NEWS VS BULLSHIT: A PRIMER

ITEM: The best and most useful political article you’ll read in this or any other election year that’s not written by bedsitter23 : this Cracked piece on how to spot a bullshit political news story in under 10 seconds.

It’s Cracked, so it's intended to be humorous. But it’s also savagely brilliant and dead-on.

Now, I don’t necessarily agree with every point David Wong is trying to make here – at least not to the same degree.

For example, while I do think it’s unfair to base yr opinion of an entire political party on one batshit quote from one batshit local legislator, I would argue that it does count as news in the sense that it’s worth knowing when people like that get elected into positions of power, even if their ability to actually ever turn their batshit opinions into law are slim to none. Never turn yr back on a dingbat..

Also, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with reporting on the drama of a given election. That’s the nature of the beast, really. An election in and of itself IS drama, with a storyline top-loaded with competition, conflict, plot twists, betrayal, comic relief, sex (to a degree), and a cast of heroes and villains – only in this case the audience is split into ideological groups who disagree on who the villain is.

Which is why most people follow elections the same way they follow sports and soap operas. I’ve said for years that the next logical step for modern US presidential elections is to give Vince McMahon the promotion rights and let the next President be decided at every fourth Wrestlemania event. In a cage, ideally. Because admit it, the one thing you want more than anything else is to see Barack Obama in tights about to give Mitt Romney an Atomic Elbow, only for Ann Romney to sneak up from behind and whack Obama on the head with a dog cage (so long as there’s no dog in it). Yes you do.

Bottom line: drama sells. So does batshit. Both offer high entertainment value. And in a nation where the media (1) is dependent on entertainment to get an audience and (2) has a 24-hour news cycle to fill, yr going to get a lot of that kind of coverage.

And that would be fine – IF people didn’t take the doofus sideshow stuff as seriously as the actual news. Unfortunately, many do, and they’re a big enough market to ensure that the news media keeps feeding the beast.

So well done, Cracked, for pointing out the difference.

Not that it matter, of course. Haters gonna hate, and hyperpartisan political junkies will always have scores to settle. So even if they read the Cracked article (and many of my hyperpartisan political friends do read a lot of Cracked, judging from my Facebook news feed), they’ll probably dismiss it as biased or complain that Cracked is making light of Very Serious Issues and it’s not funny. Either way they’ll keep filling my Facebook feed with those kinds of doofus sideshow stories.

Not that I’m saying such stories aren’t worth passing on. I just wish people would share them for what they are – doofus entertainment – and not as extremely important information on which the very future of the country depends.

But seriously,

This is dF

I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN (MAY 2012 EDITION)

The book pile isn’t getting any smaller. But it’s not for lack of trying. Progress report follows:

JUST FINISHED

Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews with Hunter S. Thompson, edited by Anita Thompson
Posthumous collection of interviews with Hunter Thompson from the late 60s when he made his name with Hell’s Angels up to his death in 2005. It also includes a couple of transcripts of his 70s “lectures” where he basically fielded terrible questions from students who expected him to live up to his persona in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Some interviews are more insightful than others, but it does illustrate the degree to which HST was a victim of his own success, and why Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail ’72 was the kind of book that HST could only get away with once. To be fair, it also illustrates the fact that his interviews and political insights got a lot more jumbled and paranoid as he got older, though sometimes that depends on the quality of the interviewer.

JUST STARTED

Who Killed Art Deco? by Chuck Barris
Yes, that would be Chuck Barris as in the Gong Show and Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind. It’s a murder mystery. Why not?

( AND RECENTLY: Whales, semi-true crime, Modesty and comics! )

Get onto the bus,

This is dF

SWIMMING IS MY LIFE

That underwater baby on the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind album?

His name is Spencer Elden. And he’s all grown up now.



[Via LP Cover Lover]

Out of the pool,

This is dF