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Wretched Excess

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I Must Apologize ...

I Must Apologize …

My last two postings—about the Koch Brothers and Cliven Bundy—are classic examples of (1) wretched excess and (2) lowering the level of political discourse by several notches. Not that I wouldn’t like to see those low-grade villains get their come-uppance, but it is just not worth overstating the obvious. I fell into the trap set by social conservatives of responding with knee-jerk outrage to acts of arrant stupidity.

There is no point to it: We are surrounded by a sea of retardation. Among our fellow Americans are millions of people whose combined brainpower isn’t enough to strike a match. The news media are there to capture every stupid phrase or gesture and magnify it until it comes to us with an unreal sense of urgency.

When I do this—in fact almost whenever I write about politics—I feel dirty. I have said this before, but now I am coming to realize that it’s all a sick game. Whenever I react in some knee-jerk fashion, I am doing my cause no good. The main thing is to show up at the polls, and when necessary, contribute a few dollars to my side.

I plan to move from Duh Drive as soon as possible … and stay away.

As Likely As Any Other Theory

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A Painting of Neptune by an Indian Artist

A Painting of Neptune by an Indian Artist

Since most of the news about Malaysian Flight 370—or just about anything else—is so preposterous of late, I have decided to float some of my own theories. My theory is that Neptune (a.k.a. Poseidon), the Roman God of the Sea has hijacked Flight 370 and taken the Boeing down to his undersea palace a thousand miles west of Perth, Australia, where the passengers will be fêted on tea and cakes until he allows them to take off again.

As for Vladimir Putin’s recent takeover of Crimea, it is my firm belief that my friend Bill Korn has it right on his blog. Mr. Putin is trying to put together a new Greater Teabagistan now that the old Soviet Empire has run out of steam. And who better to rule as the new Czar of Teabagistan than Putin himself. I understand he is even thinking of taking Transdniester away from the Republic of Moldova because he feels they are not pronouncing it right. (Our Vladi is a stickler for correct pronunciation.)

In the United States, with the McCutcheon vs. FEH (not FEC as reported) decision, the U.S. Supreme Court is on the point of granting full freedom of speech and all other First Amendment rights to corporations, and then embarking upon the next step: Declaring human beings to be a carbon unit infestation that has arrogated too many rights to itself.

The real reason for David Letterman’s upcoming retirement from CBS is that he wants to become the new Stephen Colbert, while Colbert takes over his helm at CBS. Talk about a Chinese fire drill!

Perhaps I should apply to the news stations to come up with theories for their breaking news stories. If anyone can break the news, look no further than yours truly.

By the way, the above illustration of Neptune is by Indian artist Shakti Prasad Srichandan.

 

Breaking News—Floating Debris in Ocean!

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... And Still They Go On and On and On

… And Still They Go On and On and On

The death of all those passengers and crew on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is a legitimate disaster. And trust me, they are all dead. No one’s going to call the news services that they landed safe and sound in Timbuktu, Kathmandu,  or the Rings of Saturn. Something happened, and we won’t know what for some time to come. In the meantime, we are bombarded by the media noise machine which is using the event to sell us soap. By the time we find out what happened, there’ll be a different news orgy: Perhaps another Kaylee, or another Scott Peterson, or another Michael Jackson. It almost doesn’t matter. To re-use the name of a bygone, late-lamented series, TV News is the ultimate Short Attention Span Theater.

You may want to resolve not to watch the news on TV. After all where does it get you? Well, for one thing, floating in the Indian Ocean 1,500 miles southwest of Australia.

Sochi Soap Opera

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Great Athletes, Crappy Coverage

Great Athletes, Crappy Coverage

Several of my friends and co-workers have asked whether I am following the Sochi Winter Olympics. I usually shake my head and say that I can’t take the typical U.S. sports reporting, with its emphasis on heartwarming stories of athletes who give their all for their late Uncle Poochie, who was caught in a threshing machine, only to come in seventeenth on the moguls. The vast majority of the media coverage is of American athletes. What I would like to see is a greater emphasis on other countries—without any sob stories or even biographies.

The young men and women who compete in the Olympics are too young to have a real biography. They have an incredible amount of dedication, but this is not limited to Americans. What about Slovenians, Icelanders, and others whose name the U.S. announcers can’t pronounce? They worked just as hard to get there and deserve a nod from us, even if we massacre their names.

Also, I am a little dismayed at the negative coverage about Russia. Having used Russian toilets in Hungary and Czechoslovakia back in the 1970s, I know that Russian workmanship can be a little dicey at times. Even if Vladimir Putin is an ass, he deserves better than a load of sneering press stories. Listen, guys, the Cold War is over. We won. Now let’s all try to get along together.

 

 

Not To Be Trusted

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It’s No Longer Just a Problem With Faux News

It’s No Longer Just a Problem With Faux News and Their Barbie Doll Megyn Kelly

Oh what a mighty fall has television news suffered! We are decades away from the “good” news programs from the likes of Walter Cronkite, Huntley/Brinkley, Eric Sevareid, Peter Jennings, and others. That’s when the news was the news, and not just a subsidiary of a corporate egomaniac who wants his own opinions reflected in the stories that are presented. Faux News is the classic example of news that is so colored by Rupert Murdoch and his hand puppet Roger Ailes that it is all but useless if someone wants something other than right-wing nut-job agitprop.

Today, anyone who wants to know what is truly happening must avoid most television and radio news media like the plague. I still rely somewhat on National Public Radio (NPR), but even they are being chipped away at by the forces of GOP/Tea. To get my news, I use a variety of sources, including some left-leaning ones which, in their own way, are not always trustworthy (as for example RawStory.Com). TruthDig.Com is pretty good, especially in the articles by Chris Hedges, but I think their views are too progressive for me.

I am indebted to Jackhole’s Realm for the Megyn Kelly picture above.

 

Living in the Past?

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Not Altogether a Bad Thing

Not Altogether a Bad Thing

My brother and I usually talk on the phone on Sunday mornings, usually while I’m on my weekend hike. (That wasn’t the case today, however, because of the heat.) I hadn’t called him first because I was watching the DVD version of Ken Burns’s multi-part documentary The Civil War (1990), specifically the episode relating to Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chickamauga. Dan was curious to know why I was watching it. I replied that, frequently, during the hottest part of the summer, I would read a lot about the Civil War and watch DVDs on the subject. For instance, last month I watched Ted Turner’s production of Gettysburg (1993) with Tom Berenger, Martin Sheen, and Jeff Daniels.

“Boy, you really like living in the past, don’t you?” was Dan’s response.

“Absolutely,” I replied. “There’s little to like about what’s happening right now. After all, we’re getting ready to go to war again in the Middle East.”

Strictly speaking, I don’t live in the past. Although my tastes in music might be mostly 18th and 19th century, I am very partial to Jazz, the Blues, and folk music. I am more aware of what’s happening than people who rely on television news. Perhaps I do read the papers, getting the Los Angeles Times home-delivered seven days a week; but I get most of my news updates from the Internet, from the websites of CNN, MSNBC, and the BBC. Occasionally, I also check out Al Jazeera.

I am quite aware that many people who live in the past do so out of fear of the present. I have no particular fear of the present. If I like the history and literature of the past, it is partly to understand the present. Take a look at the illustration above, for instance: We are still fighting the American Civil War a hundred and fifty years later. The  Confederate States of America have found a way to bollix up the Senate by requiring that all measures pass with at least a 60-40 vote in order to avoid a filibuster. Do we have majority rule in the Senate? Not really. We’re sill hung up on States’ Rights, and talk of Secession is still in the air. We may no longer have literal slavery; but racism is rife and the villains have shifted from the rich plantation owners to the rich CEOs, the so-called One Percent.

No, if I spend time in the past, it is with an eye to the present. I urge all of you to read Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, Philippe de Commynes, Gibbon, Parkman, Prescott—and, yes, the Civil War historians—for a unique perspective on the present.

Kills Wife, Children, Self

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I’m Beginning To Think It’s Well Beyond Gun Control

I’m Beginning To Think It’s Well Beyond Gun Control

Something highly incongruous is happening around the country. On one hand, the total rate of crime, including murder, is decreasing nationwide. On the other hand, what murders there are are becoming more spectacular:

  • The random killing in Duncan, Oklahoma, of a young Australian baseball player by teens who were “bored”
  • The murder of a World War II veteran who is beaten to death by teens in Spokane
  • The shooting of four co-workers by a North Florida man who then took his own life

And that’s just within the last couple of days. Whether guns are involved or not, there seems to be a dangerous anomie among teens, and a total lack of conflict resolution skills among many of their elders.

So frequent are these stories that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish one occurrence from another: They merge into one another, with the result that it seems everyone is out there senselessly killing people—all the time!

For one thing, the news media obviously batten on to these stories so that people watching the news or reading the paper (wait—they don’t do that any more) are sickened. Each is accompanied by a news media orgy that continues until it is time for the next news media orgy to begin.

Since I have given up on watching the news, I don’t get as badly hammered by bad news as most people. But even following stories on the Internet causes sufficient consternation.

What must other people think when they watch our news program? I am reminded of Mexican newspapers giving gory details of murders and showing photos of the bodies. At least, that’s the way it was when I used to travel through Mexico in the 1980s.

Let’s Have a News Orgy!

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News Coverage Multiplies Like ... Well ... Kangaroos

News Coverage Multiplies Like … Well … Kangaroos

With so many news channels, whenever a big story breaks, you can be sure that it will be rubbed in your face twenty-four hours a day for weeks at a time. There are so many more types of news media that the effect is like being trapped in a hall of mirrors, like Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai.

Let me just name a few names so that you get the idea: O. J. Simpson (several times) … Caylee … Benghazi … Hurricane Sandy … Jodi Arias … Boston Marathon … Fiscal Cliff … IRS … Sequestration … Cleveland Sex Prisoners …  Trayvon Martin … Aurora Shooting … Sandy Hook … Elections … Yada Yada Yada.

It’s rather amusing that programming is always interrupted by “Breaking News Stories” that are nothing more but a repetition of the last 175 “Breaking News Stories,” adding little but possibly some new conjectures and misinformation to what has already been stated. What gets me is that some people stayed glued to their TV sets expecting to hear something new that explains the whole story. But they are never quite satisfied. The news is always breaking, but somehow it never quite breaks.

Probably the smart course is, when one hears the original story, to shut off the set and walk away for a few days, until some perspective emerges. At first, most news sources feel too cagey and inhibited to divulge any real news: You have to wait for a while, sometimes for weeks. In the meantime, there is a steady drumbeat of no news that masquerades as news.

I’m sorry to say that the same goes for newspapers. The story comes blaring at you through oversize headlines. Weeks later, buried on an inside page, is the real story—but by then everyone’s too jaded to care.

 

Breaking News

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Don’t Put Your Trust in the News—Ever!

Don’t Put Your Trust in the News—Ever!

It would appear that the news is always breaking, but what if it is already broken—irretrievably? When something like the Boston Marathon bombing or the ricin mailings occur, our first impulse is to turn on the television and wait on the edge of our seats while we are fed a steady stream of speculation, suppositions, and outright lies.

As I have said on a number of occasions, I don’t watch television news at all, mainly because I don’t trust it. At some point between my childhood and today, the news organizations have been taken over by large corporations who have an interest in making people believe what they want them to believe.

If you want a balanced picture of what is happening, you don’t automatically turn to your favorite news outlet: You try several different media—and not always just from the United States—and compare. You might find that the BBC and Aljazeera have a better handle on things—not in the sense of being more up to date, but being more skeptical of the way that news stories are spoon fed to the media.

Take the Boston Marathon bombings. Here are just some of the false trails the news media followed:

  • The Boston Police said the Tsarnaev brothers were heavily armed. Yeah, with weapons of mass cuisine, e.g., pressure cookers. Oh, and one pistol.
  • When Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was trapped in the boat, the report came that he was firing at officers. Yet he was unarmed when the police finally stormed the boat.
  • Reports said that the brothers held up a Seven-Eleven Convenience Store and shot an MIT officer who intervened. They did not, in fact, rob a Seven-Eleven, and the facts are still not known as to how the MIT officer got involved.
  • Details about the carjacking are incredibly fuzzy, although a number of different alternatives have been floated in the news.

For more information about news miscues regarding the Tsarnaev’s bombing, check out this story from Salon.Com.

It is sad that Americans don’t know when they are being manipulated by the news media. To me, the media have some responsibility to find out the truth, not just provide a plausible cover for people to believe.