Open Thread - Politics Plus

Ah, here's Olivier's intro to Woman in Berlin, set when the Russians arrive.
http://able2know.org/topic/1042-350#post-5628879
The other book mentioned by him, that I think well of, also a memoir, is Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky, also set in Paris, earlier, when the Germans show up.

Perhaps one day I'll get back to fiction. I used to read a lot of that form but haven't for decades now. Nothing prideful in this, indeed I'm a bit embarrassed by it. Just rather obsessed with other stuff.

but, but, the last two aren't fiction, memoirs by female journalists. One of the authors died at Auschwitz.

Oh, goodness. I'm blushing like a patriot who, drunk, raised his flag downside up.

Nah, you get to read what you want to, but you might be interested if you run across them sometime.

Interested I would be, for sure.

No need to cite wiki if you don't want to. Just check the sources they cite. From your site:

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/guides/Education/In-The-Classroom/Wikipedia-In-The-Classroom.html

They did well to weed out the climate sceptics aggressively. Liars need to be fought. Truth is a fight.

That's a good link, Olivier. Wikipedia, like any other data source, can't be taken as "truth". The least credible web sources don't provide html links to allow the reader to verify and the least credible books don't include footnotes/endnotes. But even where these are included, one has to check them in many cases (for example, Ann Coulter's endnotes commonly cite other things Coulter has written elsewhere).

The wiki form, being manipulatable, also has the positive feature of being correctable or, at least, has the feature of questionable claims being noted as such. Now and again, one bumps into a wikipedia entry which is clearly written to present an image of the subject, positive or negative, and which, being fairly new or obscure, has yet to be questioned or corrected by others (political activist group entries and front group entries can be like this initially). But if they are important or have a relatively high profile, such PR presentations get targeted fairly quickly.

*I've posted this on another thread but want to have it here too.

There is an exceedingly excellent column up at the Times this morning by Thomas Edsall on what is happening currently at the federal and state levels (see quote included) and how that situation came about. This is the history of "movement conservatism" and it is very important to know if one wants to understand the present.
http://nyti.ms/1JKcWEc

Very cool archaeological find in Britain, ca 1000BC http://wapo.st/1mYbl3E

How political is that?

Approaching and arriving at zero.

But if you read my initial post for this thread....

Wiki has been victim of its own success. As it emerged as THE website of reference, some people started to try and manipulate it to their benefit, e.g. to debase climate science, misreport the slaying of black people by cops, or just to put up a page about themselves and how cool they are... This led to a period of "editor wars" which is now if not over at least under control.

In short, the utopian idea of its founders that one could crowdsource knowledge proved a tad naive, in that not everybody wants to spread the truth. As we all know, there are constant attempts at disinformation or manipulation of information in this world. And I am not talking of people having a dissenting opinion here; I am talking of liars, con artists, professional manipulators, spin doctors, etc.

Yet in the end, there are enough people with good intentions to make wikipedia work. All it takes is 1) good documentation of the editing process, eg a backup of all past versions of any page and a record of who edited what; and 2) a recognition that some sources are more trustable than others, that some editors are better than others on some particular topics, and that quoting the sources of any info is absolutely essential to maintaining credibility and verifiability.

IMO Wikipedia is actualy better tooled to do what they do than any paper-based encyclopedia. E.g. their main competitor, the Britannica, may be more carefuly written and edited, but it does not provide its sources.

Okay...

I have this problem that has been bothering me so please answer with positive contributions and not just bitchy criticism you see my girlfriend and I have been together for the past 25 years but we are not yet sure that we should commit to one another or more precisely she is not sure that she should....... [wall of text 2 meters tall with no punctuation whatsoever] ...... so wha da ya think can I cheat with that co-worker or would it be better not to

I just came from an article in Wiki that I know to be horribly slanted away from the truth. I think that it depends on the individual article and authors involved if they are accurate or not.

May I ask which article?

As Blat already pointed out, some articles are quite confidential and basically never edited / fixed because they don't attract visitors. Others are very carefully edited. Quality varies therefore.

You can of course edit the article yourself, if you feel strongly enough about it.

World | Wed Jan 13, 2016 11:51am EST Related: WORLD
Europe turns to Morocco in Paris attacks investigation
AIT OURIR, MOROCCO | BY AZIZ EL YAAKOUBI AND PHILIP BLENKINSOP

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-shooting-morocco-insight-idUSKCN0UR1OZ20160113?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&google_editors_picks=true

Interesting article, to me.
It reminds me of one early October morning in '93 somewhere in Tuscany or Lazio at a train station when J and I were at the statione caffe at a table right next to some american tourists and on the other side, a table with four guys from Morocco. He talked with the tourists and I talked with the Moroccans, I think with halting italian by me but not sure now. Whatever, we could talk, and did for a while, one guy and me, friendly. He told me they were workers (forget doing what) and where they were from, and me, mentioning California. Into the middle of it, a woman at the other table waved rather frantically at me and said straight out, not quietly, be careful! I made a face of some sort at her and kept talking.

Yet another case of weird fear.

I was stationed in Morocco for one year with the USAF (back if the fifties), and there were never any fear, and visited Marrakech often (40 miles from our base). We traveled to Tangiers and Casablanca, and was never warned about safety or in fear. I also learned that Morocco was one of our oldest allies.

I edited portions of it, but somebody hovers and re-edits my edits. I gave up over a year ago. It involves a person who sells products that I have been using for 20 years. I have exchanged emails with he and his wife over the years. I will not divulge the article name, because it stirs people's emotions to discuss the subject matter and I do not have time or energy to go into it. But if that one article is there, you can bet there are more.