I’m watching a heated discussion of water issues in Flint, Michigan on MSNBC. I’m very confused because people keep discussing the water as if it’s terribly dangerous and there are kids with severe brain damage from it.
But I remember reading very recently that nothing of the kind happened.
Both accounts can’t be true. Somebody has got to be lying here because it’s not a difference of degree. This is hard to figure out.
You have to keep in mind that MSNBC is the American equivalent of RT America as far as ridiculous propaganda is concerned.
Yesterday one of MSNBC’s political talk shows had three “legal experts” confidently predicting in unison that Sen. Feinstein’s anonymous letter accusing Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh of sexual abuse in high school was going to result in Senate hearings similar to those in the 1991 Anita Hill situation, with testimony by the accuser and multiple other witnesses.
Reality check: Sen. Feinstein has refused to give the FBI the woman’s name, and the FBI has shrugged and passed the letter on to the Trump White House for its “consideration.”
“MSNBC” originally stood for “Microsoft National Broadcasting Network.” Then around twenty years ago, Microsoft realized that it had hitched its good name to a turkey and pulled out of the deal, generously allowing the farcical channel keep all the initials.
So now the letters stand for the same thing as the network: nothing at all but empty nonsense. You want more informative television, try watching reruns of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker.”
LikeLike
There was a woman from Flint on the show. She said her children had severe brain damage from the water and described the symptoms. If she’s imagining this because of mass hysteria, somebody needs to do something because it’s very dangerous to the kids to have mom generate these fantasizing about them.
LikeLike
Lead poisoning is real. Here is an official page from the city of Flint. https://www.michigan.gov/flintwater/
LikeLike
Are the authors of the article lying then? I’m not saying it’s impossible but these are scholars from respectable universities. It’s a very big deal if they’d just lie like this.
LikeLike
NYT is paywalled for me at this point, so I haven’t read this piece. But it was a big thing, EPA still working on it, etc. https://www.epa.gov/flint
LikeLike
And here’s a long piece about contexts, how this happened … I’ll try to see if I can find some summary of the nyt piece https://www.businessinsider.com/michigan-made-flint-water-crisis-worse-2018-8
LikeLike
OK, here’s something. Your NYT piece isn’t a news article, it’s an op-ed, and there was a letter published in response (that I also can’t really see, but it seems to say the op-ed was a piece of sophistry) … https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/opinion/letters/flint-children-lead.html
LikeLike
…and NYT did all kinds of reporting on this, published book reviews about it, etc., so I wouldn’t say one op-ed even if the writers have scientific qualifications means all the other scientific work, or even all the actual reporting in the NYT, was wrong
LikeLike
A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment