Michael Bates: November 2020 Archives
Alex Trebek dead: Ruta Lee remembers 'High Rollers' co-host - Los Angeles Times
"For all his sly and ready humor, he may be the last television figure who possessed the kind of authority that was once called gravitas.
"But Ruta Lee remembers when Trebek was just another new kid in Hollywood, albeit one so handsome and charming that she was happy to take him under her wing.
"They met in 1974 on the set of 'High Rollers,' a then-new NBC game show in which contestants won prizes through a system of dice rolls and questions. Trebek, as host, asked the question; Lee, as cohost, rolled the dice."
BBC Bans Virtue Signaling - Guido Fawkes
The BBC is prohibiting its on-air talent from "expressing a view on any policy which is a matter of current political debate or on a matter of public policy, political or industrial controversy, or any other 'controversial subject'." or supporting campaigns, (e.g. by using hashtags) "no matter how apparently worthy the cause or how much their message appears to be accepted or uncontroversial."
"[E]xpressions of opinion on social media can take many forms - from straightforward tweets, posts or updates, sharing or liking content, following particular accounts or using campaigning or political hashtags... Be wary of 'revealed bias', whether through likes or re-posting other posts, so that a bias becomes evident, and 'inferred bias' where a post is impartial but loose wording allows readers to infer a bias... Avoid 'virtue signaling' - retweets, likes or joining online campaigns to indicate a personal view, no matter how apparently worthy the cause."
A Former NeverTrumper Casts Her Ballot - The American Mind
"The single biggest intellectual error among those in the liberal left and NeverTrump right is that they continue to see Trump as the driving force behind the rising illiberalism. The reality is that Trump never would have been, or would need to be, elected if conservatives were not under attack from every major culture-shaping institution. From the public school and university systems, to Hollywood and the media, to Silicon Valley and Wall Street, each of these institutions has been captured by the hard left. This dominance ensures that the woke movement will only grow in power, adding newly-graduated revolutionaries, rank after rank, to the nation's newsrooms, boardrooms, and academy....
"The authoritarian, speech-chilling, and overtly anti-American direction of the left has been decades in the making. As always with the culture wars, the left and the media (but I repeat myself) try to turn the Right into the aggressor, when in fact Trump represents the first time in the post-Cold War era that Republicans actually pushed back against the relentless cultural onslaught."
