Becoming Somebody

It seems there is nothing new media loves to harass more than old media, and believe me I get as big a kick out of it as any in the blogging world. Call me biased — as you should know by now, I welcome the charge — but I honestly believe newspapers and magazines do a solid job, for the most part, the obvious exception being the industry-wide carte blanche given to the Bush administration after 9/11 and during the buildup to the Iraq War by every journalist other than those working for Knight Ridder.

Mainstream television journalism, on the other hand, is just awful and by far the most egregious in its tawdry coverage of news events and seeming inability to hire journalists willing and/or able to conduct real interviews and ask real questions. The worst part is that TV journalists know they do bad work. How obvious was their guilt when, in the wake of Scott McClellan’s charges that the media failed the American people before the invasion of Iraq, hacks like NBC News Chief White House Correspondent David Gregory got all twisted up and felt it necessary to defend the work he and his colleagues did at that time, over and over again? I think such defensiveness, and a complete rewriting of history, falls under the Whoever-Denied-It-Supplied-It banner.

However, I’ve had enough of media critics — mostly those who blog — ripping on cable-news pundits like Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and, yes, even Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity for not upholding high journalistic standards on their programs. People like Matthews and O’Reilly aren’t newsmen. They’re not even in the business of reporting the news. They are commentators. They comment on the news. Their roles — which I agree are far too big and far too ambiguous — are to offer their opinions on politics and current events. They are allowed to have stupid opinions, to be base and obtuse, to be hardheaded, to be annoying, to be wrong, to be unfair.

The inability of the public to weed through all the hot air emitted by these blowhards is the fault of the public alone. There is real news readily available from multiple sources — those newspapers and magazines mentioned earlier, some websites, etc. The problem is people are either too lazy to look for it or too easily bored because it isn’t presented to them by a screaming maniac surrounded by bright lights and loud noises.

Instead of seeking out the news, most people come home from work, plop down on the couch, turn on Countdown or The O’Reilly Factor and take every word spoken during that hour as infallible, ironclad truth. It’s easier and more entertaining to listen to and then regurgitate whatever Olbermann or O’Reilly says than it is to read the facts of a probably nuanced story and form one’s own opinion. But that’s not Olbermann or O’Reilly’s fault, just as it is not Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert’s fault for being the primary news source of so many young people. It is Stewart and Colbert’s job to tell the joke, not to make sure the audience gets it.

Of course, it is fair to say that Stewart and Colbert admit they are comedians and little else, while those filling up space on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC stand by the assertion that they are actually journalists. But, again, just because they assert something doesn’t mean we, as viewers with brains, eyes, and ears, have to believe it. Yet no one blames the public for being willingly misinformed and easily fooled. Better not to insult your audience, after all.

I suspect the high-and-mighty journalists and bloggers who damn cable-news punditry as the plight of American journalism are just annoyed that the talking heads they hate are more successfully reaching the masses than their dying industry. If they were honest, though, and if they were really interested in telling the truth, they’d point their anger where it belongs and leave those of us able to distinguish news from entertainment alone so that we can not feel guilty for getting a kick out of another Worst Persons in the World segment.

Bill O’Reilly does this thing on his show where he sends out one of his producers — from what I have seen and from my experience sharing air with many of these types, they are all the lowest forms of humans, grubby weasels with no ethics and a thirst for fame alone — to ambush someone whom O’Reilly has labeled an enemy. The “interviews” that proceed from the sabotage are stupid, uninformative attack pieces that are further from real journalism than anything made up by Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair.

In the above clip, an O’Reilly Factor producer named (I shit you not) Porter Barry tries to ambush Bill Moyers, a frequent target of O’Reilly’s due to Moyers’ so-called liberal agenda (a.k.a he doesn’t fall in lockstep with the Bush administration and asks real questions) and failure to accept an invitation to appear on The Factor. Moyers gives Barry the what for and makes him look like the sniveling grub that he is. Real journalists then chase Barry down and treat him to an ambush-style interview. Great stuff.

Thanks to The UpTake for the video.

I had a friend in college — a very tall, very skinny, and very disheveled friend — with whom I often lamented the state of the world, and my boredom with everything going on in it. On one occasion, after he and I had just completed a solid four-and-a-half hour stretch laying on couches and flipping television channels, stopping only when an ample female backside graced the screen, we began discussing whether or not it was in our nature to be constantly bored, whether perpetual disinterest in our immediate surroundings was hardwired into our genetic codes, the same as his height or my lack of cranial tresses.

Of course, we grew bored with the conversation quickly and once again returned our attentions to the softness of those sofas against our backs. I cannot be certain, but I would bet an honest day’s wage that, at some point shortly thereafter, just as a wonderful nap was about to settle down upon us, another friend — this one wee and well-organized — came into the apartment and yelled at us for being so unproductive. This wee, well-organized friend often scolded us for our laziness. It was college, after all, a place where things got done, minds got molded.

“But we’re thinking,” we would say to no avail as the wee, well-organized friend threw his hands into the air and walked off in disgust, most probably to do homework or solve the riddle of cold fusion.

In the years since I last trudged the snowy quad of Syracuse University, the world has become a little less dull, if only because I’ve been too busy worrying about the relationship between my never-ending job search, ever-dwindling bank account and ever-augmenting pile of bills. In fact, I’ve shared a lot of my interests on this blog these last few months. In all honesty, even in the absence of paid labor, I have been pretty well occupied, at least mentally. However, the last three weeks of my life have been made up of some of the most boring days I’ve ever experienced. And it’s driving me crazy.

There is no moral to this story. There is no grand conclusion. There is only the declaration of this fact: I am once again bored. Won’t someone please give me something to do?

What can I say? It’s a good day.

The Associated Press: Obama clinches Democratic nomination

WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, based on an Associated Press tally of convention delegates, becoming the first black candidate ever to lead his party into a fall campaign for the White House.

I wouldn’t hold my breath on a civil ending to this process, though.

Looks like I blogged too soon. I found something to peak my interest and draw my anger. It seems that using “drop weapons” is a widespread practice used by the American military to cover up the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to veterans and other sources interviewed by the American News Project.

Watch video:

I’m still processing this and looking into the story. I expect to have more to say later.

Call it commentary malaise. Call it political burnout. Call it whatever you want, but the fact remains I have not been seriously interested in anything topical for a few weeks now, hence the few-and-far-between blog posts recently.

The presidential campaign has fueled my blogging these last few months, as most people know and, possibly, lament, but I’m just bored by it at this point. I’ve become annoyed, rather than intrigued, with the Democratic race. It’s over. Done. The ship has sailed. All fat ladies have sung. I couldn’t get into the Rules and Bylaws Committee decision on seating Florida and Michigan’s delegates this weekend. I’m over crazy pastors saying crazy things in Church. I don’t care to analyze all the reasons the Clinton campaign’s arguments for staying in the race are baseless and sort of misleading. It’s all be said. It’s all be written. I’m just bored by it all at this point.

Along those same lines, I feel tossing my two cents into the debate over other current political shenanigans, like the Scott McClellan memoir fiasco, just seems tawdry and excessive. I have nothing new to add, and nobody is paying me to regurgitate the same opinions being spewed by other pundits at other news sources. There is no nuance at all to any issues lately, and the nuance is what gets me going.

That being said, I have nothing to say about anything else. I could regale the world with anecdotes of my to this point unsuccessful quest to find employment. But everyone knows the job market sucks, especially in the journalism world. Besides, it’s too depressing to live it all and then write about it.

I think the real crux of this whole situation is that it’s finally happened: I’m bored. I need something to fill my days. I need a job. I need to get out of the house. If anyone has any suggestions, please pass them along via e-mail. I need to get up outta this funk.

I’m sure most of you have seen this by now, but if you haven’t let me fill you in. Apparently the “right-wing blogosphere” (aside: the union of the words “right-wing” and “blogosphere” might make for the most obnoxious conceptual juxtaposition in the Internet age) was abuzz recently about a Dunkin Donuts ad in which the heinously annoying Rachel Ray was shown wearing a white-and-black paisley scarf around her neck (see below).

“So what?” you ask.

Well, dear readers, according to conservative pundits led by Michelle Malkin, the scarf looked just a bit too much like a keffiyeh. And that was a bad thing. Because Islamic jihadis, particularly those in Palestine, wear keffiyehs. And American consumers of junk food are sensitive about things that look like things worn by Islamic jihadis. So Dunkies pulled the ad.

Now, I’m no fashion expert, but doesn’t any wrapped scarf kind of look like a keffiyeh, considering a keffiyeh is nothing more than a wrapped scarf worn by Arab men to keep the sun off their heads and sand out of their mouths?

And isn’t this America? A place where the freedom of people to dress as they choose should have by now rendered impotent the potential social dangers of fashion-based symbolism?

And isn’t Rachel Ray the complete antithesis of someone with whom Islamic jihadis would align themselves — an obnoxious, rich, property-owning, unwed, female loudmouth?

And, as much as I would love to see Rachel Ray strap dynamite to her chest and explode herself for any reason at all, does anyone really believe the queen of annoying culinary catchphrases is a covert Islamic militant? A jihadi sympathizer?

Can someone please explain this to me? Confuse me much America does.

Busy with other stuff, sort of. Will blog again soon. Promise.

How does a down-on-his-luck Cuban making between $10 and $15 a month spell freedom?

Thanks to his old pal Dubya, it’s no longer spelled: L-I-B-E-R-T-A-D.

No, no amigo tonto. Lo deletreas: V-E-R-I-Z-O-N o A-T-and-T. Cualquiera es aceptable.

I must give credit to the president for continuously boggling my mind with foreign-policy and humanitarian initiatives that seem a touch — oh what do I call it? — disingenuous.

Bush to let Americans send cell phones to Cuba, from CNN.com:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The United States will allow Americans to send mobile phones to relatives in Cuba under a change in policy that President Bush announced Wednesday.

Bush said he is making the change since President Raúl Castro “is allowing Cubans to own mobile phones for the first time.”

“If he is serious about his so-called reforms, he will allow these phones to reach the Cuban people,” Bush said. […]

Bush said Wednesday it is “the height of hypocrisy to claim credit to allow Cubans to purchase appliances that virtually none of them can afford.”

The president concluded his statement by adding, “Oh snap. What do you think of me know, Castro brothers? Take that, you commie sonsabitches.”

When asked by a reporter whether he would encourage Castro to eavesdrop on calls made by Cuban citizens on those phones, as is the practice in the United States, Bush turned to Dick Cheney and winked his right eye. The vice president then leaped over the podium and onto the unsuspecting journalist. By the time members of the press corps wrestled Cheney away, all that remained of the correspondent was a necktie and a digital audio recorder.

Unfazed, once the media retook their seats, the president then revealed a new plan to send bagel slicers to Sudanese refugees, apparently in an attempt to show militia leaders in Darfur that, in a world snuggled under the warm blanket of freedom, even those escaping genocide deserve a tasty breakfast.