Mitch's Blog

Anders: “‘Monoculture’ is what it sounds like: the notion of a culture where everyone is obsessing about the same pieces of culture. In my piece about the mistakes people made when they tried to copy Game of Thrones, I mentioned the notion that Thrones was the last TV show that absolutely everyone watched and talked about. Pundits and culture writers have written endlessly about how tragic it is that monoculture no longer exists, meaning that everyone likes different stuff.”

She makes four points:

“1. We still kind of have a monoculture.

“2. We never really did have a monoculture in the way that some people seem to think we did.

“3. The notion of a monoculture feels oppressive and shitty

“4. You can’t separate this notion from questions around representation and assimilation.”

Journalist Jeremy Stern profiles Zuckerberg in depth.
colossus.com/article/m…

The Roman Emperor Augustus is a hero to Zuckerberg, who says Augustus ushered in two centuries of peace.

Many American men are fascinated by the Roman Empire; Zuckerberg may be the only one with the power to do something with that fascination.

The miraculous Shit-Raining Machine, from which there will be NO HOPE OF RELIEF, promises to unlock PREVIOUSLY UNIMAGINABLE AND CURRENTLY VAGUE BENEFITS FOR HUMANKIND, such as:

Business things Other stuff WE MUST CREATE IT

Could the Shit Machine END WORLD HUNGER? It’s NOT IMPOSSIBLE in the most LITERAL SENSE, which is all the justification we need to invest an AMOUNT OF MONEY that would OTHERWISE BY ITSELF END ACTUAL WORLD HUNGER.

— Pete Reynolds www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/…

Security cameras captured a man breaking in to a San Diego home, where he took off his shirt and fixed himself a snack. Nash, the family golden retriever, sprang into action, bringing the intruder a toy to try to induce the man to play. www.nbcsandiego.com/video/vid…

When police arrived on the scene, guns drawn, Nash brought them a toy too.

Later, Nash demanded bellyrubs from a TV news reporter.

Nash is the best.

After more than two years at Fierce Network, my email address has finally gotten out to the directories that PR agencies buy, and I’m now getting literally dozens of pitches a day. Many of them are outrageously offtarget – I seem to have gotten on lists for healthcare, for job-hunting advice, and I get a small flow of emails from someone pitching interviews with a guy who claims to have resolved the apparent discrepancies between science and all the world’s religions.

I don’t even look at the bodies of my emails anymore. I just look at the subject lines and senders. If neither of those catch my eye, I’m moving on.

I’m not saying this to complain. I have a great job. When I see my colleagues complaining on LinkedIn about PR people, I cringe so hard I strain a muscle. Literally billions of people in the world would gladly change places with any one of us.

I’m just saying that if you’re a PR person pitching me – or any journalist or analyst – get to the point, get to the point, get to the point.

PS Religion and science cannot be reconciled, but they are complementary. Faith is belief in the absence of evidence. Faith and science solve different problems.

As for reconciling the different religions of the world: As a species, we’ve been fighting wars over that for at least 4,000 years. Maybe you can solve that problem, but I doubt it.

A new book argues that modern schooling is the cause of the increase in teen depression and suicides, and blaming phones and social media is junk science. www.theverge.com/policy/99…

Kids are depressed because they aren’t allowed to play independently and because of rigid schooling methods tied to the Common Core curriculum, says psychology researcher Peter Gray in his new book “Restoring Childhood.”

Gray says the concern and regulation over phones and social media is the latest in a long line of moral panics, which include video games, comic books and parents' fear that their kids will be abducted by strangers.

Yes, there is pornography and other stuff on the Internet that kids need to be protected from, but kids lose out when they’re heavily restricted in internet use. The internet lets kids benefit from contact with their peers, maps, being able to call 911 when they’re in danger and all the rest of the ways that adults benefit from the internet and mobile.

Gray, who grew up in the 1950s, notes that when he was a boy, parents routinely sent their kids out to do the grocery shopping and they were allowed to roam the streets independently. But first, parents gave their kids safety training — how to cross the street safely, not to get in cars with strangers offering candy, and so on. He says this attitude toward childrearing promoted mental health and safety, and advocates a similar philosophy toward kids' use of the Internet.

I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s and our parents had the same attitudes toward childrearing. We roamed freely for miles on our bicycles.

I found myself nodding along listening to this podcast.