The Current Moment

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2 Comments for “The Current Moment”

  1. posted by Jorge on

    “Last week, in the aftermath of the national fury that has erupted, and continues, over the apparent killing by a Minneapolis police officer of a black man…”

    Ugh! I can think of at least seven “cautious” ways to describe the death of George Floyd that do not come across nearly as passive-aggressive as that.

    “I found the letter deeply disturbing”

    Unless the current web version is significantly edited from the original, I find it just a little desperate in its approval-seeking, but otherwise only worth a few eye-rolls.

    *My* agency commissioner shared his own personal opinion. He does that, and he is liberal, of course, and so I entered last week with some trepidation. In his missive, he shared his negative thoughts about Floyd’s death and the unrest, an expression of empathy, an expression of having a limited perspective as a white male, and for the first time he married his own personal concerns with his professional vision and the policies he supports for our agency. He been with us for long enough that he is sharing his vision. Oh, and he shared wellness resources for staff.

    You know what I found not merely disturbing but alarming? The amount of pain the people in my agency have suffered.

    So I’m not keen on judging the university administration so harshly for acting with a similar level of alarm. I don’t think that letter merited a full on anti-totalitarian siren screech. A simple dissent or half-agreement would have sufficed.

    Still, universities are pretty crazy places. Sometimes it’s the only the loudest voices who get heard.

  2. posted by Jorge on

    “Sullivan, a source close to New York magazine reveals, has to have his work vetted by sensitive junior editors to make sure it doesn’t trigger them. If it passes their sniff testing, it can be published.”

    Um, hello? That’s their job! That they’re not already doing that with every columnist tells me the magazine is too cheap to have its editors do their job correctly.

    If Mr. Sullivan isn’t willing to jump through enough hoops to make his column advocating the violent overthrow of the United States (or whatever his position is) sound kindly and conciliatory, if he can’t make his column calling liberals corporate killers with blood on their fangs sound like upright patriotism, then there is a problem either with his skill or with whether he is able to adhere to the editorial direction of his employer. The New York Times published an op-ed sight unseen (which I find very revealing about the industry).

    Also I don’t believe Mr. Sullivan has a contractual inability to write about the protests. He has access to Twitter. He can publish a picture, and say a swear word. That’s commentary.

    But Condi Rice says Twitter isn’t useful for complex ideas, you say.

    Well obviously Mr. Sullivan’s ideas aren’t complex enough or he would have gotten his column past the snowflake firewall.

    He got scooped by Tom Cotton. Zero sympathy.

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