Pro-life media presence
I really like AUL, and think highly of their head, Charmaine Yoest, but I think this recent interview that I ran across through the always wonderful Jill Stanek was very weak:
Yoest is the public face of AUL, and yet she seems very timid, quiet and unassuming. For a group as in-front as they are, I think they would be better served by someone with the panache and flair of a solid media personality like Amanda Carpenter or a more assertive and aggressive female. The time on national television is such a premium, and the real communicative moment so small, that it can't be left to chance or left to the host to get the idea across, Yoest needed more force, more passion and a clear soundbite: i.e. that the Democrats and the President are lying about healthcare abortions.
I suspect many political talking heads assume they can do well because they're good with interpersonal communication. However, just like all things in politics, it's a learned skill. One ought to practice and work on constant self-improvement. In this case, Yoest needs to control her voice better, project more, emphasize one central point and communicate a few key soundbites rather than going off the cuff.
Labels: media, pro-life movement
A 20 year late review of the television show “Quantum Leap”
A 20 year late review of the television show “Quantum Leap”
Growing up with this show, I have a memory of it that it almost without any historical context, and without any philosophical grounding. I would watch this show as an almost blank slate, unaware at the historical references but also unaware at the not-so-subtle messages it was trying to convey.
The show [
here on Hulu], starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell, jumps through the last 50 years of the 20th century ‘setting right what once went wrong’ and gives an interesting look at various parts of American history.
What occurs to me, many years after the original viewing, is how it becomes the collective societal grief counseling for the horrors of history. It serves as a release valve to the drastic social changes of the 60s and 70s. But in so doing, perhaps saddled with the unbelievably poor and shallow television writing, it lacks any complexity. The story is always simply that of the good and the bad, the wrongs and the right, the entire world is told in black and white.
It seems too simple to argue that the show should have portrayed these moments with a bit more complexity, or with the complications of a world torn between principles that were not necessarily right and wrong, but irreconcilable. The first few years of Law and Order were a brief expression of this idea, and a way of those primarily left-wing writers to treat their philosophical opponents with some grace and humility. Performance art without self-reflection, introspection and humility quickly becomes shameless propaganda, and heavy-handed moralizing. Watching Quantum Leap, despite it being enjoyable for the performances, situations and its embrace of the beauty of history, is still stained by its moralizing.
Even in an episode ostensibly about a sister about to marry a man quite unfit to be a good husband, the sister becomes a Peacecorps devotee, a lover of John Kennedy, rather than a normal girl. It wasn’t enough for her to simply be a good girl deserving of a good man, she had to be a darling of the left. And her jilted fiancée at the end of the episode, obviously beaten and broken, is simply left in the dust as a relatively shallow, disposable character. There is no love for one’s enemies, no compassion towards those who are the ‘bad’ in the show, and no complexity to the situation. Perhaps in a moment where moral clarity was easier, the show could thrive, but today these episodes just seem trite and thoughtless.
It seems as though there are two ways for left-wing people to deal with history, most of which becomes inconvenient to their worldview, either lying about it or ignoring it. While today they prefer the latter, simply to ignore or render it irrelevant, it seems as though, broadly speaking in such a way as to be quite ostentatious, that in the late 80s and early 90s it was more of the former, to lie, to change the ‘interpretations’ of events in order to fit the narrative. It becomes difficult, after all, to simply ignore what Chesterton called the “democracy of the dead” for so long as their voices speak increasingly louder as they are ignored, a haunting of the political establishment solved only through reading and reflection.
If the show were ever remade, one would hope that it would deal more honestly with the complexities of history, one that gave a bit more of both sides. I won’t go so far as to say that all aspects of the vaunted “critical theory” are bad, but at its core any discussion of history ought rightly be a celebration of American history, and not so down and dour as we have become accustomed. Friends reading this are likely expecting a long diatribe here about memorials and public memorials and how all the new ones are tragic, how the old ones were triumphant, and how utterly inappropriate the World War II memorial is, but I’ll spare you while still pointing out its relevance here.
Bill Clinton once said that nothing that’s wrong with America can’t be fixed by that which is right about America. And while I’m sure we differ on the specifics beyond that cliché, I think he’s right. And there are so many good, powerful and wonderful stories worth telling, viewpoints worth capturing and retelling that any remake would hopefully include and leave out the stereotypical divisive moments that have been so ridiculously overplayed already.
This would be to say, of course, that it should be the anti-Howard Zinn. American history doesn’t need to be seen solely through the prism of a left-wing agenda, and the culture of sorrow, shame and guilt is unduly burdensome, and inappropriate. A show that deviates from that aspect of the original, that showed the wonderful and proud moments of American history, would go a long way to reconciling what Pat Buchanan has recently begun describing as the fragmentation of American identity.
The time is ripe for a remake of this series, and one that bridges the divisions rather than exacerbate them, and treats those complexities of history with the respect they deserve.
Labels: history, media, media bias, theory
The sounds of pro-life over the silence of the supposedly 'pro-life'
Not to be too depressed by the outrageously lackluster performance of the Senate Republicans,
one bright spot has been the presence of pro-life agitators. Obviously many may find them obnoxious, but they are people who feel so marginalized, kept out of the media and stifled that they resort to these disruptive tactics. Considering that the Senate GOP can't fall over itself fast enough to lob obvious softballs at this all-but-certain Supreme Court Justice, it's nice that someone is speaking the obvious: that abortion is murder, that the unborn demand justice and that the intellectually dishonest legal abortion regime is the unspoken elephant in the room. The absence of 50 million children, and potentially 277 million through chemical abortions, is so rarely heard that it's fitting that these protesters voice that when their so-called 'pro-life' elected representatives fail them on that account.
Labels: media, media bias, politics, pro-life movement
The "death" of evangelicals
So this "post-evangelical" clown, Michael Spencer,
writes in the Christian Science Monitor that there is a coming 'death' of evangelicals and plays on all sorts of fear tactics. And of course in 60 years he'll be long gone by the time that his theory is proven right or wrong, but it's at least entertaining to see the Obama Vanguard continue their assault on anything center-right even after they take control of government, because Spencer claims that what's going to kill evangelicals is... wait for it... conservatism. Attaching itself to 'conservatism' is what will cause kids to grow up without faith, donations to dry up, your house to catch on fire, your wife to leave you, your dog to run away and your stock portfolio to collapse even further! Maybe. In 60 years. So sayeth I, who am self-described as 'post-evangelical' and have books to sell, blogs to promote and my other crap to peddle. It's laughable that clowns like this get any press play. What kills any faith or movement is the lack of faith. If Evangelicals start embracing 'gay' 'marriage'; infanticide; high taxes and other 'progressive' things, it will represent the rejection of the essence of their faith. Look at the mainline 'dying' denominations: Methodists, Lutherans, Congregationalists -- common denominator? radical left-wing attitudes on all these core issues, these family issues. But, of course, in two generations those denominations will be flourishing and all these evangelical ones will be dying according to Spencer. I just hope the clown lives long enough and is sentient enough to realize how wrong he is.
Labels: conservativism, media, media bias, messaging, religion
Debate Judging: Group Discussion and the Stimulus/Bailouts
I recently had the opportunity to judge a debate tournament at Shrewsbury High School, where I occasionally help out. One new Forensics event is called "Group Discussion" where 6 students take a topic and the judge decides which one of them handles and controls a group discussion the best. It seems like a very modern, PC and lame event, but in practice it was neat to see. Having judged the event, though, there were a few thoughts that helped me understand how the economics of the bailout appear to the common man. It was shocking, for instance, that all the students agreed in the necessity for both the bailout and the stimulus package. Even some who had obviously read several libertarian tracts and even mentioned the gold standard, still said government action was needed. There was also an absence of principles guiding their actions, which I suppose is to be expected, but was frustrating to watch. They had a very singular and short-term focus on getting past this immediate economic situation and not really questioning what underpinnings caused this situation. It was also frustrating that no one really took the role of the contrarian. Three students, in fact, were virtually silent through the presentation and I kept hoping that at least one of them would try to take the role of the spoiler. The solutions, even to accept the necessity for government action, were all very within-the-box and uncreative -- there were no big ideas, no one took any risks. I understand economics isn't the most exciting field, but I was still hoping to see a spark in one of them to the point where they took an idea and ran with it - instead it was largely predictable: more education, more money to teachers, the new deal was key to getting out of the depression, more regulation, etc. etc. etc. -- it was hard to restrain myself and say what a cesspool of money most school districts are, that government is ridiculously inefficient and that government caused this crisis. Perhaps I was hoping for too much. I have been so thrilled by the high caliber of the Shrewsbury High students that perhaps my standards were artificially high; I had a good time and enjoyed the day so I should not complain at all, but it was interesting to see what kind of messages are getting across to students in this current crisis.
Labels: Economics, education, media, media bias, messaging
Malcolm Gladwell and modern bureaucrats
Malcolm Gladwell wrote "The Tipping Point" and "Blink" and now "Outliers" which my friend Jon has recently recommended to me. I've read the tipping point and found it, although not earth-shattering or perhaps deserving of its too-popular reputation, useful in at least putting clear terms and names on things you already knew: such as social connectors and information mavens within any social group. Jon referred me to
this article by
Andrew Orlowski in the Guardian, though, which is brutally honest in its assessment of Gladwell, and really brings a smile to my face for how thorough Orlowski deconstructs and dissembles Gladwell. It's the sort of public criticism one expects, the role that journalism ought to play, but never receives. This very critical review was spot on, well needed, and surprisingly absent from any American periodicals. Which should tell us quite a bit about American group-think when it comes to issues of culture and society. The mainstream media is barfing back the preferences it is conditioned to accept.
Labels: media, media bias
Why raising the gas tax could be a good thing
Wired puts out
this article which seems silly at first. But they make an interesting comment a little bit into the article -- that it would then be wise to make a corresponding cut in payroll taxes. Now, at first this seems like quite the silly proposition-- just a displacement of current tax. But the gas tax is paid by everyone -- the unemployed, the poor, and the over 50% of Americans who pay no tax. So in reality this is the most regressive of all tax systems, and honestly, the most fair. If we're going to embark on a brave new world of construction projects, the least we can do is to free up other parts of the economy so that we don't have the economic efficiency of the Soviet Union. Displacing "progressive" taxation onto more "regressive" taxation making it flatter, simpler and more 'equitable' is honestly a great way to do that.
The only downside of course is that we all know once they raise the gas tax they won't really cut the payroll taxes. But it's a nice thought in the abstract.
Labels: Economics, media, taxes
Lincoln and the Constitution: what first amendment?
Doing some research on the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" I was less than surprised to hear
Dr. DiLorenzo outline what I had heard before but never in such great detail: the outrageous abuse of power exercised by Abraham Lincoln to prosecute the War Against Southern Independence.
Labels: Constitution, history, media, war
Television: "Strength through Joy"
My friend Drew passed along
this link to a 55-minute long documentary that is well worth the length. The subject matter is Nazi television, and it's striking. It's almost surreal to see, something we take for granted in the modern age: television without overt political agendas and that politicians could so masterly use television. Of course, that only better illustrates how much better modern Nazis have gotten at using television to advance their agenda: we realize this programming as obscene because we know how the story ends. Would we know how bad it was if we were living through the period of Nazi programming? Do we realize how bad it is now? Drew noted that
this is the companion book.
Labels: history, media, media bias, Nazi
Reason #8,451,271 to hate the media
This article. A pompous British editor just sums up American politics by saying that "swift-boating" isn't working against Obama. Not only is there no such thing as "swift-boating" unless you, of course, are referencing the fact that moronic 2004 anti-America Democrat candidate John Kerry ran on his military record when he had so clearly thrown away his medals and lied about troop atrocities. It's ridiculous for this term to even exist. Now, simple reporting of fact is being called "swift-boating" by an editor of a major international publication. I don't think this blog has much use if it serves only as a ranting sounding board, but I cannot believe the audacity of these media pukes! To sit and lecture the American public on how news is bad from someone who controls the news and is not reporting the news is beyond arrogance. And I positively love that "negative campaigns" are frowned upon, when anything that isn't an Obama infomercial is considered negative. The many lies about Republicans go unchecked, unquestioned and unspoken. I decided a few years ago that I couldn't support the Republican Party in good conscience, and won't be doing it this cycle either, so it makes me doubly frustrated to feel compelled to defend them against this insane media environment. If the media lies this much during a meaningless election, we have to really wonder how much they're lying on a day to day basis.
Labels: media, media bias
A great Pivot-Point Example
Many of you have suffered for years to my rough explanation of this great messaging technique employed by leftists (best by that witch Katrina Vanden Heuvel) on what's called "pivot-point" - and the general thesis is in responding to tough questions:
1. You can't just ignore, or not clash, with what was asked, or else you're off-topic
2. You don't really want to say anything about the topic, because you're wrong on the issue.
So, presto, you use pivot-point!
You pivot off of one word in the question, giving the appearance of clash, and then point to whatever you want to talk about.
Obama on Biden's Initial Opposition to AIG Bailout: "Joe Should Have Waited"
September 23, 2008 9:41 AM
"What has been clear during this entire past ten days is John McCain has not had clarity and a grasp on the situation," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told NBC's Matt Lauer in an interview that ran this morning.
Lauer was talking about how Obama hit Sen. McCain for flip-flopping on the AIG bailout -- saying he opposed it one day then announce he supported it the next day.
But, as Lauer pointed out, scarcely three minutes after McCain said he opposed the AIG bailout last week, "in an interview with Meredith Vieira, Joe Biden, your running mate was asked the exact same question, 'should the federal government bailout AIG?' And he said, 'No, the federal government should not bailout AIG.'" (As we noted at the time.) "And I think that in that situation," Obama said, "I think Joe should have waited as well."
"But it's the kind of thing that drives people crazy about politics," Lauer said. "It sounds like you were trying to score some political points against John McCain using his words, when your own running mate had used very similar words."
"No, hold on a second Matt," Obama said. "I think what drives people crazy about politics is the fact that somebody like John McCain who for 26 years has been an advocate for deregulation, for 26 years has said the market is king and then starts going out there suggesting somehow that he's a populist who's been railing against Wall Street and regulation -- that's what drives people crazy about politics."
So, Obama was asked:
You appear hypocritical, that you held McCain to this standard when your own Vice Presidential candidate said the same thing.
Obama responds:
McCain sucks
or said another way:
Obama asked:
You appear hypocritical, that you held McCain to this standard when your own Vice Presidential candidate said the same thing.
Obama responds:
What's really hypocritical is how John McCain once supported deregulation when it was fashionable, and now when it's politically convenient he says something else. We can't believe what John McCain says because he might change it next week.
See how he uses that one phrase to completely avoid talking about the subject, and then simply goes onto his talking point? He pivots off of "what drives people nuts about politics", restates it in his answer to make it sound like he's actually clashing when he's not, and then moves on to his soundbite.
Labels: media, messaging, politics, theory
Deconstructing Obama Excitement
I saw this image from
this pointless IHT article about Obama's running mate. Look at the faces, they're ecstatic. I've met John McCain before, I've met my fair share of celebrities and famous people, and never, never once, has it occurred to me to be quite this excited. And so, with perhaps too much armchair psychology, we ought to say what could motivate one to be this worked up.
Clearly, the moment meeting and touching a famous person can't be this rationally exciting. Otherwise there'd be a business of paying to touch famous people. And it's really not about their fame per se, since many other politicians are famous but people don't react this way, i.e. when people meet Newt Gingrich they faint. And it's not the policies they support since academics and other politicians don't elicit this sort of response. I suspect it really has to do with two issues: media-hype coupled with a certain base sex appeal, and the excitement of later being able to brag to their friends that they met someone famous in the media. What's rare is desired, and what's current and timely is more desired so as to set ourselves as superior to our friends. A silly notion, to be sure, but I'm at a loss to explain this picture any other way.
Thinking about human dynamics and trying to extrapolate some sort of rule:
Subject
1. Must be adored by the media/whatever functions as media, i.e. gossip circle, some sort of social validation
2. Must be desired by the group and individuals within the group, some base sex appeal
3. Must be rare, not around all the time, otherwise gets taken for granted
4. Have a compelling personal story
I think this explains to some small degree why ugly men can date models, why good girls date bad ones, and perhaps how Chicago ad-men managed to make a huge swath of the country settle for a bad candidate for President.
Labels: media, obama, psychology
President Hillary further undermined by media bias?
Granted, I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton, but I do have to say that the media was incredibly biased in favor of Obama. They repeatedly wrote Hillary off, and cast her aside. Which, from a certain point of view, was entertaining because of how often the media does it to the right. Nevertheless, the media bias covering up John Edwards' love-child
might have had a secondary motive-- to drive votes away from Hillary? Jill Stanek is where I read it first. Will we call this a vast-left-wing-media conspiracy? At least in this case she'd be right in suspecting it.
Labels: election, hillary, media, media bias, obama
Two songs that inspire creativity
Lately I've found that two songs, the Smashing Pumpkins' "
The Beginning is the End is the Beginning" which I heard as part of the
Watchman Trailer, and Pink Floyd's "
Comfortably Numb" have been very relaxing and enjoyable while trying to undertake some creative writing and other constructions. For as much as conservatives like to complain about the media, there are good nuggets out there and worthwhile books, songs, movies and things to absorb.
Labels: media, music
Media bias or "news judgement"
I love the mainstream media (MSM in blog-talk)
justifying their inane coverage decisions.
Larry Craig is newsworthy, but
John Edwards is not. Every Republican misdeed is newsworthy, but
William Jefferson,
Alcee Hastings,
Charlie Rangel or
Chris Dodd.
This all just reflects a media spinning out of control to protect its own interest and the hidden agenda of those who own the newspapers, those who run the newspapers, and those who write the "news."
--The tone of the Obama coverage is shameful -
read Politico's completely one-sided and uncritical recent story about the Berlin trip.
Or this recent story about a death row inmate stumping for Obama, and yet does anyone in the media connect this to a perhaps soft-on-crime Obama?
--The John Edwards double-standard is shameful
--The continued "news judgment" of these outlets is continuing to fail, as best evidenced by the continued success of Matt Drudge
--Newsweek's cover-up of Obama's past attendance at a Muslim school is hilarious, if not also a sad statement on the breakdown in the gatekeeper mentality.
Dan Flynn wrote a great post about this as well.
Certainly
the bias can't be seen mathematically, in campaign donations for example? The continued democratization of the media will enable us to bankrupt these evil empires of publishing. Or, as Richard Nixon once said, "Thank God for television and radio for keeping the newspapers just a little more honest."
Labels: media, media bias, messaging, politics
Bankruptcy Week: No Oil to see here, keep moving on
This article at Business Week, "There may be oil offshore, but..." is testament to a strange phenomenon where business types barf back DNC talking points. Reading the article, one can clearly see that there are a great deal of natural resources yet to be developed, but this article goes out of its way to dispute the possibility of any possible development, even going so far as to say that no business will take a risk without clear "profitability" as though there were only sure-things in the business world. Has environmentalism so thoroughly taken over and infected the minds of rational human beings that they can no longer accept obvious statements? Are our eyes so blinded that we cannot see? We face an energy crisis and no one wants to create more energy! I found article author
Moira Herbst's personal blog, which had one slightly negative thing to say about conservative Hugh Hewitt, though overall nothing too damning of her. She seems a recent j-school grad, and though we shouldn't hold that against her, it occurs to me that this article was probably out of her league, and she had to rely on the DNC talking points because precious didn't know better. So, again, liberal bias caused not by a conspiracy but most likely from laziness, immaturity and inaccuracy. And the journalists can't understand why no one is reading their tortured constructions.
Labels: energy, media, messaging, policy, politics
