How To Tell When You Are Being Manipulated

It's getting harder and harder to find objective news. It seems that almost every site now is pushing an agenda and trying to get you to think their way or make you do something. 

Here's a good article from The Big Picture that offers some basic techniques to help you tell when you are being manipulated.. 

To avoid falling into the manipulation trap when consuming media, I like to remind myself of the first two tenets of journalism ethics:

Seek the truth as fully as possible

Seek to minimize harm

Anyone who isn’t doing these things isn’t performing ethical journalism.

More practically, when someone tells you a story, look for an attempt to fulfill these two elements—seeking the truth as fully as possible, and seeking to minimize harm. If you don’t see it, you should be skeptical of what you’re being fed. And you should use it as a trigger to employ extra critical thinking.

There are lots of ways to manipulate people with storytelling. But there are three big ones right now in mainstream news and social media that, once you start noticing them, you’ll have more power to see when you’re being manipulated—and hopefully, help others see too.

A Chilling Warning

Here's a chilling warning from historian Timothy Sbyder about what might happen in Springfield, Ohio later this week. 

In a conincidence, both Vance and Snyder came up for discussion at a lunch with some friends last week. Some thought that Vance would be an improvement over Trump, shold he become president. 

It's clear they're wrong.

Update: Yesterday, a judge stayed the order revoking the Temporary Protected States of the Haitians until their court case is decided. 

Movie and TV Reviews - January 2026

 Short reviews of movies and TV shows that I watched in January. 

Movies

• The Velvet Underground: A so-so documentary. I wish it had focused more on the music and less on how they looked. (Apple TV)
• Galaxy Quest: This is still the best Star Trek parody and better than most of the Trek movies. (Blu Ray)
• Sinners: There was a lot of buzz about his movie and I can see why. It was very well done in every respect and also very unconventional. Buddy Guy at the end sealed it for me. One of  the best movies I've seen in a long time. (Crave)
• Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. This biopic looks at Springsteen's life between the release of The River in 1981 and Born in the USA in 1984, a period of reflection that led to the release of Nebraska. It's well done, reasonably accurate, and quite watchable but marred by a made0-up romance subplot.  (Disney)+)
• The Thursday Murder Club: A cozy mystery about residents of a retirement home solving murders. Light but worth watching for a high-powered cast. (Netflix)
• K-Pop Demon Hunters: We watched this just to see what all the fuss was about and did enjoy it. Not much of a stpru but the animation and music are the point. (Netflix)

TV Shows

• Antiques Road Trips (season 14-15): Our treasure hunt through Britain's villages continues. After these, we will have to find a new comfort watch.. (BritBox)
• Stranger Things (season 5): The final season was about twice as long as it needed to be. I still think the show should have ended after the third season. (Netflix)
• Pluribus: One of the best SF shows that Apple TV has produced. It manages to be both funny and terrifying. (Apple TV)
• Beyond Paradise (Christmas special): Nice to see a plot that didn't revolve around a murder. (BritBox)
• Death in Paradise (Christmas special): Only for fans. (BritBox)
• Unforgotten (season 5): Still one of the best British police procedurals with an especially twisty plot that neither of us figured out. (BritBox)
• Starfleet Academy: If it's intended to be a comedy then it's a disaster. (Paramount+)
• Bookish: A light mystery series about a gay bookseller in post-war London. The best thing about it was the evoication of the period. (PBS)
• Down Cemetery Road: We only got through one eopisode of this. Too contrived and not believable. (Apple TV)
• Seven Dials: Another Agatha Christie mystery. Contrived yes, but we didn't expect any more. (Netflix)
  
• The Night Manager (season 1): A rather good adaptation of a John Le Carre novel. One of the best series we've watched in a while. (Amazon Prime)

Saturday Sounds - Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Minneapolis

 This week's musical treat is another single: "Streets of Minneapolis" from Bruce Springsteen. He wrote and recorded it in a matter of days after the shooting of Alex Pretti by ICE thugs a week ago.  

Here's the lyrics for the first verse.

Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes
Against smoke and rubber bullets
By the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good

 

For a look at the song in the context of the protext songs of the 60s and 70s, see this article in The Atlantic (archive link)

Saturday Sounds - Tedeschi Trucks Band - I Got You

Today's musical treat is short but sweet, a new single from the Tedeschi Trucks Band. "I Got You" is the debut single from their forthcoming album, Future Soul. It has a distinct Allman Brothers vibe and I really like it.

They'll be going on tour this summer, but unfortunately it looks like they won't be coming back to Toronto this year. You can read more about the album and tour in this Relix article.

A Rupture, Not a Transition

Yesterday, Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a historic speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

Carney received a standing ovation from the audience; something that, as the moderator observed, is not common at Davs, and he deserved it. If you have a few minutes, watch the speech.  I am not being hyperbolic when I use the word "historic" here. It was a speech that clearly defined the current state of the world. the place Canada has in it, and where Canada and its allies can do to cope with the chaos that we see around us and build something better. 

By, contrast, Trump's speech today was at the very least an embarrassment, and in reality, a disaster. The contrast between the two men could not have been starker. If you have the stomach for it, here it is. 

I'm going to quote Dean Blundell here, who describes it much better than I can and in more details than I have the stomach for. 

ot strength. Not leverage. Not “strategic ambiguity.”

It was confusion, grievance, racism, lies, and visible cognitive decline, delivered in a raspy, slurred, low-energy mumble to a room that had clearly already tuned him out.

The contrast with Mark Carney — whose historic speech the day before calmly described the real world Trump has helped break — could not have been more brutal.

Carney spoke like a statesman preparing allies for reality.

Trump spoke like a man yelling at ghosts.

If we are very lucky, Trump's performance at Davos, and the contrast with Carney's, will increae the pressure on the Repubicans in Congress to finally break Trump's hold on them. 

 

Musicolet Music Player for Android

I've been struggling with using VLC as a music player on my Pixel phone. While it's very versatile and will play almost any format, the interface is clunky and it lacks some basic functionality, like easily playing all songs in a folder or an album.

I've found a good alternative if you are looking for something to play local file, IOW files that you've transferred to your phone. Musicolet is fast, has no ads,  a clean interface, all the options you are likely to need for playing music, and it's free. 

About the only thing I've found missing is an option to increase the text size in app. That aside, it's exactly what I was looking for. 

There's no IOS version, so iPhone owners are out of luck.