Carrolade

Eh, I disagree. It's not enough on its own by any stretch, but it remains a very useful part of a multi-pronged approach. I'll also point out that I addressed how almost all satires fail to have any impact on his supporters. Have you seen any Cunk though? It's a distinct style.

It's not about him or thinking he's smart. It's about why they like him and how they perceive the actual issues of the day. When Carrell or Morgan poke fun at something, they usually do it by taking it to other (quasi)logical conclusions that are so (overly) simple a young child can follow their logic. They only reason they can get away with this is because they're clearly being Monty Python levels of serious. This lets them get away with seriously and enthusiastically espousing bad ideas in a way that makes them look even stupider than they are, in a way the rest of us can't manage. They can parody what we cannot. Not effectively anyway.

While true, I'll also say that Cunk has a style and power that is something special. It takes talent to play that character, not everyone can convincingly play the bumbling idiot that effectively. There's a special something that the Diane Morgans and Steve Carells of the world have that even a Stephen Colbert can't pull off because he still comes off as a fancy and smarter-than-you east coast elite to a flyover country person.

I'd argue an attack from Cunk, if seen by his supporters, would be more effective than an attack from almost any other source, because only she (and some Steve Carrell characters) are stupid enough to actually make them see how stupid it all is.

You need to be that level of dumb to parody him (edit: or more accurately, MAGA as a whole) to his own supporters though, even the likes of The Onion is usually too intellectually complex. Otherwise it doesn't work, too much of it goes over their heads. And lets be real, these are some of the stupidest characters we have ever conceived of. Lenny from Of Mice and Men had significant intellectual strengths over the likes of Philomena Cunk and Michael Scott. They need that stupidity to deal with Trump on the level.

I see. Yea that makes sense, thanks.

I figured they were just okay giving out the free advertising to one of their own. But stolen also makes sense.

Honestly someone should just look up the photographer, email him and politely ask him if he was paid or not.

edit: Likely case: They asked him for it and he happily donated it, so long as they kept the watermark, and they were totally cool with that.

Right, but free advertising in every Syrian passport will help his business, which will make money, which can buy food, which is edible.

Giving the photographer the credit for his work is a win-win for everyone involved.

edit: Ooooh do you think the watermark means they stole it and never paid him? I didn't consider that possibility.

Why is that mildly infuriating? Personally I think it's actually kinda cool that they're okay preserving the attribution for the artwork like that. Photographer is probably a Syrian national, so it still honors the nation and all that.

Can rivers eventually carve through solid rock?

Yeah, if anything about it bothered you, that was probably smart. The trilogy is, among other things, a very slow yet steady escalation of horror.

She did write two other trilogies in the same setting following different characters that you may prefer more. Different narrators does change the prose, but she still manages that same fluidity, which is what I always loved so much about it.

Yeah, I take several random samples of the prose from throughout the book, just to get a good sense of the overall style. Though I do always begin with the first paragraph, and on at least one case, that was enough to immediately close and buy the book.

That being the over-the-top, sorta Victorian prose of Jacqueline Carey:

Lest anyone should suppose that I am a cuckoo’s child, got on the wrong side of the blanket by lusty peasant stock and sold into indenture in a shortfallen season, I may say that I am House-born and reared in the Night Court proper, for all the good it did me. It is hard for me to resent my parents, although I envy them their naïveté...

She then keeps going just like that for three large books, probably totaling something like 2k pages. I loved every page of it.

Yeah that's more of a hotel thing. I'm guessing this is that influencer trick of intentionally lying about a detail so people will make comments to correct you, giving you free engagement.

The main difference I see is that when a professional wants to read something very thoroughly, they employ techniques of what's called slow reading. That's usually when the highlighter comes out along with note-taking materials.

This is possible with print information because of how much of it is put in front of your eyes at once. Rereading a paragraph, even a half dozen times to guarantee you fully understood it, is very easy with print. It is not with audio. Flipping back to page xxx to check something, also very easy with print and less so with audio. Smoothly speeding up/slowing down your rate of consumption to match the complexity of the current topic, also easier with text than audio. Etc etc.

So, for casual consumption, they're fairly equivalent and both fine. But if you wanted to claim mastery of a complex topic after putting years of intensive effort in, I'd say that probably required some reading that could not have been replaced by listening, and if you did no reading, I'm going to be a little doubtful of your mastery of the knowledge. It's possible to still understand what you need to, of course, but you definitely neglected what is usually the most efficient, reliable method by far.

This Stepan Banderas stuff gets so tiresome.

Your country doesn't have any historical figures it honors for certain things despite an ugly background? Mine has plenty, just because history itself is pretty ugly and extremely messy.