Subject: Learning From Real Life
Re: “Assessment: Michael Bloomberg”
From: Roy Fouinon
Date: Sun Jun 24 6:34 a.m. PT
It always strikes me as weird when these political candidates (or the media) start talking about running a political office like a business. … What does being run by a CEO mean? Massive job cuts? Getting out of office in a much better financial position than when they came in? Stories of affairs with interns (secretaries)? Playing with statistics (numbers) and then spinning the results? Not letting the public know everything … ? Being friends with the competitor on a personal level? The CEO-politician is already here!
[Find this post here.]
Subject: Gonna Like This Even More
Re: “Culturebox: You’re Gonna Like This”
From: Michael Murray
Date: Wed Jun 20 5:19 a.m. PT
[Amazon.com] should take all available data and feed a neural network. That way they could make predictions but there would be no way of telling what the causal factors really were. It would be like fortune telling and just as entertaining. Feed it enough data and you could ask it things like “Will my marital status change?”
Or you could just say you have a neural network and pay a couple interns to mess with people.
[Find this post here.]
Subject: Be Prepared for Anything
Re: “Chatterbox: What Do Boy Scouts (and the Wall Street Journal) Want?”
From: Marylb
Date: Thu Jun 21 6:22 p.m. PT
I guess as a private organization they just want the same thing Clinton demanded: “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” The past administration found that concept acceptable for grown men at the federal level in today’s service, so is it so shocking that the scouts ask the same? Or is that bad because it is the scouts and not Clinton? It is very difficult to keep up with the discrepancy of selective indignation for one group and acceptance of another for the same exact thing. … The argument for gay equality is a no-brainer. The issue you bring up, though, is the twist society places on acceptable vs. unacceptable, but has more to do with conflicting concepts than being gay.
[Find this post here.]
Subject: Mindswap
Re: “Chatterbox: GI Joe Ellis”
From: Scott
Date: Tue Jun 19 2:01 p.m. PT
Apparently, there are many people like Joe Ellis who wish they had gone to Mississippi during Freedom Summer but didn’t. There are also neoconservatives who actually did go but now regret it. The solution is obvious. Get these people together in a room and perform some kind of solemn ceremony in which the memories of the ones are transferred to the others. Then everyone walks out with the past he wishes he had.
[Find this post here.]
Fray Notes:
Where were the marriage proposals? Over at “The Breakfast Table” the Mendelsohns were back, which meant a Fray bonanza. There were plenty of spare members of the Mendelsohn family and also those true Breakfast Table threads—none of them staying on topic for long and all of them involving being rude to other posters: “The only reason you are elevated [to gold stars] is so the rest of us know who to make ad hominem attacks against.”
Who reads the Fray? This thread suggests that some people who need new ideas do. It was posted in the “Today’s Papers” Fray, which doesn’t get featured much because it is so current, but has some of the best discussions, is home to many Fray stars, and is highly recommended.
Fray poster of the week is Arthur Stock: using his Fray contributions to avoid the death penalty here; trying to sneak Ayn Rand in here (click here and scroll to the Fray Notes to see if he succeeded); and teasing Slate on a vulnerable point here.
There were some tough Frays this week. Posters came out by the thousands to argue with “Sports Nut” on Cal Ripken. The “Moneybox” on Martha Stewart brought out the worst in Fray posters. And some of the comments on “The Book Club” on depression (posted at the end of the article) made hard but worthwhile reading.
The “Culturebox” on Amazon’s recommendation system produced the Michael Murray post above and also several real authors commenting on the verdicts on their own books—as WillV says, that’s got to be worth a 5 rating for the Fray.
