peristaltor

The December 4 episode of On The Media got me in a huff, yet again. They interviewed another media/newspaper professional. He spoke of "progress" developing a revenue stream for news in an era of collapsing papers. And he focused again on financial dogma dredged from the turn of the last century; revenue from advertisements and subscriptions.

I must be blunt. Both concepts must be ass-raped. Hard. With a 50 grit dildo.

I've already mentioned why paying for news with ads is bad. I'll be mentioning it again and again, I can assure everyone. In a nutshell, what happens to the intrepid reporter that stumbles upon the Story of the Century only to find the trail of evidence leads directly to the news outlet's chief advertiser? Those stories get squashed, or buried. Or the reporter gets fired. What ever way it happens, the story fails to become news. Large revenue sources become their own way of saying "Shut up." Trust me, this happens. I'll be mentioning a few actual instances where it happened to disastrous consequence in later posts.

That leaves subscriptions, ( which suck, suck, suck. )

Addendum, the Next Day: I was mulling this post at work today and had a thought (one most likely caused from the fasting I needed to do for a damned blood draw): Maybe the newspapers have got this all wrong.

I know, I know, that much should be obvious.

What I considered was not that newspapers are trapped in an old business model that just doesn't work today, but that maybe they ( need not look to the kindness of strangers. )

I'd like to introduce everyone to David Brock, author of Blinded by the Right and The Republican Noise Machine. In Blinded, he introduces himself as a progressive and idealistic young lad who had a rude awakening during his college days in Berkeley. He went to cover Jeane Kirkpatrick's speech to the college, and was deeply disturbed when protesters interrupted her until she was forced to leave the stage:

The scene shook me deeply: Was the harassment of an unpopular speaker the legacy of the Berkeley-campus Free Speech Movement, when students demanded the right to canvass for any and all political causes on the campus's Sproul Plaza? Wasn't free speech a liberal value? How, I wondered, could this thought police call itself liberal?. . . . The few outspoken conservatives on the faculty, and the Reagan regents, raised their voices in support of Kirkpatrick's free speech rights. The liberals seemed to me to be defending censorship.

(David Brock, Blinded by the Right, Three Rivers Press, 2002, p. 4.)

This and other incidents burned in his mind, Brock turned from liberal and progressive issues and became a cheerleader for the Other Side. ( He rose in prominence, changing the course of American history as he ascended. )

I'll first make an up-front declaration of bias: I hate the anti-vaccination crowd.

For those of you unfamiliar with actress, comedianne and centerfold model Jenny McCarthy's hobbies, she has been probably the most visible and outspoken celebrity to endorse the vile lies that childhood vaccines, especially those containing mercury-based preservatives like Thimerisol, cause autism.

I call her positions on vaccine "vile lies" for good reason: At least four peer-reviewed studies have failed to show a connection. That doesn't stop folks -- including celebs like McCarthy and her boyfriend Jim Carrey, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Bill Mahr and a raft of others -- from flogging the Thimerisol horse corpse.

Ms. McCarthy, of course, has reason to be angry at autism; her son suffers from the condition. In this case, though, she has gone completely off the deep end attacking vaccines, even going so far as to suggest that the inevitable preventable deaths that follow people refusing to immunize their own children are a price worth paying to avoid an autism connection that (once again) has been debunked.

Let's really add to evidence of her dissonance. Though she has on more than one occasion likened vaccines to "poison," take a gander at what she had to say about one of the most deadly poisons known to man:

“I love Botox, I absolutely love it. I get it minimally so I can still move my face. But I really do think it’s a savior.”

Anyhoo, I'm not posting this just to rant. I was responding to alobar the other day. I think the Hygienic Hypothesis might be a more likely culprit, and said so. He asked a good question: Why now? ( Why are we facing an explosion of autism? )


Edit: Link and floppy verbiage corrected October 8, 2009.

Decades ago I dated a chess player, a very good chess player, one who trained with chess masters and knew first hand many of the names in competition at that time. One day in the smokey basement pub where chess players meet to play, she came back from a game downright pissed off.

She had lost. Now, she was very good, but people win and lose all the time. I asked her why she was so upset. Her explanation stumped me: "He played like a fish," she said.

Huh?

I had her describe what it meant to play "like a fish." She explained that fish make wild, unpredictable moves, that their play doesn't fit any recognizable pattern.

"But he won," I said. I suppose comments like this are one of the big reasons we haven't seen each other in almost 20 years; but I was honestly then trying to understand the difference between a truly great player who wins and a "fish" who wins. To me, they both win, so what's the difference? After all, if a master sat me down and schooled me in the ways of the board, I wouldn't know if I was undone by a lost Fibunacci Bishop or a Pawn's Gambit or the Flirty Queen. I would only know that I lost. Checkmate.

Out on a walk last night, I finally reasoned why the term "fish" might be used. Hook a fish and drag it out of the water, and it flops about madly on the deck or the dock without getting anywhere. A chess "fish," therefore, might be someone whose play seems erratic and pointless. They don't seem to be getting anywhere, or going anywhere. Ah, but the schooled opponent of the fish is judging the fish's moves on a learned pattern, the movement of one who walks on dry land.

Let's take this fish analogy a bit further and suppose that the fish player is actually playing by rules applicable in the water. Those spastic arches and flops across the board make no sense to us dry-landers; but put us in the drink and we shall see the fish's twitches move it across great distances with an admirable economy of effort. We walkers, on the other hand, slap and kick and flap about and barely get anywhere in the water. (I have a video of myself scuba diving in Hawaii, if anyone needs images of an amateur diver for comic relief.)

All this led me to reconsider a word upon which I've been stumbling quite a bit lately: ( Heuristics. )

I commented in cargoweasel's LJ today. Looking back, I typed hastily and in anger, something that led me to make a comment that frightens me some hours later. For that, I apologize.

I'm reminded of Sam Kinneson (sp?) and his very early stand up. On spousal abuse, he said (in so many words) I don't condone wife beating . . . but I UNDERSTAND IT!!!

Well, when violence strikes from a perceived area of interest, people take notice. By now, all have heard of the census worker hanged in Kentucky with the word "fed" written on his body. Many have pointed out that the rage leading to this attack can be rightly attributed to the right-wing noise machine attempting to mobilize their base, all part of their effort to undermine in any desperate way any momentum the perceived left has made in the last few months.

What happens when that violence becomes more commonplace? What is the most appropriate response?

You see, I feel that is, as Zappa used to say, the crux of the biscuit. The right feel they are, well, right. They feel their positions on issues have been ordained by The Creator of All. They feel the violence they undertake -- be it the hanging of a substitute teacher or the gunning down of a doctor or the shooting of a black guard in a museum -- is justified as punishment for the fact that someone dared defied their god.

The left . . . what response have they? And herein lies the rub.

While looking into the matter, I've learned that the left tends to view more than just two sides of any given issue, tending instead to immerse themselves in the complexity and nuance, details that defy simple vilification. The left tends also to eschew violence, be it torture, assassination, what have you. There are many reasons for this. Despite the lessons Jack Baur may teach, torture, for example, doesn't get good information from the tortured. It almost never does. Think about it: If someone is willing to die for his cause, what is a little pain (in the short term) going to prove? In the long term, his information is probably of no value. Really, this should be obvious, given the lessons other countries have to offer. If Israel has abandoned torture as a means of interrogation, it's a good bet they tried it and failed to see the value. Lesson learned.

So when the right targets the left, what defense does the left have, well, left?

I was debating a good friend on such an issue years ago. He felt my position on (IIRC) global climate change was pussy-esque. He didn't agree on the very premise, and tried the ol' "Why don't you kill yourself?" ploy. It's a classic. If people are the biggest cause of global warming, one argues, why don't those that care about the issue off themselves?

Ah, I pointed out, not so fast. If a person cares enough about the issue, he or she should take down the biggest polluters, the biggest carbon output sources, as quickly as possible, all while living as carbon-free a lifestyle as they can manage. Down go the Hummer drivers, for starters. The coal plant operators get it next, followed by anyone who lobbies for Big Oil, Big Auto, what have you. This will reduce the pollution much more quickly than simply reducing the number of people who are striving to make a difference. As solutions go, it's an effective and compelling argument.

And that's the problem.

Any issue can be reduced to Us v. Them. It could be Kanye jumping onstage being a dick or the neighbors massing troops on the border. It doesn't matter what it is, really. What happens when Them just get too visible, too successful? What happens when Them starts a'winnin'? The knee-jerks in all of us reach for a handy blunt instrument and a nearby melon to crack. And if we swing and connect, score! Our side wins a round.

But we don't. Our side ultimately can lose in so many ways.

I will say if I as a lefty get targeted by melon-seeking object-swinging righties, I'll use whatever means at my disposal to defend me and mine. That's not even an issue. Go, Second Amendment!

But when it comes to avenging a teacher in Kentucky, I really have to calm the fuck down and remember that, given time for the issue to ferment, that stupid, stupid, stupid act is likely to do more damage to Beck and Bachmann and the rest of the paid rabble rousers . . . as long as we never let them forget it.

A book I loved, Annie's Box by Randall Keynes, has been made into a movie, Creation. It tells Charles Darwin's story through his and his families personal writings, giving deep insight into what happened in a life that lead to probably the most influential scientific theory of all time.

I will not, though, be seeing it in the theater as I had hoped, at least not in the United States:

US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

The distributors have pussied out. Who cares what other people believe? Let those that want to see the movie see the fucking movie. Nope.

The end of the Telegraph article says it all:

Early reviews have raved about the film. The Hollywood Reporter said: "It would be a great shame if those with religious convictions spurned the film out of hand as they will find it even-handed and wise."

Well, we wouldn't want that, now, would we?

I've just heard a pair of interviews on the Skepticality podcast that illustrate for me very clearly what might be happening here in the United States, something that seems to be all but absent elsewhere. We here in the States can't miss it without forgoing any and all media reporting. There's a frenzy of folks up in arms to resist the "socialization" of health care (like we did to fire and police protection generations ago) by (as they confusingly put it) a Nazi President, one who may or may not have been born in Kenya, one who many of those same protesters are sure is either an closet Muslim or (worse) an atheist. Just about all of the most vocal are convinced he is a racist.

I am convinced this is not happening in a vacuum. Phenomena this wide-spread never do. They are helped along by people who know what they are doing, who know exactly what buttons to push and how often. Don't be fooled: This is a power struggle backed by millions of dollars with many more billions of dollars at stake. On that most can agree.

What is less clear is how this is happening.

To illustrate what I feel is happening now, I'd like to mention a few facts about the Columbine High School incident ten years ago, facts I found startling and surprising. Did you know:

-- Bombs were supposed to be the main killing weapons, not guns.

-- Harris and Klebold were not members of the Trench Coat Mafia.

-- Harris and Klebold were not quiet "outcasts" picked on by "jocks."

-- The morning they and so many others died at their hands, the two did not go bowling.

Surprised at any of these revelations? I was. It's amazing to note what happened ( verses what everyone outside of Littleton thinks happened. )

A fascinating article outlines our nation's long history of conservative outrage:

So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are "either" the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.

I really had no idea the froth and blather reached as far back as the article mentions. I should have known, though. I really should have known.

This can't be emphasized enough. To quote Rachel:

Americans are showing up at these events to shout down the discussion and to chase their congressmen. And they are enraged. And they're enraged, at least in part, by over-the-top conspiracy theories about health care. And they're being orchestrated by the corporate interests that do this for a living and do it very well.

The problem? Too few people know when they're being duped. Or dupes.