The Blog Of Chris Bâby

I’m a fairly lazy thinker and I prefer to outsource as much thinking as possible. In theory this enables me to do more thinking in less time than people who don’t. Op-eds don’t just tell you what happened, they tell you how you should feel about something as well. And they are effective, in a study by Alexander Coppock ,Emily Ekins and David Kirby they found that op-eds actually do change minds. Sometimes I don’t even bother with the op-ed and just skip straight to the comments section, the toxic landfill containing the op-eds on the op-eds. Op-eds sometimes respond to a rhetorical situation before all the facts have come out and use loose unlinked statistics to make their opinions seem relevant. Op-eds usually appeal to specific audiences but not to others. Sometimes the choir does need a preaching to and with a maximum word count certain rhetorical strategies might be sacrificed in favor of others.      The hot take op-ed is a tragedy of the modern world. ...

According to James Gee, the term mushfake was coined in prison to describe “making do with less when the real thing is not available.” It’s possible that the very first mushfake was toilet wine. And coincidentally one of the most mushfaked discourses in the world is that of the wine aficionado.   When two meet in the wild you can almost hear the voice of Sir David Attenborough in the background. “Ahh, now here we have two of natures more marvelous creatures. See how they approach each slowly and engage in conversation. The dominant female has started by commenting on the time that she visited the Rhone Valley. But see how the upstart challenges this by stating he’s never really cared for syrah ( indicating his knowledge of the region) but that he much prefers an Anderson Valley Pinot Noir when choosing a distinguished red with a low tannin base. This back and forth will continue until they determine the proper hierarchy. At least for this encounter. For the world of wine is de...