Bjorn

In writing up that summary, I've actually come around to agreeing with you on this (particularly the bolded part). Many of the criticisms of Serial are not nuanced and well thought out, they feel like kneejerk reactions. They actually make it somewhat harder to have an in-depth discussion about what is wrong with Serial, because there is so much focus on a handful of inflammatory criticisms of it (I don't like the Awl piece, although it has a few decent points in it). No, but the point I was trying to make is that Baltimore in the late 90s is an exceptional place, it sits outside of the norm statistically more than any other metro in per capita numbers of young people of color it was prosecuting (other metros varied between 20-40 percent, but Baltimore's 50 percent of black youth was just insane). If Adnan's story took place somewhere else, I could agree that the greater discussion on prosecution and sentencing of non-whites doesn't need to be in it. But I think it's much harder to make that argument when the city is Baltimore in the late 90s. It would be like writing about Ferguson, and not including any information about the two decade shift in funding municipal governments heavily with punitive fines aimed at poor, minority communities, which accelerated following the housing crash. Yes, you could write a story that was completely factually accurate without that information, but you would have missed the truth about Ferguson. The rage would be unexplained, because you lack context. I think if you're going to write about any criminal trial of a minority in Baltimore in this era, you have to address the context of what was happening in the criminal justice system there. Also worth pointing out about Serial is that it never had a definitive length. If Koenig was producing a 1 hour documentary, I'm much more sympathetic about needing to cut and trim. But Serial, as far as they ever communicated, was going to take as many episodes as necessary to explore the subject. An episode exploring the issues with the police, prosecutors' offices and criminal justice system could have been fit in. There are plenty of people who could have been interviewed about that time who could have provided plenty of info about it. It would have been more work, but it wouldn't necessarily been many weeks more work. Honestly, I think Koenig would have preferred to not talk about race at all. But she had so many people saying, "Um, hey, there's totally a racial element here," that she ultimately felt she had to include something. But it wasn't an angle she had any interest in pursuing herself.

My biggest complaint about The Hobbit has been "not enough dwarves", so yeah, the heroic smithing scene is awesome.

An addendum to what all I just wrote. In regards to #3, and how little time the judge, prosecutor and detectives are given, take a look at the "People Map" on the Serial website. In their extra material, they don't even think to mention the judge or prosecutor, and the two detectives get the smallest entry. The government employees who prosecuted and oversaw Adnan's conviction are practically afterthoughts in Serial compared to the other personalities presented. Also, in defense of Serial, this piece is worth reading. I think the author is needlessly condescending and shitty in a number of places, but she does a good job of illustrating how hard Koenig tried to portray the major figures as being complex and human, not stereotyped.

That's a really excellent comment, and you're right that there has been a lot of vagueness as to what, exactly, is wrong with Serial. I don't think there's been a single piece that really nails a bunch of them at once. What I've seen is piecemeal scattered around. Below are all ones I've seen. I think the first 3 are in many ways the most important. Now, to be fair, I think these kinds of issues are present in lots and lots of journalism and aren't unique to Serial. But given its rockstar status in journalism and podcasting right now, examining where it falls down is useful. This ended up fairly long, but in order to lay out the problems (particularly the first three), it takes some time to explain them. 1. The most discussed element is Koenig's dismissal of racism. The defense is that she then goes on to present evidence that there could have been a racism element. But the biggest problem here is that she couldn't see it. She's blind to it, and thus what else is she missing? I've seen an argument that because she's dismissive of the role that racism played, she failed to investigate the greater context of what was happing in and around Baltimore at that time, including some high profile controversies regarding racism and local police departments. In the late 90s, the Baltimore City PD was roiled by a bunch of claims of minority cops being harassed by their peers, disciplined differently, not promoted and fired without cause. Worth pointing out is that the County PD investigated Adnan, but as Ferguson showed, problems with police forces in a metro area tend to cross all the jurisdictions. And the County PD is in it's 3rd federal investigation regarding racism in its hiring and employment in the last 40 years. Allegations involved in these cases include black police and firefighters finding nooses and pieces of shit wrapped in black newspapers left in their workplace, by their fucking peers. This is the climate that minority cops worked in around Baltimore. What was it like on the streets? In the late 90s, half of the young black men and boys in Baltimore were in the criminal justice system (jail, prison, probation, parole or awaiting trial). FUCKING HALF! Can you imagine that, if half of your peers were currently in the criminal justice system. Obviously Adnan was not black, but he was a minority in a city that was crushing minority populations under its heel. There were so many criminal cases in 1999, prosecutors offices were having to release some people because they could not try them in a timely manner. I really wish there were more specific illustrations of what specifically Serial's problems with race are. I don't think it is in any way flawless, but as far as I can tell, at least in this thread, the people taking this tack seem to be taking it as a given that everyone understands what these problems are, instead of clearly and straightforwardly describing the specific problems. There's an entire world of context around Adnan's trial. That context often includes racial elements. But Koenig doesn't bring up any of that context. 2. And dovetaling directly from that context, we have my biggest problem. This is one that I haven't seen anyone else really bring up, but it's beeing a glaring problem for me since about halfway through. There are four characters who are almost ever present in the story, but are not given the same treatment as everyone else. The prosecutor, the judge, and the lead detectives. Koenig has an entire episode about the streaker who found the body. She has an episode about rumors, and whether Adnan was taking cash from his Mosque's collection box. We know all about Jay working at a porn shop and various odd factoids about his life. There's countless time spent vacillating around what a single phone call means, and whether a payphone existed. But there is almost no examination of the four people who are most responsible for prosecuting and convicting Adnan. Why does Koenig dissect the lives of so many people of color, but she leaves the authorities' histories completely untouched. Was the prosecutor's office that handled this one of the ones that was understaffed and overwhelmed? Did the two officers who investigated this have a history of any disciplinary problems or public complaints against them? What was the judge's docket like at this time? On one hand, these aren't necessarily questions about race. They're good journalism questions. But when you factor in the context of how fucked the Baltimore criminal justice system was in the late 90s, not giving the public employees the same treatment that everyone else got stands out to me as being really weird. And perhaps weird because she didn't see why she should investigate a white cop with the same zeal that she would investigate a black kid who did drugs. 3. Something else Koenig never brings up is Adnan's sentence. It's difficult to talk about sentencing in this country without talking about race relations. Minorities get sentenced far harsher than whites. 73 percent of minors who received life sentences were people of color. Black kids are, per capita, given life sentences 10 times as much as white kids. Again, Koenig's dismisal of racism seems to have blinded her to talking about other racial elements that could have been part of this story. 4. Issues with whether or not she understands and accurately communicates the cultures and daily realities of the people in her story. The Awl piece (which I don't think is actually that good, but has a few good points in it) addresses some of those. Most notable in the Awl piece are not the author's conclusions, but Rabia Chaudry's statements that Koenig really wasn't understanding the nuances of either culture, particularly that she conflated the particulars of each kid's family with being about the greater immigrant culture (which is a very unnuanced way to present that information). 5. Are there microagressions present that would be invisible to white folk, but present to people of color? Again, the Awl piece talks about this. This isn't something I'm really qualified to talk about, but I've seen it mentioned in a few places. 6. How do Blacks, Koreans, Pakistanis, etc., feel about the presentation of Serial? It's great that white people love it so much, but if it makes people of color uncomfortable, there's probably something there worth exploring. This is one of the better pieces examing that, about how invisible Hae ultimately ends up being. Also whether or not the language Koenig uses to talk about her ends up fitting into expected Asian stereotypes. There's also this piece, about the frustration a guy has with all his white friends loving Serial so much.

When I was a teenager, I always kinda liked the Phalanx box, it was just weird looking sitting in the middle of the rest of the rentals at my local video store.

That could actually lead to some cool things down the road. Of course, it also sounds like it currently can connect to other games, so also shitty hackers.

That's another really cool thing about Croteam, they've had several games about Serious Sam made by fans or other indie devs. 3rd Encounter, Double D and Random Encounter for sure, seems like there migh tbe one more.

I actually played Bleed tonight, and quite liked it. It's relatively short, the main campaign can probably be finished in just a couple of ours. But its built to be replayed a bunch (weapon and character unlocks, plus several modes). The movement and firing in it feel really nice, quite well designed. If you like arcade run n gun side scrollers, it's definitely worth it on sale.

My sister-in-law got me a membership to a Salsa of the Month club. THIS IS AN AMAZING GIFT! Seriously, I fucking love salsa.

Twee has passed into usage for anything that's seen as cloyingly sweet, too sweet to be good.

Just to clarify, when I said something along these lines, I was referring to the team. Once the decision was made to create Serial as a spinoff of TAL, a team was assembled to research, produce and support Koenig. That's how most long term investigative pieces get done. My criticism was not so much that Koenig is white, but that her entire team is and that TAL has a long history of not having much representation on their core staff except for white folks.

Thank you for that, it's the best thing I've read about Under the Skin so far. All three of us were pretty perplexed by it last night, and read several different reviews/essays on it after watching it and none of them particularly helped us. And thank you to everyone else for your thoughts as well. I can see how each of you found those themes, and appreciated them. And there are individual scenes in it that are incredible. But as a whole, it just didn't stitch together for me. I usually have a pretty high tolerance for slow, drawn out movies, but not this time. I can at least appreciate why other people enjoyed it now, even if it didn't work for me.

No, that's super common. It's basically the norm. I think you have to go with both.

Weren't there some people here praising Under the Skin awhile back? Can someone explain to me why they liked it, because I'm at a complete loss after watching it (and I've lost my movie picking privileges for a couple of weeks).

I played through both Space Ace and Dragon's Lair tonight. Man, DL hits such a nostalgic sweet spot for me. I get chills watching the trailer for it, I watched it so many times in the arcade as a kid. Space Ace is fucking hard though. I had never played all the way through it, and I don't really see myself ever doing it again after tonight. The significantly longer events really wear you down, having to replay a long section just because you blew one of the last couple of inputs. My daughter had never seen either of them. Her reaction to Princess Daphne was hilarious. She was incensed that this was one of the more famous video game damsels. Her voice is soooo ditzy, and that outfit/design. We were looking up some stuff about the games after I finished them, and it turns out they couldn't hire a model to come in when they were doing Daphne's design, so they just used some Playboys they had lying around. That explains a bunch. Normally crazy flashing visuals don't bug me, but I literally had to stop watching that about 20 seconds in. That's just like...wow.

Hammerwatch is $1.49 on a Flash sale. If you play any couch co-op, I highly recommend it. Solo play is okay, but not great. But with two-four people, it really shines.

I was coming of age around the height of AIDS fear, and I clearly remember the message being essentially, "Sex will kill you. Better wait for marriage." It was a crazy time to be going through sex ed and learning about sex. Like, we were in rural fucking Kansas, and they treated AIDS like it was an epidemic that was going to sweep through town any day. That said, I do tend to agree that the conservative religious element tends to be pervasive in the US. Like even in the AIDS example, part of the reason for the misinformation, delusion and fear campaigns is because conservative religious folk opposed to sexual freedom used all those tools to try and make people afraid of sex and to demonize gay men. But then you can look back on stuff like female hysteria, which as far as I know was not driven by any particularly religious angle. There were probably male doctors who were influenced by their own religion, but science and doctors managed to be pretty shitty and regressive all on their own in that case. Also, I totally got the point you were making about Puritans and their interest in women orgasming.

Isn't knowingly putting a lying witness on the stand prosecutorial misconduct and grounds for disbarment? Like, that's basic lawyering 101.

I noticed that this week, and followed it. I just followed a bunch of curators to try and filter out TB and some other folk from being the default curators Steam shows me when I look at a game's page.

AKA, the Missing/Dead White Woman Syndrome. It actually is a really useful critique of media, because it's able to place individual examples in the context of the greater history and environment in how media outlets approach certain kinds of stories, marrying the media's high profile history with the real world statistics on those crimes to show just how pandering the media is when it switches into entertainment mode from journalist mode. In the context of that history, the story of Adnan and Hae actually stands out as a powerful counterpoint to our traditional dead lady true crime narratives. She's not the typical victim, and he's not the typical convict. To me, Serial is a fascinating study in brilliance and frustration. It's doing so many things right, while also falling completely flat on its face in other places. I don't have a problem with people criticizing it, or even avoiding it. But I think studying it's place in the bigger picture, both positive and negative, is a lot more interesting than just focusing on the negative.

Serial is the latest high profile symptom of a much larger underlying problem in journalism. I think focusing on it as a specific example ends up ignoring a bigger picture. Journalism has a problem with minority representation. NPR is actually one of the best in seeking out diverse talent, better than many other journalist outlets. But that doesn't always translate to many individual shows. This American Life (which I know isn't actually an NPR show) has a real diversity problem with its cast and contributors. If you look at the staff and most common contributors to TAL, I think it's something like 90-95 percent white (I may be wrong here, but I don't think I am)*. This is something no one wants to talk about, because it's such a beloved show. But it's been going for 19 years, don't you think in that time Glass and company could have headhunted more diverse talent? So when you ask a question like, "Well, who else is going to report this story?", you're actually a step too far. Another question would be, why aren't shows and outlets that do investigative reporting doing a better job ensuring that they've hired and attracted diverse talent? The Daily Show prioritized hiring a more diverse cast a number of years ago after coming under some heavy criticism, and it's paying off. Prior to making that a priority, Jon Stewart admits they were entirely too white and missing a lot of different perspectives and personalities. And now Larry Wilmore is taking over the Colbert slot. So why, when one of the most successful public radio shows of all time decided to tackle a true crime story involving two minority communities, did they decide to assign a bunch of white people unfamiliar with those communities to it? Sometimes its useful as a journalist to have the outsider perspective, but it can be just as valuable to have the insider perspective. This dovetails into another conversation about minority reporters getting pigeonholed as the Black correspondent, or the Asian correspondent, etc. A reporter can feel really insulted that they keep getting thrown stories based purely on the color of their skin or their ethnic background. You don't want to fall into a trap of thinking, "Oh, you're Asian, so you must be an expert on Korean immigrant culture." So the solution isn't to say, "Oh, well, we just need people from these communities reporting on them." Stories like this are handled by teams, and we need diverse teams reporting them. And that isn't happening enough. This American Life sells itself as telling the diverse story of the American experience, and yet it hasn't internalized that mission in its own hiring. *To be fair, TAL has had hundreds of contributors over the years, many from a variety of races and ethnicities. But I'm speaking about the paid staff and most frequent guest contributors.

Do you play on Easy or Too Easy? I didn't realize you could group and hotkey people. That would speed some things up. I really want to like this game, there's so much good in it. I'm going to give it one more run, see if it goes better now that I'm more familiar with all the mechanics and have successfully made it through once.

I didn't. I got B2 in the Humble 2K Bundle awhile back. I originally played it on the 360, but never bought Minerva's Den back then.

That's kind of a perfect Don't Starve story.