Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.
"Casey at the Bat", Ernest Lawrence Thayer
There is drama on TSFKAT these days.
⚙️ TSFKAT = "the site formerly known as Twitter". The current name is silly, and I can't be convinced there won't be an even worse name in the future. But I can refer to it as TSFKAT forever.
The background: Richard Hanania, exposed as a former racist. As an anonymous commenter said, "it's always the ones you most expect".
Now, Jeet Heer is trying to cancel Matt Yglesias for not canceling Hanania enough.
🔥 I try not to read Hanania, primarily because he talks about Richard Hanania too much. As far as his political writing: I have only found his writing interesting for "contra" pieces; either in pointing out the sins of the modern left that others are too cowardly to point out, or for saying something egregiously wrong that others can rebut.
💡 there is a certain sense in polite society today that "racism is bad" is an axiom. so people invent new ways of ascribing racism to things, or say "a lot of racists agree with this, so it is also bad".
🌎 but "everything that can be associated with people associated with racism is bad" is a bridge too far. it is the respite of liars and fascists. and, of course, most of the fascists know to call themselves "anti-fascist" or "anti-racist", to throw off suspicion.
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On TSFKAT, even certain obvious facts about the world can get one canceled as racist (or sexist). "Men are taller than women" is on the edge of acceptability, and it is the indictment of the stupidity of the hive-mind that this is the case.
For all the griping about Elon Musk's performative idiocy, it is important to remember that Twitter was bad, and it is a good thing he is destroying it.
🔥 fewer tweets and more woofs.