Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 10h

I don’t really have any evidence for this but I’ll always believe that Obama could have drastically improved this dynamic within the party and unforgivably either didn’t understand that or didn’t care

GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 10h

from my WIFL interview with @jdandeneau.bsky.social

I don’t know how many people have actually internalized this, but the vast majority of local Democratic operations are staffed and run by blue-haired little old ladies who have been doing this for 40 years and are funding it with bake sales, and are keeping the flame alive in a time when parties are as weak as they’ve ever been. If you are under the age of 50 and you show up and act normal for, like, 3 months, they will do whatever you want because they’re so excited to have a young person there. Parties are weak right now because of some factors that are outside of our control, but a lot of factors are within our control and the big one is that we just haven’t paid enough attention to the atomic-level units, and party infrastructure. If you strengthen those, then party identity as a whole will follow. Party strength as a whole will follow.

1 10

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 11h

How funny—was that the law in some particular city or state?

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 11h

I'm also very disappointed to have learned tonight that Stravinsky was not arrested for this and that famous mugshot-esque picture of him has nothing to do with the national anthem incident

1 2

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 11h

It's surprisingly normal-sounding relative to what I would have assumed! Surely still much too radical for the new Kennedy Center administration.

2 1

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 11h

I'd never listened to Hochul speak before and how does she sound exactly like Joe Biden?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 16h

Q: Politico reported on a group chat of young Republicans. Does this just reflect some bad apples?

HOCHUL: Some bad apples? These are the future of the GOP. This is so vile it's hard to find the words to put into context ... there's gotta be consequences ... this bullshit has to stop.

2

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 13h

Interesting to reflect that BOTH of these series broke my little kid heart even though one single team lost one of them and won the other

Robert Farley @drfarls.bsky.social · 14h

Not like either the '88 or '89 World Series were memorable, after all.

1

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 15h

Sickos-yes.jpg

7

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 15h

Before or after the norovirus outbreak? 😂

2

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 15h

Like remember when after 9/11 they sang “God Bless America” at baseball games and it was a little bit sweet? And then they just … fucking … kept … doing it until we all hated it and were embarrassed by it? A little performative patriotism goes a long way.

8

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 15h

I imagine a lot of people don’t know that many (most?) American orchestras play the national anthem as a curtain-raiser at the first concert of the year, and only then. I’m not a huge national anthem guy and I still find this custom a little charming. This, by contrast, is pathetic.

spooky mental haunted house @jesseltaylor.bsky.social · 15h

that'll get butts in seats

National Symphony Orchestra to play national anthem at start of each Kennedy Center show

The National Symphony Orchestra will begin each concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with the national anthem in honor of the nation’s 250th birthday.

www.washingtontimes.com

6 16

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 16h

A silver lining of Newsom’s awfulness would be if, at this relatively early date, he convinced normie Dem 2028 candidates that there’s no upside in shitty triangulating on trans rights and they may as well just do the right thing

Dawn of the Dead 💀 @502eire.lol · 19h

Andy said trans rights, y’all

pretty decent chance we will have the Governor of Kentucky running to the left of the Governor of California on this issue in 2028. it’s a wacky world, folks

Andy Beshear @AndyBeshearKY • 23h
A little bit about me, my values don't change based on who I'm talking to. I'm a proud pro-LGBTQ+ Governor who vetoed anti-trans legislation in an election year and still beat Trump's hand-picked candidate.

10

Reposted by Chris Brody

Dawn of the Dead 💀 @502eire.lol · 19h

Andy said trans rights, y’all

pretty decent chance we will have the Governor of Kentucky running to the left of the Governor of California on this issue in 2028. it’s a wacky world, folks

11 66

Reposted by Chris Brody

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 17h

kieranhealy.org/blog/archive...

The Naming of Stats
June 19, 2023 • Obiter Dicta • R
The Naming of Stats is a difficult matter, It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a stat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all are the names where usage is informal, Such as Median, Estimate, Average, or Range, Such as Variance, Quartile, or else Standard Normal All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names that may be better-tasting, Some for the frequentists, some for the Bayes:
Such as Skew, or Kurtosis, Metropolis-Hastings-But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a stat needs a name that's obscurer, A name that's misleading, and hard to construe,
Else how can it keep on confusing the reader, Or frustrate professors, or pass peer review?
Of names of this kind, there are many examples, Like Hierarchical, Robust, or Omega-hat,
Such as Marginal, Confidence, or just Weighted Sample, Names that always belong to more than one stat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over, And that is the name that you never will guess;
The thing that no human research can discover-
But THE STAT MIGHT JUST KNOW, and be made to confess.
When you notice a stat getting quite widely cited, The reason, you see, is whatever its flaws, Its user's engaged, or enraged, or excited
At the prospect of pinning the root of all laws:
That inviolable, friable
Unidentifiable
Deep and inscrutable singular Cause.

4 18 58

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 1d

This is true. Also, your 30s last until age 49 now.

1 3

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 1d

I think I would appreciate this even more if my mental inventory of the Bad Online Matts were sufficient for me to be able to remember what Matt Stoller’s deal is

99 @ninetynine.bsky.social · 1d

A little frustrating that bsky moderation prevents us from seeing violence like this

Interaction between Derek Guy and Matt Stoller on X, the Everything App. Stoller: "Your weird insecurities aside, you consistently lie that native born Americans can't and never have made clothes, and push offshoring in sleazy ways. Then when confronted you have to talk about your left wing views. You're slime." Guy replies: "not true. i've been writing about and promoting US-made clothes for about fifteen years. an early article that comes to mind is my love for 3sixteen jeans, which are made in los angeles. that was published in 2011, the year the second iraq war ended, a war you promoted."

6

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 1d

Sounds like he belongs in academia!

1

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 1d

That sounds like a bit of a hot take to me but plausible and might actually make me like the play a little better 😂 But it’s not UNHINGED. Maybe that’s the problem. Unhinged is a very high bar. Unhinged should make me think the person delivering the opinion is kind of a weirdo.

1 1

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 1d

Cons of this: it would be an insufferable parade of normie likes and dislikes
Pros: I would log out for three days to avoid it and would get more work done

1 2

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 1d

Hmm, how odd, i will try to find out if there’s anything to that story. But do you mean the first-half repeat? There aren’t any second-half repeats in Brahms symphony first movements.

1

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 1d

Honorable mention for not-actually-unhingitude to “I think this well-known work of literary comedy is secretly kinda funny,” “work/author/character X is problematic,” and anything about whether audiobook consumption is/isn’t reading

1 3

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 1d

The many, many replies and quote posts here are a ton of fun to scroll through, but if your most unhinged opinion is “I don’t like this popular thing” or “I like this unpopular thing” then you really don’t have any unhinged opinions

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

1 17

Reposted by Chris Brody

Luke Seaber @thelong1930s.bsky.social · 1d

Lord Peter Wimsey is the narrative voice of The Waste Land.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 2d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

32 66 360

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 1d

I also would love to do a whole spiel about how playing vs. omitting second-half repeats is a legacy of the 19th century's move from comic to tragic "rhythms" in Susanne Langer's sense, but I suppose you can wait for the article version on that one

3

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 1d

I do think that HIP groups are much less likely to omit second-half repeats, because they intuitively grasp that (a) 18th-c. composers actually did mean what they wrote, and (b) no one in the 18th c. had anywhere in particular to be, so you really need to play everything AT LEAST twice to kill time

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 1d

Ugh okay, one thing more you could very much want here: repeat the %&$@!*# second half. Those repeats are not optional! This is also my only gripe with some of Quatuor Ébène's otherwise unsurpassed Beethoven recordings. But it's a big one.

2 12

Chris Brody @chrisbrody.bsky.social · 1d

Ugh okay, one thing more you could very much want here: repeat the %&$@!*# second half. Those repeats are not optional! This is also my only gripe with some of Quatuor Ébène's otherwise unsurpassed Beethoven recordings. But it's a big one.

5