Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Rolling Stone ran a story recently, by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, on the rape-friendly culture at the University of Virginia. Here's a link. At the heart of the story is a gang-rape of a woman named Jackie, a crime orchestrated by a "handsome Phi Kappa Psi brother" described in the story as "Drew." Erdely indicates that Jackie really is Jackie's first name, whereas "Drew" is a pseudonym. Still more recently, Rolling Stone has said: "oops." Or, in their words, "in the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced." They aren't specific about the "new information." But they are pedaling backward from this story as quickly as they can. Days before they started pedaling, two writers for SLATE  had made an observation that I think germane: although the inference that Drew has gotten away with his crime th...

If you're wondering how working journalists ... work. Personally, I'm not good on the phone. I become self-conscious about such things as what my voice sounds like and I end up stammering. To avoid or reduce troubles, when I have to make a phone call, I often prepare a script for myself. This lets my most favorite thing, writing, do some of the work of my least favorite thing, talking off the cuff. Example: "Hello ma'am/sir. I'm a reporter for Marijuana Investment News. We're a website that focuses on news of interest to investors in the new field of legal marijuana as many states change [relax?] their view on the subject. "I understand that about a year ago South Hadley, at a town meeting, voted in favor of a zoning bylaw that would govern medical marijuana dispensaries. is that right? "Also, in January of this year, your planning board discussed a site review plan for Gaylord Street that was to involve the growing of marijuana. I...