She doesn't apologize for being a racist, she apologizes for being an ill-informed racist

One in a continuing flow of examples where technology is both hindering and helping advance the cause of truth; or at least the cause of accurate representation of facts. And one in a continuing flow of examples where the mainstream media seem to have evolved from reporting to opining to advocating.

In the past week there was If your fact check consists of “this is true, but” you are no longer checking a fact highlighting a dereliction of the Washington Post in pursuit of truth. The Post's headline was "The number is right but misleading". Either the number is right or not. Misleading involves forecasts and opinions and interpretation of context, etc.

If I say that in the past year more people were beaten to death with hands and feet than were killed by long guns (rifles and shotguns) and therefore any legislation focused only on long-guns borders on irrelevancy if we want to reduce gun deaths, my facts are correct but my interpretation could be disputed. But fact-checking is just that. Do I have my facts correct?

Additional facts may change my claim that focusing on long guns is irrelevant but will not make my claim that more people are killed with hands and feet than with long guns wrong. Perhaps the Washington Post ought to change their tag line once again, this time from Democracy dies in darkness to Truth dies from troglodytes.

A couple of days ago, this was followed by A miraculous world that is nearly magical in which a local resident, through the miracle of near universal and encompassing technology, is able in near real time to provide a context of facts which makes the representation of journalist Jim Acosta appear to be either misleading or ignorant. The local resident did not challenge Acosta on the facts that Acosta presented. He challenged him on the implications of the limited facts presented by providing a fuller picture. A more complete picture which overturned Acosta's representation.

Today we have Beto's dentist video shows how online myths are born by Scott Rosenberg and David McCabe. An argument so tortured, it took two journalists to make it.

I saw the headline for the video event earlier this week and, being profoundly uninterested in the dental care of celebrity politicians or their antics trying to keep up with the darling AOC, I ignored it. Young adult politicians trying to outdo one another in middle school stunts isn't my cup of tea.

Scott Rosenberg and David McCabe claim that there was no online video streaming by Beto O'Rourke of his teeth cleaning.

No, Beto O'Rourke did not live-stream his teeth cleaning on Instagram — any more than Al Gore ever actually claimed to have invented the internet. But if you were under the impression that O'Rourke did precisely that, you're not alone — we did, too!

The big picture: This is how online myths start. And they are that much harder to counter because there's no original of O'Rourke's posted video we can consult: Instagram Stories, like the Snapchat Stories they are modeled on, typically disappear after 24 hours.

What actually happened: O'Rourke interviewed his dental hygienist as part of a series of posts on life on the Texas border.

His Instagram Story opened with a few seconds of scene-setting featuring the former Senate candidate (and possible presidential hopeful) in the dentist chair.

A still of that moment — the now-familiar one at the top of this story, which evoked a storm of "Yecchs!" on Twitter — came to represent the entire video in the world of social media, meme-making and late-night comedy.

The video as O'Rourke posted it still exists online, captured in various ways, but some versions posted have been altered or manipulated in misleading ways.

Its another "true, but" story. O'Rourke's stunt was reported on by The Hill, The Washington Post, Fox News, MSN, etc. It even made SNL for that portion of the demographic which gets their news from that source.

Oh, and then there's the video itself.

Who are you going to believe? Scott Rosenberg and David McCabe or your lying eyes (and all the rest of the mainstream media plus the video itself)?

Yes, Beto O'Rourke did post a livestream video of himself receiving a dental cleaning. That happened.

How do Rosenberg and McCabe get to the claim that this didn't happen?

This is how online myths start. And they are that much harder to counter because there's no original of O'Rourke's posted video we can consult: Instagram Stories, like the Snapchat Stories they are modeled on, typically disappear after 24 hours.

Perhaps that is what they believe but the MSN video here some days later seems to belie that claim.

So they appear to believe that the video has disappeared. Now they work at constructing an argument.

They seem to be claiming that O'Rourke did not post a video of his dental cleaning because:

1) The video only covered a portion of the cleaning, not all of the cleaning.

2) Most news reports illustrate their account with a still of the video, not the video itself.

3) Some versions of the video have been altered or manipulated in misleading ways.

Of course that is all nonsense on a cracker.

The last point is pretty damning. Rosenberg and McCabe claim that there was no video of the cleaning and then acknowledge that "the video as O'Rourke posted it still exists online". This leads me to believe that neither of them had courses in logic, rhetoric, or any of the other critical thinking, toastmaster, or public speaking courses which allow a person to interpret information and communicate it effectively.

How is this anything other than a deliberate misrepresentation of reality?

There is one further example that occurred yesterday and has been making the rounds on the right because it is so cringe worthy.

Areva Martin, a CNN legal analyst who happens to be black did a radio interview with David Webb, a Sirius XM radio host. I have never heard of Areva Martin but she is apparently a CNN trope for rigid postmodernist, social justice, critical theory vapors. Someone who is a racist bigot in the sense that she judges the validity a person's argument solely based on the race of the person making the argument. I would say that she thinks this way despite being a graduate of the University of Chicago and of Harvard Law School. However, these days it seems no longer despite, but because of.

Webb has posted a portion of the interview.

. @SIRIUSXM Patriot Host @davidwebbshow mistakenly accused for his "White Privilege" by @CNN Analyst @ArevaMartin. pic.twitter.com/WPh6bXPbgy

— SiriusXM Patriot (@SiriusXMPatriot) January 15, 2019

Webb makes an argument that experience and expertise are what are important in assessing someone.

Martin: That’s a whole ‘nother long conversation about white privilege, the things that you have the privilege of doing, that people of color don’t have the privilege of.

Webb: How do I have the privilege of white privilege?

Martin: David… by virtue of being a white male you have white privilege.

Webb: Areva, I hate to break it to you, but you should’ve been better prepped. I’m black.

So yes, I understand why the right is laughing fit to split a gut. They want to argue facts and interpretations and the left wants to filter everything through emotions and identities. And this is a classic clash between those different world views, demonstrating the incoherence of the postmodernist critical theory mindset.

But what astonished me was what followed. Martin apologizes to Webb for her people having given her wrong information. It appears perfectly fine in her mind that she values his opinion only based on his race and not on his arguments. She doesn't apologize for being a racist, she apologizes for being an ill-informed racist.

I think she kind of misses the point. Not because she disagrees with his point but because she can't comprehend it.