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Archives for March 2018

March Madness…

Thursday, March 29, 2018 at 7:23 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Is thinking Sister Jean has anything to do with Loyola’s miracle. Organizers hype the annual NCAA Division 1 Basketball Tournament as “March Madness.” They do so to exploit “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” inherent in low-seeded teams (a.k.a. Cinderellas) upsetting top-seeded ones — often with buzzer-beating hail marys. Incidentally, I decided years… Read more.

Re Stephon Clark and Alton Sterling — Police Killing Blacks (Sometimes) Justified

Tuesday, March 27, 2018 at 12:53 PM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Frankly, I’ve been preaching about the spectre of (white) police killing black men so much that I’m beginning to feel like John the Baptist. Except that I fear there will never be a Jesus-like messenger to make my message more palatable. My ‘golden rule’ is that black men would survive 99 percent of these encounters… Read more.

Egypt’s Sisi Aping Russia’s Putin to Continue Serving…for Life

Monday, March 26, 2018 at 7:56 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Egyptians go to the polls today for a presidential election that smacks of a coronation. After all, not only is voting compulsory, but President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is effectively the only candidate. Frankly, the only uncertainty is whether he’s shameless enough to rig more than the 96.1 percent of the vote he rigged in 2014.… Read more.

March to Protect Students from Mass Shooters (and Gun-Toting Teachers)!

Saturday, March 24, 2018 at 8:53 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Survivors of the Parkland school shooting are leading hundreds of thousands in a “March on Washington” today. They’ll be marching under the banner “March for Our Lives,” hoping against hope that this march will do for gun control what that famous march did for civil rights in 1963. Meanwhile: A rural Pennsylvania school district has… Read more.

Israeli PM Netanyahu Says African Migrants Worse than Muslim Terrorists

Friday, March 23, 2018 at 7:50 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that an electronic fence along the Israel-Egypt border has saved the Jewish state from jihadist attacks or what he believes would be worse — a tide of African migrants. … The interior ministry says there are currently some 42,000 African migrants in Israel, mainly from Sudan and Eritrea,… Read more.

UPDATE! Zuckerberg Confesses: Our Bad. But Let’s Still Be Friends

Wednesday, March 21, 2018 at 8:05 PM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Mark Zuckerberg finally found the courage this afternoon to address betrayed Facebook users. He posted a lengthy statement on his FB page, which I can fairly summarize in two sentences: I’ve been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I know it takes longer to fix all… Read more.

Cambridge Analytica Used Facebook Users as Facebook Intended…

Tuesday, March 20, 2018 at 7:23 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

And that’s the scandal. Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg faced calls on Monday from U.S. and European lawmakers to explain how a consultancy that worked on President Donald Trump’s election campaign gained improper access to data on 50 million Facebook users. … ‘The lid is being opened on the black box of Facebook’s data… Read more.

PyeongChang Paralympics: Did You Watch…?

Monday, March 19, 2018 at 8:09 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

NBC ran streaming coverage of the Closing Ceremony for the 2018 PyeongChang Paralympics at 7 a.m. yesterday. This marked the end of coverage that began with the Opening Ceremony on March 9. Alas, the competitive events did not command much interest or coverage. In fact, it did not take long before I was asking friends… Read more.