Archives for December 2016

Police stops to give gifts: Your thoughts?

2016-12-31 By Radcen Leave a Comment

Every year during the holiday season you see stories like this. Police pulling people over to give gifts of some sort. Rewarding people for good behavior, good PR, and so on. Here’s just one recent example…

Miami Beach Police pull over drivers, give gift cards for good driving

Quote from article:
“Miami Beach Police pulled over several drivers, Tuesday morning, who had done nothing wrong.

Police officers waved drivers to the side of the road, just off West Avenue, but instead of handing out tickets, they handed out gift cards.”

How do you feel about these “feel good” stops?

Then there is this aspect, where this guy says they are unconstitutional if the stop is for no legitimate reason. (Some places make sure they stop for something minor then choose to not write the ticket, but give the gift instead.)

No, the police can’t pull over drivers to give them gifts

Quote from article:
“I don’t doubt that these programs are well-intentioned, and I commend the police for their instincts to help. It’s especially great when the police are handing out gifts that the drivers really need.

But here’s the catch: A lot of these stops are unconstitutional. When the police pull over a car, that’s a Fourth Amendment “seizure” of the driver, any passengers, and everything inside. To justify that seizure, the police need at least some cause either that a driver committed a traffic violation or that a person in the car is involved in a crime or wanted in connection with a serious crime. If the police have that cause, they can stop the car regardless of whether they want to write a ticket, investigate a crime or give the driver an ice cream cone. But the police can’t pull over the car without any cause, even if they want to do something nice, such as give the driver a gift.”

My thoughts: Technically speaking, while it’s probably not legit to stop for someone for no real reason, that’s not what bothers me. If I were pulled over for something like this, granted I would be relieved to not be getting a ticket, but I’d also be ticked off. Maybe I’m a “humbug”, but I’m sorry, I’m going somewhere, so leave me alone!

Let me add that I would not complain or say anything negative to the cop, but I would still be ticked.

How about you? How would you react? What would you think?

The “New Media”?

2016-12-18 By Radcen Leave a Comment

media_monkeys What is the difference between a media outlet and a blog?

For the purposes of this post, a blog is a news reporting or political or social issue blog. Not stuff like knitting and cooking.

The difference is not as simple as may seem on the surface. A media outlet reports the news and (sometimes) delves deeper into issues and causes and investigates. Doesn’t a blog do the same thing?

On the other hand, a blog is (usually a single) a person’s opinion, ostensibly based at least in part on fact and actual events and/or issues. But, given the bias so widely demonstrated by the media, isn’t that essentially what they’re doing, too?

Ok, media outlets are usually established and send people to events and locations editors and such for review prior to publication, and a blogger is often sitting at home viewing media outlets as their source, but other than that, I’m not seeing a whole lot of difference between the two, at least in terms of output and what we the public sees. Both media outlets and bloggers have examples that are credible and examples that are not, so either way you still need to do your own due diligence. Just because it’s one or the other does not automatically establish or discount credibility simply because of which one they are.

Really, blogging may well be “the new media”.

Which is worse? “Fake news” or “LBO news”?

2016-12-17 By Radcen Leave a Comment

“LBO news” is what I call “Lie-By-Omission news” (yes, I coined that name myself). News that is partially truthful, but also a lie-by-omission due to what they don’t include. They’ll tell you only the parts that they want you to know, and leave out parts that might cause you to go the other direction, or are otherwise inconvenient for their argument.

Common LBO news outlets would be Fox News (the most famous and vilified), Breitbart, TruthOut, DailyKOS, Alternet, Occupy Democrats, and so on. (Yes, liberal LBO news outlets are greater in number, but market share and influence is roughly equal.)

Some recent high-profile incidents (i.e.: “pizzagate”) notwithstanding regarding fake news and it’s effects, I find LBO news to be much more insidious and detrimental to our overall civility and discourse. To the foundation of our society, really. They feed our current atmosphere of hyper-partisanship, and that is not doing us any favors.

Fake news attracts a few crackpots, to be sure, but most people are at least somewhat skeptical when the really outrageous stuff is presented. Even most extreme conservatives do not believe that Hillary Clinton was involved in a child sex ring. I mean, c’mon.

LBO news, on the other hand, appeals to whole slews of people who are almost salivating at the chance to further their own agenda and point-of-view, but are otherwise intelligent and basically decent people. They only hear what they want to hear, so they latch onto any reasonably sounding (to them) report and run with it as if it is complete gospel and proves their side is the righteous side. If you continually share any of these sources as your citations, then you are part of the problem of hyper-partisanship, and it doesn’t matter which side of the political aisle you are on.

An example of how LBO news influences thought and perception: Physical attacks after the recent election. A radio host that I respect, who is basically middle-of-the road, was telling the story of his adult son who is extremely liberal. His son laps up all the information presented by the liberal LBO sites mentioned above, and was under the impression that all the physical violence was completely one-sided… Trump supporters and conservatives attacking liberals. He honestly believed that because that’s all he saw.

The radio host, being more moderate, had been seeing scores of reports from both sides and in both directions. He talked with his son, showed him some of the videos and news stories, as a matter of balance, and the son was shocked. His son said, “I had no idea. I never saw any reports like this.”

He didn’t see anything because he consciously chose to have his bias confirmed, rather than be truly informed. This is a great example of why I find LBO news sites to be far more detrimental than fake news sites.

Now, are LBO news sites lying? Maybe sometimes, but not automatically and not necessarily. There’s usually at least a kernel of truth in there. Sometimes everything they say is true, just incomplete. Where they are being deceptive… intentionally deceptive, in my opinion… is in what they DON’T say.