Replies

Iâ€™m using Opera on Win 10

Doesn't matter what you are using. The problems come when the person posting an article uses characters with non-ASCII-compliant characters like slanted quotes, em-dashes, question marks, etc. that the FR HTML interpreter doesn't recognize, and instead renders nonsensical characters as its output.

It doesn't matter what your browser or operating system is. They are not the fault. For this to go away, the poster has to go back in the FR posting edit window, and replace these ill-behaved non-ASCII characters he has entered by cut-and-paste (even from his own Notepad app) with the standard ASCII characters supplied by the text editor, and placed there by the keyboard of the posting contributor.

Tell me, is this understandable to you? I want to know if I am communicating this to the FR audience.

Corrected: You can see a coarsening in how we respond and react on social media. No one feels ashamed to exploit the tragedy for political purposes even while it is happening.

But as soon as the story broke Wednesday afternoon, and while it was still going on, there were accusations and bitter words flung all over the Internet. The weirdest argument came almost immediately. A person named Chris Murphy, who is a U.S. senator representing Connecticut, sent out what struck me as the most manipulative message of recent political history.

The background is that Republican presidential contestants responded online to the shootings with the only helpful thing you can say--or do, frankly, from faraway--when a story like this occurs. "Praying for the victims, their families & the San Bernardino first responders," said Jeb Bush. Mike Huckabee said he was "praying." John Kasich: "My thoughts & prayers go out to those impacted."

This managed to enrage the progressive left. You can take your prayers and stuff 'em. The answer and the only answer to this tragedy is gun control, and if you're not for it you're not allowed to be part of the conversation. "Please shut up and slink away," tweeted a reporter. Another: "Your thoughts and prayers don't mean a damn thing." A reporter at the Huffington Post damned public officials: "useless thoughts and prayers." Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos: "How many dead people did those thoughts and prayers bring back to the life?"

>> Tell me, is this understandable to you?

Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense.

Here’s an example where the parsing problem is compounded:

>> IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m using Opera on Win 10

I resubmitted the text you quoted.