Facebook reminds us how lucky we are

by philg

A post from Donald Trump, edited by Facebook:

I’m not sure how the identity of the president who takes over in January 2021 is relevant to a post regarding a coronaplague vaccine, but it is comforting to be reminded how lucky we are to have Joe Biden. #ThankYouFacebookEditorialDepartment

(The above was highlighted by a friend: “This is like AT&T listening to your call and editing.”)

From our local supermarket, Joe Biden is already an “American Legend”:

16 thoughts on “Facebook reminds us how lucky we are”

  1. Not sure this is on topic, though the topic seems to be the hypocrisy of the ruling classes, but here goes. Now that our ruling classes have managed to get an 83 year old part time college lecturer at Northwestern University “cancelled” for having had the temerity to question whether Jill Biden should go by “Dr. Biden” when she doesn’t wear a stethoscope around her neck and has that PhD in the lamest of err “disciplines,” (education) — see today’s WSJ — will you now start going by “Dr. Phil”? I mean your PhD is a lot more impressive than hers, at least you need to know some math and science beyond 6th grade, though I guess the issue is “Dr. Phil” is already taken. Though there is a line of trademark cases involving the right of an individual to do business under his own name. So what do you think, Dr. Phil or not?

    • Thanks, Jack. First, I don’t think that Jill Biden has an academic/research degree (“PhD”). She has a bureaucrat’s professional degree (“EdD”) that might help her get a job as a school administrator or whatever. See https://www.maryville.edu/ed/principal-certification-bridge-to-the-ed-d-in-educational-leadership/ for how “This program is for certified teachers already possessing master’s degrees who seek to become administrators.”

      Archive.org will verify that long before this controversy, my resume contained the following: “Education: three MIT degrees (including a Ph.D., but you can’t call me “Dr. Greenspun” because my brother is a real doctor).” http://philip.greenspun.com/personal/resume

      If Mx. Biden introduced him/her/zer/theirself to someone at a party as “Dr. Biden”, probably the best response would be “I’m so glad that you’re here because I could use your advice. I was just in the bathroom and I felt a burning sensation. What do you think it could be?”

    • If you’re Black and friends with Trump, even an MD is not enough to be “Dr.” according to the New York Times: “Mr. Carson” in https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/us/ben-carson-hud.html …. but I don’t currently identify as “Black” and I am not personally acquainted with Donald Trump, so when I am testifying as an expert witness I sometimes do get addressed as “Dr. Greenspun”. But I never correct anyone who calls me “Mr. Greenspun” nor ask to be addressed as “Dr.”. I sometimes sign expert witness analysis documents with “Philip Greenspun, Ph.D.”. With a judge or jury, I always highlight my experience as a working software developer first and bury the educational credentials on a later slide. “I have a Ph.D. and therefore you should listen to me” wasn’t considered a persuasive argument prior to March 2020. Unlike Jill Biden, with her professional degree in education (Ed.D), I never affirmatively use the title “Dr.”.

      It is kind of funny that to ridicule Jill Biden for donning the “Dr.” title is, according to our media, plainly “misogynistic”. Any non-MD at the American universities that I have visited who asked to be called “Dr. Jones” or whatever would have been ridiculed, regardless of the phony Dr.’s gender ID. (I think it might be okay in Germany.)

    • No one should assign themselves or be given a “Dr.” title unless if the person is a real Dr., someone who graduated from medical school.

      Imagine if “Dr. Jill” was on a flight 35k ft up in the air and someone on the airplane needed medical attention, would everyone look at “Dr. Jill” for help? No. In fact, a pharmacist would most likely know far more than “Dr. Jill” would in this situation.

    • An old friend of mine with a PhD in Chemistry says when asked “I am a doctor, just not the kind of doctor that helps people”.

  2. In addition to Oprah Winfrey having brought attention to Jill’s education doctorate some years ago, I wonder whether the problem can be attributed to “Dr. Jill” teaching at community college. Whereas four-year schools have the students call their instructors “Professor XXX,” at community colleges, similar to high schools, the students use Mr./Ms./Dr. as titles before their instructors’ last names. Overall, this is a non-issue, which has served to deflect some of the attention away from the $100Ms Hunter collected under the table. Finally explains how he financed his gambling, prostitution and drug habits, and was able to live in an elite NW DC neighborhood and send three children to the Sidwell Friends School (in later years, as part of divorce settlement). Nearby suburbs with world-class public schools weren’t good enough for Hunter, who now drives around LA in a Porsche (as per Daily Mail spring 2020), after settling out-of-court with the Arkansas Baby Mama.

    • @Suzanne Goode:

      Nope, no editing. He’s been forced to be strict because of the abuse. Instead pre-edit your post in Notepad++. Or – dare I say it! – Vi. Everyone can heap scorn on me now.

      I asked him about the time expiration on posting a while ago. From “moderation”.

      “It is a default anti-spam feature of WordPress and it is time-based. Spammers like to add comments to years-old postings.

      Just another example of how cash-hungry and clever humans have defeated most of the dreams of the Internet pioneers. Nobody engineering this stuff back in 1970 imagined armies of spammers.”

    • Alex: User editing of comments is not available at all in the latest version of standard WordPress. I think that there are some plugins that would enable it.

    • As Obama always says if you like discussing comment moderation you can keep discussing comment moderation. That’s my favorite subject! My favorite verboten comment… That’s great Phil!

  4. Dear Sirs,

    Here’s a good Jill Biden story. According to Jill’s first husband, she did not meet Joe on a blind date, as Joe and Jill claim. She was already married, as was Joe (but not each other yet), when she and her first husband were volunteers for Joe’s first Senate race. She had an affair with the married Joe Biden, her husband divorced her, and then Joe’s first wife conveniently died.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8635281/Jill-Biden-cheated-husband-Joe-ex-claims.html

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