city of Dallas party line for the umpteenth time. (Lawrence Wright, in his latest book, "God Save Texas," seems to actually like Wilonsky.)

Yours truly notes that activist investors in Belo / The Snooze rightfully are huffy when it overestimates the value of its own property by $5 million and takes a bath in its sale.

RIP to I.M. Pei, designer of the interesting-looking Dallas City Hall and the beautiful Morton Meyerson Symphony Center. Pei has five buildings overall in Dallas. Read about the Meyerson's history here. As a one-time DSO season ticket holder, the place is beautiful and still has fantastic acoustics.

Fort Worth is following Dallas' footsteps in a homeless crackdown.


Texana

Lisa Gray says people should avoid bad tacos. I'd expand that to avoiding bad Tex-Mex, which, as a person who grew up in New Mexico, includes most of it.

Speaking of overrated Texas food, Whataburger is looking for a minority investor to help facilitate an expansion. (Contra Texas Monthly, In-N-Out is better than What? A Burger?, as I spelled it on Twitter.) What would be a GREAT train wreck and probably applauded by many wingnut Texans? Chick-fil-A doing a takeover behind the scenes as that minority investor.

Beyond Bones wants to tell you about Megalosaurus.

National and more

Scoffing at, yes, SCOFFING AT Donut Twitter and #TheResistance, Socratic Gadfly, with help from political scientist and author Corey Robin, explains that Trump is not a fascist but rather a schematically predictable variety of president.

David Bruce Collins writes about sociopathy in various ranks of politics.

Juanita has thoughts about Gene Simmons and his kind-of presser for DoD.

Slate argues that Alabama and Missouri have gutted the plans of The Umpire and his Roberts Supreme Court to quietly kill Roe at the edges.

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