How To Turn Something True* Into "News"

True, but completely insignificant:

Florida bill would require bloggers who write about the governor and legislators to register with the state

Eight paragraphs in, you finally get the key information:  

DeSantis's office said Friday it was reviewing the bill. "As usual, the governor will consider the merits of a bill in final form if and when it passes the legislature," said his press secretary, Bryan Griffin.

Any state senator or representative can propose legislation.  How is it news when a single one proposes something which has no chance of becoming a law?

Naturally, lot's of smart people will use this kind of thing to label Republicans as "The Stupid Party".

My commentary:

The Florida piece is the perfect example of what's going on and it isn't misbehavior by Republicans. In that case, one state senator proposed a loony idea. This is promoted as "news" because the media would like to portray all Republicans as loons. I'm pretty certain that, with thousands of state legislators, the news outlets could be filled every day with crazy proposals which have miniscule support, from both parties. Somehow, only the crazy Republican proposals will see the light of day and go nowhere, meanwhile the crazy Democratic proposals will silently become laws and we'll wake up one day with, WTF! They banned socks! And we have to live with it because it's significantly harder to get rid of a law than to enact it in the first place.

The media wants to manipulate you and if you think the FL proposal says anything about Republicans, it has succeeded.

Don't be a news splooge.

Wordle 419

 

Hopefully, but I usually lose after a little string of low scores.

First, Do No Harm

You know how you can help your patients?  Help them to decrease unnecessary stress, like worrying about things over which they have no power and which are extremely unlikely to have any effect on them.

Alternatively, you could flaunt your virtues at the expense of the person you swore an oath to put first in your professional dealings.  So, choose wisely.

Wordle 418

 

Wordle 417

 

MR. Barefoot

I am sympathetic to Mr. DeRuvo. I feel happier barefoot than in shoes and often wear very minimal shoes.  I used to do a lot of barefoot running--once/week for a few years and the reactions were highly varied. Most people either didn't notice or pretended not to notice, this is New England after all.  Very young children would notice and ask their parent, "Why that boy doesn't have to wear shoes"?  Some people would out-and-out yell at me to put on some shoes. Remember, I'm outside.  How is this their business?

One might ask, why not still run without shoes?  The answer, I've become older and less good at running.  I can still run barefoot, but it slows me down and I have greater soreness afterwards.  This is in contrast to my heyday, when barefoot runs were faster than their shod versions.  Maybe, (too good to lookup) this is where "shoddy" comes from--the slow and ungraceful running you get from having shoes on your feet.

Final note on Mr. DeRuvo: Did you get a look at his feet?  That is one long, odd-looking, big toe.  It makes me wonder--did his foot problems come from his unorthodox feet or did his feet become odd looking from years without shoes?

Althouse

Wordle 416

 

Wordle 415

 

Wordle 414

 17th loss.

Wordle 413