J.D. Rhoades's Blog, page 19
January 25, 2014
Feel the Love Redux
The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion
It’s gratifying to see how, even in the cold, dark depths of winter, the Republican Party continues to bring that warm glow of love and unity into our national discourse. It’s not for nothing that I call them the Party of Love.Take, for example, washed-up rocker and prospective GOP presidential candidate Ted Nugent, a guy who really knows how to bring the love, and we’re not just talking about bringing it to the underage girls he brags about having sex with (in one case, he talked his 17-year-old girlfriend’s parents into granting him legal guardianship because she was too young to marry. He was 30 at the time).Recently, in an interview with Guns.com, The Nuge was fairly exploding with love, referring to President Barack Hussein Obama as a “Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel,” and avowing that “America will be America again when Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin, Michael Bloomberg and all of the liberal Democrats are in jail facing the just due punishment that their treasonous acts are clearly apparent.”In case you didn’t get that, the “just due punishment” for treason is death, and Nugent was therefore calling for the execution of anyone who disagrees with him, after holding up a “Ted Nugent For President” bumper sticker and declaring that his election would be “the perfect ballot of freedom.”Because nothing says “freedom” like demanding the killing of political opponents, and nothing says “love” like referring to a president of a different race than you as a “subhuman mongrel.”Before you write Mr. “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” off as just some fringe nutter, remember that this is a guy whose endorsement Mitt Romney (remember him?) actively sought. He’s a frequent guest on Sean Hannity, who refers to him as “a friend.” He attended last year’s State of the Union address as the guest of Rep. Steve Stockman. A violent racist may not be exactly the Republican mainstream, but the Republican mainstream caters to him. It must be all the love.Actually, when you really look at it, Nugent does have some advantages in the presidential race. For one thing, he’s been visited by Secret Service agents enough times after his inflammatory screeds that he probably already knows most of the agents by name.More important, he’s already mastered that most vital of wingnut skills: When you’ve talked yourself into a corner, distract the listener by bringing up some long-discredited right-wing lie about Benghazi.Noting that his comments might be considered “inflammatory,” Nugent said, “I would call it inflammatory speech when it’s your job to protect Americans and you look into the television camera and say what difference does it make that I failed in my job to provide security and we have four dead Americans.” The guy’s got the Benghazi Dodge down, I tell you.Also on this week’s Republican Love Parade, we have Florida House candidate Joshua Black, who decided to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day by calling for the president to be hanged.“I’m past impeachment,” Black said on his Twitter account. “It’s time to arrest and hang him high.”Black, a former “street preacher,” also took to his Facebook page with a rather novel take on the Gospels to argue that Jesus would back him up on this: “This would be exactly what the president has done to others, and, as Jesus said, ‘The measure ye mete, it shall be meted to you again.”When a fellow Republican responded, “You aren’t seriously calling for the killing of Obama, are you?” Black stood his ground like a good Floridian: “Execution is the appropriate punishment for traitors. #BenedictArnold #ReadAmericanHistory #criminalpoliticians.”I have to confess, that last one made me a little nostalgic. During George Dubbya’s Wacky Iraqi Adventure, another member of the Party of Love took me to task in an email for my audacity in questioning the Dear Leader’s strategic wisdom: “They hanged Benedict Arnold, you know.”This managed to be both vaguely threatening and historically inaccurate at the same time, since Arnold wasn’t hanged. He died a rich man in London.But then again, this is the party who had one of its leaders insist that Paul Revere warned the British, and whose spokespeople complain that too many Americans don’t know that “some guy in Boston got his head blown off because he tried to secretly raise the tax on tea.” Who cares about factual accuracy when you have the kind of love in your heart that tells you Jesus wants you to execute the president and everyone who supports him?
The GOP: Can’t you just feel the love? I can. I have. And that’s why I stay as far away as I possibly can.
It’s gratifying to see how, even in the cold, dark depths of winter, the Republican Party continues to bring that warm glow of love and unity into our national discourse. It’s not for nothing that I call them the Party of Love.Take, for example, washed-up rocker and prospective GOP presidential candidate Ted Nugent, a guy who really knows how to bring the love, and we’re not just talking about bringing it to the underage girls he brags about having sex with (in one case, he talked his 17-year-old girlfriend’s parents into granting him legal guardianship because she was too young to marry. He was 30 at the time).Recently, in an interview with Guns.com, The Nuge was fairly exploding with love, referring to President Barack Hussein Obama as a “Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel,” and avowing that “America will be America again when Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin, Michael Bloomberg and all of the liberal Democrats are in jail facing the just due punishment that their treasonous acts are clearly apparent.”In case you didn’t get that, the “just due punishment” for treason is death, and Nugent was therefore calling for the execution of anyone who disagrees with him, after holding up a “Ted Nugent For President” bumper sticker and declaring that his election would be “the perfect ballot of freedom.”Because nothing says “freedom” like demanding the killing of political opponents, and nothing says “love” like referring to a president of a different race than you as a “subhuman mongrel.”Before you write Mr. “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” off as just some fringe nutter, remember that this is a guy whose endorsement Mitt Romney (remember him?) actively sought. He’s a frequent guest on Sean Hannity, who refers to him as “a friend.” He attended last year’s State of the Union address as the guest of Rep. Steve Stockman. A violent racist may not be exactly the Republican mainstream, but the Republican mainstream caters to him. It must be all the love.Actually, when you really look at it, Nugent does have some advantages in the presidential race. For one thing, he’s been visited by Secret Service agents enough times after his inflammatory screeds that he probably already knows most of the agents by name.More important, he’s already mastered that most vital of wingnut skills: When you’ve talked yourself into a corner, distract the listener by bringing up some long-discredited right-wing lie about Benghazi.Noting that his comments might be considered “inflammatory,” Nugent said, “I would call it inflammatory speech when it’s your job to protect Americans and you look into the television camera and say what difference does it make that I failed in my job to provide security and we have four dead Americans.” The guy’s got the Benghazi Dodge down, I tell you.Also on this week’s Republican Love Parade, we have Florida House candidate Joshua Black, who decided to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day by calling for the president to be hanged.“I’m past impeachment,” Black said on his Twitter account. “It’s time to arrest and hang him high.”Black, a former “street preacher,” also took to his Facebook page with a rather novel take on the Gospels to argue that Jesus would back him up on this: “This would be exactly what the president has done to others, and, as Jesus said, ‘The measure ye mete, it shall be meted to you again.”When a fellow Republican responded, “You aren’t seriously calling for the killing of Obama, are you?” Black stood his ground like a good Floridian: “Execution is the appropriate punishment for traitors. #BenedictArnold #ReadAmericanHistory #criminalpoliticians.”I have to confess, that last one made me a little nostalgic. During George Dubbya’s Wacky Iraqi Adventure, another member of the Party of Love took me to task in an email for my audacity in questioning the Dear Leader’s strategic wisdom: “They hanged Benedict Arnold, you know.”This managed to be both vaguely threatening and historically inaccurate at the same time, since Arnold wasn’t hanged. He died a rich man in London.But then again, this is the party who had one of its leaders insist that Paul Revere warned the British, and whose spokespeople complain that too many Americans don’t know that “some guy in Boston got his head blown off because he tried to secretly raise the tax on tea.” Who cares about factual accuracy when you have the kind of love in your heart that tells you Jesus wants you to execute the president and everyone who supports him?
The GOP: Can’t you just feel the love? I can. I have. And that’s why I stay as far away as I possibly can.
January 24, 2014
Calling All Wingnuts: The "Both Sides Do It" Challenge.
Whenever anyone points out some racist, violent, misogynistic, or just plain nutty statement like any of the ones below:
It's not long before someone comes along at says "well, Democrats say crazy shit too." And every time, it's usually one of a very few statements, like the one about Guam tipping over or some WTF? statement from Maxine Waters, or Barack Obama's "57 states" stumble.
So here's the challenge: can anyone provide me with an example of any Democratic politician calling for the killing of political opponents, advocating allowing rape inside of marriage, claiming some disaster or disease is God's punishment for not following their religious belief, or calling for a city to be turned into an internment camp? Feel free to respond in comments.
It's not long before someone comes along at says "well, Democrats say crazy shit too." And every time, it's usually one of a very few statements, like the one about Guam tipping over or some WTF? statement from Maxine Waters, or Barack Obama's "57 states" stumble.
So here's the challenge: can anyone provide me with an example of any Democratic politician calling for the killing of political opponents, advocating allowing rape inside of marriage, claiming some disaster or disease is God's punishment for not following their religious belief, or calling for a city to be turned into an internment camp? Feel free to respond in comments.
January 19, 2014
I'm Tellin' All O' Y'all, It's Sabotage
The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion
“Republicans are the ones who tell you government doesn’t work,” political humorist P.J. O’Rourke once said. “Then they get elected and prove it.”North Carolina Health and Human Services Secretary Aldona Wos is just the latest example.This past week, Wos appeared before a legislative oversight committee to explain what’s been going on in her troubled department. Lawmakers wanted to know why, for example, 49,000 children’s Medicaid cards were mailed out to the wrong addresses, and why the state food stamp program was so far behind, with up to 27,000 families caught in backlogs of up to three months.(Ironically, the computer program that’s supposed to help speed up the processing of applications is called FAST. Apparently, FAST wasn’t being used to mean “speedy.” It was used in the sense of “you don’t eat.”)Things have gotten so bad that the U.S. Department of Agriculture wrote a letter to Wos calling the food stamp delays “completely unacceptable” and “a failure on the part of North Carolina.”While Madame Secretary made the required pro-forma apologies for the ever-expanding disaster that is her DHHS, she did come up with one humdinger of an excuse: She blamed “the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.” It’s a “huge issue” in North Carolina, Wos told the committee.Poor thing. I mean, we’ve only had since March of 2010 to get ready. And what, may I ask, in the Affordable Care Act has squat-all to do with food stamps? Further, what in the ACA does Madame Secretary claim is responsible for mailing 49,000 Medicaid cards to the wrong addresses?I do know one thing, however, and that’s that I’m going to start using the “Obamacare excuse” every chance I get. Like so:WIFE: Honey, did you roll the trash can up to the curb like I asked?ME: Sorry, Pookie. I was so bumfuzzled by the implementation of the Affordable Care Act that I just forgot.JUDGE: Mr. Rhoades, what is your client’s defense to driving with a revoked license and possession of marijuana?ME: Your Honor, we feel the implementation of the Affordable Care Act is to blame.JUDGE: Say what?ME: My client spent so much time trying to sign up for Obamacare that he forgot to renew his license, and it upset him so bad he just needed some kind of mental relief.JUDGE: Does that also explain why he was riding a motorcycle down Broad Street with no pants on?ME: No, Your Honor, that was the fault of the administration’s cover-up of what really happened in Benghazi.I’ll let you know how it works.Look, folks. Every state in the union has had to implement the ACA. Somehow other directors of Health and Human Services seem to be getting their jobs done without whining that “Obamacare makes everything so haaaaaard.”You’ll also notice that the states where the ACA is working best are the ones where the government hasn’t been trying to undercut it from the get-go. You want to know why the DHHS is so screwed up? Because the Republicans want it that way.When you have an administration whose political base is distinguished by its virulent contempt for people who use programs like Medicaid and food stamps, maybe it should come as no surprise when that administration staffs the agencies responsible for carrying out those programs with political hacks like Wos whose main “qualification” has been their skill at political fundraising.It should come as no surprise when that same hack goes on to pack the agency with inexperienced 20-something former campaign workers suddenly making 80-plus thousand taxpayer dollars a year.These people don’t give a rat’s hindquarters about helping the poor. They think the poor deserve to suffer — that is, when they condescend to think about them at all. The McCrory administration knows that, among their core voters, there is no political downside at all to making needy people wait for food stamps or screwing up children’s Medicaid. And they see it as even better politically if they can blame their own dismal failures on Obamacare or on the previous state administration (ironic, that).The USDA letter mentioned above told Wos, “We have grave concern for the low income people of North Carolina who are waiting for assistance.” The problem is, the Republicans just don’t, no matter how much lip service they give to the idea.There’s an old saying from AA that “the program works if you work the program.” But if you elect people who don’t think programs work, don’t be surprised when they don’t work them, and don’t be surprised when, like Wos, they fail at their jobs.
“Republicans are the ones who tell you government doesn’t work,” political humorist P.J. O’Rourke once said. “Then they get elected and prove it.”North Carolina Health and Human Services Secretary Aldona Wos is just the latest example.This past week, Wos appeared before a legislative oversight committee to explain what’s been going on in her troubled department. Lawmakers wanted to know why, for example, 49,000 children’s Medicaid cards were mailed out to the wrong addresses, and why the state food stamp program was so far behind, with up to 27,000 families caught in backlogs of up to three months.(Ironically, the computer program that’s supposed to help speed up the processing of applications is called FAST. Apparently, FAST wasn’t being used to mean “speedy.” It was used in the sense of “you don’t eat.”)Things have gotten so bad that the U.S. Department of Agriculture wrote a letter to Wos calling the food stamp delays “completely unacceptable” and “a failure on the part of North Carolina.”While Madame Secretary made the required pro-forma apologies for the ever-expanding disaster that is her DHHS, she did come up with one humdinger of an excuse: She blamed “the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.” It’s a “huge issue” in North Carolina, Wos told the committee.Poor thing. I mean, we’ve only had since March of 2010 to get ready. And what, may I ask, in the Affordable Care Act has squat-all to do with food stamps? Further, what in the ACA does Madame Secretary claim is responsible for mailing 49,000 Medicaid cards to the wrong addresses?I do know one thing, however, and that’s that I’m going to start using the “Obamacare excuse” every chance I get. Like so:WIFE: Honey, did you roll the trash can up to the curb like I asked?ME: Sorry, Pookie. I was so bumfuzzled by the implementation of the Affordable Care Act that I just forgot.JUDGE: Mr. Rhoades, what is your client’s defense to driving with a revoked license and possession of marijuana?ME: Your Honor, we feel the implementation of the Affordable Care Act is to blame.JUDGE: Say what?ME: My client spent so much time trying to sign up for Obamacare that he forgot to renew his license, and it upset him so bad he just needed some kind of mental relief.JUDGE: Does that also explain why he was riding a motorcycle down Broad Street with no pants on?ME: No, Your Honor, that was the fault of the administration’s cover-up of what really happened in Benghazi.I’ll let you know how it works.Look, folks. Every state in the union has had to implement the ACA. Somehow other directors of Health and Human Services seem to be getting their jobs done without whining that “Obamacare makes everything so haaaaaard.”You’ll also notice that the states where the ACA is working best are the ones where the government hasn’t been trying to undercut it from the get-go. You want to know why the DHHS is so screwed up? Because the Republicans want it that way.When you have an administration whose political base is distinguished by its virulent contempt for people who use programs like Medicaid and food stamps, maybe it should come as no surprise when that administration staffs the agencies responsible for carrying out those programs with political hacks like Wos whose main “qualification” has been their skill at political fundraising.It should come as no surprise when that same hack goes on to pack the agency with inexperienced 20-something former campaign workers suddenly making 80-plus thousand taxpayer dollars a year.These people don’t give a rat’s hindquarters about helping the poor. They think the poor deserve to suffer — that is, when they condescend to think about them at all. The McCrory administration knows that, among their core voters, there is no political downside at all to making needy people wait for food stamps or screwing up children’s Medicaid. And they see it as even better politically if they can blame their own dismal failures on Obamacare or on the previous state administration (ironic, that).The USDA letter mentioned above told Wos, “We have grave concern for the low income people of North Carolina who are waiting for assistance.” The problem is, the Republicans just don’t, no matter how much lip service they give to the idea.There’s an old saying from AA that “the program works if you work the program.” But if you elect people who don’t think programs work, don’t be surprised when they don’t work them, and don’t be surprised when, like Wos, they fail at their jobs.
January 18, 2014
OH NOES THAT AWFUL OBAMACARE MADE MY PREMIUM GO UP!!!! OH. WAIT. NEVER MIND.
Actual Facebook screenshots from an acquaintance of ours (not "friended" on FB) griping that "Obamacare" was making her premium go up:
But...wait for the end....
Heh.
But...wait for the end....
Heh.
January 16, 2014
Homer Simpson Explains What's Going On At NC's DHHS
You want to know why Health and Human Services Secretary Aldona Wos is doing a half-assed job administering Medicaid and food stamps? Because that's the way the Republicans want it. They don't like Medicaid, don't like food stamps and absolutely loathe the poor people. So they screw up the programs they don't like, then try to blame Obamacare.
January 14, 2014
Dear Rand Paul: Fuck you.
So now that the Iraq War is over, Rand Paul takes the courageous step of actually doing something to repeal the legal authorization for it. *slow sarcastic clap*.
Look here, you preppy asshole, I was against that war when some people regarded it as treason and weren't shy about telling me so. (My favorite was the e-mail warning me that "They hanged Benedict Arnold, you know," which managed to be both vaguely threatening and historically inaccurate). I wrote about what a bad idea it was to invade Iraq when it actually had fucking consequences, like my own father publicly stating in a letter to the local newspaper that people like me and my wife were responsible for 9/11.
Fuck you, Rand Paul. Fuck you with a rusty fence post wrapped in barbed wire.
Look here, you preppy asshole, I was against that war when some people regarded it as treason and weren't shy about telling me so. (My favorite was the e-mail warning me that "They hanged Benedict Arnold, you know," which managed to be both vaguely threatening and historically inaccurate). I wrote about what a bad idea it was to invade Iraq when it actually had fucking consequences, like my own father publicly stating in a letter to the local newspaper that people like me and my wife were responsible for 9/11.
Fuck you, Rand Paul. Fuck you with a rusty fence post wrapped in barbed wire.
January 12, 2014
Journalism Goes to the (Starving) Dogs
The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion
It seems that the speedy decline of the international news media is continuing at its accustomed pace, and may even be accelerating.The latest example of sensational, shoddy journalism from people who should really know better came in the reporting about the execution of Jang Song Thaek, the uncle and political rival of bat-spit-crazy North Korean dictator Kim Jong-in.As you probably remember, reports filtered through last month from that secretive country that Jang had been removed from all his party positions, expelled from the party itself, and jailed. In a move straight out of Orwell’s “1984,” his image was Photoshopped out of photos with other leaders and removed from all official media.Then, on Dec. 13, the North Koreans officially announced that Jang had been executed for, among other things, “politically motivated ambition” and “obstructing the nation’s economic affairs.”Then things started to get weird.Since very little actual information makes it out from behind the veil of secrecy the Kim family has maintained around North Korea for years, the news media resorted to their usual technique of reporting rumors, harebrained speculation, and outright deranged fantasy to fill the information gap.The New York Times reported that two members of Jang’s faction had been executed with heavy caliber anti-aircraft guns. Another story in the British press quoted unidentified “Japanese media” as saying the executions were carried out in such a gruesome fashion on the orders of a “very drunk” Kim.Then, to cap it all off, American TV networks, including NBC and Fox News, reported that Jang had been executed by being “stripped naked, thrown into a cage, and eaten alive by a pack of ravenous dogs, according to a newspaper with close ties to China’s ruling Communist Party.”The Singaporean newspaper the Straits Times expanded on the lurid details, saying that “120 hounds, starved for three days, were allowed to prey on [Jang and his compatriots] until they were completely eaten up.”Am I the only one who read reports like this and went, “Now, wait just a gosh-darned minute here” (or some reasonable facsimile thereof)?I mean, Baby Kim’s a homicidal loon, no mistake about it, but when I see something that reads like an account from a James Bond movie or one of those unexpurgated versions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, I tend to get, shall we say, a little skeptical.As it turns out, we skeptics were right. Reporter James Pearson of Reuters traced the “Jang was eaten by dogs” story all the way back to a Dec. 11 post on a Chinese satirical website called Tencent Weibo. It did not, in fact, come from any intelligence source, insider or actual witness. It was a joke, albeit a particularly odd one.Perhaps there’s a lot in Chinese humor that gets lost in translation. Perhaps it’s also payback from the time a few years ago when the Chinese press printed a story from The Onion (”Kim Jong-un Named The Onion’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2012”) as truth.The clue should have been when, as the NBC News website put it, “the story could not be independently confirmed.”Now, I’m just a simple country lawyer, not a big-time famous print or broadcast journalist, but I seem to remember hearing about a day when, if a journalist couldn’t get independent confirmation of a big story from at least two sources, no editor would run with it.But that day is not this day. These days, “independent confirmation” has been replaced with, “Well, I read it from someone who read it in another place who may have seen it on Twitter,” and so on, until there are no real sources or confirmation of anything anymore, just a bunch of credulous rubes on their laptops or iPhones, desperate to generate content and blindly repeating what someone else said he read on another website or Twitter feed, maybe adding a little embellishment before passing it on to the next sucker, each echo getting louder until there’s nothing but a full-throated chorus of total balderdash.It’s journalism reduced to the level of middle school gossip, only louder and stupider, and it reaches its truest heights of absurdity when its original source is a joke repeated as truth by people who didn’t get it.I’ve often said that the hardest part of writing satire these days is staying ahead of reality. It gets even harder when satire is breathlessly reported as reality by sensation-hungry media hucksters for whom some stories are, as the saying goes, “too good to fact-check.”
I suppose that’s also meant as a joke, but the end results are more grotesque than funny.
It seems that the speedy decline of the international news media is continuing at its accustomed pace, and may even be accelerating.The latest example of sensational, shoddy journalism from people who should really know better came in the reporting about the execution of Jang Song Thaek, the uncle and political rival of bat-spit-crazy North Korean dictator Kim Jong-in.As you probably remember, reports filtered through last month from that secretive country that Jang had been removed from all his party positions, expelled from the party itself, and jailed. In a move straight out of Orwell’s “1984,” his image was Photoshopped out of photos with other leaders and removed from all official media.Then, on Dec. 13, the North Koreans officially announced that Jang had been executed for, among other things, “politically motivated ambition” and “obstructing the nation’s economic affairs.”Then things started to get weird.Since very little actual information makes it out from behind the veil of secrecy the Kim family has maintained around North Korea for years, the news media resorted to their usual technique of reporting rumors, harebrained speculation, and outright deranged fantasy to fill the information gap.The New York Times reported that two members of Jang’s faction had been executed with heavy caliber anti-aircraft guns. Another story in the British press quoted unidentified “Japanese media” as saying the executions were carried out in such a gruesome fashion on the orders of a “very drunk” Kim.Then, to cap it all off, American TV networks, including NBC and Fox News, reported that Jang had been executed by being “stripped naked, thrown into a cage, and eaten alive by a pack of ravenous dogs, according to a newspaper with close ties to China’s ruling Communist Party.”The Singaporean newspaper the Straits Times expanded on the lurid details, saying that “120 hounds, starved for three days, were allowed to prey on [Jang and his compatriots] until they were completely eaten up.”Am I the only one who read reports like this and went, “Now, wait just a gosh-darned minute here” (or some reasonable facsimile thereof)?I mean, Baby Kim’s a homicidal loon, no mistake about it, but when I see something that reads like an account from a James Bond movie or one of those unexpurgated versions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, I tend to get, shall we say, a little skeptical.As it turns out, we skeptics were right. Reporter James Pearson of Reuters traced the “Jang was eaten by dogs” story all the way back to a Dec. 11 post on a Chinese satirical website called Tencent Weibo. It did not, in fact, come from any intelligence source, insider or actual witness. It was a joke, albeit a particularly odd one.Perhaps there’s a lot in Chinese humor that gets lost in translation. Perhaps it’s also payback from the time a few years ago when the Chinese press printed a story from The Onion (”Kim Jong-un Named The Onion’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2012”) as truth.The clue should have been when, as the NBC News website put it, “the story could not be independently confirmed.”Now, I’m just a simple country lawyer, not a big-time famous print or broadcast journalist, but I seem to remember hearing about a day when, if a journalist couldn’t get independent confirmation of a big story from at least two sources, no editor would run with it.But that day is not this day. These days, “independent confirmation” has been replaced with, “Well, I read it from someone who read it in another place who may have seen it on Twitter,” and so on, until there are no real sources or confirmation of anything anymore, just a bunch of credulous rubes on their laptops or iPhones, desperate to generate content and blindly repeating what someone else said he read on another website or Twitter feed, maybe adding a little embellishment before passing it on to the next sucker, each echo getting louder until there’s nothing but a full-throated chorus of total balderdash.It’s journalism reduced to the level of middle school gossip, only louder and stupider, and it reaches its truest heights of absurdity when its original source is a joke repeated as truth by people who didn’t get it.I’ve often said that the hardest part of writing satire these days is staying ahead of reality. It gets even harder when satire is breathlessly reported as reality by sensation-hungry media hucksters for whom some stories are, as the saying goes, “too good to fact-check.”
I suppose that’s also meant as a joke, but the end results are more grotesque than funny.
January 9, 2014
What A Long Strange Trip, Amazon Edition or: Bring On the Drones!
Okay, so on December 30th, I use the last of the Amazon gift card my mom got me (thanks, Mom!) to buy a new set of headphones to use on the computer. I'd borrowed a pair of the same brand (Skullcandy Uprocks) from my son when he left them here, and I really liked them, even better than the pair of Sennheisers I bought a couple years ago which have been nothing but problems and finally crapped out when the wire broke near the plug (which is how most headphones die).
They are very nice headphones, and I'm enjoying them. But they took over a week to arrive, and I can show you why.
The 'phones were shipped from Amazon's warehouse and fulfillment center in Whitestown, Indiana. From Whitestown to Carthage, North Carolina where I live is 628 road miles, like so:
(all distances courtesy Google Maps)
Except that's not how they got here. From there they went to Edison NJ, to Queens NY, all the way back to Hebron Ky (south of Cincinnati and 134 miles from the originating point) to Charlotte NC to Carthage NC, a total distance of 2009 miles:
No wonder the things took so long to get to my house (and missed the projected delivery date by 2 days). What's funniest about this is that the name of this shipping method is-wait for it-- "FedEx Smartpost."
I suppose there is a rationale that makes traveling 2009 miles to go 638 "smart," but I'm too simple minded to see it, I guess.
Bring on the delivery drones!
They are very nice headphones, and I'm enjoying them. But they took over a week to arrive, and I can show you why.
The 'phones were shipped from Amazon's warehouse and fulfillment center in Whitestown, Indiana. From Whitestown to Carthage, North Carolina where I live is 628 road miles, like so:
(all distances courtesy Google Maps)
Except that's not how they got here. From there they went to Edison NJ, to Queens NY, all the way back to Hebron Ky (south of Cincinnati and 134 miles from the originating point) to Charlotte NC to Carthage NC, a total distance of 2009 miles:
No wonder the things took so long to get to my house (and missed the projected delivery date by 2 days). What's funniest about this is that the name of this shipping method is-wait for it-- "FedEx Smartpost."
I suppose there is a rationale that makes traveling 2009 miles to go 638 "smart," but I'm too simple minded to see it, I guess.
Bring on the delivery drones!
January 5, 2014
Trollin' Trollin' Trollin': Duck Dynasty Edition
The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion
Listen: Phil Robertson is trolling you.
If you’ve spent any time on the Interwebs, you know that a “troll” is someone who, in the words of Urban Dictionary, “posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.”However, in the age where the Internet continues to push its influence more and more into real life, where news organizations routinely go to Twitter to find out what’s going on, where the latest meme or viral video becomes the water-cooler conversation du jour, the trolling that used to be the province of socially maladjusted teenagers online is now a PR technique.The pattern has become depressingly predictable: Minor celebrity or previously unknown CEO says something racist, misogynistic or homophobic. The Internet explodes with outrage, calls for boycotts, etc. Within a day or so, the counter-outrage begins with a disheartening number of people claiming, in essence, that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech means that saying something stupid should have no consequences whatsoever, even criticism.Voila! The previously little-known figure is now front-page news. And once again, America has been trolled.If the original troll gets really lucky, their work or their product (say, for example, chicken sandwiches) now becomes something that racists, sexists or homophobes now feel like they NEED to consume as much out of a sense of “we’ll show those libs!” as out of actual enjoyment. Because nothing sweetens the taste of a wingnut’s chicken sandwich as much as thinking that he’s sticking it to “those people” with every bite.Which brings us back to Phil Robertson. The so-called “patriarch” of the clan featured in A&E’s rednecks-with-money reality show “Duck Dynasty” caught a lot of flak recently for an interview with GQ magazine in which he trotted out the tired old canard about how tolerance of homosexuality would lead to “bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” and asserted that gays would not be admitted into heaven.He also claimed that pre-civil rights and “entitlements” he never saw any black people complain and that in fact, they were “happy and singing.” Later, a speech Robertson had made a few years ago popped up in which he urged men in their 20s to marry 15- or 16-year-old girls because they won’t pick your pocket, “they’ll pick your ducks.” (I’m hoping that’s not some kind of weird euphemism.)The reaction proceeded according to the usual playbook. Twitter and Facebook went nuts. A&E suspended Robertson (but didn’t say anything about cancelling the show). Cracker Barrel removed some Duck Dynasty products with Robertson’s bearded visage on them from their “Country Store.”The counter-backlash occurred right on schedule, with people claiming that A&E’s suspension of Robertson violated his First Amendment rights (showing once again that the people who clamor loudest about the Constitution have clearly never read it). Sarah Palin weighed in on Robertson’s behalf, but later admitted that she hadn’t actually read the interview. Pretty soon “I Stand With Phil” petitions began to appear, followed by the inevitable T-shirts. Cracker Barrel quietly returned the Duck Dynasty stuff to the shelves. A&E not only reinstated Robertson, they ran a Duck Dynasty marathon over the holidays. Successful trolling achieved!The thing is, the show, like most “reality” TV, is a fraud. I’ve seen a few episodes as I meander around the channels. Sure, it’s amusing. Phil Robertson and his sons, heirs to the multi-million-dollar “Duck Commander” hunting supply fortune, come off on screen as some sort of modern-day Beverly Hillbillies dressed in camo and bandannas and sporting beards that make them look like a ZZ Top tribute band.But the whole thing’s as big an illusion as that so-called “Country Store” mentioned above. Pictures have surfaced all over the Internet of the college-educated Robertsons dressed as what they grew up as: rich frat boys who grew up to be rich yuppies.There’s even one embarrassing shot of brother Willie with frosted tips in his hair.
Phil Robertson himself admitted in another interview that A&E inserts “bleeps” in the soundtrack as if the boys are doin’ some down-home cussin’, but they’re actually not.It’s all marketing, and this latest controversy is just another example of how there’s no such thing as bad publicity. The vast majority of the people who’d get riled up over Papa Phil’s remarks aren’t going to be buying his products anyway, but he and his sons can count on the tribalism, persecution fantasies and resentments of right wingers to help line their pockets.
Trolling’s not only become an art form, it’s become a profitable one. And it ain’t just the ducks gettin’ plucked.
Listen: Phil Robertson is trolling you.
If you’ve spent any time on the Interwebs, you know that a “troll” is someone who, in the words of Urban Dictionary, “posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.”However, in the age where the Internet continues to push its influence more and more into real life, where news organizations routinely go to Twitter to find out what’s going on, where the latest meme or viral video becomes the water-cooler conversation du jour, the trolling that used to be the province of socially maladjusted teenagers online is now a PR technique.The pattern has become depressingly predictable: Minor celebrity or previously unknown CEO says something racist, misogynistic or homophobic. The Internet explodes with outrage, calls for boycotts, etc. Within a day or so, the counter-outrage begins with a disheartening number of people claiming, in essence, that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech means that saying something stupid should have no consequences whatsoever, even criticism.Voila! The previously little-known figure is now front-page news. And once again, America has been trolled.If the original troll gets really lucky, their work or their product (say, for example, chicken sandwiches) now becomes something that racists, sexists or homophobes now feel like they NEED to consume as much out of a sense of “we’ll show those libs!” as out of actual enjoyment. Because nothing sweetens the taste of a wingnut’s chicken sandwich as much as thinking that he’s sticking it to “those people” with every bite.Which brings us back to Phil Robertson. The so-called “patriarch” of the clan featured in A&E’s rednecks-with-money reality show “Duck Dynasty” caught a lot of flak recently for an interview with GQ magazine in which he trotted out the tired old canard about how tolerance of homosexuality would lead to “bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” and asserted that gays would not be admitted into heaven.He also claimed that pre-civil rights and “entitlements” he never saw any black people complain and that in fact, they were “happy and singing.” Later, a speech Robertson had made a few years ago popped up in which he urged men in their 20s to marry 15- or 16-year-old girls because they won’t pick your pocket, “they’ll pick your ducks.” (I’m hoping that’s not some kind of weird euphemism.)The reaction proceeded according to the usual playbook. Twitter and Facebook went nuts. A&E suspended Robertson (but didn’t say anything about cancelling the show). Cracker Barrel removed some Duck Dynasty products with Robertson’s bearded visage on them from their “Country Store.”The counter-backlash occurred right on schedule, with people claiming that A&E’s suspension of Robertson violated his First Amendment rights (showing once again that the people who clamor loudest about the Constitution have clearly never read it). Sarah Palin weighed in on Robertson’s behalf, but later admitted that she hadn’t actually read the interview. Pretty soon “I Stand With Phil” petitions began to appear, followed by the inevitable T-shirts. Cracker Barrel quietly returned the Duck Dynasty stuff to the shelves. A&E not only reinstated Robertson, they ran a Duck Dynasty marathon over the holidays. Successful trolling achieved!The thing is, the show, like most “reality” TV, is a fraud. I’ve seen a few episodes as I meander around the channels. Sure, it’s amusing. Phil Robertson and his sons, heirs to the multi-million-dollar “Duck Commander” hunting supply fortune, come off on screen as some sort of modern-day Beverly Hillbillies dressed in camo and bandannas and sporting beards that make them look like a ZZ Top tribute band.But the whole thing’s as big an illusion as that so-called “Country Store” mentioned above. Pictures have surfaced all over the Internet of the college-educated Robertsons dressed as what they grew up as: rich frat boys who grew up to be rich yuppies.There’s even one embarrassing shot of brother Willie with frosted tips in his hair.
Phil Robertson himself admitted in another interview that A&E inserts “bleeps” in the soundtrack as if the boys are doin’ some down-home cussin’, but they’re actually not.It’s all marketing, and this latest controversy is just another example of how there’s no such thing as bad publicity. The vast majority of the people who’d get riled up over Papa Phil’s remarks aren’t going to be buying his products anyway, but he and his sons can count on the tribalism, persecution fantasies and resentments of right wingers to help line their pockets.
Trolling’s not only become an art form, it’s become a profitable one. And it ain’t just the ducks gettin’ plucked.
December 29, 2013
2014: The Year in Preview
The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion
Other columns and stories look back on the year just past, but your Humble Columnist prefers to look ahead and away from a year that, quite frankly, has passed about as pleasantly for him as a golf-ball-sized kidney stone.So, once again, our annual year in PREview:JANUARY: The opening of the new congressional session is delayed when Sen. Ted Cruz vows to stand in a front entrance to the Capitol and sing the children’s folk song “Froggy Went A-Courtin’” until Obamacare is repealed.The tactic is foiled when, after a six-hour standoff, the legislators recall that there’s a back entrance.FEBRUARY: Tea party congressmen threaten to block any increase in the debt ceiling until President Obama agrees to step down, plead guilty to four counts of first degree murder in the Benghazi attacks, retroactively veto the Affordable Care Act, and admit to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, but not before issuing an executive order to give that “Duck Dynasty” guy his job back.“Why won’t this Kenyan Socialist Marxist Fascist Chicago thug ever agree to negotiate with us?” demands North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx when the president refuses to consider the demands.MARCH: Republican legislators in Tennessee introduce legislation to legalize beating food stamp recipients with sticks.“We just feel that not allowing people to physically assault the poor just perpetuates a culture of dependency,” explains state GOP Chairman Clem Flenders. “What incentive will people have to even look for work if they’re not in constant fear of injury?”APRIL: Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly is forced to take a leave of absence after an on-air meltdown during which she begins screaming at guest Juan Williams about the race of the Easter Bunny. “He’s a WHITE rabbit!” Kelly raves. “WHITE, do you hear!?”She then begins rocking back and forth, hugging herself and softly crooning “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” until gently led offstage by Williams.MAY: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden drops another bombshell when he reveals a program run by the secretive agency that collects intimate data on millions of Americans, including such highly personal details as how much alcohol they’ve had to drink over a 24-hour period, pictures of what they had for dinner, the names and ages of household pets, and even their moods.The bombshell fizzles when it’s revealed that the “program” is just NSA employees surfing Facebook when they were supposed to be working.JUNE: A major breakthrough occurs in relations between the U.S. and North Korea as baby-faced lunatic dictator Kim Jong-un offers to give up nuclear weapons and initiate major political and economic reforms so long as we never, ever let Dennis Rodman travel to North Korea again.“We thought he was interesting at first,” Kim says through a translator, “but MAN, that dude gets annoying after a while.”JULY: After rehearsals for the MTV Video Music Awards, teen pop idol Miley Cyrus is rushed to the emergency room when she sprains her tongue by sticking it out so far she becomes unable to put it back into her mouth. Cyrus later tweets to her followers that “Mama always said if I made faces it’d stick like that. Never thought it actually would. #blurredmind”AUGUST: Half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin uses her Facebook page to complain that a “Godless left-wing conspiracy” is behind the fact that someone responded to one of her sneezes by saying “bless you” rather than “God bless you.” Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee all take up the cause in what comes to be known as the “Remember Jesus After Your Sneezes” campaign.SEPTEMBER: A notable TV personality gets suspended or fired for saying something egregiously racist or homophobic. Right-wingers propose an amendment making it a fundamental constitutional right for a conservative — but only a conservative — to have a TV or radio show.OCTOBER: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford wins “Best Costume” at the city’s annual Halloween party when he shows up as a sober person and no one recognizes him.NOVEMBER: A midterm election is held. All those who lose claim they lost because of voter fraud. Or voter suppression. Or something other than their flawed message or lousy campaign.DECEMBER: Christmas comes around again. And once again, I don’t get a pony.
Happy New Year, folks!
Other columns and stories look back on the year just past, but your Humble Columnist prefers to look ahead and away from a year that, quite frankly, has passed about as pleasantly for him as a golf-ball-sized kidney stone.So, once again, our annual year in PREview:JANUARY: The opening of the new congressional session is delayed when Sen. Ted Cruz vows to stand in a front entrance to the Capitol and sing the children’s folk song “Froggy Went A-Courtin’” until Obamacare is repealed.The tactic is foiled when, after a six-hour standoff, the legislators recall that there’s a back entrance.FEBRUARY: Tea party congressmen threaten to block any increase in the debt ceiling until President Obama agrees to step down, plead guilty to four counts of first degree murder in the Benghazi attacks, retroactively veto the Affordable Care Act, and admit to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, but not before issuing an executive order to give that “Duck Dynasty” guy his job back.“Why won’t this Kenyan Socialist Marxist Fascist Chicago thug ever agree to negotiate with us?” demands North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx when the president refuses to consider the demands.MARCH: Republican legislators in Tennessee introduce legislation to legalize beating food stamp recipients with sticks.“We just feel that not allowing people to physically assault the poor just perpetuates a culture of dependency,” explains state GOP Chairman Clem Flenders. “What incentive will people have to even look for work if they’re not in constant fear of injury?”APRIL: Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly is forced to take a leave of absence after an on-air meltdown during which she begins screaming at guest Juan Williams about the race of the Easter Bunny. “He’s a WHITE rabbit!” Kelly raves. “WHITE, do you hear!?”She then begins rocking back and forth, hugging herself and softly crooning “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” until gently led offstage by Williams.MAY: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden drops another bombshell when he reveals a program run by the secretive agency that collects intimate data on millions of Americans, including such highly personal details as how much alcohol they’ve had to drink over a 24-hour period, pictures of what they had for dinner, the names and ages of household pets, and even their moods.The bombshell fizzles when it’s revealed that the “program” is just NSA employees surfing Facebook when they were supposed to be working.JUNE: A major breakthrough occurs in relations between the U.S. and North Korea as baby-faced lunatic dictator Kim Jong-un offers to give up nuclear weapons and initiate major political and economic reforms so long as we never, ever let Dennis Rodman travel to North Korea again.“We thought he was interesting at first,” Kim says through a translator, “but MAN, that dude gets annoying after a while.”JULY: After rehearsals for the MTV Video Music Awards, teen pop idol Miley Cyrus is rushed to the emergency room when she sprains her tongue by sticking it out so far she becomes unable to put it back into her mouth. Cyrus later tweets to her followers that “Mama always said if I made faces it’d stick like that. Never thought it actually would. #blurredmind”AUGUST: Half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin uses her Facebook page to complain that a “Godless left-wing conspiracy” is behind the fact that someone responded to one of her sneezes by saying “bless you” rather than “God bless you.” Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee all take up the cause in what comes to be known as the “Remember Jesus After Your Sneezes” campaign.SEPTEMBER: A notable TV personality gets suspended or fired for saying something egregiously racist or homophobic. Right-wingers propose an amendment making it a fundamental constitutional right for a conservative — but only a conservative — to have a TV or radio show.OCTOBER: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford wins “Best Costume” at the city’s annual Halloween party when he shows up as a sober person and no one recognizes him.NOVEMBER: A midterm election is held. All those who lose claim they lost because of voter fraud. Or voter suppression. Or something other than their flawed message or lousy campaign.DECEMBER: Christmas comes around again. And once again, I don’t get a pony.
Happy New Year, folks!
