Black Lives Matter
The debate in our moment is not about why the police target poor black communities rather than rich white ones, or whether black people commit more crimes. It’s about whether black people live in greater danger of not only being stopped by cops or being arrested, but also of being killed by cops for no real reason.
Racism in America is like a house that has largely burned down; the problem between black people and cops is a chimney still standing. We should take axes to that chimney at last.
— John McWhorter
CNN
What if the Black Lives Matter movement is based on fiction?
Fatal police shootings make up a much larger proportion of white and Hispanic homicide deaths than black homicide deaths. According to the Post database, in 2015 officers killed 662 whites and Hispanics, and 258 blacks. Using the 2014 homicide numbers as an approximation of 2015’s, those 662 white and Hispanic victims of police shootings would make up 12% of all white and Hispanic homicide deaths. That is three times the proportion of black deaths that result from police shootings.
— Heather MacDonald
The Wall Street Journal
The killings by police in Minnesota and Louisiana, quickly followed by killings of police in Dallas, knocked the lazy certainty out of almost everybody.
Black Lives Matter activists thanked the police for their protection and sacrifice. Conservative Republicans … spoke movingly about race in America.
Just as conservatives need to recognize the ills of police abuse, liberals need to acknowledge that the first obligation of the state is to defend the safety and property of its citizens, and that nothing undermines the legitimacy of the law more than vilifying those sworn to uphold it.
— Jonah Goldberg
Los Angeles Times
Black Lives Matter protesters laid siege to a number of cities over the weekend.
The police-involved shootings in Baton Rouge and Minnesota were terrible tragedies.
If investigators determine the officers broke they law – they should and must be brought to justice. But both shootings are still under investigation – so to be honest – no one knows for certain what happened.
I understand that frustration – but it does not give us a license to disobey the law. Peaceful protesting is one thing. Domestic terrorism is another.
— Todd Starnes
Fox News
Pokemon Go
Pokémon Go requires players to walk around looking through their smartphone cameras, waiting for them to show an image of a Pokémon superimposed onto the real-world scene. The aim is to capture them with a phone gesture.
Google has recruited an army of pedestrians who will map the urban world for it. By designating some places as important to the game it can draw players there, and it is only a matter of time before it starts selling to businesses the ability to draw in potential customers like that. After that will come location-based advertising. The ultimate goal of Pokémon Go is to make shopping the only game in town.
— Editorial Board
The Guardian
The augmented reality game is the most horribly designed app I’ve ever been obsessed with. But critiques of the more Luddite variety are off base. Pokémon Go kept me outside and active … I spent days discovering historical landmarks, parks, statues and street art all around the places Pokémon were hiding.
Thanks to Pokémon Go, I’ve been talking to more strangers on public transit, in restaurants, and on the street.
Something about the sheer silliness of cute cartoon monsters interposed over our lonely realities seems to break the bubbles we’ve built around ourselves.
— Sarah Jeong
The New York Times
The game’s main “innovation” … is this illusion of augmented reality, the idea that places and characters from the Poké-world are mapped onto our world, virtually. Opening the game invites you into a fantastical alternate universe, where magical creatures stalk your commute and futuristic spires dot your daily landscape. You need only look at your phone, constantly, to partake.
With an app such as Pokémon Go, we’ve essentially gamified such basic pursuits as going outside, talking to strangers and visiting national monuments. These are activities we’ve long undertaken on their own merits. But everything must be digitally augmented now; no value is inherent.
— Caitlin Dewey
The Washington Post
There are some haters out there who claim Pokémon Go – which distracts people from their everyday lives, encouraging them to collect said monsters wherever they may be, whether in a park or at the Holocaust Museum – is poised to ruin our already tenuous society. But I predict the opposite to be true, because Pokémon Go actually encourages walking. The game might even solve America’s obesity problem forever.
We might not be able to make fast food healthier or discourage the gluttony our culture reveres, but we can make walking less unpleasant.
— Dave Schilling
The Guardian
