It was revealed this month, as no surprise to anyone, that southern belle Paula Deen has type 2 diabetes. What the surprise was is that she’s using this opportunity throw her weight behind a diabetes treatment drug produced by Nova Nordisk. What you now get are two camps of people. One that is criticizing Paula Deen for using her disease to cash in, instead of promoting healthier eating or an alternative to a diabetic lifestyle. Another camp criticizing the criticizers telling them to leave good ol’ Paula Deen alone, like they’re protecting their maw maw or something.
It’s a tad ludicrous, coming from the camp that finds Paula Deen’s turn disturbing, to support and defend a woman who lied and hid her disease for three years. All the while pushing her delicious diabetes inducing recipes, media empire and products associated with her name. Being raised by a gaggle of southern Baptist ladies, I indeed know the awesomeness and sheer deliciousness of cooking and baking everything with sticks of butter and metric tons of sugar. Most of my “side-moms” also wound up getting cancer and diabetes from their lifestyle. This isn’t an attack on Paula Deen, the woman. This is an attack on the hypocrisy and profits over people mentality that allows for Paula Deen to come out of her sugar shack and start hocking a diabetes treatment drug. That her clout could be better put to use promoting healthy living and lifestyle choices. You can eat most of what Paula Deen’s antics come up with, you jut can’t gorge on it, or eat mass quantities of it every day…for decades.
It’s the same mentality that let people like Suze Orman and Jim Cramer pretend to be stock market and finance gurus when they are not even remotely experts on either, and lean more towards media personality, which in recent memory they’ve more than graciously embraced. You’d think we as a public would shed our cult of personality ways and call a corporate whore a corporate shill whore. We have no problem calling out Kim Kardishian, Snooki or any of the other famous for being famous “celebrities” when they’re gallivanting around, whoring themselves to any products that would have them. Because Paula Deen looks like a saintly gran-ma she’s no less a hypocritical, money hungry whore?
The camp that defends Paula Deen also want to relate this to an issue of personal freedom. To them, deep inside Paula Deen, next to her failing organs, is a majestic freedom eagle with it’s wings spread as wide as it can push against the fatty tissues of Paula Deen innards. Give me a fucking break! Three years! It’s not like diabetes is a shame or pox on society that should be hidden away or dared to be spoken of. It’s fast becoming a national epidemic that needs more high-profile people, like a Paula Deen to shed light on it and help fellow man prevent it. This isn’t to say that all philanthropists are out to help their common man through their charitable giving’s, and are more interested in the long term personal gain if there is to be one. But they do not, nor should not ever, be defended if they are found to be hypocritical. Perhaps it is too fine a line.
The defenders of Paula Deen and enablers that allow their children to eat garbage and forego physical activity need to realize that no one is toppling their freedoms. First Lady Michelle Obama’s "Let's Move" campaign is constantly being futility connected to Hitler Youth and other socialist camp activity when she just wants the little buggers to get off their ass and move for 60 minutes a day. She wants schools to provide a more nutritious meal, because lets face it, parents either aren’t around, too busy for the most part, or are completely unknowledgeable about good, nutritious food. To say nothing on actually providing that on a daily basis, it wouldn’t hurt to get a little heat behind this idea.
Ultimately, "Paula Deen" is a character and that character is the one that’s going to take the bulk of this criticism. Paula Deen the person is going to laugh all the way to the bank. That’s something the critics of Paula Deen understand and the defenders do not. So when Anthony Bourdain says he's thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, to profitably sell crutches later, he makes a salient point about the whore nature of celebrity chefs and their chosen endorsements.
With the revelation this week that Paula Deen’s publicist quit over her opportunistic shenanigans, it drives that point further. Celebrities are elevated to a higher plane of exposure. Whether they like it or not they are given a platform and how they use it can and will come under scrutiny. Paula Deen is allowed some privacy, but when it comes attached to the very foundation of her platform, all bets are off. No one is attacking Paula Deen for being diabetic, she’s under attack for being the opportunistic, money hungry whore she is. She ain’t your mawmaw being hounded by strangers for being overweight and diabetic, and should be held to a higher standard when she comes up short. The fact that she waited three years to tell the truth shows she knew the weight of her confession, and only found solace in it when she could buoy the backlash with sweet pharmaceutical sugar mounds of cash.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
In an odd sense, nearly Monkey’s Paw level of horror, perhaps the notion of a focus on community writers was a bit overwrought. Given context of an evenhanded distribution of bat-shit writers with community-centric pieces is a better idea. Also, “community writer” should be a term limited proposition. Especially in the case of the community writer I’m going to skewer today.
Lawrence Wetter, retired engineer, is a “community writer” who’s ramblings are published weekly, like a regular columnist. In recent months he’s come under more severe scrutiny for some of his more bombastic remarks, especially concerning subjects he knows very little about. Which is a common theme amongst the establishment right-wing punditry, but Mr. Wetter is probably more prone to come face to face with his detractors, and actually reads the letters and e-mails that are sent to him. So much so that even the editor of his paper spoke out against his writings, having been fed up with being forced to actually absorb the idiocy she was putting on her editorial page. These are types of things that help the newspapers, this nonsense level of unaccountability that partners with a lot of syndicated product is just getting out of hand.
On the topic of letters, I do appreciate that Mr. Wetter used them to clarify his narrow-minded focus on the lower class. Unlike Kathleen Parker's recent “mad lady” column where she used “letters sent to her” to muddle a “These are my peers that are calling Michelle Obama a made black woman” point she was trying to make. Ms. Parker, even in 2012, still knows where her bread is buttered. To her mind, your average American is the force calling the first lady a “mad black woman”, not the right-wing blowhards of Hannity, Limbaugh, Savage et al? They’re just picking it up from the vernacular of the average citizen? Please!
It’s a shitty parallel, I know, but it does show that community writers are at least held to some responsibility for what they put out there. Even more depressing, someone who’s compensated very little or nothing at all, has more accountability than someone who’s been maintaining a status quo for twenty odd years.
Now that I’ve rendered what little respect I have for Mr. Wetter aside, I present my beefs with the man. The first and foremost is the old white man wagging his fist at society. As frequent readers know, I don’t care much for what these doddering fools have to say anymore. Granted, they don’t realize that all their rambling has long been tone deaf and mostly ignored, but we still keep humoring them for some reason. Like I’ve said before, even entertaining their tired, regressive agendas gives people the notion that this is a populist idea. We need to stop that. Secondly, Mr. Wetter is full on display as the “anyone but Romney” republican type that’s making this GOP Presidential Candidate run most entertaining. Like the other old white men, he’s still under the impression that Romney, like McCain before him, is being foisted on the GOP by the mainstream media. While at times, I’m loathe to agree, as the establishment “center-right” writers (Parker, Milbank, Brooks) all seem to be bang the Romney drum all day. I don’t think Romney is being foisted on anyone. When compared to the other potential Presidents, Romney is just outclassing them all damn day.
Mr. Wetter pretends that he wants a true conservative, writing: “[Establishment Republicans] don’t understand and trust true conservatism, in spite of a good bit of evidence that conservatism, properly presented, can reach reasonable people, including independents, and defeat liberalism every time on its merits.” Looks like someone’s been using his David Brooks Anal Recess Institute Research Group Encyclopedia on the whole conservatism being properly presented nonsense. The funny thing is, despite popular opinion of “conservative” is that the federal government has not or will ever run in a black and white kind of ideology. So there is zero proof of conservatism on any level being “properly presented”, whatever that means. If as an ideology, then yes, it’s been presented and implemented as a counterbalance to more progressive behavior, as this is the foundation of our Nation. But as a pure, unmitigated straight up implementation, I don’t think so.
A more prescient article from Mr. Wetter, would be why, like his fellow “Anyone-But-Romney”’s, he’s constantly in support of the 2nd place finisher and not a substantive candidate. For this article he’s all about Santorum, because he’s a true “conservative”. Mr. Wetter is, like his peers who share his little “c” conservative views, also doesn’t care about the present realities of a modern government. These “values” voters are only important on a lip service level to the candidates. Mr. Wetter acknowledges as much in his refutation of Romney as the GOP Presidential Candidate. When pressed about foreign policy and economics the “values” voters cannot ever respond intelligently or pragmatically.
If we’re talking little “c” conservatism being “properly presented”, then we would be worse off as a nation internationally than ever before (see W. administration for the tiny bit of conservatism tinged foreign policy being “properly presented”)! This thinking with your gut bullshit, instead of being pragmatic and using your mind is never going to work. Even when coupled with the Conservative ideology. When your whole worldview is wrongly juxtaposed as black or white, the grey area where realism and modernity resides will always confuse and warp that view. When Teddy Roosevelt said speak softly and carry a big stick, he didn’t mean in the sense that you whisper rueful nothings into combatants' ears while you beat them mercifully with that stick...but he was a progressive so he has no place in today’s GOP.
Also, independents are the foragers of the middle. Neither hot nor cold. No black/white ideology is ever going to grab hold of them.
Lawrence Wetter, retired engineer, is a “community writer” who’s ramblings are published weekly, like a regular columnist. In recent months he’s come under more severe scrutiny for some of his more bombastic remarks, especially concerning subjects he knows very little about. Which is a common theme amongst the establishment right-wing punditry, but Mr. Wetter is probably more prone to come face to face with his detractors, and actually reads the letters and e-mails that are sent to him. So much so that even the editor of his paper spoke out against his writings, having been fed up with being forced to actually absorb the idiocy she was putting on her editorial page. These are types of things that help the newspapers, this nonsense level of unaccountability that partners with a lot of syndicated product is just getting out of hand.
On the topic of letters, I do appreciate that Mr. Wetter used them to clarify his narrow-minded focus on the lower class. Unlike Kathleen Parker's recent “mad lady” column where she used “letters sent to her” to muddle a “These are my peers that are calling Michelle Obama a made black woman” point she was trying to make. Ms. Parker, even in 2012, still knows where her bread is buttered. To her mind, your average American is the force calling the first lady a “mad black woman”, not the right-wing blowhards of Hannity, Limbaugh, Savage et al? They’re just picking it up from the vernacular of the average citizen? Please!
It’s a shitty parallel, I know, but it does show that community writers are at least held to some responsibility for what they put out there. Even more depressing, someone who’s compensated very little or nothing at all, has more accountability than someone who’s been maintaining a status quo for twenty odd years.
Now that I’ve rendered what little respect I have for Mr. Wetter aside, I present my beefs with the man. The first and foremost is the old white man wagging his fist at society. As frequent readers know, I don’t care much for what these doddering fools have to say anymore. Granted, they don’t realize that all their rambling has long been tone deaf and mostly ignored, but we still keep humoring them for some reason. Like I’ve said before, even entertaining their tired, regressive agendas gives people the notion that this is a populist idea. We need to stop that. Secondly, Mr. Wetter is full on display as the “anyone but Romney” republican type that’s making this GOP Presidential Candidate run most entertaining. Like the other old white men, he’s still under the impression that Romney, like McCain before him, is being foisted on the GOP by the mainstream media. While at times, I’m loathe to agree, as the establishment “center-right” writers (Parker, Milbank, Brooks) all seem to be bang the Romney drum all day. I don’t think Romney is being foisted on anyone. When compared to the other potential Presidents, Romney is just outclassing them all damn day.
Mr. Wetter pretends that he wants a true conservative, writing: “[Establishment Republicans] don’t understand and trust true conservatism, in spite of a good bit of evidence that conservatism, properly presented, can reach reasonable people, including independents, and defeat liberalism every time on its merits.” Looks like someone’s been using his David Brooks Anal Recess Institute Research Group Encyclopedia on the whole conservatism being properly presented nonsense. The funny thing is, despite popular opinion of “conservative” is that the federal government has not or will ever run in a black and white kind of ideology. So there is zero proof of conservatism on any level being “properly presented”, whatever that means. If as an ideology, then yes, it’s been presented and implemented as a counterbalance to more progressive behavior, as this is the foundation of our Nation. But as a pure, unmitigated straight up implementation, I don’t think so.
A more prescient article from Mr. Wetter, would be why, like his fellow “Anyone-But-Romney”’s, he’s constantly in support of the 2nd place finisher and not a substantive candidate. For this article he’s all about Santorum, because he’s a true “conservative”. Mr. Wetter is, like his peers who share his little “c” conservative views, also doesn’t care about the present realities of a modern government. These “values” voters are only important on a lip service level to the candidates. Mr. Wetter acknowledges as much in his refutation of Romney as the GOP Presidential Candidate. When pressed about foreign policy and economics the “values” voters cannot ever respond intelligently or pragmatically.
If we’re talking little “c” conservatism being “properly presented”, then we would be worse off as a nation internationally than ever before (see W. administration for the tiny bit of conservatism tinged foreign policy being “properly presented”)! This thinking with your gut bullshit, instead of being pragmatic and using your mind is never going to work. Even when coupled with the Conservative ideology. When your whole worldview is wrongly juxtaposed as black or white, the grey area where realism and modernity resides will always confuse and warp that view. When Teddy Roosevelt said speak softly and carry a big stick, he didn’t mean in the sense that you whisper rueful nothings into combatants' ears while you beat them mercifully with that stick...but he was a progressive so he has no place in today’s GOP.
Also, independents are the foragers of the middle. Neither hot nor cold. No black/white ideology is ever going to grab hold of them.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Failure: Or How I Learned to Give GOP Presidential Candidates Advice Without Ever Really Running.
The new year brings many new things: resolutions that will die on the vine by the end of the month, newspapers will waste space by reprinting old stories that no one cared much for to begin with, most editorials in the opinion section are about evergreen topics. Finally we discuss the current crop of GOP contenders for the White House and what they “should be” doing. The Washington Post dust’s off some GOP also-rans and gives them a chance to say what they feel the Presidential nominees can do to win the election. Noting that very few have anything to say about actually winning the primary. Haley Barbour, Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels and….Herman Cain…all chime in.
Haley Barbour: Reads like a buzzword bonanza, showing his corporate moneyed lords that he is not even remotely allergic to pandering their sophistical laden bullshit. Economic Growth, Job Creators, Government Run Healthcare, and the gamut of explosive economic policy, overzealous spending, deficit spiking overreach, all those ground into your face talking points that have never even registered on the needle of the independents. He says, invoking the Reagan Commandment “Talk no mess on other Republics”, that he’d attack Obama’s policies and offer solutions. Surprisingly, maybe because of the lack of real estate offered, and not the fact that the GOP has NO real solutions, he doesn’t offer any. But he does provide this delicious nugget: “As conservative as I am, remember that the idle will decide the election in November, and the center agrees with us on the critical issues.” What are those critical issues? Who knows? It’s the last line of his little blurb, this is the stock response of the current GOP, the one that the middle cares about 38% right now in the polls. If Obama maintains his approval rating which is much higher than both congress AND the GOP Presidential nominees, then he won’t have to worry about being agreed with on “critical issues” such as not raising taxes on the wealthy (job creators) or destroying social services (entitlements).
Sarah Palin: Noticing a severe lack in their “Print Sarah Palin’s name” change jar, Washington Post dusts off Palin and agrees that she was a GOP candidate, even though she never announced a candidacy. A few veiled threats to run notwithstanding, she also never took part in any of the dozen or so debates, and has yet to get behind any candidate. Instead of “professional quitter” as her byline, she’s given her usual “former governor, V.P. 2008 candidate moniker”. Her editorial reads like it was written in a spiral bound notebook and hastily passed to another student in the classroom. Her verbiage is about on par with a teenager. The use of “whatever” is particularly jarring. One would hope that the editors of the conservative-leaning Washington Post would try and correct that instead of once again tilting the goalpost down far enough so that Sarah Palin can have another slam dunk with this outing. Right off the bat she implores the candidates to turn to chapter 3 of her book “Going Rouge” and read about what it would take to get America back to energy independence. Is “Going Rogue” another book of the Bible that has been added by political hack evangelicals?
What’s interesting about this editorial is to see the various faces of the republican party whip about in frenzy. All four are united in one thing: overturning the incumbent president. Barbour represents that buzzword hurling, ideologically bankrupt face of the GOP. The “Party of ‘NO!’” face that is obstinate in it’s behavior and long in the tooth on real solutions. They depend on think tanks and lobby interests to guide their political strategy, and they are so out of touch with the “center” of this country that they’re repeated notion otherwise is laughable.
Palin represents that Glenn Beck, evangelical, apocalyptical money whore face of the GOP. The one whose entire policy is underlined by a deeper political daftness. It’s the face of the party that runs with the heart and not the mind. Your abortion abolishes, and cutting everything they see as an entitlement, because lord knows that all you need in life is a good pair of bootstraps to pull up on. Palin and her ilk are the constantly oppressed, persecuted minority, ever fearful of being quieted and dragged away in the night by Marxist/Stalinist Fascists.
Mitch Daniels: In some way represents the slow steady hand of the GOP of Old. While his blurb is riddled with buzzwordery, he also is coming at entitlements and deficit with a surgical strike efficiency. However, given that most of the republican base these days is academically challenged to say the least, his words strike a bit too stuffy. On deeper analysis he’s pretty much saying what Barbour is, but with more intelligent sounding panache. Daniels represents the kind of GOP the center would agree with, as it at least seems sane and isn’t braggadocios about it’s intrinsic pulse of the nation finding self.
Herman Cain: Is the evolved form of Palin, and the most dangerous face of the current GOP. I would gander that very few of the “center” would ever get on board the Herman Cain train. Funnily enough, he evokes 9-9-9 into his very blurb. You get the feeling that his dying breath will be all or some of this awful flat tax baloney he was attempting to sell. Ironically he sights “an official in the Reagan Treasury Dept.” that says his plan will put more money into the pockets of Americans and make the government better stalwarts of the money it does take in. Unfortunately for Cain, he didn’t get one of his experts to actually find the name of that official, as he or she probably never existed.
This aspect of the GOP, as shown, laughs in the face of facts and logic. When found wanting, they merely double-down on the stupid, and never relent. Most importantly, they’re just around to sell some books and act in their own selfish nature. Good leaders, even middling ones, are better than that. The “center” also sees right through they’re bullshit. They’re able to convince very few right-wingers to their cause, and will never be able to be the nuanced, thoughtful leader that society expects out of a president.
The sadder narrative that wraps this article about failed candidates trying to give advice is that not one of them was a serious contender. Not one single bit. Even in Palin’s case, she just drove around half the country being an asshole to any media outlet outside Fox News. It’s why I, as a frequent hater of the right-wing punditry, was relieved at the Alaskan tundra levels of silence about her after she refused to run. Noticing this trend she’s has again become combative towards fellow GOP running for the presidential nomination. To my mind, they could’ve asked Mike Huckabee, John McCain, hell even Alan Keyes and the myriad of other, in their day, more serious GOP Presidential contenders.
The only nice thing about this editorial is the definitive proof of a fractured GOP. I thought it was bad, but not this bad. These four different heads only share a common body, but each face is so radically different from the other one. And while both Democrat and Republican parties are in definite need of unification, I fear the GOP isn’t done growing more heads. You didn’t think Sarah Palin not being able to answer a question about what papers she read was so bad when you saw Herman Cain have a massive brain fart when questioned on foreign affair matters.
When David Brooks asserts that the GOP is all about the working class, and represents the “real” center of America, I do have to say “Are you fucking kidding me?” It’s why I’m once again convinced at how out of touch our Washington D.C. pundit class and “elite media” (for lack of a better word) is with the rest of the country. I can stomach…nay, fathom…that we can have light levels of this; but when it’s becoming vastly apparent that this is the rule and not the exception, you begin to realize where our problems reside.
Being anything other than a heterosexual wealthy white male, there’s nothing substantive the GOP has to offer anyone else.
Haley Barbour: Reads like a buzzword bonanza, showing his corporate moneyed lords that he is not even remotely allergic to pandering their sophistical laden bullshit. Economic Growth, Job Creators, Government Run Healthcare, and the gamut of explosive economic policy, overzealous spending, deficit spiking overreach, all those ground into your face talking points that have never even registered on the needle of the independents. He says, invoking the Reagan Commandment “Talk no mess on other Republics”, that he’d attack Obama’s policies and offer solutions. Surprisingly, maybe because of the lack of real estate offered, and not the fact that the GOP has NO real solutions, he doesn’t offer any. But he does provide this delicious nugget: “As conservative as I am, remember that the idle will decide the election in November, and the center agrees with us on the critical issues.” What are those critical issues? Who knows? It’s the last line of his little blurb, this is the stock response of the current GOP, the one that the middle cares about 38% right now in the polls. If Obama maintains his approval rating which is much higher than both congress AND the GOP Presidential nominees, then he won’t have to worry about being agreed with on “critical issues” such as not raising taxes on the wealthy (job creators) or destroying social services (entitlements).
Sarah Palin: Noticing a severe lack in their “Print Sarah Palin’s name” change jar, Washington Post dusts off Palin and agrees that she was a GOP candidate, even though she never announced a candidacy. A few veiled threats to run notwithstanding, she also never took part in any of the dozen or so debates, and has yet to get behind any candidate. Instead of “professional quitter” as her byline, she’s given her usual “former governor, V.P. 2008 candidate moniker”. Her editorial reads like it was written in a spiral bound notebook and hastily passed to another student in the classroom. Her verbiage is about on par with a teenager. The use of “whatever” is particularly jarring. One would hope that the editors of the conservative-leaning Washington Post would try and correct that instead of once again tilting the goalpost down far enough so that Sarah Palin can have another slam dunk with this outing. Right off the bat she implores the candidates to turn to chapter 3 of her book “Going Rouge” and read about what it would take to get America back to energy independence. Is “Going Rogue” another book of the Bible that has been added by political hack evangelicals?
What’s interesting about this editorial is to see the various faces of the republican party whip about in frenzy. All four are united in one thing: overturning the incumbent president. Barbour represents that buzzword hurling, ideologically bankrupt face of the GOP. The “Party of ‘NO!’” face that is obstinate in it’s behavior and long in the tooth on real solutions. They depend on think tanks and lobby interests to guide their political strategy, and they are so out of touch with the “center” of this country that they’re repeated notion otherwise is laughable.
Palin represents that Glenn Beck, evangelical, apocalyptical money whore face of the GOP. The one whose entire policy is underlined by a deeper political daftness. It’s the face of the party that runs with the heart and not the mind. Your abortion abolishes, and cutting everything they see as an entitlement, because lord knows that all you need in life is a good pair of bootstraps to pull up on. Palin and her ilk are the constantly oppressed, persecuted minority, ever fearful of being quieted and dragged away in the night by Marxist/Stalinist Fascists.
Mitch Daniels: In some way represents the slow steady hand of the GOP of Old. While his blurb is riddled with buzzwordery, he also is coming at entitlements and deficit with a surgical strike efficiency. However, given that most of the republican base these days is academically challenged to say the least, his words strike a bit too stuffy. On deeper analysis he’s pretty much saying what Barbour is, but with more intelligent sounding panache. Daniels represents the kind of GOP the center would agree with, as it at least seems sane and isn’t braggadocios about it’s intrinsic pulse of the nation finding self.
Herman Cain: Is the evolved form of Palin, and the most dangerous face of the current GOP. I would gander that very few of the “center” would ever get on board the Herman Cain train. Funnily enough, he evokes 9-9-9 into his very blurb. You get the feeling that his dying breath will be all or some of this awful flat tax baloney he was attempting to sell. Ironically he sights “an official in the Reagan Treasury Dept.” that says his plan will put more money into the pockets of Americans and make the government better stalwarts of the money it does take in. Unfortunately for Cain, he didn’t get one of his experts to actually find the name of that official, as he or she probably never existed.
This aspect of the GOP, as shown, laughs in the face of facts and logic. When found wanting, they merely double-down on the stupid, and never relent. Most importantly, they’re just around to sell some books and act in their own selfish nature. Good leaders, even middling ones, are better than that. The “center” also sees right through they’re bullshit. They’re able to convince very few right-wingers to their cause, and will never be able to be the nuanced, thoughtful leader that society expects out of a president.
The sadder narrative that wraps this article about failed candidates trying to give advice is that not one of them was a serious contender. Not one single bit. Even in Palin’s case, she just drove around half the country being an asshole to any media outlet outside Fox News. It’s why I, as a frequent hater of the right-wing punditry, was relieved at the Alaskan tundra levels of silence about her after she refused to run. Noticing this trend she’s has again become combative towards fellow GOP running for the presidential nomination. To my mind, they could’ve asked Mike Huckabee, John McCain, hell even Alan Keyes and the myriad of other, in their day, more serious GOP Presidential contenders.
The only nice thing about this editorial is the definitive proof of a fractured GOP. I thought it was bad, but not this bad. These four different heads only share a common body, but each face is so radically different from the other one. And while both Democrat and Republican parties are in definite need of unification, I fear the GOP isn’t done growing more heads. You didn’t think Sarah Palin not being able to answer a question about what papers she read was so bad when you saw Herman Cain have a massive brain fart when questioned on foreign affair matters.
When David Brooks asserts that the GOP is all about the working class, and represents the “real” center of America, I do have to say “Are you fucking kidding me?” It’s why I’m once again convinced at how out of touch our Washington D.C. pundit class and “elite media” (for lack of a better word) is with the rest of the country. I can stomach…nay, fathom…that we can have light levels of this; but when it’s becoming vastly apparent that this is the rule and not the exception, you begin to realize where our problems reside.
Being anything other than a heterosexual wealthy white male, there’s nothing substantive the GOP has to offer anyone else.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
CBS This Morning: Try, Try Again!
Parade Magazine is one of the most woeful publications, all sandwiched into your Sunday paper like some moldy, stinky fish. Newspapers as a rule are predisposed towards the geriatric crowd, so it’s hard to get excited about the magazine when they put a bunch of old people on the cover, your latest adoption crazed celebrity, “texting shorthand from your kids”, or, recently, Gayle King.
What’s humorous about the Gayle King placement is that it leads you to believe that she’ll be getting a generous spread amongst the pages as per Parade‘s wont, highlighting…something Oprah related. Gayle King’s kind of only known for that one thing: being Oprah’s “friend”. Her profile is just as interesting as that sounds, and it’s only a few paragraphs long, is a poorly veiled press release and half of which is already pretty well known.
It’s with that notion that I wonder why Parade chose to put Gayle King on their cover and not something else? I get it, it’s the first issue of the year, and presumably no one cares, but really Gayle King? Even more insulting is the box at the end of the article that tells the reader “Hey, go to our website where Gayle King tells how her and Oprah are different and other stuff!” Why not put it in your fucking magazine, Parade?!
CBS is rebooting it’s lagging ass morning show, again. It seems to be the bi-annual ritual at the network to fire every single person that was supposed to be the “New, Hot, Fresh, Air” thing to blow through the morning news circuit. Let’s face facts CBS: No one is ever going to beat The Today Show. My mother works at a nursing home and they just put The Today Show on as background noise in the common areas. It is, presumably, the leading background noise news program! You don’t have to follow along very hard, 86% of the show is geared towards old people, and they still manage to squeeze in a tiny droplet of “real news”. It’s pretty ladies, and gentleman flapping their faces and making familiar buzzing noises to comfort old people. I imagine it’s what a baby’s life is like at their opening moments of its life.
Gayle King’s article, from which I assume Parade is part of the CBS corporate machine, kind of reads like a news release from a public relations firm. “[CBS This Morning]…is meant to be a harder-hitting, less frivolous take on the days’ stories than its network competitors.” …Meow! Is that shot across the bow or what? Add to it “gravitas” of a Charlie Rose and the “pretty young thing” Erica Hill, and you have (sigh) another insipid The Today Show clone. Except that it’s not, according the King: “…Charlie will drive the first hour…I’ll be driving the second, which will definitely be geared toward women (aka well worn Oprah territory). Erica will be on both. How it opens on day one will not be how it looks on day sever. Everything takes a hot minute to gel.” So inconsistency notwithstanding, how is it actually going to set itself aside from the same formula that’s the foundation of every single morning show on television? From CBS’s previous morning show track record, I don’t even think they’ll give this show more than a hot minute to get it’s act together, or at the very least compete against the #2 rated morning news show.
Television executives have to get over their collective Oprah hangover. Even Oprah’s not finding much success with her own television network in the harsh recesses of deep cable. Where she is literally doing the same shit she was doing on daytime TV for twenty odd years. Yes, the middle-aged woman demographic is not to be trifled. But as we’ve learned with the shuttering of well established daytime soap operas these past few years, tastes aren’t what they used to be. The new middle aged woman is not an Oprahphile and possibly dejects the monarchical hold that Oprah wields with their mothers and grandmothers. At least, that’s what I think.
Anyone who caught the tail end of Oprah’s last remaining programs; and how could you miss it, her shows schedule painstakingly mapping out ever bit of minutia of that May month, could see that the vapidity and sheer effervescence of any real impact on display. It made me wonder why Oprah waited so long to strike out on her own as a mythical beast. Granted, she’s a mainstay of the daytime television schedule, but her prime was long ago. It had to be the ego after the ascension that made her believe that an ENTIRE network dedicated to her was a good idea. Marketers and advertisers foaming at the mouth, convincing her of the even bigger cash cow if she could get OWN up and running, filling it’s programming hours with all the extra Oprah fueled bullshit that steered the good ship Oprah for three decades. A quest for immortality!
After CBS shutters this new morning show and sends Gayle King back to the Oprah petting zoo, it should be clear that the Oprah brand just isn’t as powerful as it was even two years ago. Hiring a cheaper proxy Oprah in Gayle King isn’t going to do anything for them. It’s a valiant effort on the #1 Rated New Series Network to go even more geriatric focused with it’s morning show, especially after going the “a rainbow skinned group of people shitting television sunshine at your wrinkled face” route in the years prior.
What’s humorous about the Gayle King placement is that it leads you to believe that she’ll be getting a generous spread amongst the pages as per Parade‘s wont, highlighting…something Oprah related. Gayle King’s kind of only known for that one thing: being Oprah’s “friend”. Her profile is just as interesting as that sounds, and it’s only a few paragraphs long, is a poorly veiled press release and half of which is already pretty well known.
It’s with that notion that I wonder why Parade chose to put Gayle King on their cover and not something else? I get it, it’s the first issue of the year, and presumably no one cares, but really Gayle King? Even more insulting is the box at the end of the article that tells the reader “Hey, go to our website where Gayle King tells how her and Oprah are different and other stuff!” Why not put it in your fucking magazine, Parade?!
CBS is rebooting it’s lagging ass morning show, again. It seems to be the bi-annual ritual at the network to fire every single person that was supposed to be the “New, Hot, Fresh, Air” thing to blow through the morning news circuit. Let’s face facts CBS: No one is ever going to beat The Today Show. My mother works at a nursing home and they just put The Today Show on as background noise in the common areas. It is, presumably, the leading background noise news program! You don’t have to follow along very hard, 86% of the show is geared towards old people, and they still manage to squeeze in a tiny droplet of “real news”. It’s pretty ladies, and gentleman flapping their faces and making familiar buzzing noises to comfort old people. I imagine it’s what a baby’s life is like at their opening moments of its life.
Gayle King’s article, from which I assume Parade is part of the CBS corporate machine, kind of reads like a news release from a public relations firm. “[CBS This Morning]…is meant to be a harder-hitting, less frivolous take on the days’ stories than its network competitors.” …Meow! Is that shot across the bow or what? Add to it “gravitas” of a Charlie Rose and the “pretty young thing” Erica Hill, and you have (sigh) another insipid The Today Show clone. Except that it’s not, according the King: “…Charlie will drive the first hour…I’ll be driving the second, which will definitely be geared toward women (aka well worn Oprah territory). Erica will be on both. How it opens on day one will not be how it looks on day sever. Everything takes a hot minute to gel.” So inconsistency notwithstanding, how is it actually going to set itself aside from the same formula that’s the foundation of every single morning show on television? From CBS’s previous morning show track record, I don’t even think they’ll give this show more than a hot minute to get it’s act together, or at the very least compete against the #2 rated morning news show.
Television executives have to get over their collective Oprah hangover. Even Oprah’s not finding much success with her own television network in the harsh recesses of deep cable. Where she is literally doing the same shit she was doing on daytime TV for twenty odd years. Yes, the middle-aged woman demographic is not to be trifled. But as we’ve learned with the shuttering of well established daytime soap operas these past few years, tastes aren’t what they used to be. The new middle aged woman is not an Oprahphile and possibly dejects the monarchical hold that Oprah wields with their mothers and grandmothers. At least, that’s what I think.
Anyone who caught the tail end of Oprah’s last remaining programs; and how could you miss it, her shows schedule painstakingly mapping out ever bit of minutia of that May month, could see that the vapidity and sheer effervescence of any real impact on display. It made me wonder why Oprah waited so long to strike out on her own as a mythical beast. Granted, she’s a mainstay of the daytime television schedule, but her prime was long ago. It had to be the ego after the ascension that made her believe that an ENTIRE network dedicated to her was a good idea. Marketers and advertisers foaming at the mouth, convincing her of the even bigger cash cow if she could get OWN up and running, filling it’s programming hours with all the extra Oprah fueled bullshit that steered the good ship Oprah for three decades. A quest for immortality!
After CBS shutters this new morning show and sends Gayle King back to the Oprah petting zoo, it should be clear that the Oprah brand just isn’t as powerful as it was even two years ago. Hiring a cheaper proxy Oprah in Gayle King isn’t going to do anything for them. It’s a valiant effort on the #1 Rated New Series Network to go even more geriatric focused with it’s morning show, especially after going the “a rainbow skinned group of people shitting television sunshine at your wrinkled face” route in the years prior.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Star Parker to Veterans: "Oops?"
I have avoided writing about Star Parker for long enough. She’s a former “welfare queen” gone legit, being a mouthpiece of the right, and general enemy to the welfare state. She used this very welfare state to stabilize herself before she started to battle against it with her group: Center for Urban Renewal and Education. She joins her various other minority right-wing pundit class as the poster children of the “GOP cares for all races, not just white rich autocrats”. Since they write about the things the white pundits won’t (for fear of the vaunted “race card” being shoved at them) they are elevated in the pundit class, no matter how poor the delivery device is. Regardless of how out of touch they are with their upbringing, or the fact that they haven’t, no probably ever, lived in the slums and ghettos of America, they’re allowed to be the voice to an entire group of people. Even now I’m getting the racist heebie-jeebies, and I’m trying to speak truth to power.
However it came to be, Star Parker, like most everyone in the pundit class, is simply out of touch with the American Public. The “pulse” the pundit class has their finger on is one another’s, and it’s becoming more evident every passing year we stay in this dire economic situation. We should really harness this anti-incumbency notion amongst us and boycott newspapers that insist of shoving these regressive boobs in our faces and insist on more community voices from our newspapers.
No matter how I feel about the military-industrial complex, war economy and sheer size of our military forces, I always have the utmost respect for our troops and veterans. If taxes need to go up so these men and women get ample higher education, hospital care and any thing that they want, I’m all for it. Especially now with an all volunteer military force. These people weren’t drafted, they chose to serve their country and do whatever the fuck they’re told to do. Some were hampered by stop/loss measures, and extended tours of duty. Even more went back on another tour, seeing as there was no job prospects for them in a failing economy. Even though we are hemorrhaging economically, that is no excuse not to care for and provide for the veterans and soldiers returning from the Iraq War.
That being said Star Parker’s recent article should lead to her future columns being boycotted to prevent further boneheaded cynicism to be printed. It’s so done deaf and condescending to those who’ve sacrificed their lives so people like her could then rub their faces in it. Perhaps I’m being bombastic, but when you’re column essentially reads “Dear Iraq War Veterans: Oopsie”, you’re in desperate need of a reality check.
It’s bad enough that the cost of this nearly decade long engagement is approaching an “estimated” 800 million dollars, the “estimated” one hundred thousand (outside sources say 650,000 to 2 million) Iraqi civilians that were killed, or the four thousand American troops and thirty-eight thousand wounded. The fact that we didn’t learn to avoid quagmires like this from the Vietnam War is awful. I understand that there’s probably always going to be some political war hawks and war economy fetishists out there that live to fill their pockets with government contract corporate lobby cash. Especially is this modern era where America is the “world police” and the fact that our defense budget is equivalent to four other first world nations combined or 49% of our federal budget. But to spend so much “blood and (mostly borrowed) treasure” and then to shrug your shoulders and say “Well, lesson learned huh?” We’re clearly not going to learn anything.
Star Parker recalls traveling over her holiday break and seeing countless soldiers reading W.’s book “Decision Points”, she believes that they’re looking for meaning in their service. I seem to think they were probably issued it from their commanding officers, and little else. Star Parker’s answer to this question of “Was (the Iraq War) worth it?”
You already know what she‘s going to write. It’s that bullshit right-wing talking point conservatives and war hawks been aping since it was discovered that, hey, there aren’t any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There’s no chemical agents, and they’re certainly no proof of nuclear processing activity. The very reason we went in to Iraq and toppled their government! But I digress.
“The downside of freedom is making inevitable mistakes…sometimes big ones.” Star Parker writes. Yea, I’d say “big ones” is probably an understatement. I say when your mistakes begin to take the form of war crimes, downside isn’t the first word that comes to mind. You know, I don’t really think when you’re planning to occupy an entire nation on a faulty premise and no real strategic plan or exit strategy for the months after wards, even begins to quantity the “inevitable mistakes” towards freedom. Of that particular country or in general. I mean we’re talking about very real, human cost here. “The upside is scaling the heights and achieving what could never be achieved without it.” First of all, please, you flatter too much. Secondly, at no point has the Iraq War been deemed an achievement of any sorts. I guess you’re thinking of that buffoonish “Mission Accomplished” banner from that W. speech, when all military operations were ceased after the initial invasion? Yea, we achieved some great heights there, on Mt. Fuckingidiotbizarro!
Maybe this article was written in the glow of a post 9/11, pre “Iraq is clearly becoming a quagmire” haze? Like around 2004 or so? Because this wrapping the flag around horseshit rhetoric laden article couldn’t be a recent one. The only thing that shows the modernity of this piece is the sheer cynicism in which Star Parker approaches the topic. That our soldiers don’t fight to protect freedom, they fight to spread human hope of perhaps a better tomorrow. In truth, our soldiers have actually fought and died for a corrupt political structure and unpopular government already established in Iraq. Iran has more of a political toe hold in Iraq than even before Hussein, says a lot of what our troops “fought for”, and al queda, which had little prescience in Iraq, now is well established there. Mission Accomplished indeed!
This ideology that Star Parker's shares with her fellow right wingers is one of empty gestures to our veterans. This is the same group that flogged 9/11 for every patriotic thing it was worth, getting us in to two unpaid military operations, scaring citizens in to giving up longheld constitutional rights, and allowed military contractors and mercenaries to reign unholy terror on foreign civilians and not be brought to justice, foreign or abroad. These right wingers will then howl and moan for cuts to Veterans Affairs and the associated hospitals, under fund G.I. Bills, and have 9/11 first responders prove that the cancerous tumors and life-threatening illness they currently have, were because of their involvement in rescuing people during that horrible day. They have the audacity to then write articles such as Star Parker’s and not be held accountable as hypocritical shitheads of the highest magnitude.
Newspaper publishers are dinosaurs who are creatures of habit, this has to be the only reason that articles of such daftness permeate a lot of their print business. To get back to my main point, community writers, for the most part, aren’t reimbursed for any of their musings, unlike paying for the wire services that a lot punditry uses to assuage a talking point into the mass media. Furthermore, a lot pundits merely using think tank published talking point memos to shape and define the current buzzwords surrounding modern politics. Job creator, enhanced interrogation tactics, IED’s, Mortgage backed securities, troubled assets…on and on…? All created buzzwords to deflect from the very real word: bullshit! Papers could save money by cutting out the middleman and just print out the various think tanks memos. They’re out there for public consumption. The idea that five or six people writing about it gives the false assertion that this is a mass idea. This is how the right-wing has poisoned a lot of the media culture as a whole. By the mere notion that “a whole lot of people are talking about this…it must be important”. It’s a false narrative and nothing more.
At least with the community writers you’ll get a couple of buzzword wielding, Fox News obsessed junkies spouting illogical ascertains, and it will cost the newspaper as a whole a lot less money to run it. But on the whole, the type of garbage that Star Parker and her ilk expound upon needs to be put away or marginalized to the dark corner from which it came. It’s a dated mode of thought that was outdated the moment they realized that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Vietnam was a powerful anti-war component up until the early 90’s. Obviously the Iraq War along with Afghanistan is a much needed refresher history course on the costs both in bloodshed and perilous economic situation to America, and that we needn’t bother doing this for another forty-odd years or so.
However it came to be, Star Parker, like most everyone in the pundit class, is simply out of touch with the American Public. The “pulse” the pundit class has their finger on is one another’s, and it’s becoming more evident every passing year we stay in this dire economic situation. We should really harness this anti-incumbency notion amongst us and boycott newspapers that insist of shoving these regressive boobs in our faces and insist on more community voices from our newspapers.
No matter how I feel about the military-industrial complex, war economy and sheer size of our military forces, I always have the utmost respect for our troops and veterans. If taxes need to go up so these men and women get ample higher education, hospital care and any thing that they want, I’m all for it. Especially now with an all volunteer military force. These people weren’t drafted, they chose to serve their country and do whatever the fuck they’re told to do. Some were hampered by stop/loss measures, and extended tours of duty. Even more went back on another tour, seeing as there was no job prospects for them in a failing economy. Even though we are hemorrhaging economically, that is no excuse not to care for and provide for the veterans and soldiers returning from the Iraq War.
That being said Star Parker’s recent article should lead to her future columns being boycotted to prevent further boneheaded cynicism to be printed. It’s so done deaf and condescending to those who’ve sacrificed their lives so people like her could then rub their faces in it. Perhaps I’m being bombastic, but when you’re column essentially reads “Dear Iraq War Veterans: Oopsie”, you’re in desperate need of a reality check.
It’s bad enough that the cost of this nearly decade long engagement is approaching an “estimated” 800 million dollars, the “estimated” one hundred thousand (outside sources say 650,000 to 2 million) Iraqi civilians that were killed, or the four thousand American troops and thirty-eight thousand wounded. The fact that we didn’t learn to avoid quagmires like this from the Vietnam War is awful. I understand that there’s probably always going to be some political war hawks and war economy fetishists out there that live to fill their pockets with government contract corporate lobby cash. Especially is this modern era where America is the “world police” and the fact that our defense budget is equivalent to four other first world nations combined or 49% of our federal budget. But to spend so much “blood and (mostly borrowed) treasure” and then to shrug your shoulders and say “Well, lesson learned huh?” We’re clearly not going to learn anything.
Star Parker recalls traveling over her holiday break and seeing countless soldiers reading W.’s book “Decision Points”, she believes that they’re looking for meaning in their service. I seem to think they were probably issued it from their commanding officers, and little else. Star Parker’s answer to this question of “Was (the Iraq War) worth it?”
You already know what she‘s going to write. It’s that bullshit right-wing talking point conservatives and war hawks been aping since it was discovered that, hey, there aren’t any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There’s no chemical agents, and they’re certainly no proof of nuclear processing activity. The very reason we went in to Iraq and toppled their government! But I digress.
“The downside of freedom is making inevitable mistakes…sometimes big ones.” Star Parker writes. Yea, I’d say “big ones” is probably an understatement. I say when your mistakes begin to take the form of war crimes, downside isn’t the first word that comes to mind. You know, I don’t really think when you’re planning to occupy an entire nation on a faulty premise and no real strategic plan or exit strategy for the months after wards, even begins to quantity the “inevitable mistakes” towards freedom. Of that particular country or in general. I mean we’re talking about very real, human cost here. “The upside is scaling the heights and achieving what could never be achieved without it.” First of all, please, you flatter too much. Secondly, at no point has the Iraq War been deemed an achievement of any sorts. I guess you’re thinking of that buffoonish “Mission Accomplished” banner from that W. speech, when all military operations were ceased after the initial invasion? Yea, we achieved some great heights there, on Mt. Fuckingidiotbizarro!
Maybe this article was written in the glow of a post 9/11, pre “Iraq is clearly becoming a quagmire” haze? Like around 2004 or so? Because this wrapping the flag around horseshit rhetoric laden article couldn’t be a recent one. The only thing that shows the modernity of this piece is the sheer cynicism in which Star Parker approaches the topic. That our soldiers don’t fight to protect freedom, they fight to spread human hope of perhaps a better tomorrow. In truth, our soldiers have actually fought and died for a corrupt political structure and unpopular government already established in Iraq. Iran has more of a political toe hold in Iraq than even before Hussein, says a lot of what our troops “fought for”, and al queda, which had little prescience in Iraq, now is well established there. Mission Accomplished indeed!
This ideology that Star Parker's shares with her fellow right wingers is one of empty gestures to our veterans. This is the same group that flogged 9/11 for every patriotic thing it was worth, getting us in to two unpaid military operations, scaring citizens in to giving up longheld constitutional rights, and allowed military contractors and mercenaries to reign unholy terror on foreign civilians and not be brought to justice, foreign or abroad. These right wingers will then howl and moan for cuts to Veterans Affairs and the associated hospitals, under fund G.I. Bills, and have 9/11 first responders prove that the cancerous tumors and life-threatening illness they currently have, were because of their involvement in rescuing people during that horrible day. They have the audacity to then write articles such as Star Parker’s and not be held accountable as hypocritical shitheads of the highest magnitude.
Newspaper publishers are dinosaurs who are creatures of habit, this has to be the only reason that articles of such daftness permeate a lot of their print business. To get back to my main point, community writers, for the most part, aren’t reimbursed for any of their musings, unlike paying for the wire services that a lot punditry uses to assuage a talking point into the mass media. Furthermore, a lot pundits merely using think tank published talking point memos to shape and define the current buzzwords surrounding modern politics. Job creator, enhanced interrogation tactics, IED’s, Mortgage backed securities, troubled assets…on and on…? All created buzzwords to deflect from the very real word: bullshit! Papers could save money by cutting out the middleman and just print out the various think tanks memos. They’re out there for public consumption. The idea that five or six people writing about it gives the false assertion that this is a mass idea. This is how the right-wing has poisoned a lot of the media culture as a whole. By the mere notion that “a whole lot of people are talking about this…it must be important”. It’s a false narrative and nothing more.
At least with the community writers you’ll get a couple of buzzword wielding, Fox News obsessed junkies spouting illogical ascertains, and it will cost the newspaper as a whole a lot less money to run it. But on the whole, the type of garbage that Star Parker and her ilk expound upon needs to be put away or marginalized to the dark corner from which it came. It’s a dated mode of thought that was outdated the moment they realized that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Vietnam was a powerful anti-war component up until the early 90’s. Obviously the Iraq War along with Afghanistan is a much needed refresher history course on the costs both in bloodshed and perilous economic situation to America, and that we needn’t bother doing this for another forty-odd years or so.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)