Now here's an impressive-looking chart from Reuters that was all over the Twitterverse this weekend. Quick -- after Florida adopted "Stand Your Ground" in 2005, did gun deaths increase or decrease? Well of course they decreased, says your brain, which learned to read charts in elementary school -- look at that awesome downward slope in the numbers, because a line on a chart going down always indicates a decrease in something, which is why a slope like that in a New Yorker cartoon about Wall Street would be followed by a banker jumping out a window. And then of course you look at what the chart "actually" says, and notice that "zero" is at the top of the chart, and you realize gun deaths increased sharply -- but by now the cartoon banker has gone splat (we can always get more off a desert island cartoon).
That would count Trayvon Martin. Which was not a murder, according to Florida. Makes you wonder how many such non-murders are missing from the numbers.
Sure, you can think of the red area as blood dripping down, or if you look at it the other way, as buckets filling up and sloshing about. It's a personal preference, really can be interpreted either way.
The really cool part is that absolutely nobody between the artists and the intern who eventually uploaded it to the website ever thought, "Something is wrong with this graphic."
Apparently, my college newsroom had journalistic and artistic standards far exceeding those of a mere modern wire service.
At least Florida put an end to that "national trend" nonsense.
Because other states don't have the huge handicap that Florida does: Floridians.
That would count Trayvon Martin. Which was not a murder, according to Florida. Makes you wonder how many such non-murders are missing from the numbers.
Depends on how you define "wrong."
You just know that Ailes is kicking himself, wondering "why didn't I think of that?"
Everything in Florida is fucked up. It's all the Pensacola Bible College alumni.
"Double C" probably didn't have the same ring to it.
Oh geez, you probably have to go up a flight of stairs to get to the first floor, too . . .
Ugh, then I suppose you cook meat for them in 100C water.
What this country needs is a good 5-doubloon cigar.
Style over substance is not meant to be a credo...
Up is the new down. Get with the times people.
Sure, you can think of the red area as blood dripping down, or if you look at it the other way, as buckets filling up and sloshing about. It's a personal preference, really can be interpreted either way.
If she had included people with fatal gunshot wounds falling from above the zero line into the red bars, then I would have gotten it right away.
58008
Check that out!
Excellent point. The old swamp pig in the Burmese python.
The really cool part is that absolutely nobody between the artists and the intern who eventually uploaded it to the website ever thought, "Something is wrong with this graphic."
Apparently, my college newsroom had journalistic and artistic standards far exceeding those of a mere modern wire service.