ANATOMY OF OUR DISCUSSIONS: Fauci joins the angriest dog!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2020

Can anyone here play this game?: Last evening, starting at 8 PM Eastern, we watched as the angriest dog in the world continued to bite, snap and growl.

Needless to say, his trademark sarcasm was on full display as he rushed out into the yard:

COOPER (7/8/20): Good evening. We are in a good place with this pandemic. A good place. We've done a good job.

How does that sound to you? Does that sound like reality, that we're in a good place?

Because those are the words of the president of the United States today, even as the numbers, and his own experts, scientists with decades of experience, say otherwise.

The president says we are in a good place with the pandemic. Those are his actual words. I didn't actually believe it when I first heard it, but it's on tape.

For some unknown reason, the angriest dog didn't believe it when he first heard those words.

As we've noted, it's an eternal groundhog day with these cable news stars. For performative reasons, or perhaps from sheer dumbness, they're "shocked, shocked" every time the president opens his mouth.

Luckily, we have the words of the president's experts to let us know what's true. But before he played tape of what Fauci had said, the angriest dog played tape of the disordered commander himself:

COOPER (continuing directly): He was asked by Greta Van Susteren about Dr. Anthony Fauci's assessment that the country is still, quote, "knee-deep" in the first wave of coronavirus. Here is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, I think we are in a good place. I disagree with him. We have done a good job. I think we're actually—we are going to be in two, three, four weeks. By the time we next speak, I think we're going to be in very good shape.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So this is a good place to be in a pandemic, in case you were wondering. And soon we'll be in very, very good shape, he said.

This angriest, possibly laziest dog runs on pure sarcasm now.

Just to refresh you, Van Susteren served as the president's principal caddie during the years when he was establishing himself as the nation's leading birther.

In those days, Van Susteren had a nightly show at Fox. For years, she hosted pre-candidate Donald J. Trump as he spewed his birther tales.

(In 2017, Van Sustern got hired away by MSNBC. When that happened, Rachel Maddow aggressively vouched for Van Susteren's journalistic greatness, even saying that she and Van Susteren had been drinking buddies during those birther-rich years. This is the way these peculiar people play this peculiar game.)

Back to the angriest dog, tugging last night on his chain:

The angriest dog now played tape of the president's latest remarks. Rachel's pal was back in the saddle, assisting The Donald again.

The dog was shocked by Trump's crazy remarks, as he is every night. Soon he was lunging at Diamond and Silk, and playing tape of the expert we all can trust:

COOPER (continuing directly): The president spoke of Florida and California, states that became in his words, hot, but even there, he said, quote, "We're going to be very good, very soon."

The same president who told Diamond and Silk that the virus would miraculously disappear by April, the one that keeps saying we have the best testing.

Keeping them honest, it is remarkable how sunny things can look from inside a biological bunker at the White House where everyone has to wear masks around you and get tested just to come in contact with you.

It's a bunker so secure, apparently, not even the sound of your own leading experts can penetrate it. The president says we're in a good place. Dr. Anthony Fauci said just this yesterday:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAUCI: The current state is really not good in the sense that, as you know, we have been in a situation where we were averaging about 20,000 new cases a day.

Two days ago, it was at 57,500. So within a period of a week and a half, we've almost doubled the number of cases.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So of course, the president doesn't have to take it from the nation's most trusted infectious disease expert. He could listen to other top members of his own virtually invisible Coronavirus Task Force...

The angriest dog then played tape of Pence and Birx. They cited the rising number of cases in, they said, nine states.

It never occurred to the angriest dog to fact-check Fauci's statement. It seemed to us that his statement might be incorrect, and so we decided to do so.

We knew we were engaged in a Thought Crime. But something convinced us to act!

"Within a period of a week and a half, we've almost doubled the number of cases," the president's top expert had said.

He made the statement on Monday, July 6. The latest numbers available were those from Sunday, July 5.

A week and a half is like ten days, though some might call it eleven. Below, you see the number of (reported/confirmed) cases over a ten-day stretch as of the time Fauci spoke:

New reported cases per day, nationwide:
June 25: 39,332
June 26: 45,767

[...]

July 4: 51,151
July 5: 43,347

Here and in what follows, we're using the Washington Post's numbers for cases and for deaths.

Had the number "almost doubled?" Even though we're flirting with "the weekend game" (see below), we're going to say that it hadn't!

In fairness to Fauci, the rolling 7-day average had, in fact, risen by 48% from June 25 through July 5. Because formal reporting of cases and deaths typically drops over a weekend, this is the only sensible way to present such comparisons.

You can't cherry-pick individual days, as it might be said that Fauci did. You have to give 7-day averages.

Over that week and a half, the rolling 7-day average had risen by 48%. Clearly, that's a substantial rise. But had the number "almost doubled?"

Saying that was a bit of a stretch, or so they'll tell viewers on Fox.

Here's something else that ought to be said. "Cases" is a very shaky statistic.

Remember—we aren't talking about the total number of actual cases. (According to the CDC, the total number of actual cases may be ten times as high.) We're speaking here about the number of (reported/confirmed) cases.

We're talking about the number of infections (cases) which have been diagnosed (confirmed) by an actual test. That makes this a very shaky statistic. Here are some reasons why:

"Cases" turns on the amount of testing which is being conducted. Donald J. Trump has performed like a clown when discussing this basic idea, amazing Cooper every time, but the basic idea is sound:

To the extent that you conduct more tests, you will record more "cases." With that in mind, we can make these provisional statements about the recent increase in (confirmed) cases:

To some extent, the increase in "cases" may reflect an increase in the amount of testing being conducted.

To some extent, the increase in "cases" is being tamped down every day as municipalities and states run out of test kits. Some of the people who had to go home would have tested positive.

To some extent, the increase in "cases" is being affected as publicity in certain states induces more people to go out and get themselves tested. These are all factors in the creation of this statistic—a statistic which is rather shaky.

To what extent might the recent increase in "cases" reflect an increase in the amount of testing being done? In a better world, multimillionaire TV stars would help us understand such points.

In our world, angry dogs go all sarcastic as soon as they enter the yard. They're all about their visible anger, and they're all about storyline.

Often, they don't seem to have the slightest idea how to deal with even the most basic statistics. Last night, for example, the angriest dog was soon barking this, just before he introduced additional videotape:

COOPER: Even as new modeling from the University of Washington today forecast more than 208,000 people in this country may be dead of COVID-19 by Election Day, which the President still does not seem to think is all that bad. Because he is still repeating the same falsehoods as ever about testing and mortality, which fell for a while, but is once again sadly sickeningly ticking up.

Say what? Is "mortality" once again "ticking up?"

Within the context of cable news, "mortality" is a somewhat imprecise term. In this longer clip, the angry dog makes his meaning perfectly clear, and performs a dumb self-indictment:

COOPER: [The president] is still repeating the same falsehoods as ever about testing and mortality, which fell for a while, but is once again sadly, sickeningly ticking up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Therefore we have more cases. Because we're doing more testing, we have more cases. If we did half the testing, we'd have far fewer cases, but people don't view it that way.

What they have to view, though, is if you look at the chart and maybe Mike has it, but we looked at it before, if you look at the chart of deaths, deaths are way down.

So what we want to do is we want to get our schools open. We want to get them open quickly, beautifully in the fall.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Dr. Fauci calls the mortality claims, quote, "a false narrative."

In any case, those numbers, they have begun rising again. More than 600 fatalities today, compared to about 250 a day over the weekend.

"More than 600 fatalities today, compared to about 250 a day over the weekend!" Has this endlessly furious person ever spent any time reviewing these data at all?

For starters, here are the actual numbers over the past four days. The angry dog didn't seem to know that he was reporting an incomplete count of yesterday's (recorded) deaths:

Deaths by coronavirus, nationwide:
July 4: 289
July 5: 217
July 6: 221
July 7: 929

Yesterday's actual number was much higher than the number the angriest dog reported.

That said, those numbers don't necessarily mean that deaths are "once again...ticking up." That may happen, but official reporting always drops over a weekend, with the numbers jumping up again at the start of the work week. This may be especially true over a holiday weekend.

Have deaths begun ticking up again? As of this morning, the 7-day rolling average of deaths stands exactly where it stood before the holiday weekend began. The average may start rising from here, but that hasn't happened yet.

So far, no uptick in deaths has occurred, unless you're cherry-picking. The angriest dog, and his brain-damaged staff, didn't seem to have the first freaking idea about these basic statistics.

Two Sundays ago, Hugh Hewitt made an absurd misstatement on Meet the Press. (During the show, his groaner went uncorrected.) The mistake was so jaw-droppingly stupid that it became obvious that Hewitt has never spent even five minutes thinking about these basic pandemic statistics.

Last week, Chris Hayes made several very strange presentations on the air. This afternoon, we'll finish our report on that topic. For now, consider the angriest dog in the world:

Assuming he wasn't simply lying during his angry performance last night, it seems that Cooper has no idea how these death-by-coronavirus statistics work. Presumably, he spends the bulk of his off-camera time in wardrobe, makeup and hair, and in workshops to help him master his angriest dog theatrics.

Simply put, you can't put your faith in the "discussions" you see on TV. More to the point, you can't put your faith in the people who conduct these "discussions"—in the Coopers, or in the Van Susterens, or even in their drinking pals.

How much are they paid to clown in such ways? You aren't permitted to know that.

This afternoon: A very strange pair of corrections

Tomorrow: "Discussing" public schools

Friday: "Discussing" police shootings

Drum says it's time for an explanation!

TUESDAY, JULY 7, 2020

Explanations no longer exist: On the whole, we agree with what Kevin Drum says in this new, sensible post. He says it's time for someone to explain why coronavirus "cases" keep going up while deaths keep going down:

DRUM (7/7/20): I’ve mentioned the divergence between cases and deaths in the United States before, but it’s gotten to the point where it really needs more than the handwaving that it usually gets on TV and in newspapers. When cases were going up back in April, we were told that deaths followed by 2-3 weeks. But our second wave of new cases is over a month old at this point and so far it’s had no effect on mortality at all. The death rate just keeps on dropping.

Maybe there’s an explanation for this. Maybe next week the death rate will finally start to rise. But we keep saying that, and next week never comes. Are there any epidemiologists out there who are really working to come to grips with this?

On balance, we agree with what Drum says. But he's asking for an explanation and, within our failing journalistic culture, we're not sure they still exist.

Our failing culture is all about "the handwaving [this question] usually gets on TV and in newspapers." It's also all about repeating standard storylines while moving steadily toward the next commercial break.

Today, we actually decided to check one probable part of this mystery. We decided to fact-check an obvious question:

To what extent has our daily testing, nationwide, actually been increasing?

Trump has turned this topic into a clown show, but it's obviously true—to the extent that you conduct more tests, you will confirm and report more "cases." We were surprised by the extent to which daily testing has increased nationwide in the past month, even as the number of nationwide "cases" has been rising.

We'll show you the data in the next day or two. But we've told you that our public discourse is narrative all the way down. To a surprisingly large extent, this mystery may comport to that basic rule.

Drum says it's time for an explanation. As we sinks beneath the waves, do such creatures still exist?

A famous saying: In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein famously said: "Explanations must come to an end somewhere" (see passage #1).

We agree with the frequently puzzling sage. But this isn't what he meant!

Cable news folk say the darnedest things!

TUESDAY, JULY 7, 2020

Two examples led to a third: People who watch cable news will occasionally be exposed to rather strange presentations.

One such presentation was made last Monday night. It was made by Chris Hayes, speaking in the aftermath of the president's trip to Arizona.

The highlighted statements made no sense at all. This happened last Monday night:

HAYES (6/29/20): It comes less than ten days after that infamous Tulsa, Oklahoma rally, where even with the arena far from full, you still had thousands of people gathered in an indoor space cheering and screaming in a city that had just seen a spike in cases and in violation of every single recommendation for safety, again, from the Trump administration's own CDC.

And while we never know cause and effect exactly, particularly in the moment, it's hard to figure out what the exact impact of that [Tulsa] rally looks like. Look at this:

Yesterday in Oklahoma, they tested 352 people for the coronavirus and every single test came back positive. Today, they test another 178 people and all those tests came back positive too.

Now, if you can`t do the math in your head, that's a 100 percent positive rate. That's extremely bad.

That would be extremely bad! It really would be extremely bad if everyone tested for two straight days delivered a positive reading.

As we've noted in the past, everyone makes mistakes. That said, it made no sense to think that everyone tested in Oklahoma had tested positive for two straight days.

Obviously, that didn't make sense. It was the post-Tulsa story we wanted to hear, but it made no sense.

Two nights later, last Wednesday night, Hayes offered an explanation for this peculiar statement. On that same program, he also corrected something a guest had said on Tuesday night.

The guest had appeared as part of a special town hall about policing. That guest proceeded to make a presentation which was just totally wrong.

The guest in question was Michael Williams, president of the Memphis Police Association. We'll guess that Williams was sincere in what he said, but his presentation about police shootings was rather murky at points, and all in all totally wrong:

WILLIAMS (6/30/20): Police answered over 10 million calls last year. Out of those 10 million calls, I think you–the FBI said you had about 1,000-and-some individuals that were shot.

Out of that 1,000 individuals, you had 400 that were armed–or unarmed. I believe you had 19 Caucasians that were shot and killed by the police last year. You only had nine African-Americans that were killed by the police last year.

Now, don't get me wrong. Anybody that's killed needlessly, that's wrong, and it needs to be addressed. But at the same time, I think that we're definitely putting a lot of emphasis on the police when we have, in this city, 222 individuals were murdered in this city last year.

HAYES: Memphis Police Association president Michael Williams, in the city of Memphis. Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate it.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

According to Williams, only 19 white people and nine black people had been shot and killed by police in 2019. Along with the rest of his presentation, that claim was crazily wrong.

It certainly isn't a cable host's fault if a guest makes some wild misstatements. That said, no one corrected or challenged Williams' presentation in real time on Tuesday night.

Hayes offered a type of correction the following night, adding a somewhat odd explanation for his own wild misstatement from the Monday night program. Before he did, he tried to straighten out the wild things Williams had said.

On Monday, June 29, Hayes' statement about testing in Oklahoma had been crazily wrong. On Tuesday, June 30, Williams seemed to have no idea what he was talking about.

That said, Hayes' two-part correction on Wednesday night may have been the oddest presentation of all. Tomorrow, we'll show you what he said, starting with his correction of Williams.

On partisan cable, there are a million significant things you will never be told. Beyond that, some of the things you do get told will be crazily wrong.

Can't anyone here play this game? That's what Casey Stengel once asked. We might ask the same thing about cable news.

Tomorrow, we'll show you the rather peculiar things Hayes eventually said. In the meantime, you should be less than fully credulous when you watch cable news.

Tomorrow: The Wednesday night corrections

ANATOMY OF OUR ALLEGED DISCUSSIONS: We watched the angriest dog in the world!

TUESDAY, JULY 7, 2020

But how many people will die?: Last evening, starting at 8 PM Eastern, we had a chance to observe the angriest dog in the world.

Some readers may yelp in surprise. They may recall "The Angriest Dog in the World" as the comic strip created and drawn by a younger version of director David Lynch.

Fair enough! According to the leading authority on the subject, "the strip was conceived by Lynch in 1973 during a period when he was experiencing feelings of great anger. First published in the LA Reader, the strip ran from 1983 until 1992."

We recall The Angriest Dog from its days in Baltimore's City Paper. Today, though, the angriest dog has moved on. Last night, he was hosting on CNN, a so-called "cable news" channel.

We'd avoided the angriest dog for the past several weeks. We'd become appalled by his carnival act—by his posing, his endless pretense.

Last night, due to a bit of a misunderstanding, we went back and watched him again. The angriest dog was snapping and growling as he came rushing out into the yard:

COOPER (7/6/20): And good evening. Thanks for being with us.

If divisive inflammatory racist words could kill the coronavirus, the president of the United States would be heading to Stockholm right now to pick up his Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Instead, tonight, the same as every night, he is safe inside his biological bunker surrounded by people wearing masks and frequently getting tested. And from the safety of his biological bunker, he is encouraging the rest of us not to follow the best scientific advice.

He is trying to persuade the country that the virus is simply vanishing. Or if that won't work, he is trying to divert people's attention elsewhere to smearing a black NASCAR driver, supporting the Confederate flag and statues of traitors, which he claims is part of our proud heritage.

So, knowing it's a diversion, we begin tonight where attention ought to be, on the facts that we all have to face right now. Or as White House Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci put it today, quote, "We are still knee-deep in the first wave of this."

Today, the country crossed another milestone—130,000 lives lost. By tomorrow or Wednesday, it will surpass another three million known COVID cases, that milestone. Those are facts. So is this:

We now have more cases than any other country on Earth and more fatalities, again, than any other country on Earth. We're number one for cases and for deaths. America is first...

The angriest dog was very angry, and he was highly sarcastic.

Dogs like these still don't bother adjusting for size of population. As with Trump, so too here—any bow to intellectual regularity would be viewer as a sign of weakness.

Very frankly, we were sad to see the angriest dog this way. We think of what Elliott said to ET: "Look what they've done to you."

We remember how gentle the angriest dog used to be. Back in 2016, for example, when he twice rolled over for Candidate Trump, letting his stomach be rubbed.

(Candidate Trump was good for ratings. A certain remarkably well-trained dog seemed willing to sit and stay.)

Today, the angriest dog is full of antiracism. It's quite a change from the complete disinterest he and his "cable news" channel have displayed with respect to such topics in the past.

That said, the corporate showboats of cable news are all reciting these days. The angriest dog is visibly angry, and he wants you to know he (now) cares.

Last evening, the angriest dog never abandoned his sarcasm. At one point, he showed us tape of the man for whom he once played pool boy as that man spoke at Mount Rushmore.

He said the president had delivered his comments at Rushmore "by the gaslight's blue glare." The angriest dog is endlessly on the prowl these days, unlike the way he played fetch back then.

After watching the angriest dog, we stuck around for Cuomo. In our view, his work has been weirdly unskilled of late.

Last night, we watched him mansplain his way through an interview about parenting during the time of coronavirus. He delivered his speeches to Keisha Lance Bottoms, who strikes us as roughly a thousand times more competent, sane and disciplined than this cable host is.

Mayor Bottoms listened politely. So it went on CNN as consumers were handed the news.

Late in the evening, on MSNBC, we actually saw Dr. Nahid Bhadelia deliver a significant assessment. This is the way it went down:

Bhadelia spoke as one part of Brian Williams' three-pundit opening panel. Williams maintains this three-pundit procedure to ensure that the attention span of no consumer will ever be taxed or strained.

In this instance, the fact that Williams was discussing three or four different topics with three different guests meant that Bhadelia only spoke twice in the 21-minute opening segment. This is what "discussion" looks like on our cable "news" channels now.

The second time Dr. Bhadelia spoke, she spoke to a very important issue. How many people are likely to die in future weeks, given the nation's sudden increase in (confirmed/reported) coronavirus cases?

How many people are likely to die? As a general matter, cable hosts are too scattered, and perhaps too savvy, to zero in on such questions. On her second and final chance to speak, here's part of what Bhadelia said:

BHADELIA (7/6/20): The trouble is not the current numbers. What we're seeing is, hospitalizations generally are followed by deaths.

From a CDC surveillance from the end of May, what we know is that, of the people who were diagnosed, 14 percent got hospitalized, five percent died.

And maybe that's half of that now. Hopefully, we've done better. That's still a lot of people of that number that we're seeing hospitalized that are going to follow and may unfortunately pass away.

(If MSNBC ever posts a transcript, it will show up here. Under the corporate channel's apparent new slow-walk procedures, you might check back next year.)

In that statement, Bhadelia seemed to say that something like 2.5 percent of our growing number of new "cases" may end up dying of Covid-19.

Plainly, that was only a rough assessment. But it was a start.

Is Bhadelia's assessment reasonably sensible? We have no way of saying. Needless to say, Brian—he was discussing three topics at once—didn't attempt to clarify, ask or assess.

Nor will he ever ask anyone else. Homey don't play it that way!

Bhadelia was offering a very rough assessment. But if her assessment is accurate, it means that we'll soon be returning to the days of more than one thousand deaths per day.

(As of this morning, our seven-day rolling average stands at 463.7 deaths per day.)

If Dr. Fauci's earlier unexplained assessment is correct—his assessment that we may soon be recording 100,000 new cases per day—Bhadelia's assessment would mean that we'll be experiencing roughly 2500 deaths per day. That would be a higher average than we ever attained in the bad old days of April and May.

Is that the actual shape of our "America carnage" to come? Are we headed for that level of daily deaths?

We have no idea, and it's unlikely that anyone will ever ask. Last night, we saw a snapping dog and some ardent mansplaining, but we saw no real discussions. On cable, it pretty much isn't done.

Williams jumped around among three opening guests, discussing three opening topics. Bhadelia got to speak just twice. He didn't follow up.

Ever since the visitations started, we've been forced to offer sour reports like this.

The visitations, of course, are from the experts who come to us late at night, advising us through the nocturnal submissions the haters refer to as dreams.

These experts keep saying that our species isn't built for real discussion. Scanning the globe in the past few days, we found ourselves forced to admit that these highly credentialed anthropologists may have the germ of a point.

Tomorrow: The Washington Post lets a college grad (class of 2019!) pretend to discuss public schools

Coming later: Cable stars, and everyone else, pretend to discuss police shootings

Cases still rising, deaths still decline!

MONDAY, JULY 6, 2020

Can we walk and chew gum at one time?: When we read the reporter's identity line, we knew we were in good hands.

Her report appeared on July 3 at the New York Times. The report appeared online only. It never appeared in print editions of the Times.

Her report concerned a "counterintuitive" fact. Even as coronavirus "cases" are rising nationwide, coronavirus deaths continue a steep decline.

Below, you see the headlines which appear above her report. You also see the reporter's identity line:

U.S. Coronavirus Cases Are Rising Sharply, but Deaths Are Still Down

This seemingly counterintuitive trend might not last, experts said. But the nation can still learn from the decline.

[...]

[NAME WITHHELD] is a reporter for The Times, where she covers science and health. She holds a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunobiology from Harvard University.

With credentials like those, we could hardly go wrong! As it turned out, WITHHELD graduated from Stanford in 2014. She received her doctorate from Harvard four years later.
Today, she reports for the Times. Right in her first two paragraphs, she—or perhaps some meddling editor—decided to tell us this:

WITHHELD (7/3/20): After a minor late-spring lull, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States is once again on the rise. States like Arizona, Florida and Texas are seeing some of their highest numbers to date, and as the nation hurtles further into summer, the surge shows few signs of stopping.

And yet the virus appears to be killing fewer of the people it infects. In April and May, Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, led to as many as 3,000 deaths per day, and claimed the lives of roughly 7 to 8 percent of Americans known to have been infected. The number of daily deaths is now closer to 600, and the death rate is less than 5 percent.

Frankly, we were puzzled.

For the prior three days, the 7-day average of daily deaths—except for some specialized purpose, there's no other sensible way to report this statistic—had actually been closer to 500 than to 600.

More significantly, we were puzzled by the claim about the "3,000 deaths per day" which had sometimes been recorded in April and May.

We checked the New York Times database to which the reporter linked. When we did, we saw that those data included exactly zero days when the reported death count in the U.S. ever went as high as 3,000.

Then we clicked the other link in those two paragraphs. When we did, we were taken to this capsule report by David Leonhardt—a July 2 capsule report which actually said this:

"Coronavirus deaths in the U.S. have been falling for most of the last 10 weeks—to about 600 a day recently, down from more than 2,000 in late April."

Even Leonhardt may have been pushing it a bit with that "about 600 a day" statistic. But somehow, WITHHELD (or her editor) saw Leonhardt say "more than 2,000 in late April" and decided the story would be better if that accurate statement was changed to this more exciting claim:

"In April and May, Covid-19 led to as many as 3,000 deaths per day."

That wasn't what the Times database said. That wasn't what Leonhardt had said.

But now, it was what the New York Times said! Indeed, as Leonhardt's accurate statement was drowned in the harbor, the online report was executing the press corps' great motto and watchword:

No embellishment left behind!

No embellishment left behind! It's a time-honored way of life.

Do mainstream reporters always embellish? Actually, no, they don't.

That said, our own reporting at this site is "all anthropology now." And the world-class experts with whom we consult assure us that the impulse to exaggerate is very much bred in the bone of our war-inclined, tribal species.

They refer us to Professor Harari's endlessly best-selling book. Our brains are wired to induce us to tell thrilling tribal tales, these despondent experts all say.

Concerns about "accuracy" are a much later cultural addition routinely honored in the breach. Or so these scholars insist.

Whatever! We offer this as an introduction to the latest actual data.

In his own July 3 post, Kevin Drum had once again noted the somewhat puzzling battle between cases and deaths, making this accurate statement:

"As we all know, the number of COVID-19 cases is skyrocketing but the COVID-19 death rate is continuing to decline."

So Drum correctly said. (Admittedly, he was referring to something which very few people know.)

We've been following these data too, in part due to our fascination with the way this topic is being reported:

On cable, deaths have virtually disappeared. Only "cases" are now discussed.

In print, "cases" has become the default statistic, replacing the previous "deaths." And everywhere, statistics tend to be overstated. Sometimes, if it weren't for all the overstatements, there would be no statements at all!

Are we humans able to walk and chew gum at the same time? As a species, could we handle a public discussion in which we were told about the rise in cases and about the decline in deaths, with possible explanations offered?

Would we be able to handle that? Anthropologists say we probably could—but they despondently add that this hypothesis will likely never be tested.

At any rate, here we go:

The rise in (recorded/confirmed) cases is indeed a major, significant fact. Will this rise in (recorded) cases eventually lead to a renewed rise in deaths?

Life is easier, and more exciting, when such questions aren't asked. But just for the record, here are some 7-day rolling averages, including the 7-day rolling average as it currently stands:

Daily deaths from covid-19, nationwide;
7-day rolling average
May 18-May 24: 1136.9
May 25-May 31: 916.1

June 1-June 7: 806.4
June 8-June 14: 713.6
June 15-June 21: 586.4
June 24-June 30: 538.7

June 29-July 5: 477.1

(We're using the Washington Post's numbers. We've gone back and made adjustments based on changes the Post has made in the numbers it originally posted.

(We've adjusted for the 1,854 retroactive "probable" deaths New Jersey dumped into the system on June 25. The current average may turn out to be artificially low due to reduced reporting over a 3-day holiday weekend.)

The 7-day average still exceeded one thousand deaths per day as late as May 25 (1093.7 deaths per day, May 19-May 25). Since then, it has dropped all the way down to the current 477.1 deaths per day. That number may be artificially low, though probably not by any giant amount.

Don't get us wrong! Even that reduced number is a sign of our rolling national failure.

Elsewhere, there are very few daily deaths at this point. That's true in Germany, and even in initially hard-hit Italy and France.

Elsewhere, daily deaths are few. Our own vastly reduced number of deaths remains a sign of our national failure, a failure which leads directly to the disordered person who currently sits in the White House.

All roads lead to Donald J. Trump, whose apparent cognitive and/or psychiatric impairment our "press corps" will won't discuss. Still, we'd like to see a serious attempt to analyze the "counterintuitive" coexistence of the rise in cases and the decline in deaths.

Why haven't nationwide deaths begun to rise again? We'd like to see that basic question discussed—but at such moments, despondent anthropologists rush to remind us of our species' inheritance:

"We simply weren't wired for such discussions," these despairing scholars exclaim, ominously referring to our specie in the past tense. At that point, they turn and shamble back into their caves. Soon, loud weeping is heard.

Is that death rate likely to rise again? We'd like to see the question discussed.

But that would require a serious discussion of an obvious question—and that had ceased to be a part of our culture back when Arianna sewed that fourth button on the disfavored candidate's deeply troubling suit. It represented a 33% increase in deeply troubling buttons!

Remember, our work at this site is all anthropology now! If you want to hear preapproved tribal tales, you'll have to go somewhere else.

Why haven't deaths been shooting up...: Why haven't deaths been shooting up, even in states where "cases" have been skyrocketing?

Provisional answers have floated around. Silly us! We wonder which ones may be correct!

At any rate, the doctorate came from Harvard itself. But sure enough! Right there in paragraph 2, the statistical claim was embellished!

Even after twenty-two years, we still find the pattern surprising. But its incidence never declines, and we're told that it never will!

Kevin Drum posts a beautiful photo...

SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2020

Many others are seven years old: Kevin Drum has posted a beautiful photograph. Behind that beautiful photograph lies a sudden medical mystery.

The photograph pictures Kevin's mother. As we've noted in the past, the human face is deeply expressive.

We're told that no one lives forever. This claim is notoriously hard to prove. For today, we'll accept it as fact.

Assuming that claim is actually true, Kevin's mother, like many others, is nearer the end of her lifespan, and farther from its beginning. With recovery, she may have many more years of painting and swimming and speaking with her son.

At the same time, many others around the world, and around the country, are only 7 years old. Barring unforeseen disaster, they have many years ahead.

Of all our reading in recent weeks, we continue to think, most above all, about the 7-year-old boy who was "terrified" by the things his mother had told him. More on that matter below.

Meanwhile, this was Lincoln, shortly before his own death, making one of the most unusual public statements in human history in his Second Inaugural Address:

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained...Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.

Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged.

The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.

The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man [sic] by whom the offence cometh!"

If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?

Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said: "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

It's hard to edit that very short speech. You might want to read the whole thing.

We well recall the day we first read that Second Inaugural Address. We were standing inside the Lincoln Memorial, roughly 45 years ago, with a whole bunch of fifth grade kids.

We recall being shocked by what we saw Lincoln had said. Specifically, we remember thinking that Abraham Lincoln wasn't human—that Lincoln had come here from Mars.

Our side—we—did this too, this unusual person had said:

If we lose everything as a result, no one can say that this terrible outcome wouldn't be righteous and just.

As history teaches, no one who says such things out loud is ever permitted to live. Six weeks later, Lincoln was gone, and more brutal history followed.

That said, today's 7-year-olds played no part in any of those events. They deserve the chance to move on. They deserve not to be terrified.

Next week, as we hope for better news from Kevin's home, we plan to discuss the specific events which led to four people's deaths. We think there's a lot to learn from those awful events, and from some numbers too.

Should that 7-year-old be terrified in the way his mother described? Each person will decide that for him or herself. For ourselves, we think you should consider the possibility that the answer is no.

Lincoln knew that unspeakable harm had some, might continue to come, from the terrible offense he described. That terrible harm continues today. How might that harm be lessened?

We hope that Kevin's mother recovers. Concerning our many 7-year-olds, we'll hope they soon feel better too.

JOURNALISM OF THE SAINTS: Rules for the journalistic road!

FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2020

Diomedes visits the Times: The overall point of the Atlantic essay was perhaps a bit hard to define. On the other hand, its intended point was perfectly clear.

The author opened by recalling the shooting deaths of four men. Each man had been shot and killed by a police officer.

Three of these deaths, readers were told, constituted a "gruesome cycle." The author's description of that cycle made it sound like the deaths had resulted from wanton, uncaring police conduct.

The author didn't offer evidence to that effect, but the implication was clear. As the essay continued, the author focused on shooting deaths in which black people were shot and killed by police.

That, of course, is a deeply serious topic. That said, the essay published by The Atlantic may have left something to be desired.

Before long, the author was referring to "a reality in which black people [are] routinely robbed of their livelihoods and lives by armed government agents."

Eventually, the thoroughly admirable activist around whom the essay had been constructed was quoted saying this:

LOWERY (6/10/20): “We want justice for George Floyd, but we know justice isn’t enough,” Noor said. “That’s why we’re demanding bigger and bolder things. Now is the time to defund the police and actually invest in our communities.

“These systems were created to hunt, to maim, and to kill black people, and the police have always been an uncontrollable source of violence that terrorizes our communities without accountability,” Noor added. “Black communities have been and are living in persistent fear of being killed by state authorities.”

Many reformers, especially black reformers, have long viewed incremental policy changes as a way to reduce police abuse and killings in the short term while they work toward their true goal: fully remaking the entire criminal-justice system.

An obvious picture was being painted, with potential solutions included. As for the author himself, his identity line read like this:

WESLEY LOWERY is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and the author of They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice Movement...

"They Can’t Kill Us All?" Journalistically, does that title suggest the possibility that some such plan is in effect? Is that what terrified children will hear?

We take it as obvious that Wesley Lowery is a good, decent person. That said, we can't say that we're giant fans of his journalism, or of its possible effect on the world.

That said, this style of journalism is currently hot, as is Lowery's topic. In the upper-end mainstream press, the children are always prepared to stampede in some preapproved direction, and the impetus for the current stampede is the sudden desire to exhibit vast interest in racial justice.

In the current stampede, journalists and news orgs race to display a heartfelt interest in racial justice—a heartfelt interest rarely put on display in the recent past. Other journalistic stampedes have turned out extremely poorly in recent decades.

One of these journalistic stampedes sent George W. Bush to the White House and the United States army into Iraq.

A second related journalistic stampede—the one in which our high-minded journalists and orgs sat around as Hillary Clinton was derided by their colleagues in openly misogynistic terms—helped send Donald J. Trump to the White House and covid-19 all over the U.S.

This new stampede may turn out better. But skepticism should be advised.

We didn't think much of Lowery's essay when we initially read it. Personally, we thought the instant reference to Michael Brown was a (very familiar) mark of the current purveyor of novelized news designed for the liberal audience.

It's certainly true that everyone is currently telling these novelized stories, at least within our own blue tribe. On a journalistic basis, that doesn't make it right.

In our view, editors at The Atlantic should have challenged Lowery as early as paragraph 2. After that, they should have challenged paragraphs 3 and 4, and much that came after that.

That said, it wasn't until we read Lowery's essay in last Sunday's New York Times that we thought of Nestor, the seasoned charioteer, and his rebuke to headstrong Diomedes not far from the walls of Troy.

"How young you are," Nestor famously said. For now, we'll just leave it at that.

In his essay for the Times, the fiery young journalist tried to write some rules for the future road of his craft. Were we grading, we'd be forced to grade his essay as D-minus work.

Inevitably, this meant that Lowery's lengthy essay had to be the featured piece in last weekend's Sunday Review. That's how they play at the Times.

What was wrong with Lowery's essay? Let us count just a few of the ways:

In one strand of his essay, Lowery makes a claim for which he presents no real evidence. He says the powers-that-be at major news orgs don't listen to their black employees enough.

That may well be the case. That said, Lowery makes no real attempt to offer evidence in support of the claim. For that reason, we have no way to assess it.

Lowery makes a larger claim which also could be correct. He claims that news orgs are mainly concerned with seeming to be objective—with "the neutral objectivity model."

According to Lowery, news orgs would rather seem objective than tell the actual truth. And when they try to seem objective, he says, they are trying to seem objective to their white readers.

Once again, these claims could be true. But no serious evidence or discussion is offered.

Do news orgs try to seem objective, even at the expense of stating basic facts and telling the basic truth? It would be interesting to hear first-person accounts of such decision-making, but Lowery doesn't provide them.

For the most part, Lowery proceeds to offer a list of overall do's and don'ts for the modern journalist to follow. In some ways, the advice he provides borders on the comical.

He starts by citing journalistic advice offered by Alex S. Jones way back when, in a 2009 bool. Lowery agrees with these basic ideas—but then again, who doesn't?:

The stated views of Alex S. Jones:
Journalists should make a genuine effort to be honest brokers when it comes to news

Journalists should play it straight without favoring one side when the facts are in dispute, regardless of their own views and preferences

Journalists shouldn't create the illusion of fairness by letting advocates pretend that there is a debate about the facts when the weight of truth is clear

Would anyone on the face of the earth disagree with those principles? We don't offer this as a criticism of Jones, but already several analysts were crying as Lowery ladled this stew.

From there, Lowery began to adumbrate his own journalistic principles. As with the stated views of Jones, we'll eschew the use of quotations marks, but a simple review of the text will show that we're basically cutting-and-pasting.

Lowery offered his do's and his don'ts. Let's list some of the things the modern journalist should do:

Four things Lowery says journalists should do:
We should be telling hard truths

Reporters should focus on being fair and telling the truth, as best as one can, based on the given context and available facts

We should devote ourselves to accuracy

We should stop doing things like reflexively hiding behind euphemisms that obfuscate the truth

Would anyone disagree with those views? As before, we're just asking!

Below, we list two more things the journalist ought to do. We'll return to these points below:

Two additional things Lowery says journalists should do:
We should diligently seek out the perspectives of those with whom we personally may be inclined to disagree

We should ask hard questions of those with whom we’re inclined to agree.

Did Lowery honor these fair-and-balanced ideas at any point in his Atlantic essay? Did the magazine ask him to do so? More on these questions below.

We've listed six things the new, improved journo should do. Here is a list of some don'ts:

Several things Lowery says journalists shouldn't do:
We shouldn't deprive our readers of plainly stated facts

We shouldn't find ways to avoid telling the truth.

We shouldn't make decisions that potentially let powerful bad actors off the hook and harm the public we serve.

Journalists shouldn't avoid telling the truth. They shouldn't deprive readers of facts.

Also, journalists shouldn't harm the public. They shouldn't let bad actors off the hook!

We're going to guess that Lowery will find wide agreement within the profession concerning these basic ideas. The problem comes when Lowery attempts to apply these comically obvious principles to actual questions which may arise when news orgs report on painful events—events which occur in the dead of night in a complex, murky world.

His first example is utterly trivial. He says news orgs should stop using the allegedly euphemistic phrase, "officer-involved shootings."

Few suggestions will be more pointless—or more jumbled. This is the full presentation:

LOWERY: Neutral objectivity trips over itself to find ways to avoid telling the truth. Neutral objectivity insists we use clunky euphemisms like “officer-involved shooting.” Moral clarity, and a faithful adherence to grammar and syntax, would demand we use words that most precisely mean the thing we’re trying to communicate: “the police shot someone.”

If that doesn't bring on the revolution, nothing ever will!

Question: Did "the police" shoot the late Michael Brown, or did Officer Darren Wilson? Even when he tries to be high-minded in pursuit of "telling the truth," Lowery defaults to a suggestion of collective action and collective (alleged) guilt.

That first suggestion is just basically sad. Lowery's second suggestion makes zero sense when applied to the four incidents with which he started his Atlantic essay:

LOWERY: In coverage of policing, adherents to the neutral objectivity model create journalism so deferential to the police that entire articles are rendered meaningless. True fairness would, in fact, go as far as requiring that editors seriously consider not publishing any significant account of a police shooting until the staff has tracked down the perspective—the “side”—of the person the police had shot. That way beat reporters aren’t left simply rewriting a law enforcement news release.

It's certainly true that official accounts of police shootings will sometimes be grossly inaccurate. But with respect to this new rule, what if the person "the police" shot was actually shot and killed?

In these, the most serious cases, the perspective of the person "the police" shot will in fact never be heard. Somehow, editors have to soldier on. Presumably, editors can do the same, where necessary, in shootings which aren't fatal.

Those are Lowery's first attempts to apply the new principles, and so far we're pinning our wheels. With his third attempt, the rubber finally met the road—and we thought we heard Nestor calling:

LOWERY: Moral clarity would insist that politicians who traffic in racist stereotypes and tropes—however cleverly—be labeled such [sic] with clear language and unburied evidence. Racism, as we know, is not about what lies in the depths of a human’s heart. It is about word and deed. And a more aggressive commitment to truth from the press would empower our industry to finally admit that.

When politicians traffic in racist stereotypes, news orgs should step up and say so! To the mind of the child, this will seem to make perfect sense—but the child may not realize that the question of what constitutes "racist" speech will always be a matter of judgment.

Lowery provides no examples of real reporting he would change in line with this new rule. Nor does he seem to realize that some reporter's "racist stereotype" may be some editor's "racial insinuation," or possibly something else.

Who will decide what it actually is? In the end, these will always be matters of judgment. We can state our principles as much as we like; there will never be a scientific formula which tells a news org what to decide in matters of this type.

To some extent, this obvious fact doesn't seem to have entered the fiery author's head. That said, he may know who's best equipped to be making such judgments:

LOWERY: Black journalists are speaking out because one of the nation’s major political parties and the current presidential administration are providing refuge to white supremacist rhetoric and policies, and our industry’s gatekeepers are preoccupied with seeming balanced, even ordering up glossy profiles of complicit actors. All the while, black and brown lives and livelihoods remain imperiled.

Ideally, the group of journalists given the power to decide what and whom to give a platform in this moment would both understand this era’s gravity and reflect the diversity of the country. Unfortunately, too often that is not the case.

As always, Lowery makes a striking charge while offering no examples. He says the industry's gatekeepers have been "preoccupied with seeming balanced, even ordering up glossy profiles of complicit actors."

He says the industry has been doing this even as the Republican Party and the Trump administration are "providing refuge to white supremacist rhetoric and policies."

So far, so pleasing! But who has been writing these glossy profiles? Who are these profiles profiles of? Where have these profiles been appearing? No information is given.

Meanwhile, what are the white supremacist policies being proposed by these bad actors even as they're glossily profiled in the manner described? Even as he makes a thrilling charge, Lowery offers no example.

Lowery seems to say there'd be less of this mess if the (largely white) gatekeepers consulted with a more diverse group of decision makers—and who'd want to argue with that! At some point, though, someone has to decide. Why not name the names of the current gatekeepers who are creating this mess?

We're sure that Lowery is a good person, but this is semi-loudmouth work. On the brighter side, it's the type of loudmouth work mainstream orgs are now rushing to offer, much as they once stood in line to invent the latest weird statement by the very weird Candidate Gore.

This the way these idiots play. This may not turn out to be more helpful even when it's applied to this thoroughly recent new cause.

In fairness, Lowery finally gives one semi-example of what he's talking about. He becomes the ten millionth member of the tribe to complain about the fact that the New York Times published that column by Tom Cotton, concerning which Lowery says this:

LOWERY: Perhaps the most recent controversy to erupt because of such thoughtlessness and lack of inclusion was provided by The New York Times Opinion section, when it published an essay by Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, calling for, among other things, an “overwhelming show of force” by the American military in order to quell civil unrest at protests that, while at times violent, have largely been made up of peaceful demonstrations.

A method of moral clarity would have required that leadership think very hard before providing the section’s deeply influential platform to any elected official—allowing him or her to opine, without the buffer of a reporter’s follow-up questions, using inflammatory rhetoric. It would require, at the very least, that such an article not contain several overstatements and unsubstantiated assertions.

Absolutely! Because here's no one who hates "overstatements and unsubstantiated assertions" in New York Times opinion columns quite the way Lowery does!

Lowery's piece was classic New York Times-level work. Along the way, it made us think of Nestor. It struck us as very unimpressive work—as the journalism of unearned confidence and true belief.

In closing, let's return to two of Lowery's principles which we've listed above. We refer to the principles which emerge from his "fair and balanced" side:

We should diligently seek out the perspectives of those with whom we personally may be inclined to disagree

We should ask hard questions of those with whom we’re inclined to agree

We should ask hard questions of those with whom we’re inclined to agree?

Question: Do you think Lowery challenged Noor with hard questions when she made the statements posted above from the Atlantic essay?

We're not saying that Noor's statements were wrong. We're asking if her statements were challenged, in the manner Lowery recommends for everyone but himself.

Did Lowery challenge Noor's sweeping representations? Did Lowery, for example, ask Noor to talk about this?

People shot and killed by police officers in Minnesota,
2015 to the present
White victims: 37
Black victims: 10

Every progressive knows what to say when presented with data like those. Chris Hayes said it on Wednesday night. Next week, we'll spend time exploring such data.

That said, do you think, for even one minute, that Lowery asked Noor to justify her overall presentation in the face of data like those? We're going to guess that the answer is no. We'll also make this guess:

We'll guess that The Atlantic didn't challenge Lowery's instant reference to Michael Brown's unfortunate death. We'll guess they didn't challenge his citation in light of the findings within the formal Justice Department report about that unfortunate incident.

We'll guess he wasn't asked to explain why the shooting death of Robert Christen—in which a female police officer stopped a former Big Ten fullback from killing his former girl friend—should be presented in The Atlantic as part of a "gruesome cycle."

Did it make sense to present that incident that way? We'll guess Lowery wasn't challenged with hard questions about any such topic as that.

We'll guess that Lowery wasn't challenged with respect to his presentation of the shooting death of Jamar Clark. Did the police officer who shot and killed Clark that night actually do something wrong?

We don't know how to answer that question, and we feel fairly sure that Lowery doesn't know either. But Lowery wasn't really performing journalism for The Atlantic.

He was telling a preapproved "story." He was telling a story his readers would recognize and feel that they very much liked.

Last Sunday, Lowery's piece in the New York Times was straight out of Nestor and Diomedes. His earlier essay for The Atlantic was novelized tribal story-telling pretty much all the whole way down.

Our journalism has routinely been "novelized news" over the past several decades. Our journalists have staged stampedes in which certain preapproved stories get told and retold and retold once again, with formulations becoming more pleasing and more simple-minded every step of the way.

One of these novelized group stampedes sent the U.S. army into Iraq. Another set of novelized stories helped put Donald Trump where he is. He was running against Nurse Ratched! Major figures had said such things for years, and none of these news orgs complained.

Lowery writes with youthful ardor; where others are now derided as "Karens," he's a Diomedes. That said, his story is currently selling quite well, and you will continue to hear it.

It also could be that no real change occurs within the help of this "journalism of the saints"—without a bunch of self-impressed lunkheads inducing the public to stampede off in a way which may turn out well. (Or not.)

That may be the only way revolutionary change ever occurs. For the record, many revolutions of the saints have turned out quite poorly around the globe, and other journalistic stampedes in recent decades haven't turned out real well at all.

Next week: Numbers

What Professor Cobb said: The number of killings in Minnesota make us think of what Professor Cobb recently said.

We'll revisit his statement next week. His statement—it concerned police shootings—went exactly like this:

COBB (6/10/20): One other point that I have been making a lot, I have been making all the time, is that one of the reasons that this problem has been allowed to persist is that people have the perception that this is a black and brown problem.

But if you were to discard all of the incidents involving black and brown people, what you would find is, there are a heck of a lot of white people, unarmed white people, who are killed by police each year.

We have a fundamental problem with policing in this country, whose most extreme violent forms are witnessed in how we see black and brown people treated by law enforcement.

Did Lowery ask Noor to respond to that statement? Did editors at The Atlantic present some such comment to Lowery?

Dearest darlings, use your heads! That just isn't the way "story" work, and the news you see each night on TV is novelized all the way down.

Springsteen's vision comes back around!

THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2020

Back toward his hometown: The Washington Post's Teo Armus is two years out of Columbia (class of 2018).

He went to one of "the finest schools." Amazingly, he, like the crusty old Hank Stuever before him, doesn't know enough to reject use of the insulting group denigration, "Karens," as part of a news report.

A news report which is amazingly poorly composed, even after revisions. Meanwhile, it's amazing to think that the Washington Post believes an insulting group denigration like "Karens" should be part of legitimate journalism.

That said:

For our money, few pop songs are better composed than Springsteen's My Hometown. This verse has been popping into our heads of late as we read the work of people like these:

In '65 tension was running high at my high school
There was a lot of fights between the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night
in the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed, and a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come
To my hometown
My hometown
My hometown
My hometown

The video in that barely coherent Post report presents part of a very sad story. Meanwhile, the Post's astoundingly terrible judgment has been bringing it all back home.

JOURNALISM OF THE SAINTS: Lowery cites death of Michael Brown!

THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2020

What he reported back then: Should journalists try to tell us the truth about some issue or topic—as much of "the whole truth" as is relevant and manageable?

Or should they possibly tell us a story—a story which has perhaps been designed to affect our views and opinions about some point of concern?

In our view, the question arises when you read Wesley Lowery's recent essay in The Atlantic.

Right at the start of his essay, Lowery describes three police shootings in Minnesota in the year 2015. These shootings were part of a "gruesome cycle," Atlantic readers were told told as the essay began:

MINNEAPOLIS—Miski Noor watched just the first minute of the video of George Floyd’s killing before closing the tab and walking the two blocks to join the protests already forming at the scene. The days since have been filled with a maddening sense of déjà vu.

Noor had joined the Movement for Black Lives in 2014, after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The 34-year-old activist’s first protest was that December, a demonstration that shut down the Mall of America during the peak of the holiday shopping season.

Noor soon became intimately familiar with the gruesome cycle: The police killed someone. Activists protested. Small reforms were won. The police killed someone else.

In Minnesota, St. Paul police killed Philip Quinn, a Native American man in the midst of a mental-health crisis, in September 2015. One week later, a Kanabec County Sheriff’s deputy killed Robert Christen, a white former fullback for the Wisconsin Badgers who was enduring a mental-health crisis of his own.* Two months after that, in November 2015, Minneapolis police killed Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old unarmed black man. Hundreds poured into the streets.

The shootings of Quinn, Christen and Clark were part of a "gruesome cycle," Atlantic readers were told. Indeed, in the aftermath of the shooting of Clark, "Hundreds poured into the streets."

In this way, Lowery's self-described "story" began. But in what way did those three deaths constitute a "gruesome cycle?"

Also, why were those hundreds of people in the streets? Assuming that they were protesting the conduct of "Minneapolis police," was their protest well-founded?

Lowery never addresses these questions. Before long, his basic thesis has come into view:

"Black men and women are still dying across the country as police unions continue to codify policies designed solely to shield their officers from accountability," Lowery writes. That, of course, is certainly true, though it's also true that it doesn't speak to the questions we've asked.

Briefly, let's return to the shooting death of Christen—one part of the "gruesome cycle" Lowery describes as he starts.

Presumably, it would be a better world if no one was ever shot and killed in an encounter with a police officer. In this case, local reporting made it clear that Christen's death occurred as part of a terrible mental health breakdown.

That said, did the police officer whose affiliation Lowery misstated do something wrong in the shooting of the man whose name Lowery misspelled? Everyone, including Christen's parents, seems to agree on what happened:

On the evening in question, a former Big Ten fullback bullrushed a female sheriff's deputy who had arrived at the scene of a potential crime. The deputy was all that stood between Christen and his former girlfriend, who Christen had said he was planning to kill.

When Christen attacked the female deputy on his way into the former girl friend's house, the female deputy shot him. It would of course be a better world if none of this had ever occurred, but did the deputy misbehave in some way on that tragic night?

Lowery never explains. He simply continues to tell his "story," perhaps conveying a certain impression about this unfortunate set of events.

What made the cycle a "gruesome" cycle? In the manner of the saints, Lowery offered this overall picture:

First, "the police" kill someone, he says. After that, they kill someone else. Full stop!

That recitation conveys a fairly obvious picture. That said, should the female deputy who was bullrushed by the Big Ten fullback be summarized in that way?

Even Christen's mother says the deputy did nothing wrong! But when the saints start to engineer revolution, the saints may not tell it that way.

It's true, of course, that "black men and women are still dying across the country" in encounters with police. As we noted yesterday, police officers in Minnesota have shot and killed ten black people since the start of 2015.

In the realm of ideal forms, that would be ten too many. For ourselves, we'd much prefer that police officers never shot and killed anyone.

That said, it's also true that police officers in Minnesota have shot and killed 37 "white" people (including Christen) over that same period, perhaps recalling Professor Cobb's recent statement on cable TV.

(More on that topic tomorrow.)

In our view, Lowery's essay represents the sort of work which may result when the saints start providing our journalism. Because the saints are fashioning revolution, they may feel that they understand what facts should appear in a given "story" and which facts should perhaps disappear.

At any rate, Lowery never explained why that deputy's conduct that night was part of a "gruesome cycle." Should hundreds of people been in the streets because of what she did?

We were struck by what we found when we explored the background of the three events which comprised Lowery's gruesome cycle. Undesirable though each event may have been, did any of those events involve misconduct by an officer?

Lowery never addressed that question. Instead, he let an impression stand, with The Atlantic cheering him on.

Tomorrow, we'll look at Lowery's essay in last weekend's Sunday Review. In our view, the essay was very poor work. For that reason, it appeared in the Sunday Times.

For today, we wanted to call your attention to one other part of the way Lowery began his "story." We refer to his reference to the late Michael Brown, right in his second paragraph.

In our view, the world would be a better place if Michael Brown was still alive in it. He may have been having his own mental health crisis on the unfortunate day of his death, not unlike Quinn and Christen.

People having mental health breakdowns may put police officers in extremely difficult situations. This was obviously true in Christen's case. It may have occurred in the case of the late Michael Brown.

That said, we're always struck when journalists like Lowery cite the shooting death of Michael Brown as an example of police misconduct. We say that for the obvious reason:

On March 4, 2015, the Obama/Holder Justice Department released an 86-page report about the death of Brown.

In our view, the world would be a better place if Michael Brown was still in it. But this is the way the Washington Post's Sari Horwitz began her news report that day:

HORWITZ (3/4/15): Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson was justified in shooting Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, in Ferguson, Mo., in August because he feared for his life after Brown first tried to grab his gun and then came toward him in a threatening manner, according to a Justice Department report released Wednesday.

“Given that Wilson’s account is corroborated by physical evidence and that his perception of a threat posed by Brown is corroborated by other eyewitnesses . . . there is no credible evidence that Wilson willfully shot Brown as he was attempting to surrender or was otherwise not posing a threat,” officials concluded in the 86-page report. The review explained why the Justice Department will not pursue civil rights charges against Wilson for the fatal shooting.

Say what? According to the Obama Justice Department, the officer's account of what happened had been corroborated by physical evidence and by eyewitnesses?

Later, Attorney General Holder explicitly said that he agreed with the report, which he urged people to read.

Was the officer's conduct that day justified? We bring no expertise of experience to such questions. For ourselves, we'd prefer that police officers throw their guns away and run for their lives when they're being charged by people who are refusing to accept arrest.

That said, we've been told that police departments simply can't function that way.

Horwitz's report was quite straightforward. She flatly said, in her opening sentence, that the DOJ held that the officer's conduct had been justified, though she presented no direct quotation to that effect.

Lowery had "contributed to" that report. But on that some day, Lowery wrote his own brief analysis piece for the Post about the Justice Department report.

In our view, Lowery may have had his thumb on the scales, at least a tad, that day.

He offered a narrower account of what the DOJ had said—"federal investigators opted against charging Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson with a federal crime." But his brief analysis offered four bullet points, each of which was accompanied by text from the report:

There is not evidence to suggest Darren Wilson’s use of force was unreasonable

Michael Brown likely did reach into Wilson’s vehicle and grab the officer

Michael Brown did double back toward Darren Wilson

Michael Brown’s hands were probably not up, but it’s impossible to say for sure

"There is not evidence to suggest Darren Wilson’s use of force was unreasonable?"

Speaking a clearer version of English, the passage posted by Lowery actually said this:

"The evidence, when viewed as a whole, does not support the conclusion that Wilson's use of deadly force was 'objectively unreasonable' as defined by the United States Supreme Court."

Somewhat similarly, the passage quoted by Lowery affirmatively finds that Brown actually did reach into Wilson's SUV—and it says that, when he did, Brown "punched and grabbed Wilson." Concerning the bullet point about Michael Brown's hands, we'd say that Lowery was giving ground grudgingly.

Offering an instant appraisal, it seems to us that Lowery may have tended to understate the findings he was discussing. But he surely knows what the DOJ concluded about Wilson's actions that day.

Five years later, in The Atlantic, Lowery opened his recent essay by citing the shooting of Michael Brown. Stating the obvious, everyone knows what such a citation is meant to convey at the present time, at least within our tribe.

Way back then, the Justice Department found that the officer's actions in that unfortunate incident were not "objectively unreasonable." (Reasonably enough, Horwitz turned such statements into a finding the the officer's conduct was "justified.")

That's what happened back then. Today, this incident is universally cited, within our tribe though not within theirs, as an example of racist police misconduct.

In the first four paragraphs of Lowery's essay, Brown's unfortunate death was paired with the unfortunate event in which that female deputy stopped a former Big Ten fullback from killing his former girl friend. Shame on that cop for doing that! A rather clear impression is quickly conveyed about all these events.

Did police officers misbehave in the four incidents Lowery cites? Lowery produces no argument or evidence to that effect. He simply hands us a pre-approved story.

Should The Atlantic have published Lowery's essay in the form in which it appeared? In our view, no—it shouldn't have.

Stories are easy; the whole truth is hard. But as we've been noting for 22 years, if it weren't for all the novelized news, we'd often have no news at all.

Tomorrow, we'll revisit what Jelani Cobb said about our numerous police shootings. We'll also recall what a guest on the PBS NewsHour said—a guest who was telling a story.

Story is easy, the real world is hard! We'll also look at Lowery's recent attempt to offer journalistic advice, as published in last Sunday's Times.

High-minded advice can be very easy! That's especially true if you're one of the saints, convinced of your one true perspective.

Tomorrow: "Focus on telling the truth"

The Post's Hank Stuever isn't a kid!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2020

There's no way out of this mess: The Washington Post's Hank Stuever isn't a silly young kid.

According to the leading authority of his life, he was born in 1968. He graduated from college in 1990.

He's been at the Washington Post, a major newspaper, since 1999. He became the Post's TV critic in 2009.

Stuever isn't 14. Still, the utterly childish adult male wrote a piece which ate the bulk of the front page on today's Style section.

Pathetically, it starts like this. Hard-copy headline included:

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK
The top show to watch now? Karens.

The most addictive TV show this summer isn’t even an official TV show, but how long before it becomes one? Several times a day, Instagram and Twitter feeds serve up another galling, sad and often intensely satisfying segment of a reality series we can just go ahead and call “Karens,” in which women (almost always white, almost always of a certain demeanor) make the mistake of policing, harassing or discriminating against their fellow humans in public.

As soon as one Karen flames out across the Internet, another apparently more unhinged Karen rises in her place...

There the little boys go again, writing about "the Karens."

We've written about this astonishing phenomenon before; we don't plan to bother again. That said, the fact that grown men don't see the problem with this kind of mockery-by-female-demographic is absolutely astounding. As a matter of anthropology, the sheer stupidity of our species truly defies comprehension.

Presumably, the Style section still employs editors. They too don't see the problem with this kind of mockery by gender and race.

There's really no way out of this mess. As it turns out, it's now official:

Our species actually is this stupid on the highest levels.

One final point:

For years, Chris Matthews (and others) kept taunting Hillary Clinton as "Evita" and "Nurse Ratched" while using a wide array of other such misogynistic put-downs.

In Matthews' case, this went on for roughly ten years, during an era when his show actually was influential. (There wasless cable back then.)

This went on for roughly ten years. No one said a word about it. Stating the obvious, this is one of the basic ways Donald J. Trump reached the White House.

As of today, the Stuevers and the Stuever types are still out there running wild. So, of course, are their nameless editors, who seem to specialize in getting Karens fired.

Some of them went to "the finest schools." Proving there's no way out of this mess, this is what resulted!

Do you understand what Fauci said?

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2020

Also, decline in deaths restored: Does anybody understand the tricky statistic called "cases?" This is why we ask:

Yesterday, Dr. Fauci made a comment which launched a million reports. Here's the way the comment is presented atop the front page of this morning's Washington Post:

GEARAN (7/1/20): Staggered by the resurgent novel coronavirus, cities and states are reinstituting restrictions on bars, pools and large gatherings days ahead of July 4 celebrations as the top U.S. infectious-disease expert warned Tuesday that the pandemic is out of control in some places and soon could reach 100,000 [new] cases a day.

Nationally, new infections have topped 40,000 in four of the past five days during an accelerating outbreak that exceeds the worst days of April.

[...]

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he would not be surprised to see the number of new infections more than double, from over 40,000 a day now to 100,000 a day.

According to this remark, new infections (new "cases") are now topping 40,000 per day. But we could go as high as 100,000 new cases per day!

(Gearan et al. failed to include the word "new" in their opening paragraph. They made Fauci's meaning more clear a bit later on.)

We could go as high as 100,000 new cases per day? Does anyone understand that remark? This is why we ask:

Just last week, the head of the CDC said that the actual number of total cases to date may be as much as ten times the current recorded number. This is the way the Washington Post reported that assessment:

SUN (6/26/20): The number of people in the United States who have been infected with the coronavirus is likely to be 10 times as high as the 2.4 million confirmed cases, based on antibody tests, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

CDC Director Robert Redfield’s estimate, shared with reporters in a conference call, indicates that at least 24 million Americans have been infected so far.

That was Redfield's assessment of the overall number of "cases" (infections) to date. We're saying the number is 2.4 million, but the actual number could be as high as 24 million!

That's what Redfield said. He was speaking about total infections to date. That doesn't necessarily mean that the number of new cases on any given day is actually ten times as high as the number which is being reported.

Still, if we're dealing with a factor of ten, isn't it possible that we're already experiencing 100,000 new infections (new cases) per day, with only 40,000 of those new infections being diagnosed and recorded? If not, why not? Do you have the slightest idea?

When it comes to covid-19 statistics, deaths are easy, cases are hard. It seems to us that there are a hundred ways to get confused about "cases," with some journalists striving to dabble in every one.

Deaths are more straightforward, though inconsistent reporting procedures create confusions even there, as New Jersey showed last week.

For ourselves, we're prepared to report a bit of superficial good news: yesterday, nationwide deaths declined again. (We're using the Washington Post numbers, adjusted for the retroactive dump of old deaths New Jersey engineered on June 25.)

Nationwide, we closed the month with the lowest seven-day average since the good old days of mid-March. Below, we make an up-to-the-minute addition to the numbers we posted yesterday:

Daily deaths, nationwide, 7-day rolling average
May 25-May 31: 915.6
June 1-June 7: 803.4
June 8-June 14: 710.9
June 15-June 21: 585.9
June 24-June 30: 543.9

The rate of decline has slowed—but as of yesterday, the decline was still occurring. Yesterday's seven-day average was the lowest such number yet, unless you let a skew occur based on those retroactive New Jersey numbers.

At the end of May, the seven-day average stood at 915.6 deaths per day. After yesterday's numbers were released, the seven-day average at the end of June stood at 543.9.

That's a big decline, but it may not continue. Meanwhile, news orgs now focus on "cases," a rather slippery statistic which offers quite a few pathways to confusion and incomprehension.

In closing, we return to our basic question:

Based on what Redfield said, is it possible that we're already experiencing 100,000 new infections (new cases) per day, only 40,000 of which are being recorded?

Is it possible that this is true? Of one thing you can be certain—no one is going to ask!

JOURNALISM OF THE SAINTS: Characterizing Christen's death...

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2020

...as part of a "gruesome cycle:" In yesterday's report, we offered background information on one of 61 events. Or possibly on one of only six.

We offered background information on the shooting death of Robert Christen. In September 2015, Christen was shot and killed by a police officer in Mora, Minnesota.

According to the Washington Post's Fatal Force site, Christen is one of 61 people shot and killed by police officers in Minnesota from the start of 2015 on through to the present day.

Christen is one of only six such people the site describes as being "unarmed" at the time they were shot and killed.

Local reporting on Christen's death was remarkably poignant. Christen's mother, Pam Christen, described Christen as "such a wonderful son." More specifically, she was quoted saying this:

“When he was not sick, he was a very loving and wonderful person. He was such a wonderful son.”

So spoke a loving mother. Unfortunately, Robert Christen had apparently been extremely sick at the time of his death. He'd long been dogged by extremely serious mental illness, his mother was quoted saying.

She said she'd seen him hospitalized 50-60 times. She was quoted interpreting her son's behavior on the night of his death in the following way:

FAURIE (3/3/16): People who knew Rob told investigators that he had recently been struggling with mental health issues and were worried that his text messages and phone calls were hints at a suicide attempt. “He was very sick,” said Rob’s mother, Pam Christen. “My husband and I basically believe this was suicide by cop.”

If we can believe the things we read, Pam Christen didn't blame the police officer who shot and killed her son.

“I want it very clear that we hold no ill will against the police officer," Pam Christen was quoted saying. "She was put in a terrible position and she did what she had to do."

So it went as the hometown newspaper reported this shooting death. For more details concerning the incident, see yesterday's report.

We reviewed this incident because it was recently cited in a high-profile piece of journalism. We refer to a high-profile essay by Wesley Lowery which recently appeared online at The Atlantic—an essay which Lowery and The Atlantic's editors specifically describe as a "story."

For reasons which were never explained, Christen's death was cited by Lowery right at the start of his essay. Headlines included, the essay starts like this:

Why Minneapolis Was the Breaking Point/
Black men and women are still dying across the country...

MINNEAPOLIS—Miski Noor watched just the first minute of the video of George Floyd’s killing before closing the tab and walking the two blocks to join the protests already forming at the scene. The days since have been filled with a maddening sense of déjà vu.

Noor had joined the Movement for Black Lives in 2014, after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The 34-year-old activist’s first protest was that December, a demonstration that shut down the Mall of America during the peak of the holiday shopping season.

Noor soon became intimately familiar with the gruesome cycle: The police killed someone. Activists protested. Small reforms were won. The police killed someone else.

In Minnesota, St. Paul police killed Philip Quinn, a Native American man in the midst of a mental-health crisis, in September 2015. One week later, a Kanabec County Sheriff’s deputy killed Robert Christen, a white former fullback for the Wisconsin Badgers who was enduring a mental-health crisis of his own.* Two months after that, in November 2015, Minneapolis police killed Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old unarmed black man. Hundreds poured into the streets.

According to Lowery's essay, Christen's death had been part of a "gruesome cycle" in which "the police" killed someone and than, after activists protested, "the police" killed someone else. As for the asterisk which appears at the end of the highlighted sentence, this explanation appears at the end of Lowery's piece:

*This article previously misspelled Robert Christen’s name and misstated the affiliation of the officer who killed him.

"Whatevs!" an experienced cynic might cry. Who cares about stupid sh*t like that when we're performing the type of work which is now being widely described as "the journalism of the saints?"

In fairness, everyone makes mistakes. Lowery's pair of mistakes suggest the possibility that he hadn't devoted a lot of attention to the details of Christen's death, which he decided to cite in his essay's fourth paragraph.

That said, our analysts say that a larger question arises in the passage we've presented—a passage which appears right at the start of Lowery's self-described "story." That larger question would be this:

In what way did these three incidents constitute a "gruesome cycle?" What point was Lowery trying to make by citing these deaths at the start of his essay, then linking them in that way?

Presumably, we'd all prefer that police officers never shot and killed anyone. Presumably, we'd all prefer that there would never be any such shooting deaths.

That said, what point was Lowery trying to make about the three incidents he briefly cites in that paragraph?

According to Lowery's account, two of those deaths arose out of mental health crises. Was Lowery suggesting that it would be better to send mental health specialists, not police officers, to the scene of such events?

In the rest of Lowery's essay, there's little evidence that he was trying to make some such suggestion Instead, it becomes clear that he is, in the main, attempting to address claims of racism on the part of American police.

As the essay's first section ends, a photograph of Noor shows her in a t-shirt which says, STOP KILLING BLACK PEOPLE. Later, he quotes Noor saying this:

LOWERY: “We want justice for George Floyd, but we know justice isn’t enough,” Noor said. “That’s why we’re demanding bigger and bolder things. Now is the time to defund the police and actually invest in our communities.

“These systems were created to hunt, to maim, and to kill black people, and the police have always been an uncontrollable source of violence that terrorizes our communities without accountability,” Noor added. “Black communities have been and are living in persistent fear of being killed by state authorities.”

Noor seems to care deeply about such matters, as indeed she should. That said, we're evaluating the journalists here—Lowery and the Atlantic's editors.

For himself, Lowery refers to the United States as "the country whose police officers are carrying out the extrajudicial killings of black people." More specifically, he describes Barack Obama as "the former chief spokesperson for and political figurehead of the country whose police officers are carrying out" those crimes.

Stating the obvious, there's nothing wrong with examining the way American police officers and police departments have behaved, and are behaving, toward the nation's black citizens.

Lowery's essay was offered in the aftermath of the brutal killing of George Floyd. It's fairly clear that his chief focus involves the claim that police officers and police departments are deeply involved in the kind of misconduct described by Noor.

If he chooses to stand trial, former officer Derek Chauvin will have a chance to explain his conduct on the day George Floyd was killed. That said, it's hard to imagine what he could say to make his conduct seem less vicious that it looks on videotape.

Racial justice is a deeply important concern; it has been for a long time. That said, at least as a matter of theory, intelligent journalism is highly valued too, though it's a practice which is valued mainly in the breach.

After reading Lowery's essay, we looked into the facts surrounding the three shooting deaths he cites in his fourth paragraph. We'll only say this:

In the case of the late Robert Christen, the mother of the deceased says the officer did nothing wrong. In the other two cases Lowery cites, it's much less clear what actually happened—but it isn't clear than the officers in question did anything wrong in those cases either.

(For an account of the death of Philip Quinn, including dashcam videotape which is unhelpful in the end, you can just click here.)

Very few people are going to doubt that Derek Chauvin behaved in the most egregious way possible when he took the life of George Floyd. (It's also true, as mentioned above, that he still has a right to due process.)

For better or worse, other cases are harder to judge—until we turn the story-telling over to revolutionary figures like Lowery. Until we adopt the story-telling procedure we began describing, all the way back in 1999, as the "novelization of news."

Out of curiosity, we also checked Minnesota's data from the Fatal Force site after reading Lowery's "story." When we took a look at the record, this is what we found:

According to the Fatal Force site, police officers in Minnesota have shot and killed 61 people since the start of 2015. According to the site, ten of those people were black; an additional 37 were white. The full listing looks like this:

Shot and killed by police in Minnesota, 2015 to the present:
White: 37
Black: 10
Hispanic: 3
Native American: 5
Asian-American: 3
Middle Eastern: 2
Unknown race/ethnicity: 1

The site says that six of these 61 people were unarmed when they were shot and killed. Five were white, including Christen. The sixth unarmed person was, in fact, Jamar Clark.

The site says that at least 21 of the 61 victims had been involved in an episode involving mental illness. Some others had been involved in reams of ludicrous conduct.

Such ludicrous conduct will sometimes put police officers in very difficult circumstances requiring instant decisions. So it was in the case of Christen, who was apparently undergoing a major mental health breakdown.

Why was Robert Christen's death placed at the top of this "story?" Were readers supposed to assume that the officer whose affiliation Lowery misstated must have done something wrong in killing the person whose name Lowery couldn't spell?

Were readers supposed to assume that some act of misconduct by that (female) deputy must explain why this event had been part of a "gruesome cycle?"

Were readers expected to make that assumption? People, of course they were! In fairness to Lowery, it's possible that he hadn't ever checked to see how that event had gone down.

It's possible that he didn't know the first freaking thing about this part of his story. So it may tend to go when saints start practicing journalism.

When we read Lowery's story in The Atlantic, but especially when we read his featured essay in Sunday's New York Times, we thought of headstrong Diomedes being chastised by the much more experienced Nestor not far from the high walls of Troy. According to Homer, Nestor admired Diomedes' spirit, but he felt that his judgment might be somewhat poor.

Tomorrow, we'll look at a reference Lowery makes in the second paragraph of his Atlantic essay. On Friday, we'll look at the inchoate mess the New York Times inevitably decided to publish last Sunday.

This is the way our discourse may tend to go when we practice the journalism of the saints. On the other hand, some will say that no major change ever occurs, in any society, without a few journalistic eggs possibly being broken.

Tomorrow: Lowery cites Michael Brown. Also, back to what Cobb said