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September 14, 2004

We're only human

: Terry Teachout speculates about whether we're still allowed to be human anymore. Humans make mistakes. What would happen if someone actually admitted one?

I was thinking today about how so few public figures are willing to admit (for attribution, anyway) that they’ve done something wrong, no matter how minor. But I wasn’t thinking of politicians, or even of Dan Rather. A half-remembered quote had flashed unexpectedly through my mind, and thirty seconds’ worth of Web surfing produced this paragraph from an editorial in a magazine called World War II:

Soon after he had completed his epic 140-mile march with his staff from Wuntho, Burma, to safety in India, an unhappy Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell was asked by a reporter to explain the performance of Allied armies in Burma and give his impressions of the recently concluded campaign. Never one to mince words, the peppery general responded: "I claim we took a hell of a beating. We got run out of Burma and it is as humiliating as hell. I think we ought to find out what caused it, and go back and retake it."

Stilwell spoke those words sixty-two years ago. When was the last time that such candor was heard in like circumstances? What would happen today if similar words were spoken by some equally well-known person who’d stepped in it up to his eyebrows? Would his candor be greeted by a wholehearted roar of astonished approval? Or would he be buried under the inevitable avalanche of told-you-sos from his sworn enemies and their robotic surrogates, amplified well beyond the threshold of pain by the 24/7 echo chamber of the media, old and new alike?

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The accidental rich

: I'm not getting Mark Cuban's competitor to Donald Trump's The Apprentice. Cuban became a billionnaire by finding idiots at Yahoo.com who bought his Broadcast.com and promptly killed it. Prior to that, he sold a company to idiots at CompuServe, who promptly drove their company into the ground. Well, good for him. He makes money finding idiots, one of whom will now make a million bucks. I guess that's the perfect reality-show resume. And this is how we redistribute wealth these days.

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Kitty, kitty, kitty

: In a rich irony torte, Jim Wolcott gets catty about the NY Times getting catty about Kitty Kelly:

As soon as I get my greedy mitts on Kitty Kelley's epic tone poem about a certain upper-crust white-trash clan, I intend to provide ongoing interpretation of its findings. Michiko Kakutani was so hopping mad about it in The Times, stamping both her little moccasins at once, that I'm convinced La Kitty is on to something. The Times never gets that indignant about a simple piece of pop trash; it's only when the ruling class is given the tabloid treatment that the paper becomes institutionally huffy. And it's rather rich for a Times writer to squawk about an author using anonymous sources. The Times couldn't function without self-serving leaks from highly placed urinators. It might have been better had the Times assigned the review to Janet Maslin, who has the taste of a middlebrow hausfrau; she could have devoured the book in one sitting and put on seven pounds.

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It's a sickness

: My own parents called tonight worried because I was so sick, I wasn't blogging and if I wasn't blogging, I must be sick.

My fever explains why I had problems interpretting Limbaugh's humor. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Limbaugh is just a product of feverish delirium.

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Confab

: I've signed up to blog from John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly's Web 2.0 conference in SF. If you're there then, lemme know.

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Rather not

: I wish my old TV columns from the '80s were online for just one reason: Way back then, I said that Dan Rather was the dumbest anchor alive.

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He typed, she typed

: Andrew Sullivan's letter of the day (the top one) sums it up quite nicely.

From the right-wing blogs, I learned that the memo font matches MS Times-Roman, and nothing else. From the left-wings blogs, I learned that the memo font matches IBM Press-Roman, and nothing else.
From the right-wing blogs, I learned that small horizontal variation in spacing is proof of "kerning" and therefore computer generation. From the left-wing blogs, I learned that small vertical variation in alignment is proof of mechanical action and therefore typewriter creation.
I learned that the right-wing facts are certainly true, as noted by Washington Post experts, and the left-wing facts are certainly true, as established by the Boston Globe.

And so on, and so on.....

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Old media, new audiences

: The ever-impressive Bryan Keefer of Spinsanity writes a smart, direct, and insightful open letter to big media about how it should be changing for newer, younger audiences in the Washington Post.

The media's obsession with getting the latest minutiae about John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, or the latest gossipy tidbits about President Bush's alleged past drug use, is misplaced. The endless he said/he said reporting and the airtime given to questionable allegations highlight the reason why so many young people like myself are turning away from mainstream outlets such as newspapers and network newscasts. Instead, we're increasingly choosing to get our news and analysis from the Internet and even turning to unconventional outlets like Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" in pursuit of the straight story.

But blogs are the land of he-said/he-said these days. Anyway, point taken.

To me and others raised in our media-saturated environment, where 24-hour cable news and Internet access bring us more information than we can possibly digest, the mainstream media seem trapped in the age of "All the President's Men." They're still wedded to outdated ambitions like getting the "scoop" or maintaining a veneer of objectivity, both of which are concepts that have been superseded by technology. We live in an era when PR pros have figured out how to bend the news cycle to their whims, and much of what's broadcast on the networks bears a striking resemblance to the commercials airing between segments. Like other twenty-somethings (I'm 26), I've been raised in an era when advertising invades every aspect of pop culture, and to me the information provided by mainstream news outlets too often feels like one more product, produced by politicians and publicists.

If I start quoting more, I'll copy the whole thing. So go read the whole thing instead.

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Shock the vote

: Howard Stern has given over the entry to his site to voter registration.

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A blog's other b-roll

: Like an NPR show with an actual sense of humor, Rex Hammock is adding appropriately amusing iTunes musical bumpers to the end of every post (in hopes that he'll inspire you to click and buy). Check out his choices.

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Just asking

: I haven't seen anyone else asking this but I've been wondering lately...

Would the Democrats be better off with Al Gore as their candidate?

There'd be less mud; one presumes (hopes) that was to be slung was slung last time.

Gore has a clearer record and stronger accomplishments and clearer stands. Those stands are in starker contrast to Bush's (including on the war, where Gore has become rather, well, vitriolic).

And for sport, both sides would probably relish the rematch of Florida 2000 (while most of us would probably sooner forget it). But at least that would bring out voters eager to prove that their man was the true winner; it's like voting in two elections at once.

When you get right down to it, Gore has more personality than Kerry (sorry to damn with faint praise).

I wonder whether Gore regrets not running and whether some Democrats regret it, too.

Just asking.

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Freedom squandered

: Elie Wiesel, a man who truly understands the value of freedom and democracy, is disappointed and depressed about this election.

Has it always been this way? Have we always had adversaries hurling insults at each other rather than allowing debate and analysis to influence undecided voters? Should we be afraid to trust the public to comprehend the issues in depth? One could almost say that the goal is not to inspire but to incite, not to inform but to dumb down.

I'm not talking about the candidates themselves. I have deep esteem for one and great respect for the other. They represent two political ideologies, two philosophies for this society, and each of us is free to choose the one with whom we identify.

But why the disagreeable, offensive tone that emanates from this event?

Wiesel has covered American presidential elections since Kennedy v. Nixon and he has never seen a year like this.

In every case, the supporters and spokesmen of both the incumbent and the opposition expressed themselves with ardor, conviction and dedication.

But never with such violence as we see today....

Why this need, among people on both sides, to let the discussion be dominated by nastiness and ugliness? And why don't they listen to the voices calling for an end to this slide into the gutter? Do we care about what our children think as they watch this on television? What are they to make of the exchanges, insults and attacks among politicians? ...

This presidential campaign is full of verbal violence. In fact, it's bursting with it. Instead of elevating the debate, this campaign is debasing it. Instead of examining the serious problems of a society in crisis, it's treating them in a superficial way. Rather than comparing one philosophical doctrine with its counterpart, the campaigns are succumbing to propaganda -- propaganda that is striking for its excessive anger and its lack of elegance, generosity and even simple courtesy.

This is the election of shame. [via Keats' Telescope]

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