[HN Gopher] Joan Didion has died
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Joan Didion has died
Author : chewymouse
Score : 144 points
Date : 2021-12-24 17:33 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| BruceEel wrote:
| Pretty sure I'm singing to the choir here, but "Slouching Towards
| Bethlehem", I literally cannot recommend it enough.
| staplung wrote:
| And of course, _At the Dam_ , one of my all time favorite pieces
| of non-fiction
|
| http://deathray.us/no_crawl/others/atthedam.html
| tyre wrote:
| A rarely mentioned part of her work is the small book Salvador.
| She wrote a fair amount on the horrors in Central America during
| the 1980s, many of which were backed by the US government.
|
| It's a difficult, harrowing read. But as a student educated in
| the United States well after these events happened, I never knew
| this part of our history and the long-lasting repercussions.
| 509engr wrote:
| Her essay on California's water system is one of the most
| beautiful pieces of writing about public works I have ever
| encountered.
|
| http://archive.pov.org/thirst/holy-water/
| bspammer wrote:
| There is something so strange about reading such a beautiful
| thing and then reading that comment at the bottom. The
| juxtaposition is just bizarre. Is there a word for this
| feeling? It happens to me frequently online.
|
| Anyway, thank you for sharing.
| jelling wrote:
| Then you'd probably love "Powerbroker: Robert Moses and the
| Death of New York" by Robert Caro. Long, but he's a master.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| _Political Fictions_ is my favorite Joan Didion book,
| particularly her essay on _Insider Baseball_., which together
| with Asimov's _Franchise_ anticipates 538 and all the other
| media on elections that ultimately disenfranchise voters.
| TomDavey wrote:
| > anticipates 538 and all the other media on elections that
| ultimately disenfranchise voters.
|
| Serious question: how does "media on elections"
| disenfranchise voters? I would have thought that they
| usefully inform voters, or at least remind voters of the
| importance of voting.
| biophysboy wrote:
| They by no means have total control. People can still
| think. The point is media also provides interpretation.
| So, instead of going into a voting booth reflecting over
| your own needs or principles, you go into the booth
| thinking about polling and statistics. You vote for
| somebody because their number is higher on 538. It gets
| worse when you consider that the people being polled are
| themselves thinking about who is most viable or likable.
| noduerme wrote:
| It could just as easily work the other way. e.g. all the
| polling says Trump can't beat Hillary, so no one bothers
| going out to vote for Hillary.
| CalChris wrote:
| In fact, Hillary won the popular vote by quite a lot,
| 2.8M or more than 2% of the vote.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| There are some people that are suspicious of polling
| averages and models have under-performed Trump vs. the
| official vote totals. They think it's a form of
| "suppression polling" where the opponents supporters are
| demoralized by a conspiracy of weak polling numbers that
| suppress turnout.
|
| I believe there are simpler and more convincing
| explanations for polling errors that seemed consistently
| biased against Trump, but some people are happy to jump
| to far fetched conspiracy theories.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Why associate the comment you replied to with Trump, and
| why is associating that comment to Trump enough to
| dismiss criticism of publishing continuous polls as "far-
| fetched conspiracy theories"?
|
| There have certainly been massive polling failures (and
| obvious push polling) in elections over the past decade
| that can be discussed rather than being dismissed for the
| sake of partisanship. The organizations who actually do
| the polling discuss these issues constantly without
| accusing each other of being deluded.
| VictorPath wrote:
| One counter-vailing fact is Republican internal polls
| showed Trump losing up until election night in 2016.
| Polls they did for themselves, which they did not share
| at the time, showed him losing.
|
| Aside from this, to influence opinions with sharing
| polling information, one just needs to change the
| question, or the audience, or both. "Should the US seek
| peaceful resolutions with Russia" will get a different
| answer than "Should Biden oppose Russia's military
| buildup on Ukraine's border". You can tailor the question
| to the answer, and have Americans either supporting or
| opposing abortion, or whatever.
|
| Also, a poll of everyone will yield different results
| from a poll of, say, likely voters. You have to look to
| who is polled along with what is polled.
|
| With these things done, there is little need to fudge the
| numbers, other polling organizations can ask the same
| question to the same demographic and get similar answers.
| noduerme wrote:
| I think the simplest explanation is that pollsters are
| from the media/elite; when Trumpers get a phone call from
| a pollster, it's either their chance to "own the libs" by
| lying, or they're embarrassed to admit their reactionary
| beliefs so they say what they think a centrist or liberal
| would say. Then they vote for the furthest right wing
| loonies they can find.
|
| You can see this kind of thing in practice if you've ever
| been a non-white person in a redneck bar.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Go read the sources I point to.
|
| In the case of _Franchise_ a computer does an interview
| of one voter and then calculates who the president should
| be.
|
| In real life, if _538_ was perfect at simulating the
| election there would be no need to have the election.
|
| The point of _Insider Baseball_ is that 'horse-race'
| coverage and coverage that pretends to give you an
| insider view of the campaign as the candidates and their
| staff see it completely avoid any real discussion of who
| the voters are, what they really want, what really
| motivates them, what alternatives they really have, etc.
|
| _538_ in perfect irony applies the techniques and
| terminology of sports betting to politics.
| noduerme wrote:
| The funny thing is, they're just as often wrong with
| their sports predictions. No serious sports wagerer I
| know would ever rely on 538 to make their picks. Gamblers
| understand that touts serve two masters. Apparently,
| punters are less gullible than political pundits when it
| comes to believing that a set of chosen stats represents
| a neutral, scientific prediction.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| Predictions are hard, particularly about the future.
| raegis wrote:
| The book Cadillac Desert and the documentary of the same name
| (narrated by Alfre Woodard) woke me up to this problem. (I live
| in CA but grew up back east). It's astonishing that we use so
| much imported water on our lawns (including during Winter)
| while watering lawns is not even necessary elsewhere.
| 0x0nyandesu wrote:
| I find it funny that a farm in the valley has "water use
| rights" and will end up using millions of gallons of water
| per month and pay almost nothing for it meanwhile my sfm
| which uses about 15k gallons a month will cost $300 for the
| privilege and I'm allowed to keep going and water outside as
| much as I want however California regulations prevent me from
| installing a second shower head in my walk in shower wet room
| under the guise of not wasting water.
|
| All this even though the place where I live is basically 97%
| recycled water so you're really just paying for the cost of
| treating the water.
|
| Eh I generally don't understand why my property has to stay a
| dessert while 10 minutes from my house the farms take the
| water and sell it for themselves in the fruit.
| leesalminen wrote:
| 15k gallons per month?!? >7k/mo where I live in Colorado
| would result in a 4-digit bill and a nasty gram to boot.
| randycupertino wrote:
| If you liked Cadillac Desert you might enjoy reading A
| Kingdom from Dust, a long-form article in California Sunday
| magazine that details the Resnick family behind Pom
| pomegranate products and their lobbying for water rights in
| Kern county: https://story.californiasunday.com/resnick-a-
| kingdom-from-du...
| 509engr wrote:
| Mark Arax, the author of that article has a longer book, A
| Dreamt Land, on the subject of California agriculture and
| water, (probably the article is an excerpt) that is a
| really good read too. A little more up-to-date than
| Cadillac Desert, and more focused on California and the
| Central Valley.
| justinpage wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this!
| rurban wrote:
| The documentary about her, by her nephew, is still on Netflix. I
| just watched it. It's excellent. Initially I was a bit sceptical,
| because I only knew her A+ screenwriting and her lifestyle
| reporting, but she was a great one.
| Quarrel wrote:
| For those looking, it is:
|
| Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Didion:_The_Center_Will_N...
|
| 89% on RT. So pretty fkn good.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/RcFKd
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20211224011509/https://www.nytime...
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(page generated 2021-12-24 23:00 UTC)