Todd's Mischief Blog

(Hint: Not the way anyone's been doing it)  Whether you approve of wearing a mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19 or oppose it, there is no disputing that mask-wearing has been poorly promoted. From mixed messages to outright intimidation, it could've gone better. It didn't have to be this way, but it looks like we’re stuck with it, because a better approach wasn’t taken from the beginning. Off the top of my head, I count 3 crucial missteps with regards to encouraging mask wearing. 1. Fauci's flip-flop. The potential for consensus on mask wearing was mostly destroyed by the nation's preeminent physician himself when he initially came out against the wearing masks. Fauci continues to undermine hope for consensus favorable to masking by asserting he was right to discourage masking early on. 2. Negative incentives. Appeals to volunteerism (do your part) encourage participation whereas mandates (do or else) encourage resistance. In my opinion, the worst way to promote...

The smear campaign against Cain continues   By now the internet, radio, television, and wagging tongues everywhere are all abuzz over the latest campaign blunder by Herman Cain. But is it really the gaffe everyone says it is? Or was it a selective editing job a la Ed Shultz ? Well, call me cynical, but I’ve seen enough media shenanigans to be suspicious of anything taken out of context and this definitely tripped my radar. In the clip that has gone viral (below), Cain does appear to be caught off-guard by a question on Libya, a topic he ought to have been ready for. My first reaction was to wonder how many clips like this land on editing room floors instead of online. In a world used to hyper-slick video and equally slick candidates, a moment of thought gathering can seem disastrous. Still, this isn’t about a some candidate’s “senior moment.” Rather, it is about a hatchet job gone awry. This clip was released by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel along with the entire half-hour interv...

Is JoePa guilty of being too human? I would like a little help understanding something. Joe Paterno did a) nothing wrong, b) not nothing, c) not too little, but d) exactly what he was supposed to do and still has been fired. What am I missing? I'm not saying Joe shouldn't have retired years ago--he should have--but his ousting yesterday strikes me as having more to do with finding a scapegoat than anything to do with misconduct. Shouldn't it be Jerry Sandusky receiving everyone's ire? Yet I hardly hear his name. And how does Mike McQueary keep his job if he is held to anything resembling a similar standard that which Joe is being held to? I don't even care about Penn State except for next weekend's matchup with Nebraska— Go Big Red! — but this sorta throws a pall over that. I just can't help but see JoePa as a fall guy.  First, I take issue with the notion that we have rules we are expected to follow, but when those rules prove insufficient for w...

Distancing conservatism from “birthers” may not be as easy as it seems Trump is strutting like a peacock over the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate. Not surprisingly, even this does not quell the birthers, as indicated by Trump’s promises to now investigate the document . So leave the kooks to themselves. For the rest of us, the issue is put to bed and we can all move on, right? Maybe not. Having the birth certificate released ought to make it easier for Republicans and Tea Partiers alike to distance themselves from the birther movement. As the 2012 presidential campaign season opens, it would be nice to focus on important issues like the economy, foreign affairs, and entitlements. But don’t be surprised if you hear charges of racism lobbed at the president’s political adversaries once more. Already, left-wing pundits say that it was racism in the Tea Party that gave rise to the birther movement. Even if they are willing to admit that birthers were a Clinton Machine creati...