Listened to Curiouser and Curiouser from On the Media | WNYC Studios

A close-up on John Solomon's role in the impeachment saga, and the black nationalist origins of Justice Clarence Thomas.

President Trump’s concerns about corruption in Ukraine began, in part, with a series of articles in a publication called The Hill. On this week’s On the Media, a close-up on the columnist whose dubious tales may lead to an impeachment. Plus, the black nationalist origins of Justice Clarence Thomas’s legal thinking.

1. Paul Farhi [@farhip], Washington Post media reporter, and Mike Spies [@mikespiesnyc], ProPublica reporter, on John Solomon's role in the impeachment saga. Listen

2. Corey Robin [@CoreyRobin], writer and political scientist at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, on all that we've missed (or ignored) about Justice Clarence Thomas. Listen

This is a fascinating thesis about Justice Clarence Thomas and who he really is. I totally want to read The Enigma of Clarence Thomas now.
Read The Evolving Exhibition of Us: A Decade of Sharing Pictures Online : Adjacent Issue 6 by Summer Bedard (itp.nyu.edu)
A deep examination and self-reflection on photo sharing of the last decade, Summer Bedard’s article looks at how the previously intimate, cumbersome experience has morphed into the edited, contrived perfection found on Instagram.

The explosion of people, marked a shift from having a community to having an audience. This ultimately changed the mental model of what gets posted. People act differently in their living room than they do on stage. They may feel more vulnerable and guarded. You’re sharing with a community, but working for an audience.

–November 28, 2019 at 09:42PM

I would love to see a future where enjoying photos becomes more like enjoying music. Spotify gives you an easy way to consider options by assessing your mood and putting together an appropriate playlist that feels personal. We could do the same for images. Can you imagine opening Spotify and having it blast a random song immediately? Our current Instagram home screen is the visual equivalent of a playlist mashup of country, classical, techno, hip hop, and polka. 

I like the idea of this. Can someone build it please?
–November 28, 2019 at 09:46PM

What if you could use AI to control the content in your feed? Dialing up or down whatever is most useful to you. If I’m on a budget, maybe I don’t want to see photos of friends on extravagant vacations. Or, if I’m trying to pay more attention to my health, encourage me with lots of salads and exercise photos. If I recently broke up with somebody, happy couple photos probably aren’t going to help in the healing process. Why can’t I have control over it all, without having to unfollow anyone. Or, opening endless accounts to separate feeds by topic. And if I want to risk seeing everything, or spend a week replacing my usual feed with images from a different culture, country, or belief system, couldn’t I do that, too? 

Some great blue sky ideas here.
–November 28, 2019 at 09:48PM

👓 The cheater in the Oval Office should be banished from the tribe | LA Times

Read The cheater in the Oval Office should be banished from the tribe by Virginia Heffernan (LA Times)
Think Trump didn't know he was getting a shady assist at the ballot box. Read the Mueller report.

🎧 Police Videos: Cincinnati, March 23, 2017 | Embedded (NPR)

Listened to Police Videos: Cincinnati, March 23, 2017 by Kelly McEvers and producer Tom Dreisbach from Embedded | NPR

On April 16, 2015, police officer Jesse Kidder encountered a murder suspect named Michael Wilcox in a suburb outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. What happened next was caught on video and surprised a lot of people, including police. And the incident tells us a lot about how these videos have changed us.

Follow us on Twitter @nprembedded, follow Kelly McEvers @kellymcevers, and producer Tom Dreisbach @TomDreisbach. Email us at embedded@npr.org

An interesting piece with some pressing questions. Though they set the race issue aside (and cleverly try to hide it at the beginning), I wonder what drastically different training might produce in these situations?