* After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the one President Trump never attended, is back: April 30. President Biden is expected to attend.
* “It’s the weaponization of context. It’s genuine content, but the context changes via minor edits. Anyone can be vulnerable with the right edit.”–Claire Wardel, executive director of First Draft, a non-profit that works to protect against disinformation and misinformation. Especially in the digital era. Especially with self-servingly edited, viral, partisan-political videos.
* Remington made news with its announced $73 million lawsuit settlement with families of those slaughtered at Sandy Hook Elementary. Too bad it didn’t also announce that it would, flat-out, no longer manufacture and advertise assault weapons, such as AR-15 style rifles, to any market other than the military and police departments.
Marketing is a critical factor when a manufacturer targets younger, at-risk males in ads and product placement in violent video games—a morally craven business model. Then it’s all about the macho gun culture—and clueless parents, gun-rights politicians and other societal enablers. What’s left of the Lanza family would likely agree. Until moral sanity and the law banning assault weapons is restored, the best counter weapons are big-money lawsuits.