Which Details Matter

Which Details Matter?

By

Leonard Zwelling

As you might imagine, I get a lot of flak about this blog from those who disagree with my conclusions, let alone my politics. Recently, I have gotten a new objection. Apparently, I ignore critical facts in making my arguments about developments in the news.

In a recent blog, I speculated about why Liugi Mangione might have fallen off the cliff that was his previously apparently exemplary life to wind up being accused of first-degree murder. I thought that, given his age, he might have developed schizophrenia. A more learned reader informed me that schizophrenics are not usually homicidal and that a bipolar disorder might be a more likely possibility. I defer to my wiser colleague. I am no psychiatrist having suffered through a seven-week rotation in medical school swearing to never enter another psychiatry office. Wrong. The next time I was the patient and became far more appreciative of what these men and women do. Appreciative, but no more informed. All I learned about in analysis is me, not others.

I am anxious to see what Mangione’s defense team cooks up, but I’ll bet it will be some mental defect defense.

My second misstep was noting that the victim in the Daniel Penny trial was a homeless Michael Jackson impersonator, but I did not note his prior criminal record and mental health problems. That was logical on my part because my search unearthed that the victim’s prior criminal record was not allowed as evidence in the case. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that really mattered was whether the jury was sufficiently fed up with criminals and the mentally unstable on the subway that they would free Daniel Penny because he was a hero that day. He protected his fellow subway riders. He was not found guilty.

So, I guess, like the mainstream news, the blog is being criticized when I make errors.  This is good. I suspect that I have made many over the fifteen or so years I’ve been writing this. I try to catch the errors before the blog drops, but, alas, I, too, am human and mess up.

However, in both of these stories, the gist of the story was the point. Mangione is probably going to use a mental defect defense. Michael Perry’s past history was not germane to Daniel Penny’s defense. These were my points.

Another criticism I get is that I adhere to the mainstream news for the majority of my information and do not use social media. That is absolutely true. I will not substitute someone dropping nonsense on X for the New York Times or Wall Street Journal as sources of information. I realize that I am in a slim majority in this way. Far more people get their news from social media than from the mainstream. Perhaps that is why I was told by a friend that the drones over New Jersey were looking for missing plutonium. He read it on social media. Nonsense, again.

Whoever reads my blog is OK by me, but getting your news from my web site is no better than getting it from X. I would hope that whatever I write is checked by those who read it before they quote it or if they quote it, they say it’s my opinion and not theirs, unless it is.

In this world of competing news sources, I am going to stick with the mainstream media, but use that which emanates from the left (NYT and MSNBC) and the right (WSJ and Fox). This seems like the right approach. X, given who owns it, seems like a really poor choice. Musk may be rich. That does not mean he’s not biased in the extreme.

Mr. Musk also seems to be overreaching in his intrusion into the affairs of state. He gets to do this because he is rich not because he was elected or because he has demonstrated any talent in the arena of politics.

If Elon is your guy, be careful about what you believe of what he says.

In Fiddler on the Roof, in the famous song, “If I Were A Rich Man,” Tevye says, “if you’re rich they think you really know.”

I have always found that money and wisdom do not always track. There is Warren Buffett, of course. Then, there’s Elon Musk.