Who is Eliza Gray: Who the Sam Hill is Richard Perez-Pena?
You’re asking a very good question! Before we answer, consider a second question:
Who the heck is Eliza Gray?
Eliza Gray graduated from Harvard in 2008. Her father is C. Boyden Gray (Harvard 1964), the former Bush Administration honcho.
Today, Eliza Gray writes for Time magazine. A recent piece bore this pregnant headline:
“The Troubling Statistic in MIT’s Sex Assault Survey”
Interesting! Which statistic from that survey did young Gray find so troubling? Was she troubled by the fact that five percent of undergraduate women said they’d been raped during their time on this prestigious campus?
Actually, no! Reciting like a trained bird, Gray gave her readers dictation:
GRAY (10/29/14): A new survey of student experiences with sexual assault at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is an encouraging step for schools working to put an end to the shamefully widespread problem of campus rape.Instantly, Gray conflates “rape” and “assault.” That said, she isn’t mainly concerned by the fact that five percent of undergraduate women directly said that they’ve been raped while students at MIT.
That the prestigious school released the study publicly is helpful in erasing the stigma surrounding sexual assault. And the numbers show that even an institution far better known for Fields Medals than frat parties has an incidence of campus rape comparable to other colleges. Roughly 35% of MIT’s 11,000 graduates and undergraduates took the anonymous survey. Of the undergrads, about 17% of women and 5% of men reported experiencing sexual assault while at the Massachusetts school.
But a deeper look at the numbers points to a more troubling statistic. Even though 17% of female undergraduates reported an experience that fits the survey’s definition of sexual assault (“unwanted sexual behaviors...involving use of force, physical threat, or incapacitation”), only 11% of female undergraduates checked “yes” when asked directly if they had been “raped” or “sexually assaulted.” Despite a concerted effort by the Obama Administration, state officials and campus leaders, MIT students were uncertain about what qualified as sexual violence—even when reporting that they had experienced assault.
A different statistic was “more troubling!” Some of the student don’t seem to agree with the institute’s “definition of sexual assault,” which Gray may have misstated!
It isn’t most troubling when students say they’re being raped and assaulted. More troubling is the fact that they don’t echo their elders’ rather shaky definitions of such crimes.
Gray’s piece at Time represents a perfect example of copying down whatever you’re told by elites and elders. To appearances, Mother and Popsy sent her to school so she could acquire dictation skills.
As for Perez-Pena, he took a different route to the New York Times. The leading authority on his life lays it out like this:
Richard Pérez-Peña (born 1963) has been a journalist with the New York Times since 1992. He has covered Albany, New Jersey, healthcare, the media, and is currently reporting on higher education. He was featured in the film Page One: Inside the New York Times.Two different routes to a very similar place.
A 2012 news story by Pérez-Peña on Yale University quarterback Patrick Witt was criticized by Witt and some journalists for unfairness and poor sourcing. The New York Times defended the accuracy of the story.
Pérez-Peña was born in Santiago, Cuba and raised in Southern California. He studied European History at Pomona College. In 1987, Pérez-Peña appeared on Jeopardy! and became a 5-time champion, later appearing in the show's first reunion invitational, Super Jeopardy! in 1990.
Many undergraduate students say they’re being raped at MIT. “More troubling” is the fact that they don’t agree with their elders’ (extremely murky) definition of what “assault” now is!
We’ll suggest you read Gray’s full report. You’ll be looking at perfect stenography, at “manufactured consent.”
ignorant,hateful stupid whites carried out a riot at the ballot box, and blogger can only intellectually masturbate about his pet peeve trivia.
ReplyDeleteWe already have one mentally ill troll, so sorry, the job has been taken. Check back later and see if we have an opening after the first of the year.
DeleteBob is lucky to be able to afford an HR manager in the comment box. Unfortunately this one seems not to understand that the boss has created this place an an environment which attracts those with mental disabilities because he, himself, reveals same daily.
DeleteI am also not sure if, and when, Somerby adopted a quota system.
Interesting. We find that Eliza Gray is young and elitely educated right off the bat.
ReplyDeleteWe don't learn this stuff about Perez-Pena until Day Four of this repetitive series about this "voluminous" that now boils down to the appropriate level of concern about a single statistic.
What's the matter, Somerby? Perez-Pena didn't fit your "script," so you had to wait for a young, female, elitely educated journalist who did?
Both are "taking dictation" instead of thinking about the topics they have been assigned by their editors. This is evident because they both reported the same concern for the definitions held by students, as dictated by the Chancellor's response to the report.
DeleteSomerby explains this kind of robotic reporting, where stories are delivered to the public without digestion, from the mouths of the people interviewed, as the result of hiring people with elite educations who have no motivation to rock the boat by challenging anything said by the figures of power they aspire to be themselves. He sees this as socialization first in Ivy league schools, then in jobs where reporters see themselves as part of the power structure they are assigned to cover. THAT is why the backgrounds and education of these reporters are important to Somerby.
Since he himself comes from such a background, I figure he ought to know how eager-to-please students, who has jumped through all the hoops to get there, are further rewarded for pleasing instructors and later editors and movers and shakers in society. It is fair to Somerby to raise this question because journalism used to be an important check upon those in power. Now it is a tool of the powerful. The danger is that people who haven't noticed the transition will assume they are getting actual reporting instead of dictation.
Who benefits by ignoring the very high number of rapes on an elite campus in favor of a focus on a trivial defining down of sexual harassment? Clearly MIT benefits. Is MIT part of the power elite in Boston and the nation? You betcha. Do women who are actually concerned about rape want to see the focus shifted from rape to "polite language"? Not so much. So, should we all be complicit in this attempt to camouflage and deflect from a real problem, abetted by these two reporters? I don't think so -- and I see that as Somerby's point in this series.
To the extent that trolls want to suggest that it is Somerby who is itching to rape all those coeds, I think we need to wonder who keeps sending them to this blog, day after day, with silly nonsense? Cui bono?
The "confusion over terms" is the bone Somerby has chosen to discredit the entire survey and all the reporting of it.
DeleteHappy gnawing with your leader. You'll both spend many days gloating about this incredible "find."
And neither one of you will have any clue as to what asses you are making yourselves out to be.
The survey isn't "discredited" -- at least in the mind of this reader -- merely because it may have some notable problems mentioned by Somerby in the course of making his primary point.
DeleteThe primary point is the discrediting not of "all the reporting," as brainless trolls would have it, but of specific reporting that adopts specific frames.
Is it really "more troubling" to find that some (apparently large) fraction of students do not reflexively adopt a particular definition of "assault' than it is to learn the already distressingly high numbers of students reporting rape and/or assault on campus?
If I say, no, that's not more troubling; it's the high level of rapes that's more troubling -- if I say, no, in fact, it's more troubling that some reporters miss this point than it is for Somerby to call attention to it -- If I say those things, and a lackwit troll calls Somerby my "leader" in response, I am comfortable that anyone paying attention will know who is the greater ass.
Nice of Bobfans to show up to explain what his "primary point" -- and it certainly can't be to discredit the MIT survey after four days of ridiculing, belittling, and questioning the motives of those who conducted it, as well as their concern over "teenagers" and "children" who have been raped.
Delete"Nice of Bobfans to show up to explain what his 'primary point' [is]."
DeleteAs usual.
Allow me to play along.
DeleteWhat 12:27 really, really means is "Here is the best possible spin I can put on this incomprehensible mess."
"Both are "taking dictation" instead of thinking about the topics they have been assigned by their editors. This is evident because they both reported the same concern for the definitions held by students, as dictated by the Chancellor's response to the report."
DeleteI see. In Bobworld, it's utterly impossible for two human beings to find the same thing interesting. They must be dishonest and incompetent if they do. It is evident.
HEY! @ 11:07 JUST READ YOUR ESSAY!
DeleteYou have proven the best stenographer Somerby ever had. You almost had me fooled into thinking you really get what TDH is all about. Then you wrote:
"To the extent that trolls want to suggest that it is Somerby who is itching to rape all those coeds, I think we need to wonder who keeps sending them to this blog, day after day, with silly nonsense?"
This is clearly misdirection. Everyone knows the danger is not from all the many whacko trolls who seem to think Bob is a wanna be rapist. It is from the commenters who simply state he is bonkers.
(Originally placed below in error)
There is a contingent of trolls who regularly suggest that Somerby has a problem with women whenever he posts anything about (1) female reporters, or (2) sexual misconduct.
DeleteYou forgot (3) any time Somerby writes about any issue of particular concern to women voters.
DeleteAnd (4) whenever they feel like saying something negative and don't have another excuse.
DeleteAnd neither one of you will have any clue as to what asses you are making yourselves out to be.
DeleteDoes that mean your work here is done?
Gee, I hope so. Godspeed.
Methinks that Somerby doesn't really give a damn about anything he writes any more, as long as it's click-bait.
ReplyDeleteSince there are no ads here, what do you imagine happens to benefit Somerby when people click anything?
DeleteI imagine he gets the attention he craves, regardless of what kind of attention it is.
DeleteOr perhaps the dollars are just flowing in from his ongoing fundraising drive.
Ego.
DeleteThis blog morphed from serious media criticism to just another ego-driven vanity blog a long, long time ago.
DeleteYou forgot the phrase "In my opinion."
DeleteYou forgot to leave a blog that's not serious and has been an ego-driven vanity blog for eons.
DeleteBut so much better than those non-ego driven vanity blogs.
I don't want to debate hierarchies of troublingness, but IMHO it is indeed troubling that MIT students don't know what definition of "rape" to use. Rape is a hideous act and a serious felony. So. how many of those events counted as "rape" in the survey were reported to the police. I suspect the answer is zero. (Otherwise someone would have mentioned the case in the article.)
ReplyDeleteSo, what is "rape". It's not PC to joke about a serious topic, but the old joke says the prostitute claimed she'd been raped when the check bounced. Is the standard for "rape" on campus any act of coitus that the participant later regrets? I hope not. I hope the men and women claiming to have been raped are applying a reasonable, consistent standard. However, I fear that may not be the case, because of articles like this one from NPR
It started at a party. He says a classmate invited him to her room, asked him to bring a condom, texted her girlfriends about it, gave no signs of being drunk and repeatedly indicated that she wanted to have sex.
So, he says, they did.
"Then we kissed and fooled around for a few more hours, and then eventually she told me her roommate was coming back at some point and that I should leave, but that she had a lot of fun," he says.
You didn't read carefully. They don't understand what definition of sexual harassment to use. You seem to be the one worrying about what constitutes rape.
DeleteIf you know it is not OK to joke about rape (as you state), why do you then go on and tell a joke anyway? What is wrong with you?
If part of the standard for reporting a rape now that you have to be reasonable and consistent with some standard, not just raped?
In the example you describe, if he did anything but get up and leave at the point where he was asked to do so, he has clearly done something wrong. It doesn't matter about any of the rest of the context. If you do not understand this yourself, you are not safe in mixed company. In California, only Yes means Yes. There is no gray area in what you posted here.
David, in his excitement over finding a story that fits his narrative, ignored the "he says" part.
DeleteAnd now, in the legacy of Paul Harvey, here's the rest of the story:
"In her version of events, according to a university report, she started to "freak out" shortly after he left. She began to feel pain throughout her body, and realized that something had happened, but she didn't know what. She told the school she had been drinking and had no memory of most of the night — until a day later when she remembered "him having sex with me and holding me down."
"She told a friend, who told a dorm adviser, and two days later the school launched an investigation that he says was rigged from the start.
"They were going through the motions," he says. "I felt like I was just trapped in the tidal wave."
I said it's not PC to joke about rape. IMHO the PC dictators should be resisted whenever possible.
DeleteOh. So go ahead and joke about rape. It's always a million laughs.
DeleteDavid, if you take this approach in the workplace, you will have complaints filed against you and will run afoul of your HR Dept. This is a counterproductive way to be thinking about this. The reason why we don't joke about rape is because women who have experienced it are understandably sensitive about it. Another reason is because laughing about it as if it were a joke gives implicit permission to conduct rape, it tacitly condones it and may thus encourage men to engage in it. You cannot know who has been raped or who may engage in rape just through casual interactions, so you should not joke about it at all.
DeleteDismissing this as PC ignores the importance of stopping rape because it is damaging to our society. You should care about this.
You make a lot of good points, AnonymousNovember 6, 2014 at 1:23 PM. I agree with most of your comment. My problem is with the expanded definition of the word "rape". Under the traditional definition of the word, "rape" is a terrible thing. However, consider the case where two people do some drinking or smoke some weed and then voluntarily have sex. Let's postulate that one of them wouldn't have chosen to have sex if s/he were sober. Under the campus definition, I believe this would constitute "rape." IMHO this may be regrettable, but it isn't terrible or damaging to our society.
DeleteThere is no definition of rape that includes consensual, voluntary sex, David, so rest your weary mind about that. That's what makes it a very difficult crime to prosecute.
DeleteAnd that also leads to the "blame the victim" mentality in which the victim feels at least partially responsible and ashamed, and is one of the reasons this crime is so grossly under-reported.
AnonymousNovember 6, 2014 at 2:07 PM -- Under campus definitions (which BTW are law in CA) if a participant was too drunk to give valid consent, then the sex was rape. What "too drunk" means or "valid consent" means, or how these things are to be measured are unspecified. But, the practical impact in a lot of cases is that if the woman says her consent wasn't valid, the college will find that the man committed assault or rape. This could happen even if she was the one who initiated the sex. That's why we're seeing more and more lawsuits from men who have been punished unfairly.
DeleteThanks cicero.
DeleteCould you name or link one of "a lot of cases" where the college found a man commited assault or rape? Would you name or link one of the lawsuits from allegedly unfairly punished men? I'd sure like to read more about this business where campus rule has become law in CA.
I'm so sorry David. For some reason I mistook your comment for one by cicero. I don't know how that happened.
DeleteIn any case, please consider the question restated to the proper authority.
Oh, I see, David. Having sex with a girl who is passed-out drunk isn't rape in your book. Well, thank God you don't write books.
Delete"I'd sure like to read more about this business where campus rule has become law in CA."
DeleteSo would I. This whole issue of rape on campus is campuses and their cops have been too lenient with rapists and not too tough. They'll give the guy a stern talking to, and that's it.
Under the new California law, only YES means yes. If you are worried about how drunk someone is, use the standard applied in drunk driving. The main reason why people have accidents while drunk driving is that their judgment is impaired (not their reflexes or vision). Your concern should be whether someone's judgment is impaired when giving consent, so the same standard would be reasonable. If you don't know the drunk driving rules, you should stay home and not interact with drunk women.
DeleteI have to leave home to not interact with drunk women.
Delete"So. how many of those events counted as 'rape' in the survey were reported to the police. I suspect the answer is zero. (Otherwise someone would have mentioned the case in the article.)"
Delete- David in Cal.
DING DING DING. We have a winner!!
And that, my friends, is preceisely why the school authorities (and the press) are so nonchalant about the reported rapes. They know the score, and they know that the 5% figure is wildly exagerrated. That's why they're concentrating on more fuzzy and nebulous crimes that are much easier to allege with plausible deniability like harrassment and being made slightly uncomfortable in some way.
Or . . David, majneb and Bob are such miserable excuses for men that the last woman they hounded for a date kicked them in the balls, thus they hate all women.
DeleteWe should concentrate on the felony of urban liberals looking down their noses on white rural voters who are criminally negligent with their firearms.
DeleteOne problem is that "Rape " is not a legal definition everywhere.
ReplyDeleteThe legal term is sexual assault, and what constitutes sexual assault varies from state to state.
I was a jury foreman for a sexual assault trial in Arizona, prosecuted by the now famous Juan Martinez.
The prosecution described a lurid case of kidnapping, conspiracy, and gang-banging.
The jury decided it was a consensual Saturday night beer-and-bang fest followed by Sunday morning regret.
What clinched it was when a male juror said no woman would willingly get into a car with strange men if she knew they wanted sex.
Two women jurors said yes they would, because they could have a good time, and none of their friends or classmate would know and thus be able to call them sluts.
After the trial, several officers of the court told us that they overheard the victim on the phone boasting to the girlfriend of one of the men that she had fucked her boyfriend "several times." (It was inadmissible.)
When I got on the elevator I turned around to see a fuming Juan Martinez glaring at me. Oh well.
So you voted to acquit.
DeleteAnd you consider that justified because you learned later of her prior sexual history.
You are one sick puppy.
Unless his story is complete bullshit. Which I strongly suspect.
DeleteBut then again, what sick mind would make up such a story?
Sounds like justice was done. But did the authorities then charge the woman with fraud for filing false charges?
DeleteHardly, counselor. Sounds like they took her story pretty seriously. And "slut-shaming" got the guy off. It sure impressed gravymeister, assuming any word of his story is true, which I do not.
DeleteThe story is true. The two women jurors described their own experiences when they were in high school. They said it was common for girls to go to the local love nests with guys from a different high school so word would not get around their own school. And they liked the thrill of group sex.
DeleteYou guys all sound like the men on that jury panel until the women spoke out.
The defense attorney never discredited the defendant, he simply provided reasonable doubt, and Mr. Martinez had only the word of the victim, who admitted she approached these men in front of a Circle K and got into the car of her own free will and told the guys she would take them to a place that would sell them beer after hours.
She stated that one of the guys, the defendant, was good looking and she wanted to hook up with him that night.
Her testimony was full of contradictions and it was pretty clear she was lying about the facts. The jury’s job is to judge the facts as presented.
She was pissed off because the guys fucked her and tossed her out of the car and made her call a friend to get a ride home.
A very shitty and humiliating thing to do to someone but not enough to send a young man to prison for thirty years and ruin his life.
The court officers thanked the jury and said in this case the system worked, EVEN WHEN THE JURY WAS NOT GIVEN ANY OF THE EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE.
You see, I was there and you weren't.
To you trolls calling me a liar, make like salmon.
Majneb, you appear to be the only one with an open mind. And no, the woman was not charged.
So the only witness was the victim. Her story was self-contradictory. And it took slut-shaming by two women jurors who passed along gossip about high school girls some years back to convince the male jurors to acquit.
DeleteBullshit.
"Majneb, you appear to be the only one with an open mind."
DeleteI would be concerned about that if I were you. But then again, I would make up a much better story than that.
I don't understand this taboo against "slut-shaming."
DeleteDon't we want sluts to be ashamed?
Does anyone actually HOPE that their daughters grow up to be sluts?
What is the equivalent term for a man -- what do you call a male slut?
DeleteA role model.
DeleteSee, that's the problem.
DeleteDon't hate the game or the players.
DeleteEither play or get off the field.
Send all complaints of unfairness to the Creator ...
We have civilization (aka culture) that allows us to override the unfairness of nature, so we don't have to be animals. When men are slut-shamed, women can be. In the meantime, grow up and treatcwomen like people.
DeleteYou "men" need to learn how to read. The victim voluntarily got into the car with the young men. She was not kidnapped.
DeleteShe consented to sex with the defendant. That is not sexual assault.
She initiated the contact with the men. The defendant did not conspire with the others to drag her into the desert and gang bang her. There was no evidence presented that the defendant "conspired" with the others to rape the woman.
Conspiracy is a catch-all charge when the prosecutor knows he has a weak case.
The prosecution trumped up those charges against the driver of the car.
The other three men were tried separately. If any one of them forced himself on her, it was not brought up in testimony, and would have been, as they say, only relevant and material to the trial at hand IF conspiracy had been proven.
The two women jurors were not spreading gossip, they were relating their personal experiences. They were not "slut-shaming", they were contradicting the male juror that claimed no woman would get into a car with other men voluntarily with intent to have sex with them.
I don't know what kind of sheltered lives you people have led, but some girls in high school actually fucked boys and older men willingly, and they did it in the 1950's and 1960's. I've heard they even did it in the 1920's. In cars, even!
We were not going to convict a man of three class 2 felonies for something that another man may or may not have done.
If you can't understand that, just hope and pray you never get in front of a jury made up of YOUR peers.
And by the way, just using the word slut is porcine male chauvinism.
"The victim voluntarily got into the car with the young men. She was not kidnapped. She consented to sex with the defendant. That is not sexual assault."
DeleteAgain, game, set, match. That's all you needed to determine in order to acquit. Furthermore, if it is true as you earlier claimed that the case was nothing more than "he said/she said" with no corroborating witnesses or evidence, that's all you needed to acquit, and I am quite surprised that it got so far as trial.
So why the cock-and-bull story about the two women jurors who told stories from their high school days?
Let me tell you why. Liars think that the more details they add, the more believable their story becomes. Well, they don't.
Also, your layman's understanding of the elements of kidnapping and of rape proves you never served on a jury.
You can agree to a ride. But if you are physically prevented from leaving, that's kidnapping.
You can agree to sex with one guy. But it you didn't agree to have sex with guys 2, 3, and 4, that's rape.
And there is no way a prosecutor as sharp as Juan Martinez would allow a jury to deliberate without knowing that.
Gray wrote: "only 11% of female undergraduates checked 'yes' when asked directly if they had been 'raped' or 'sexually assaulted.'"
ReplyDeleteAfter reading that, Bob wrote: "Instantly, Gray conflates 'rape' and 'assault.'"
What is Bob going on about, how did she conflate the two?
Anyway, Gray's point is, despite the fact 17% of women had experiences that fit the definiation of secual assult, only 11% checked the box asking directly if they'd been raped or sexually assaulted.
Conflating means treating them as if they are the same. Rape and sexual assault can be different. There can be forms of sexual assault that are not rape, depending on how you define them. Somerby's point is that Gray reports that difference in the statistics without discussing it. It is not unusual to find different responses to differently worded questions or even the same questions at different points in a survey. The reporter should still have noted the difference and talked about what it means. It is not Gray's point that only 11% checked the box, it is the survey's result. There should be some explanation of why there is a difference and Gray did not provide it.
DeleteThere are different types of conflation. You've described the one that suits your response, but there are others.
DeleteTry Wikipedia: you'll like it.
"Ninety percent of zoo visitors reported seeing the giraffes or the chimps."
DeleteBob: "There you go again, conflating giraffes and chimps."
Let's be fair @ 1:22. Bob know's there are vast differences in giraffes and chimps. As we were told
Deleterecently. Bob's grandfather worked with chimps. Today, Bob works with analysts. Because of their unique God given talents, giraffes usually work only with each other.
Oh, Bob knows all about chimps and giraffes. That's why he gets so upset when they are "conflated" by using them in the same sentence.
DeleteHe also knows about turtles, though he has no idea who actually told the story about them, although he thought he did.
And because he is so "murky" and unfocused, he looked pretty silly trying to make a point about the MIT story with it.
But true Bobfans, used to seeing the emperor's naked hindquarters, found it enthralling, I am sure.
Is it time for David in Cal to inform us he has a relative, through marriage, who was a turtle. Or is it just a cousin with a long neck who was successful despite working in a redneck environment?
DeleteDavid once wore a turtleneck sweater, back when he was protesting with Pete Seeger, although he doesn't know what they were protesting, and didn't know Pete was pinko.
DeleteYou don't conflate two things merely by using them in the same sentence. You conflate them by behaving as if the two terms were interchangeable.
DeleteAgreed. Now tell that to Somerby.
DeleteAs they say, no consent was manufactured here today. You have to wonder were these journalist aware of the BS nature of what they were concerned about? How was it that they both came upon the same idea, except of course they "copied" each other. Sometimes it seems they all have the same talking points, like an AP news service for conservative, or maybe all "professional", journalists. MRM
ReplyDeleteThey both dutifully wrote down what the people they interviewed told them. That is how they wound up with the same emphasis.
DeleteOr perhaps, being concerned that the survey showed there was some trouble with the definition of sexual assault might not be BS after all?
DeleteNope, dare not entertain any notion outside the small box Somerby draws. It will give you a headache.
HEY! @ 11:07 JUST READ YOUR ESSAY!
DeleteYou have proven the best stenographer Somerby ever had. You almost had me fooled into thinking you really get what TDH is all about. Then you wrote:
"To the extent that trolls want to suggest that it is Somerby who is itching to rape all those coeds, I think we need to wonder who keeps sending them to this blog, day after day, with silly nonsense?"
This is clearly misdirection. Everyone knows the danger is not from all the many whacko trolls who seem to think Bob is a wanna be rapist. It is from the commenters who simply state he is bonkers.
Oops. How the Bob Somerby did this comment get misplaced? Well, I put it in the right place and if you read it twice, I hope it doesn't make you think I think Somerby has an itch.)
Delete"trouble with the definition"
ReplyDeleteWhy, yes, it's "more troubling" even than the rapes some say!
Thanks for showing your concern!!
"Some say" But nobody with a lick of sense.
DeleteI get it. Richard Pérez-Peña is a guy who has appeared on Jeopardy! a lot more times than Bob Somerby has appeared on C-Span.
ReplyDeleteOf course you have to know lots of stuff to appear on Jeopardy! more than once.
All you need to appear on Jeopardy is a firm grasp of trivia and lots of free time.
DeleteAl you need to appear on C-Span is a pulse and an unfinished book.
DeleteBack in 1963, Uncles Walter and David both reported at the very same time, "The president is dead."
ReplyDeleteWhat are the odds of that happening? They were obviously nothing more than stenographers.
Actually, yes, they were acting as stenographers. Do you imagine they did any independent investigation to determine that the president had died, beyond reporting whatever statement had been released to the press?
Delete