Bill Maher Still Doesn't Understand Causality

This is what Maher thinks of causality.

So...yeah...apparently Bill Maher has made zero progress in terms of his understanding of causality over the past few years. I'm not asking him to be a social scientist or anything, but damn. Even after Glenn Greenwald schooled him a year or so ago on his Islamophobia, the guy still doesn't learn. He apparently equated actions by extremists with all of Islam again this past week when discussing the horrible situation with the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria. More importantly, he still doesn't get that if religion and other factors, like politics and institutions vary together pretty closely in certain countries, than religion probably isn't the causal channel. Not recognizing that leads to potential xenophobia, and more importantly, policies that don't solve the issue. Yet plenty of so-called liberals defend Maher on this stuff. This has nothing to do with political ideology, people...it is a basic understanding of causality. Argh. Its sad that I can literally re-post something I wrote 3 years ago about Maher and this topic and have it be 100% relevant, but this is what happens when comedians pretending to be political journalists don't critically evaluate their positions on contentious topics, and instead just double down on their own ideology (in this case, religion is simply stupid to Maher, and Islam is hands down the most reprehensible one around). Read more...

The More Things Change...Part 2

Really, NY Post? Do we have to go through this again???

One of the first No Spoon posts dealt with the rather racist ever-classy New York Post cartoon of two white cops shooting a chimpanzee to death over the stimulus bill...the connection being the chimpanzee story in Connecticut at that time, and of course, a black American president being depicted as a chimp. No racism there. None. Have a look at the post here. Well, guess what? The Post is at it again, this time with a cartoon (cartoons again???) covering the controversy surrounding the New York Police Department (NYPD) spying on Muslim across the Northeast. Really funny stuff. And by funny, I mean the xenophobes who draw, write, and connect with this stuff are laughing, while the rest of us are saying...wtf is wrong with you?

The 9/11 Decade - A Leadership Gap

We've just recently seen the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. There have been countless articles and pieces of analysis in the media about the topic, but I wanted to touch on an issue that I think many have neglected: the lack of political and civic leadership in framing 9/11 as a tragedy to connect Americans with others across the globe, which I'd argue has resulted in mostly a lost decade. Instead, 9/11 became an event to separate America from others. This helped enable hyper-nationalism and increased American exceptionalism, both very unusual given the nature of the event. Many leaders, particularly political ones, played this up. A consequence has been that Americans are, today, more likely to distance themselves from various out-groups, both outside of, and in, America (the Islamophobia industry is one of the downstream effects of this).

Skin color and the Oslo attacks

Breivik, the white, right-wing, Christian fundamentalist,
terrorist suspect in the Oslo attacks.

I wanted to direct you to a good article about the media's coverage of the tragedy in Oslo, in which a white, right-wing Christian terrorist killed 92+ people, including children in a youth camp swimming in the water while he was dressed as a policeman. You will probably never hear those words associated with him because, like Joseph Stack, Jared Lee Loughner, and many others, he is simply crazy and not a terrorist with that background. For the press, it seems only brown people can be labeled terrorists, and only with them can we make sweeping generalizations about their race, nationality, political ideology, or religion.

Bigotry, Omitted Variable Bias, and Bill Maher

Bill...can we have a word?

I've been entertained by the comedian (he's not a journalist, people, he just follows some mainstream media news and talks about it with some celebrities, fake experts, and [occasionally] actual experts) Bill Maher for many years. I appreciate his show, enjoy that he uses his name and stage to bring about discourse on politics, and often find myself agreeing with what he says. However, on one specific topic, Maher makes me very angry...and, as Mr. McGee learned many years ago, don't make me angry; you wouldn't like me when I'm angry. You see, when it comes to discussions about Muslims and/or Arabs, Bill Maher is a bigot, or at the very least, bigot-ish. He's bigot-ish because he uses a level of analysis that would make most high schoolers uncomfortable. He uses this preposterous thinking to come to some really dangerous, reductionist conclusions that smell of the worst kind of Orientalism. And the audience ("liberals" who seemingly don't get it and enjoy cheering on their hero) goes along with the sham. Except it's not just a sham. It's quite dangerous. See the impact of Islamophobia on Muslims in America today? See the overt venomous racist discourse we see and hear so often right now? Well...Bill Maher is part of the problem. And somebody needs to call him on it and knock his discourse straight out. Enter (stage left): me and my foot to break off in Maher's ass.

Keep Fear Alive - the Juan Williams Edition

Juan Williams became a center point of attention this past week. Williams, a contributor to both NPR and Fox News, made some controversial comments about his feelings of fear whenever he saw people in Muslim garb on planes. This follows his colleague Bill O' Reilly's comments about Muslims and 9/11 the previous week on "The View". Not surprisingly, Williams was fired from NPR for his comments. Also, not surprisingly, conservatives went on the offensive about his firing. Williams' comment, and the defense of his comment, only reinforce points I've made earlier re: bigotry in America towards Arabs and Muslims...apparently, it's totally cool. Hell, candidates are using bigotry openly as a campaign strategy this year - hating Muslims, immigrants, blacks, gays...apparently all kosher. The response to the Williams firing has made this point even more clear.

No to a Ground Zero Mosque, Yes to a Community Center

Yesterday, protests at Ground Zero continued to gain international attention. What's at issue is a figment of the American public's imagination: the ground zero mosque. Herds of "well-intentioned" Americans flooded lower manhattan to chant down the construction of what they are calling a ground zero mosque, but what really is an Islamic community center. This case is a powerful lesson in framing, which I was first introduced to by the George Lakoff but you and I experience constantly. If we want to make sure The Community Center at Park 51 is built, we've got to re-frame the conversation, or else the Islamophobes have won!

Bus Ads, Bigotry, and the Ground Zero Islamic Center

Dave Chappelle once did a bit in his stand up routine about hearing a comment that was so racist, even he was shocked. The bit is hilarious (it's in the brilliant "Killin' Them Softly"). Well, Chappelle would probably say something similar about the bus ad that just got approved by the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). Not just because he's a Muslim, or has obviously seen lots of racism in his life, but because...well...damn, this is so racist. It is clearly meant to stir some pure venomous hatred in the hearts of bigots and those who may not really be racist, but haven't had their socially-accepted racism corrected because of the openly anti-Islamic climate in America post-9/11, something I wrote about just a few days earlier. I kid you not, the MTA approved a bus ad from the American Freedom Defense Initiative (nice name for group putting out the worst kind of ad imaginable) that shows a picture of plane #2 about to smash into the already-burning WTC on 9/11 and links it directly with the image of the proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero. It is what you see above...really. Yep, they're openly linking 9/11 to the Islamic Center.

The Ground Zero Islamic Center, Fareed Zakaria, and Islamophobia

Aren't you glad we live in the age of Obama, where racism no longer exists? Man, what a load off my mind. You know, there's a black U.S. president. That makes everyone everywhere equal somehow (even though he hasn't actually changed policy that much from his white predecessors regarding U.S. financial institutions, foreign policy, welfare policy, etc. - but those are just facts, don't mind them). Oh wait...sonofa...

Now, I don't usually do the race/identity stuff that much. It's not my thing. I leave that to much smarter folks, like my friend Professor Lewis, amongst many others. However, all the talk about the Islamic Center near the Ground Zero site, the reaction to it, and the press coverage of it made me say, screw it, I'm going to put in my two cents.