The Media Still Sucks

Today, some asshat decided to get all shooty down there in Arizona and shoot a bunch of people, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Federal Judge John Moll and a 9-year old child. The suspect, a one 22-year old Jared Lee Loughner, is now in custody. I have already heard my share of comments to the effect of "We don't yet know what motivated the shooter". I really don't like it when statements like that are thrown into the mix of reporting for various reasons. One, I'm not really sure, at the point, that it matters what may have "motivated" someone to go to a public event and start shooting people. And two, the most obvious and likely answer to the question of "Why?" is that there is obviously some sort of mental illness afoot. You can't tell me that, whether previously identified or not, whether previously treated or not, that someone who goes to a public event and shoots a bunch of people doesn't have just a touch of mental illness going on. And even if you think that this might be the exception to the rule (which, by the way, would make you such a softhead that I think that you should stop reading this right now and go buy yourself and industrial strength helmet for your soft, soft dome), what say you check out Shooty McShooterson's YouTube page and get back to me with your assessment of his mental stability.

Naturally, the media is practically soiling themselves over all of this news that they suddenly have to cover. It's just unfortunate that they suck so badly at it. And while they don't see the consequences of their suckage at non-critical moments in news coverage, there are quite obvious consequences to their suckage at critical moments in breaking news coverage. I am specifically calling out CNN, Reuters and NPR. I am vaguely calling out all of the others who participated in the same irresponsible acts that CNN, Reuters and NPR did. All of these news stations, with their rush to be the "first" to report, had reported that Rep. Giffords had died. She, in fact, has not died. She, in fact, was shot in the head (yes, I realize that isn't good, but if she's still alive, you can't say that she's dead) and made it through surgery and is in critical condition. That's not dead. (Her neurosurgeon said that he is "optimistic" that she will recover. I don't know what that means, but I do know that it means she still isn't dead.)

What is wrong with you, CNN, Reuters, NPR and others?! You are supposed to be news outlets. You're supposed to report the news, you jackwagons. What does that say about you when you report utter crap that just isn't true? It says that you suck at your job and, while I don't often call for people to lose their jobs, whoever it was that gave the go-ahead to say that someone was dead when she wasn't should lose their job, as they are obviously completely incompetent and incapable of performing at the level needed when the pressure is on. Do you know how many people, including those who know Rep. Giffords, could have been watching any of your crap news sources and heard that she had died? Of course you do! That's why you reported it! Can you imagine the grief that was caused by your irresponsible actions, probably due to wanting to get the story out there first? Of course you don't! That's why you reported it! At the risk of sounding like someone's grandmother, you really should be ashamed of yourselves.

You know what all of this means, don't you? I fear it means that the days of public access to those who represent the people who should be able to have access them are gone. Because if there are two things that the government does well, they are nothing and overreact. I fear the end of those town hall meetings that had gathered so much steam six months ago. I fear the end of any sort of elected official ever poking their head out in public again. (I also fear an overabundance of crappy news reporting on this story over the next few days, but that's a little off the point I was trying to make here.) Way to go, assclown.

In conclusion, The New York Post (while getting their facts straight in not incorrectly reporting that anyone had died, still can't manage to get the name of Gabrielle Giffords father correct, even though they have the SAME last name. Seriously, who edits stuff anymore? Anyone? How can you get his name WRONG? It's the freaking SAME!) reported that "The congresswoman’s father Spencer Gifford, 75, was rushing to the hospital when asked if his 40-year-old daughter had any enemies. "Yeah," he told The Post. "The whole Tea Party." OK, now I'm going to give the man a pass on that comment, as his daughter had just been shot in the head. I have nothing bad to say about that man and his statement at all. But I would like to point out that the Tea Party doesn't want to shoot Congresswomen in the head. The Tea Party does not want to shoot and kill Federal judges, nor does the Tea Party want to shoot and kill small children. The Tea Party merely wants less spending and lower taxes. See? No shooting involved at all in that statement. This isn't a Tea Party thing. This is a whack-a-do thing. Please remember that. Please encourage others to remember that. One crazy person does not necessarily define an entire organization. (Oh, and President Barry isn't a Muslim, either. I figured I'd just throw that one in there again. As long I'm encouraging people to speak the truth, it can't hurt to remind folks of that just one more time.)

I pray for all of the victims and all of their families to find the strength and the courage to make it through this. (See? I don't have to mock everything.)

The Condescending President

You know what I can't stand? Wait. Let me narrow that down a little bit, lest we be here all the live long day. You know what I can't stand about politicians? Wait. Hmm. There's no way of phrasing this without generating an incredibly long list of possibilities. I'll just cut to the chase. I can't stand a condescending politician. And I really can't stand a condescending President. I'm talking to you, President Barry.

The huffy folks over there at The Huffington Post tell us that President Barry was at some town hall meeting that CNBC broadcast live on Monday. And I guess that the question or the issue was simple enough. Apparently, an audience member pressed President Barry to chime in on what it is that makes the Tea Party movement do its thing. For some reason, President Barry seems to think that there are no specific goals that these folks have. I'm not sure why he thinks that. But whatever the reason is, he came across sounding like a condescending jackass.

Here's part of what he replied (and it's the part that really ticked me off): "So the challenge, I think, for the Tea Party movement is to identify, specifically, what would you do?....It's not enough just to say get control of spending. I think it's important for you to say, I'm willing to cut veterans' benefits or I'm willing to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits or I'm willing to see these taxes go up. What you can't do, which is what I've been hearing a lot from the other side, is we're going to control government spending, we're going to propose $4 trillion of additional tax cuts, and that magically somehow things are going to work. Now, some of these are very difficult choices." Oh, for cryin' out loud.

There are two basic goals of the Tea Party movement. The second one can be almost automatic if the first goal is met. It's all about smaller government. Yes, it's also about lower taxes, but it's largely about smaller government. The government is huge and bloated. You don't think that there could be some cut backs in government there, President Barry? Really? Because you seem to think that we're all a bunch of idiots who would believe you that the only things that could be cut would be services that are essential.

This is what politicians do. Arnold Schwarzenegger pulls it at least once a year in California when they can't agree on a budget for this fiscally doomed state. They tell folks that, in order to stay within a budget, they're going to have to cut services like firefighters and policemen and school teachers. You don't want that, do you? No, of course not! That's when they justify raising taxes. But hold on a minute! Aren't there things within the governmental bureaucracy that could be cut other than firefighters, policemen and teachers? I'm 100% positive that there are.

President Barry, are you trying to tell me that every single government agency and department and job is absolutely, completely necessary? I don't think that it is. Are you going to tell me that every single government pension plan isn't overly generous? I don't think that you can tell me that and not have your nose grow at least six inches. You're trying to tell me that none of these governmental departments overlap and do the same work that other agencies do? And I'm supposed to believe you? Really?

How about, before you go suggesting cuts to Medicare and to veteran's benefits, you cut all services to those who are in this country illegally. How much money would that save? And that's just one area where money could be saved and where government could be shrunk. Don't go around threatening us by minimizing our obligation to our soldiers by suggesting that we should cut their services. How dare you. Seriously.

Smaller government. Lower taxes. Reduce the size of the government and spending will go down some. Reduce the size of the government to what it really needs to be reduced by and watch spending go down a great deal. Watch spending go down and watch the need to taxes to raise diminish. Remember, over fifty percent of Americans want fewer services and smaller government according to two different polls, one done in April of this year and the other conducted in September of this year. Over fifty percent want smaller government. Is that specific enough for you, President Barry? How else do we need to spell it out for you?

Tea Party Signage Goodness

On Sunday, there were Tea Party rallies across the country. And as is now the norm with these sorts of things, signs were abundant. This is neither a good thing, nor a bad thing, but it is in many instances, an amusing thing. I love signs. Let's see if the type of sign that is at every other rally of this sort was present on Sunday. Come on, signers! I know you won't let me down!

First, we're going to need a small child who has no idea what is going on. Do we have one of those? Indeed we do!

Next, we're going to need to see a small child who may have some idea of what is going on, but doesn't look thrilled about it. Do we have one of those?

Check! OK, now we need something inferring that President Barry is a Muslim. (He's not a Muslim, by the way. He's a socialist. That's bad enough. If you don't want to like him, you don't need to make things up. Just don't like him because he's a socialist and you won't end up sounding like a nutjob...or a complete nutjob.)

Yeah, I'm not sure if that really infers that President Barry is a Muslim or not, but it has a pretty good depiction of a rather lopsided mosque and it says "Obama" on it, so it's going to have to do. Up next, I need a sign comparing President Barry to Hitler. Hitler. Anyone? Anyone? What?! NO Hitler comparisons?! OMG!

I could not believe that I didn't see a single sign with Hitler on it. Not one! I was kind of relieved, but I will admit that it also disappointed me just a tad. Hitler is always good for a laugh. Well, now. (It can't be too soon for that kind of joke, can it? Naaaahhh.) I'm going to need a sign that wasn't really thought out very well in terms of spacing.

Don't get me wrong. I suppose that she could have planned it like that. I just am not sure why she would have wanted to. Regardless, kudos to her for putting his hand on there anyway. It does make it kind of stand out a little bit; I will give her that. Now I'm going to need a sign that may have been planned out the way that it was, but it was probably a bad idea because it takes too much work to read it.

It's like looking at one of those charts when you go to the eye doctor. At first, I almost thought that the letters were supposed to spell something. And they are, just not cumulatively. We're still missing a sign which is perfectly fine on its own, but is photographed in an ironic manner.

Yeah, he looks anything but vigilant. He has the right idea for the type of sign that you need for these things, though. Bright colors on a dark background and a simple message. Granted, it's more fun the way that other folks do it, but if you're going for effect, follow this guy's lead. OK, we're almost done with our list here. We're down to needing a sign that makes absolutely NO sense what so ever.

OK, so, yeah. Wow. Is that our standard now? The ol' 18-letter standard? Anything that you can make fit in 18 letters makes for a good comparison, is that how this works? You know what else has 18 letters? TEAPARTYCUCKOOBIRD. And finally, we're going to need at least two signs that just make you laugh. Here's one:

I have no idea what Mickey Mouse has to do with any of this, but that's what makes it amusing. And here's the second one that just makes you laugh:

Good for you, lady, you smart ass cracker, you. Good. For. You.

Tea Party Photo Goodness

Yesterday was tax day here in the US. And as one could expect, there were Tea Party protests/rallies/demonstrations across the country. They were entertaining, but not as entertaining as the health care protests last summer were. Now those were something. One of the main differences that I've noticed is that the Tea Party folks, for the most part, can spell. That doesn't mean they know what they're talking about, but it is concerting that they have a grasp of the basics. That being said, let's take a look at some signs and scenes from yesterday, shall we?

Here we have a child being made to hold a sign that is supposed to represent her feelings. The sign reads "Obama took my toof fairy money!" He apparently also took the forward facing Fs, Rs and Es, as well as the TH sound.

That wasn't the only sign wielding child out yesterday. Here's another one. Um, honey? I'm not so sure that you want to be part of a "tea bagger family". Tea party family, perhaps. But I think that being a "tea bagger family" is probably illegal. Definitely off-putting.

I appreciated the originality of the Tea Party Mobile or whatever you want to call it below. I like how there's just a little bit of everything thrown in there. Jesus. Truth. Insanity. Disaster. Lies. Taxes. Pork. Health care. Right. Wrong. Repent. Perverts. Wait. Perverts? Yep. Over there on the left. Next to Pork. Perverts. OK. I'm against perverts. Nice. Thanks.

This was one of the very few misspelled signs that were out there. The sign to the left of it was one of the most all inclusive signs out there.

It wouldn't be a protest in America without some nutjob questioning President Barry's citizenship. What is wrong with you people?

Where's the birth certificate? It's on the Internet, nutjob. And yes, it's real. For cryin' out loud.

And along those same lines, it just wouldn't be a protest without someone making the Obama-Osama comparison. Yes, we know. They sound a lot alike. Adolf and Rudolph sound a lot alike as well, but you don't hear folks comparing that little reindeer fellow to Hitler, now, do you?

Ahh. Go back to Kenya. Lovely. You're not doing a lot to add credibility to your cause, but you do make me laugh, so that's something. By the way, HE'S NOT FROM KENYA! Morons.

And here we have a little birther action combined with a little "In Living Color" action. Interesting combo to say the least.

Why bother with multiple signs when you can just cram it all onto one piece of poster board. The problem with it is that they're really only taking a stand against two of those things. They don't want the fascism or the socialism and they seem to think that the Obamacare sucks. Other than that, they're just sort of stating issues. Oh, how I only wish they had stated what "ALIAN CARE" was exactly and why it is illegal.

I've got feathers and a pitchfork. I also have torches and axe handles if you need some of those as well, sir.

And finally, we have these folks. The one, dressed like a priest (I think) is proclaiming that God hates taxes. I don't know why God would care about taxes. God doesn't pay taxes. But that's not really what I'm focused on here. I'm focused on what in the hell that is over to the right of that dude! It's like one of those guys from the cantina in Star Wars wearing some sort of mossy coat and trousers. It's odd and I have no idea what it has to do with tax protests. And I'm dying to know what brochure he's holding.

Back from Break + Prototype iPhone Blog App + Tea Party Teabaggers 101

Spring break came, I left the grid for a bit (including, amazingly for me, Twitter), but now the new quarter is set to begin. I am teaching two classes: one is a continuation of the advanced fiction writing-novella class (Theory and Practice of Fiction), and the other is a brand new experiment, an advanced creative writing class, Concepts of Conceptual Art. I'm charged up about both; the novella class's first half-quarter went pretty well, I thought, and all of the students produced what approximated the beginning of a long work (long short story/novella) by the end of the quarter, so now they'll be refining these and extending this work to create something that is or approaches a novella. Our final reading is Don DeLillo's curious, powerful novella, Pafko at the Wall, which he originally published as a folio in Harpers in 1992, but which he later incorporated as the prologue to his greatest novel (in my opinion), Underworld (1997). After DeLillo, it's on to their work exclusively.

With the Conceptual Art class, there isn't enough time to explore all the theorists, artists, and movements I'd hoped to, so we'll start with a bit of background, moving from Idealism (Plato) to Formalism (Aristotle, Kant), then look at Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde, Marcel Duchamp (+ Dada and Surrealism), and Clement Greenberg, one of the chief formalists against whom many of the American conceptualists were reacting, and then explore conceptual music (Cage, Finer, Reynols), conceptual art and performance (Situationists, George Brecht, Alan Kaprow, Adrian Piper, Yoko Ono, Sol LeWitt, etc.), and finally conclude with conceptual writing (Warhol, Stephens/Nathanaël, Philip, Goldsmith, Mesmer, and Lewis Obadike + Obadike). Things aren't as schematic as this appears, and I will be including some theorists like Lucy Lippard, Rob Fitterman, perhaps Benjamin Buchloh, etc. I also am going to have them create a number of projects, ranging from event scores to a durational project. I hope it'll be as fun for them as it's been for me to conceive the class. Tomorrow, too, I hope to perform Cage's 4'33" for them as part of our opening discussion.

===

Just a glimpse of something really cool: C, who's doing development projects with his new company, created a prototype iPhone app of this blog, pictured below. It's not available for downloading yet, but I've been playing with and testing it since he created it, and it works really well.  Doesn't it look cool?  I'm looking forward to him creating many more.


Prototype app of my blog on my iPhone

Screenshot, from my iPhone (JTs is the prototype app)



My blog on my MacBook and on the iPhone (app prototype)

The prototype app blog post about Ai (sorry about the blurry image)

===

Today, when I got back to Chicago, I met up with my cousin and her husband, and both, though pretty well informed, admitted to bafflement over the rage and vituperation of the Tea Party teabaggers. Why, they wanted to know, were these people so angry that they had moved from bilious rallies to racist, ethnicist and homophobic epithets hurled at and spitting on Congresspeople, to outright violent and vandalism, like hurling bricks through windows, cutting gas lines, and issuing death threats, over a health care bill? My cousin thought it might have something to do with higher taxes for everyone; her husband wondered if there were some sort of poison pill that no one had heard about in the legislation; both concurred that in part it had to do with the right-wing's visceral hatred of President Barack Obama.  I offered my thoughts about this now enacted Republican-style program, its background, and the furor surrounding it, but I mentioned some online posts I read that really spelled out the crux of the teabaggers' venom, as well as the truth of who many of these people are.  The irony that many of these folks are unemployed and relying upon government programs to survive seems to be utterly lost on them, but this wouldn't be the first time this happened in American history.

In case you haven't seen these, here are some links:

Frank Rich: "The Rage Is Not About Health Care"

Kate Zernike: "With No Jobs, Plenty of Time for Tea Party"

Digby (Hullabaloo): "The Wrong People"

Ronald Brownstein: "Dems Caught In Populist Crossfire:
Most white Americans think health reform benefits the poor and uninsured, not people like them"

Philip Rucker: "Former militiaman unapologetic for calls to vandalize offices over health care"

Stanley Kutler: "So Much for a Post-Racial America"

Eric Boehlert: "Fox News, Health Care, and The Right-Wing Nervous Breakdown"

Jan Frel: "Learn to Speak Tea Bag"