Television and Political Correctness' Safe Harbor for the Stupid

A recent Matt Lewis column mentioned a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman, which was published in 1985. Yes, It's Old (TM). Its central thesis struck a chord with me: That freedom and reason will be lost in America not in an Orwellian way, but in a Huxleyan one. Orwell's vision was of a government ruthlessly suppressing books and changing written accounts of the past in order to change the thinking of the present.

Rick Tempest spoke about this at the end of the most recent AoSHQ podcast. Rick doesn't read much, so when he does finish a book, it's like The Only Thing He Can Talk About.

Anyway, Huxley's vision was that no totalitarian state was needed for such a descent into infantilization and restriction of thought: That all that was necessary was that the means of distraction and infantilization be provided to the population, and the people would voluntarily choose that path, no Mintruth needed, no black-armored thought police required. Orwell's vision was therefore of a forcible lobotomy, conducted by the state; Huxley's was one of a voluntary one, people checking in to an outpatient clinic every day to have bothersome parts of their brains excised.

The idea of the book (which, frankly, is better than the book itself) is an elaboration of Marshall McLuhan's aphorism, "the medium is a message." Which is something Rick Tempest never understood until reading this book. The aphorism stands for the proposition that every medium -- whether it be writing, speaking, song, epic poetry, telegraph reports, news journalism, or television -- has embedded deep within it a preference for certain modes of expression and certain types of stories, and thus each medium contains within it an embedded philosophy of thought which cannot be wholly separated from the actual content of the communication.

Thus, the medium itself, to an extent not appreciated enough, is part of the message it carries.

Now, Postman's book contrasts two different media, print and television. His book documents the long fall of America from a print-based method of political discourse to a television-based one. The early New England colonists, he points out, had a literacy rate of 95%, which was unheard of in the world at the time (and is rather high even today). They consumed printed material -- pamphlets, books, all of it -- and even spoke in that fashion. For example, he notes that Lincoln's speechifying, which may sound overly-complex for spoken argument today, was in fact fairly common of the style of rhetoric at the time, and people had no particular trouble following it.

Nowadays, we've lost our ear for long spoken sentences with lots of dependent clauses, and it's all we can do to make sense of them even in print, where we can take our time parsing them out.

This is part of his point: The method of communication breeds a certain method of thought in a population. To Americans living from 1730 to 1870, Lincoln's speeches were not overly-complicated or difficult to follow. They were accustomed to long complicated thoughts in political speech.

This has all changed since the television became the chief conveyance of not merely pop entertainment but, crucially, of political expression and culture itself. I will not belabor the long litany of sins he lays at the feet of television. Suffice to say that he believes that much of the superficiality and stupidity of the modern world is due to television's promotion of a certain style of thought, which is to say a certain style of thoughtlessness: Fast cuts, short sentences, information stripped of context, a disdain for abstractions -- indeed, a disdain for anything that cannot be filmed occurring in the here-and-now.

And the carnival barking-- Dear Lord, the carnival barking. Everything on TV is the best, the latest, the most spectacular, the weirdest, the most shocking. That sort of endless Hype of the Present Moment seems to give a big middle finger to All History Which Has Come Before.

Now, Postman is a liberal Democrat (or so parts of his book seemed to indicate), and, in 1985, he thought that television and the particular style of stupidity it encouraged was Reagan's secret weapon.

I disagree with that conclusion but I agree with Rick Tempest that most of his other conclusions are spot-on.

Rick Tempest's big disagreement is as to which side of the politico-cultural war television's maudlin, emotional, hot-button-pushing, no-abstract-thought-or-hypotheticals-allowed style of discourse favors. I think that there's a softness of thought to television-based thinking that strongly favors a regime of Political Correctness and thereby strongly favors soft liberalism as a default, risk-free safe harbor for the stupid.

Anyway, interesting idea, I think. I don't know if I'd recommend the book so much as I'd recommend the idea, which I've just shared with you. It's a decent book, though. Although, oddly enough, for a book which rants against superficial analysis, its evidence of TV's dire impact on our thinking is very anecdotal, superficial, and news-clipping-ish. You think that a book about the virtue of rigor and depth would exemplify that itself.

And yet, a fast easy TV-like read.

Posted by: Ace at 04:56 PM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 I think you meant safe harbor for the retard.

Posted by: dogfish at June 18, 2013 04:45 PM (nsOJa)

2 We HAD books. We burned them.

Posted by: Zombie Heinrich Himmler at June 18, 2013 04:46 PM (wR+pz)

3 We HAD books, we burned them

Posted by: Zombie Heinrich Himmler at June 18, 2013 04:47 PM (wR+pz)

4 "You talk like a fag and your shit's all retarded."

Posted by: wooga at June 18, 2013 04:47 PM (X4zYi)

5
The short TV news story minibite is usually more misleading than helpful. Better to know you know nothing. You can't do the "civil war in Syria" in fifteen seconds or less.

Posted by: Beagle at June 18, 2013 04:48 PM (sOtz/)

6 test

Posted by: Zombie Heinrich Himmler at June 18, 2013 04:48 PM (wR+pz)

7 Anyway, Huxley's vision was that no totalitarian state was needed for such a descent into infantilization and restriction of thought: That all that was necessary was that the means of distraction and infantilization be provided to the population, and the people would voluntarily choose that path, no Mintruth needed, no black-armored thought police required.

That prick Huxley always was one step ahead of me. Plus, he got to eat peyote and write a book about it. Prick.

Posted by: George Orwell what knows shoe phones are 4G ready at June 18, 2013 04:48 PM (nP389)

8
but in a Huxleyian one. Orwell's vision was of a government ruthlessly
suppressing books and changing written accounts of the past in order to
change the thinking of the present.

It's a shame you don't read this blog, otherwise you would've learned months ago my relevant lesson about the word palimpsest and how the Left/media is changing history in real time via media programming and purported mainstream sentiment.

Posted by: soothsayer, now with 20% less ruth at June 18, 2013 04:51 PM (KeJAW)

9 Another first? And I agree, it's a Huxleyesque Idiocracy, with Orwellian highlights.

Posted by: real joe at June 18, 2013 04:51 PM (2sb8V)

10 Mom didn't call it "the idiot box" box for nothing.

Posted by: chipster at June 18, 2013 04:51 PM (KE8N2)

11 Rick Tempest talks like a fag and his shit's all retarded.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at June 18, 2013 04:57 PM (8ZskC)

12 OW! MY BALLS!

Posted by: Ow My Balls Guy at June 18, 2013 05:00 PM (XS/b3)

13 I don't think the Orwellian vision and the Huxleyian vision are mutually exclusive.

Posted by: Tesh at June 18, 2013 05:00 PM (cnjni)

14 I can't be the first to say:

tl;dr

Posted by: J. Random Dude at June 18, 2013 05:01 PM (72afg)

15 We see the effects in our everyday lives. If a spoken sentence has more then about seven words in it, you lose the listener.
And some concepts just can not be dumbed down enough to fit into a structure limit such as that.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at June 18, 2013 05:01 PM (UPQHx)

16 Other than making the average person in the US stupid, I don't think TV had a lot to do with it. Most people who vegetate in front of the stupid box for 8 hrs/day don't vote.

The average voting population was bought off by FDR in the 30s and then later by LBJ. They became the FSA and they really don't give a damn about anything other than their government check every month.

And they will vote that check every election. It is in their personal interest to do so. They will keep electing commies until the Republic collapses them most of them will turn cannibal just like an overcrowded cage full of hungry rats.

Posted by: Vic at June 18, 2013 05:01 PM (lZvxr)

17 >>>I don't think the Orwellian vision and the Huxleyian vision are mutually exclusive.

no but the Orwellian one is the one people tend to think about because it presents a heroic idea of man-- man struggling against large forces arrayed against him.

The Huxleyan vision, seen in Idiocracy (and yeah, all those quotes are apropos), is a darker vision because.... it's not heroic, it's just fucking SAD.

Posted by: ace at June 18, 2013 05:02 PM (LCRYB)

18 It is in fact a Huxleyesque Idiocracy with Orwellian highlights.
Thanks, 52% scrunts.

Posted by: real joe at June 18, 2013 05:02 PM (uSmQJ)

19 It's back!

Posted by: RioBravo at June 18, 2013 05:02 PM (eEfYn)

20 Ace, can you summarize your post in 10 words or less? No commas, please.

Posted by: Michael the Hobbit, but you can call me Michael at June 18, 2013 05:02 PM (vVMIQ)

21 �How to report the news�: http://youtu.be/YtGSXMuWMR4

I think I may have seen it first on this site.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at June 18, 2013 05:02 PM (QF8uk)

22 Oh, fuck me.

Posted by: real joe at June 18, 2013 05:02 PM (uSmQJ)

23 Ace,

You might be interested in this; it argues that the US is descending into a hybrid of Huxley and Orwell that is more reminiscent of Fahrenheit 451:

http://tinyurl.com/lkmznyn

Posted by: jmjjbt at June 18, 2013 05:03 PM (6VB4r)

24 We had lunch with a loser named Boner.

Posted by: Malia in Ireland at June 18, 2013 05:03 PM (h0/aL)

25 True but not a winning strategy.

http://tinyurl.com/l3hmmya

Posted by: DaveA at June 18, 2013 05:03 PM (DL2i+)

26
I can't be the first to say:

tl;dr

It started off boring and slow with ace trying to bullshit everyone
with a bunch of smart talk: 'Blah blah blah. You gotta believe me!'

Posted by: HeatherRadish� needs a beer at June 18, 2013 05:04 PM (ZKzrr)

27 It's Huxley for the masses and Orwell for those who refuse to take their soma.

Posted by: Ken in NH at June 18, 2013 05:04 PM (N9thc)

28
Dear God, Twitter!

Posted by: Comrade Arthur at June 18, 2013 05:04 PM (5YUSx)

29 The Huxleyan vision, seen in Idiocracy (and yeah, all those quotes are apropos), is a darker vision because.... it's not heroic, it's just fucking SAD.

Furthermore, there is no centralized enemy as in 1984: INGSOC. In Huxley's vision, the enemy is diffuse and most people see him every day in the mirror yet do not recognize him.

Posted by: George Orwell what knows shoe phones are 4G ready at June 18, 2013 05:05 PM (nP389)

30 What do you meanwe can't think? We were raised on, "I love you, you love me..."

Oh, and thinking is "acting white."

Posted by: Arms Merchant at June 18, 2013 05:06 PM (/AHDz)

31 Huxleyite porn, video games, and facebook for the masses.
Orwellian boot for the tiny minority that makes a fuss.

If you just stick with watching HBO, playing xbox, and jacking it to tumblr porn ... then you'll never feel the Orwellian boot on your neck.

But if you make a fuss, well ... that's another story.

Stick to ESPN, TMZ, and 'batin' and you'll be fine.

Now go away, batin'!

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at June 18, 2013 05:06 PM (ZPrif)

32 This was one of my big peeves about the movie version of V for Vendetta: in the movie, it�s the Orwellian version, government clamping down on everyone.

In the book, it was people wanting their good things, and when the good things stopped coming/economy collapsed (due, I think, to a major war), they voted in a totalitarian government that promised to kickstart the good things again. Which they did, and so the people were satisfied.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at June 18, 2013 05:06 PM (QF8uk)

33 People often look for a date when America began its intellectual and political decline, and relate it to the party in power. I tend to date the beginning of the end to the expansion of television.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 18, 2013 05:07 PM (ZDP2l)

34
Dwarf was in a band called 'U Gay' or 'So Wut' or 'Sum Shit'. Old boring fart.

Posted by: Malia in Ireland at June 18, 2013 05:08 PM (h0/aL)

35 The medium is the massage. Slow, warming, relaxing..., then the bill is presented.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at June 18, 2013 05:08 PM (aDwsi)

36 The main problem is allowing too many retards to vote.
Anyone on welfare shouldn't be allowed to vote.
We don't allow children to vote, we shouldn't allow wards of the state to vote.

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at June 18, 2013 05:08 PM (ZPrif)

37 And now the public has voluntarily reduced its comprehension ability to 140 characters.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:09 PM (UVBO7)

38
@23
That is a good read. Could be problematic in that it goes on for many paragraphs.

Posted by: Beagle at June 18, 2013 05:09 PM (sOtz/)

39 what is this quoting ones other persona business?

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:09 PM (nH8jP)

40
People often look for a date when America began its intellectual and
political decline, and relate it to the party in power. I tend to date
the beginning of the end to the expansion of television.

Posted by: Vashta
-----------------

Perfectly reasonable. The onset of Groupthink, managed by a few outlets. The consolidation of the print media followed on.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at June 18, 2013 05:10 PM (aDwsi)

41 Been a while since I read Brave New World, so I don't even remember a key point - is the distraction and entertainment provided by the state?

Posted by: Waterhouse at June 18, 2013 05:10 PM (Kppp9)

42 I will say it is much easier to revise history when it is in electronic format, rather than burn hundreds of thousands of books and reprint them.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 18, 2013 05:10 PM (ZDP2l)

43 TL; DR
/sarc

Posted by: andycanuck at June 18, 2013 05:11 PM (9+vDU)

44 >>>what is this quoting ones other persona business?

between you and me, I think it's a sign of his slow descent into madness.

Posted by: Rick Tempest, Amateur Psychiatrist at June 18, 2013 05:11 PM (LCRYB)

45 no but the Orwellian one is the one people tend to think about because it presents a heroic idea of man-- man struggling against large forces arrayed against him.

Depressing thought: What if all our posturing about 'LIB' is in the same family. What if there is no conflagration and society just shudders, shakes, and sinks into oblivion?

Posted by: J. Random Dude at June 18, 2013 05:11 PM (72afg)

46 I tend to date the beginning of the end to the expansion of television.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 18, 2013 05:07 PM (ZDP2l)

The problem is that that also corresponds to the advent of LBJ's Great Society which is what I blame the real collapse of the US on.

Posted by: Vic at June 18, 2013 05:11 PM (lZvxr)

47 Just wait until I arrive.

Posted by: the holodeck at June 18, 2013 05:11 PM (9+vDU)

48 The main problem is allowing too many retards to vote.

Anyone on welfare shouldn't be allowed to vote.

We don't allow children to vote, we shouldn't allow wards of the state to vote.

Posted by: Flatbush Joe
----------------

I regard 18 year-olds as children. That never should have happened..., it was 60's-think, and remains a problem.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at June 18, 2013 05:11 PM (aDwsi)

49 If you substitute Steve Jobs for Henry Ford as the human demigod of technology, the Huxley scenario is almost completely prophetic.

And we didn't need to create a Delta and Omega class to do our grunt work; all we needed to do was to let them emigrate from the Third World

Posted by: Callmelennie at June 18, 2013 05:11 PM (KZ5J9)

50 Vashta Nerada. When Time magazine started to edit and change things in their online archives?

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:12 PM (UVBO7)

51 Been a while since I read Brave New World, so I don't even remember a key point - is the distraction and entertainment provided by the state?
Posted by: Waterhouse at June 18, 2013 05:10 PM (Kppp9)
--
Soma

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 18, 2013 05:12 PM (ZDP2l)

52 Still disappointed that the Instant Classic Ace Anti-Anti-(Anti-Anti-I'veLostCount)-Angry Elves Opus (Now With 50% More Ewok!) has as of yet mysteriously failed to appear.

Posted by: filbert. Just filbert. at June 18, 2013 05:12 PM (7vimm)

53 What if there is no conflagration and society just shudders, shakes, and sinks into oblivion?

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

Posted by: T. S. Eliot at June 18, 2013 05:12 PM (nP389)

54 I totally buy the idea that we have committed to voluntary lobotomies.

What's our average attention span now?

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:12 PM (DPdf7)

55 Depressing thought: What if all our posturing about
'LIB' is in the same family. What if there is no conflagration and
society just shudders, shakes, and sinks into oblivion?

Posted by: J. Random Dude
----------------

That IS what is/has been happening. The slow boil.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at June 18, 2013 05:12 PM (aDwsi)

56
I read Postman's book back in 1989.
A very important book.
The passages quoting from the Lincoln/Douglas debates were key in convincing me of the rightness of his arguments.

Posted by: Pastorius at June 18, 2013 05:13 PM (FlrhL)

57 The Feds only apply the Orwell curbstomp to troublemakers. Keep to ESPN, TMZ, XBox and YouPorn and you'll be left alone. The boot will always be there inches from your neck just in case, but you'll never feel the curbstomp if you keep your head down.

Posted by: Flatbush Joe at June 18, 2013 05:13 PM (ZPrif)

58 I loved the parts with the volcano

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:13 PM (nH8jP)

59 Vashta Nerada. When Time magazine started to edit and change things in their online archives?
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:12 PM (UVBO7)
--
Not to mention the white house revising the 'history' of all previous occupants.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 18, 2013 05:13 PM (ZDP2l)

60 >>>
Been a while since I read Brave New World, so I don't even remember a
key point - is the distraction and entertainment provided by the state?

ehhhh... I just read it like six months ago but I forget. I don't think it's really specified who provides it. It's just there. it's just what's done.

Like, there are these orgies/vision quest drug seances which are promoted, socially, and promoted aggressively, but I don't know if it's the State per se that's promoting them, or if it's just social pressure and reinforcement.

It's not quite right to set up this sort of dichotomy between the two because in Huxley, like every baby is created in test tubes by the state's population centers, and all programming/education is done by the state, etc.

Posted by: ace at June 18, 2013 05:14 PM (LCRYB)

61 I have often thought of Amusing Ourselves to Death in the years since. It's interesting to ponder how "Text Messaging Culture" has probably further refined the 'Sound Bite Culture' of TV.

Posted by: Pastorius at June 18, 2013 05:14 PM (FlrhL)

62 he notes that Lincoln's speechifying, which may sound overly-complex for
spoken argument today, was in fact fairly common of the style of
rhetoric at the time, and people had no particular trouble following it.

***

In the introduction to his Pulitzer Prize winning historical novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara says that much of the dialogue is direct quotations except that he toned down sone of the flowery language.

Posted by: WalrusRex at June 18, 2013 05:14 PM (Hx5uv)

63 It's Huxley for the masses and Orwell for those who refuse to take their soma.

Yup. Carrot and stick. Given a choice between hedonism and a face-stomping, most people will go for the former. And will justify it to the point where they believe the stompee's deserved it.

Posted by: J. Random Dude at June 18, 2013 05:14 PM (72afg)

64 And we didn't need to create a Delta and Omega class to do our grunt work;

Multiple generations of a family on welfare. Done and done.

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:14 PM (nP389)

65 are you guys ready , or should I wait a bit longer?

Posted by: SMOD at June 18, 2013 05:15 PM (/jHWN)

66
On the other hand, I think Blogging may be recreating a more limited form of Print Culture.

While many of us use the internet for porn and photos of people's cats, it is also true that most people get their news from the Internet now, which means they must be reading at least the first paragraph.

Reading is never as passive as watching TV news.

Posted by: Pastorius at June 18, 2013 05:15 PM (FlrhL)

67 Been a while since I read Brave New World, so I
don't even remember a key point - is the distraction and entertainment
provided by the state?

Posted by: Waterhouse at June 18, 2013 05:10 PM (Kppp9)

I went to get it on Kindle but they want > $10 for it and I still refuse to pay that much for a Kindle book unless it is a multi-volume set.
Thanks to Mickey Mouse it will not be on Gutenberg until 2033. It may make Gutenberg Australia next year because I think their laws are only 50 years.

Posted by: Vic at June 18, 2013 05:15 PM (lZvxr)

68
There was a podcast??? Holy shit! I must have slept in that day.
Given the technology standards around here, I would expect a "taper tree" sort of arrangement where I have to send off some blank cassettes and self-addressed envelopes and wait a month to get the audio...
(shocked)

Posted by: BunkerinTheBurbs at June 18, 2013 05:15 PM (0tHG6)

69 The passages quoting from the Lincoln/Douglas debates were key in convincing me of the rightness of his arguments.

Posted by: Pastorius

You don't even have to go back that far. Try reading some of Churchill's stuff.

Posted by: Ow My Balls Guy at June 18, 2013 05:15 PM (XS/b3)

70 The Curse of Affluence.

You're soaking in it.

Posted by: Empire of Jeff at June 18, 2013 05:15 PM (ysIBb)

71 do you know there is a real Rick Tempest who is a hair colorist/stylist in the greater Detroit area?

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:15 PM (nH8jP)

72 >>Everything on TV is the best, the latest, the most spectacular, the weirdest, the most shocking.

I'm getting really tired of characters that are always the bestest at this, that and every other thing. Want to throw books across the room, but Kindles are expensive.

Laughed out loud when someone on CSI said "this is the top crime lab in the country". Not good, not even great but "top". How would one measure that exactly? Ability to railroad innocent people??

/pet peeve off

Posted by: Mama AJ at June 18, 2013 05:16 PM (SUKHu)

73 THIS is why we can't have nice things!

Posted by: Polly Purebread at June 18, 2013 05:16 PM (/jHWN)

74 70 The Curse of Affluence.

You're soaking in it.

Fuck. Madge told me it was Palmolive.

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:17 PM (nP389)

75 Speaking of soft liberalism, the NYT writes (makes up? who knows.) that Shep Smith's contract is expiring soon. CNN could really use the guy to great advantage (ie, get rid of him to a channel no one can even find).

Posted by: MTF at June 18, 2013 05:17 PM (B5y+v)

76 there is also a Rick Tempest who sells insurance in Wyoming

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:17 PM (nH8jP)

77 And a book written before reality TV and internet memes, even. I concur with Rick Tempest's analysis that it's one worth reading...with a grain of salt.

Posted by: Stu-22 at June 18, 2013 05:17 PM (AiYlm)

78 68
There was a podcast??? Holy shit! I must have slept in that day.
Given the technology standards around here, I would expect a "taper tree" sort of arrangement where I have to send off some blank cassettes and self-addressed envelopes and wait a month to get the audio...
(shocked)

Posted by: BunkerinTheBurbs at June 18, 2013 05:15 PM (0tHG6)

Let's just say microphones, how do they work? definitely applied.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at June 18, 2013 05:17 PM (V1ZIU)

79 I don't get the Rick Tempest mentions.

Posted by: Low Info Voter at June 18, 2013 05:17 PM (Aif/5)

80 >>What's our average attention span now?

Hopefully short enough that we're done talking about elves.

Posted by: Mama AJ at June 18, 2013 05:18 PM (SUKHu)

81 Is Rick related to Troy Tempest? He works like a puppet on some submarine.

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:18 PM (nP389)

82 So, this Rick Tempest doesn't watch Deadliest Catch or Pawn Stars, right? Screw him!

Posted by: Yip at June 18, 2013 05:18 PM (/jHWN)

83 Television is definitely teh dumb. I'm plowing through Nikita season 1 on Netflix these past couple weeks and boy, that show may have a few tricks, but it runs on pure unleaded dumb.

Please make a spy show with Gina Carano so a woman who has a walk-around weight comparable or better to most men can kick ass. Maggie Q is skinny enough to pose as a lampstand.

Posted by: Yoshi, Aggrieved Victim of the White Man at June 18, 2013 05:18 PM (dh83Q)

84
Is it me, or is it kind of late for a movie review of The Postman?

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at June 18, 2013 05:18 PM (TIIx5)

85 The good news is that in the coming neo-feudalism, those of us with the ability to read and write can always find work as notaries, or alchemists, but most likely notaries.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 18, 2013 05:18 PM (ZDP2l)

86 The Curse of Affluence.

You're soaking in it.

Hey, I'm working on it.

Posted by: Barry O.B. at June 18, 2013 05:18 PM (7vimm)

87 I would gladly trade a Shep Smith today for a Sharyl Attkisson tommorrow

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:19 PM (nH8jP)

88 >>I have to send off some blank cassettes and self-addressed envelopes and wait a month to get the audio...

...and then it's an 8 track...

Posted by: Mama AJ at June 18, 2013 05:19 PM (SUKHu)

89 It's ALIVE! The thread is reborn.

God Bless everyone of you that twittered the ewok.

Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectal at June 18, 2013 05:19 PM (wR+pz)

90 I hear chatter that you're going to get some more Sharyl Atkkisson.

Posted by: ace at June 18, 2013 05:19 PM (LCRYB)

91 HD TV medium for the message: pron.

Once again I get to say the obvious simple thing.

Posted by: sTevo at June 18, 2013 05:19 PM (SLhOh)

92 And now the public has voluntarily reduced its comprehension ability to 140 characters.

***

Anything that can't be said in 140 characters isn't worth saying.

Posted by: WalrusRex at June 18, 2013 05:19 PM (Hx5uv)

93 The Curse of Affluence.

You're soaking in it.

****

One of the things that stuck with me from one of my humanties courses was that education once belonged to the wealthy only because they had the time on their hands to pursue it: That with the machine-age came more spare time for us to seek out education.

Yet, here we are with more spare time on our hands than ever before in history and we spend it watching television and playing video games.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:20 PM (DPdf7)

94 The internet does the same sort of thing, I bet - how many people complain about Ace's "long" reviews? I have noticed that I am a lot less likely to read a longpiece of writing if it is online instead of on paper, and I certainly read less now than I did before internet access became so fast and accessible.

Posted by: Grey Fox at June 18, 2013 05:20 PM (Qkwxr)

95 Chuck Norris tells Rick Tempest jokes.

Posted by: filbert at June 18, 2013 05:20 PM (7vimm)

96 35 The medium is the massage. Slow, warming, relaxing..., then the bill is presented.
Posted by: Mike Hammer at June 18, 2013 05:08 PM (aDwsi) ISWYDTI have some McLuhan on the shelf over here, might be time to break them back out. Well done.

Posted by: BunkerinTheBurbs at June 18, 2013 05:20 PM (0tHG6)

97 If we're going to surrender our liberty for entertainment, I want sex robots.

Posted by: WalrusRex at June 18, 2013 05:20 PM (Hx5uv)

98 For example, he notes that Lincoln's speechifying, which may sound
overly-complex for spoken argument today, was in fact fairly common of
the style of rhetoric at the time, and people had no particular trouble
following it.

Another example: my daughter's English teacher asked her students to say name their parent's favorite book. My daughter knew that mine was Moby Dick. The "teacher" wrinkled her nose and said it was soooo boring, and she preferred "Catcher in the Rye", one of the most overrated and execrable books ever to disgrace literature.

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

We are Slouching Towards Gomorrah. Unfortunately, the trip is always interrupted by extreme violence.

Posted by: pep at June 18, 2013 05:20 PM (6TB1Z)

99 Laughed out loud when someone on CSI said "this is the top crime lab in the country". Not good, not even great but "top". How would one measure that exactly? Ability to railroad innocent people??

***

Good thing I didn't have a drink...

Posted by: Yoshi, Aggrieved Victim of the White Man at June 18, 2013 05:20 PM (dh83Q)

100 He's definitely not talking about me, I only read fashion magazines.

Posted by: Rick Tempest: Hairdresser Extraordinaire at June 18, 2013 05:20 PM (Aif/5)

101 Want to know something really mind-blowing? Also us Huxley's older brother Julian was a genuine scientist whose specialty was eugenics and the ecological control of populations. And a full-blown hard-core proponent of global government. New World Order stuff.

Aldous didn't just dream his stuff up. BNW was based on the sort of thing that the men and women at the forefront of real-world population control movement actually work toward.

Posted by: Phinn at June 18, 2013 05:20 PM (oFH2D)

102 >>I don't think the Orwellian vision and the Huxleyian vision are mutually exclusive.

Agreed. I think we are getting the best of both worlds.

Posted by: JackStraw at June 18, 2013 05:21 PM (g1DWB)

103 Anything that can't be said in 140 characters isn't worth saying.

Man, those Chinese were way, way ahead of their time. Fortune cookies.

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:21 PM (nP389)

104 Ace occasionally tweets under the name Rick Tempest. Who is now paraphrasing in this post. I was amused to find the professions of actual real Rick Tempests. Which proves his point. I am unable to maintain the attention span required to be an informed person

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:21 PM (nH8jP)

105 What's our average attention span now?

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:12 PM (DPdf7)

You mean here on this blog or society in general?

Posted by: Tami at June 18, 2013 05:21 PM (X6akg)

106 97
If we're going to surrender our liberty for entertainment, I want sex robots.

Posted by: WalrusRex

THIS! Eleventy!

Posted by: Yip at June 18, 2013 05:21 PM (/jHWN)

107 Elizabeth I could speak six languages. TFG needs a teleprompter to tell people he has to piss. How far we have fallen indeed.

Posted by: Jmel at June 18, 2013 05:22 PM (9tSXa)

108 The amusing thing about "Amusing Ourselves to Death" is that it was written before the advent of the internet, cell phones, and Netflix, which has made things exponentially worse. The son has attempted to update it a bit, but lacks the killer insight of his father.

Posted by: pep at June 18, 2013 05:22 PM (6TB1Z)

109 What's our average attention span now? Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:12 PM (DPdf7)
-
Sorry, what was the question?

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 18, 2013 05:22 PM (ZDP2l)

110 During the Cold War, it was said that Russians would watch American movies and look past the actors to see the CocaCola signs and blue jeans on the people in the background.
Today's TV fare that travels around the world, a world looking for ever more content, has such great shows as multiple flavors of CSI, NCIS, Law & Order and reality shows .. my God those awful reality shows, and more variations of Americans making themselves look like, or is that being, assholes.

Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at June 18, 2013 05:22 PM (Z9BWx)

111 Yet, here we are with more spare time on our hands than ever before in history and we spend it watching television and playing video games.

***

In fairness, the popular books for leisure reading before television were more interpreted as "trash" than "classics" in their day.

Posted by: Yoshi, Aggrieved Victim of the White Man at June 18, 2013 05:22 PM (dh83Q)

112 I hear in the upcoming Rick Tempest movie, the hair salon will be played by Brian Dennehy.

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:22 PM (nP389)

113
@90
I hear chatter that you're going to get some more Sharyl Atkkisson.

Posted by: ace at June 18, 2013 05:19 PM (LCRYB)

More MILFy goodness? Can't wait. I denounce myself as genderist and await transport to tolerance camp.

Posted by: Beagle at June 18, 2013 05:22 PM (sOtz/)

114 @21

Actually that was here at HQ. I think the Ewok did a post on it.

Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectal at June 18, 2013 05:22 PM (wR+pz)

115 This is ace's way of saying, "I'm not long-winded, I'm Lincolnesque."

Posted by: bonhomme at June 18, 2013 05:23 PM (yKTI2)

116 105 What's our average attention span now?

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:12 PM (DPdf7)

You mean here on this blog or society in general?

---

Kids today with your Zima and your Pac-Man video games... you've got attention spans that can only be measured in nano-seconds!

Posted by: Ted Denslow at June 18, 2013 05:23 PM (a3iAA)

117 Huxley's vision was that no totalitarian state was needed for such a descent into infantilization and restriction of thought: That all that was necessary was that the means of distraction and infantilization be provided to the population, and the people would voluntarily choose that path

Huxley v. Orwell in the sig. "Amusing Ourselves to Death." I think I found that via here.

Posted by: CJ at June 18, 2013 05:24 PM (9KqcB)

118 I must be the only idiot on the planet that had to search for the meaning of TL; DR.

You pricks.

Posted by: Fritz at June 18, 2013 05:24 PM (UzPAd)

119 I have been watching television for 63 years. The most obvious effect that television has had is my inability to keep my eyes on a scene for more than about 8 seconds. I find my focus tracking out unless I shift my eyes to look at something different. Even this screen starts blurring unless I am typing or reading.

Posted by: An Observation at June 18, 2013 05:24 PM (ylhEn)

120

Hyper-propaganda.

Why describe obamacare, when you can just roll out sad and weepy women and children?

Posted by: artisanal 'ette at June 18, 2013 05:25 PM (XYSwB)

121
Kids today with your Zima and your Pac-Man video games... you've got attention spans that can only be measured in nano-seconds!
Posted by: Ted Denslow at June 18, 2013 05:23 PM (a3iAA)

Funny story about Zima.

Posted by: Sterling Archer at June 18, 2013 05:25 PM (Aif/5)

122 You don't even have to go back that far. Try reading some of Churchill's stuff.

***

I was thinking Obama should have channeled Churchill on Obamacare. He should have said, "All I promise you with Obamacare is blood, toil, sweat, and tears." That way we wouldn't be disappointed.

Posted by: WalrusRex at June 18, 2013 05:25 PM (Hx5uv)

123 Meh... I'll just wait for the remake of Billy Jack

Posted by: Yip at June 18, 2013 05:25 PM (/jHWN)

124 Local news just said an upcoming story will talk about the benefits of trees in hot weather. I shit you not. Where is SMOD?!

Posted by: Jmel at June 18, 2013 05:25 PM (9tSXa)

125 During the Cold War, it was said that Russians would watch American movies and look past the actors to see the CocaCola signs and blue jeans on the people in the background.

---

I'm a national hero in Romania because Dallas helped show a bunch of people there that even poor people in the US had a lifestyle they could only dream of.

The Ceaucescus didn't think that one through, as they showed it because they thought it would forment class warfare against people like the Ewings.

Posted by: Zombie Larry Hagman at June 18, 2013 05:25 PM (a3iAA)

126 Today's TV fare that travels around the world, a world looking for ever more content, has such great shows as multiple flavors of CSI, NCIS, Law Order and reality shows .. my God those awful reality shows, and more variations of Americans making themselves look like, or is that being, assholes.
Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at June 18, 2013 05:22 PM (Z9BWx)
-
People look at me dumbfounded when I tell them that besides Dr Who, I haven't watched any television show made in the 21st century. My response is: 'Reality TV'

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 18, 2013 05:25 PM (ZDP2l)

127 121
Kids today with your Zima and your Pac-Man video games... you've got attention spans that can only be measured in nano-seconds!
Posted by: Ted Denslow at June 18, 2013 05:23 PM (a3iAA)

Funny story about Zima.

---

Rampage, Archer?

Posted by: Lana at June 18, 2013 05:26 PM (a3iAA)

128 33
People often look for a date when America began its intellectual and
political decline, and relate it to the party in power. I tend to date
the beginning of the end to the expansion of television.
============
Some say it's when we allowed women to vote, who then voted for Daddy/Husband Government to take care of them.

I say it's when we allowed non-land owners to vote. Only those with land have a stake in good and prudent governance. The rest are just there for the looting and legalized theft.

Posted by: RoyalOil at June 18, 2013 05:26 PM (VjL9S)

129 someone called?

Posted by: SMOD at June 18, 2013 05:26 PM (/jHWN)

130 You mean here on this blog or society in general?

***

Here one the blog I would guess it's around 500 words.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:26 PM (DPdf7)

131 Meh... I'll just wait for the remake of Billy Jack

Posted by: Yip at June 18, 2013 05:25 PM

One tin soldier rides aw-a-a-a-a-a-a-ay.

Posted by: huerfano at June 18, 2013 05:26 PM (bAGA/)

132 I will say I was moved by thinking about the Gettysburg address being an example of commonplace rhetoric. Incidentally, I've heard that some even considered Lincoln to be a subpar speechwriter, although not in that instance of course.

Just observing how the speech flows so smoothly and thematically, flowery words and all, is amazing.

Posted by: Yoshi, Aggrieved Victim of the White Man at June 18, 2013 05:26 PM (dh83Q)

133 80 Hopefully short enough that we're done talking about elves.

If you are talking about the Kristina Ribaldi "crisis" (which I assume you are), this is one of the dumbest conservative spats I have ever seen on Twitter, and that is saying something.

Posted by: Miss80sBaby at June 18, 2013 05:27 PM (YjDyJ)

134 Rick Tempest? Only one I know by that name was a chap that worked at Subway and refused to put peppers on my steak sub. I punched him in the throat and ran away.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at June 18, 2013 05:27 PM (V1ZIU)

135 Terms of Enrampagement.

Posted by: Sterling Archer at June 18, 2013 05:27 PM (Aif/5)

136 96
35 The medium is the massage. Slow, warming, relaxing..., then the bill is presented.
Posted
by: Mike Hammer at June 18, 2013 05:08 PM (aDwsi) ISWYDTI have some
McLuhan on the shelf over here, might be time to break them back out.
Well done

You know nothing of my work.

Posted by: Marshall Mcluhan at June 18, 2013 05:28 PM (6TB1Z)

137 Here on...

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:28 PM (DPdf7)

138 You don't even have to go back that far. Try reading some of Churchill's stuff.

***

Have you ever seen a video of the House of Commons pols going at it? Some of them are rather witty.

Posted by: Yoshi, Aggrieved Victim of the White Man at June 18, 2013 05:28 PM (dh83Q)

139
If you are talking about the Kristina Ribaldi "crisis" (which I assume you are), this is one of the dumbest conservative spats I have ever seen on Twitter, and that is saying something.

Posted by: Miss80sBaby at June 18, 2013 05:27 PM (YjDyJ)

What was that about? I saw bits and pieces on twitter but didn't have the time to go putting it together.

Posted by: Tami at June 18, 2013 05:28 PM (X6akg)

140 If you are talking about the Kristina Ribaldi "crisis"

I'm afraid to ask.

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:29 PM (nP389)

141 Mmmm...found the makings of a margarita. Thanks be.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at June 18, 2013 05:29 PM (lVPtV)

142 Rick Tempest anagrams:

prick test me

ticket sperm

I'm just sayin'..... Anyhow, on occasion I question my long ago decision to not watch the boob tube, but a few minutes of exposure to the latest hotness quickly dispels my doubts.

Posted by: GnuBreed at June 18, 2013 05:29 PM (ccXZP)

143
Wouild be interesting toexpose the "postings" fb twats im etc of the likes of rubio and boner both of them and othersmade mistake of trusting the boy zukie fell for lady gaga posts etc yes it is THIS bad.
They are screwing America to protect themselves.

Posted by: prefounder at June 18, 2013 05:29 PM (hSjCL)

144 Talk to the hand, yo! An' you bitchazz be sure to like my YouTube vid sayin' "Talk to the hand!"

Posted by: AnonymousDrivelDogg at June 18, 2013 05:29 PM (eHIJJ)

145 Anyone want to offer a summary? I skimmed. Kidding. Nice thoughts. The blight on TV that is reality programming certainly epitomizes the idea of television-based "thinking" as a risk-free safe harbor for the stupid.

Makes me want to pick Brave New World back up. Thanks.

Posted by: assault flounder at June 18, 2013 05:29 PM (Kkt/i)

146 I think TV is passive laziness. You simply sit. What you input decides whither or not the data is valuable.

Sitcoms? No. discovery channel, maybe.

I also think we need to blame parents. My wife is six years younger than me. Growing up in the 50's we didn't watch TV, except Sat morning and the news. Period.

My wife grew up watching it all the time, like my younger sister. She gets up in the morning and watches it at 7 and the fucking TV stays on all fucking day.

Did I mention she went to UNC-CH?

Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectal at June 18, 2013 05:30 PM (wR+pz)

147 90 I hear chatter that you're going to get some more Sharyl Atkkisson.

Posted by: ace at June 18, 2013 05:19 PM (LCRYB)

Is she going to reveal who she thinks hacked her computer? On Fox or CBS?

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at June 18, 2013 05:30 PM (V1ZIU)

148 Anyway, I've gotten into a few fights with the wife lately as she wants to sit at home, watching TV, "spending time together."

I say, "fuck that shit, I don't like damned near everything on TV these days, and I'd rather sit by the pool drinking beer and chatting with the neighbors (who we're going to need to get through the burning times)."

Am I wrong?

Posted by: RoyalOil at June 18, 2013 05:31 PM (VjL9S)

149 ticket sperm

I saw them open for Angry Nipples at Lollapalooza in 1992.

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:31 PM (nP389)

150 Local news just said an upcoming story will talk about the benefits of trees in hot weather. I shit you not. Where is SMOD?!

***

Shade: A 21st century concept

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:31 PM (DPdf7)

151 147
90 I hear chatter that you're going to get some more Sharyl Atkkisson.

Posted by: ace at June 18, 2013 05:19 PM (LCRYB)

Uh, who???

- LIVs

Posted by: Jane D'oh at June 18, 2013 05:31 PM (lVPtV)

152 skimmed what Ace's latest rambling post? you aren't expected to read it.

Posted by: prefounder at June 18, 2013 05:32 PM (hSjCL)

153 My wife grew up watching it all the time, like my younger sister. She
gets up in the morning and watches it at 7 and the f****** TV stays on
all f****** day.

I've been in homes like yours. I'd go absolutely postal if I had to do it for more than a day. Constant background noise is pure torture, and you can't tune it out because it's always changing.

Posted by: pep at June 18, 2013 05:32 PM (6TB1Z)

154 Ice... I'm out of ice. Damn... and drinking my last beer.. On the good side, tomorrow I drive north to the peoples republic of Chicago, so there's that..

Posted by: SMOD at June 18, 2013 05:32 PM (/jHWN)

155 Just saw 'Dark Knight Rises'. Villain is 'Mole Head'?! Frickin' Mole Head?

Posted by: Spoiler Alert at June 18, 2013 05:33 PM (h0/aL)

156 I seem to recall hearing that a person watching television has fewer brain waves than one in a coma. I would not be surprised.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 18, 2013 05:33 PM (ZDP2l)

157 The link posted by 23 is really good. The shit about mind reading/control is fucking scary! I'd never heard anything about that.

Posted by: Rickroll at June 18, 2013 05:33 PM (6VB4r)

158
Roy,
does she expect you to eat generic canned food ala repo man?
If so use her for chum and put fish in freezer.

Posted by: prefounder at June 18, 2013 05:33 PM (hSjCL)

159 heh... sock fail

Posted by: Yip at June 18, 2013 05:34 PM (/jHWN)

160 The problem is Twitter allows too many characters. Less is more.

Posted by: Twit.com at June 18, 2013 05:34 PM (eHIJJ)

161
I read the post and scanned the comments. I only commented because someone said there'd be pie. Well?

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn at June 18, 2013 05:35 PM (nWMhf)

162
I'm a pop culture illiterate. I thought Rick Tempest was the lead singer for "The Cars".

Posted by: The 1980s at June 18, 2013 05:35 PM (nWMhf)

163 Can you believe this shit?

NewsBreaker ‏@NewsBreaker 6m
BREAKING: CBO: Senate immigration bill cuts deficits by $197B over 10 years, $700B in next 10 @AP

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:35 PM (DPdf7)

164 @153

Yep. I turn it off and in our bedroom she is required to wear headphones.

Network TV is sooo fucking stupid, I want to break the TV and they feed PC shit all day.

Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectal at June 18, 2013 05:35 PM (wR+pz)

165 >>>
I have been watching television for 63 years. The most obvious effect
that television has had is my inability to keep my eyes on a scene for
more than about 8 seconds. I find my focus tracking out unless I shift
my eyes to look at something different. Even this screen starts blurring
unless I am typing or reading.

yup. The internet has made this worse. There's an article called "Is Google Making us Stupid?" which notes a lot of people self-reporting their attention spans have gotten very short since, say, 1998.

I notice this myself.

In fact, I stopped reading the article. tl;dr

Posted by: ace at June 18, 2013 05:35 PM (LCRYB)

166 Ace, or cob-loggers, can we please have something utterly silly/funny to post about?

I'm so fucking exhausted from everything in the Age of Obama.

Need some kittehs or puppehs or something.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at June 18, 2013 05:35 PM (lVPtV)

167 If I had more Sharyl Attkisson, I wouldn't need so much internet.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile at June 18, 2013 05:36 PM (qyfb5)

168 I always ring twice.

Posted by: Neil Postman at June 18, 2013 05:36 PM (MMC8r)

169
"I just read it like six months ago but I forget. I don't think it's really specified who provides it. It's just there. it's just what's done."

We are already living in the Huxleyan world, the 51% are amusing themselves to death and the 49% who pay taxes are providing the wherewithal. The media makes sure that the 51% need never knowor carewhat the rest of us think or that we even exist.

Posted by: Decaf at June 18, 2013 05:36 PM (AAOE/)

170 BREAKING: CBO: Senate immigration bill cuts deficits by $197B over 10 years, $700B in next 10 @AP
Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:35 PM (DPdf7)
-
I assume the CBO was requested to ignore the effect of the EITC

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 18, 2013 05:36 PM (ZDP2l)

171
Off to club to try and get LSU to beat UNC

Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectal at June 18, 2013 05:36 PM (wR+pz)

172 I'm boycotting Twitter. You have to draw a line somewhere. I was ok when we got push-button phones... then beepers... then it was the cell phone... then the smart phone and teh interweb... gosh you guys... enough is enough

Posted by: Yip at June 18, 2013 05:36 PM (/jHWN)

173 That freedom and reason will be lost in America not in an Orwellian way, but in a Huxleyan one.

Actually, we have both.

Posted by: zsasz at June 18, 2013 05:37 PM (MMC8r)

174 Seriously though is Sharyl going to be on television again with more revelations on the hacking?

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at June 18, 2013 05:37 PM (V1ZIU)

175 There are two fundamental personality types to be found within any polity: the "epicureans" and the "stoics." The "epicureans" (polemically speaking) live for pleasure and whim and disdain logic and consistency. Whereas the "stoics" are willing to endure pain in favor of logic and some sense of consistency. So the distinction is fundamentally one of the willingness to endure "useful" suffering, as well as whether one is more conscious than "subconscious" or the other way around.

To the extent that one tends toward "stoicism," one definitely lives in the 1984 world (although the totalitarian society has taken the place of the totalitarian state, which is in fact a much more totalitarian arrangement as society is omnipresent whereas the state can only aspire to omnipresence).

Posted by: Mirror-Universe Mitt Romney at June 18, 2013 05:37 PM (5PQkc)

176 Can you believe this shit?

NewsBreaker ‏@NewsBreaker 6m

BREAKING: CBO: Senate immigration bill cuts deficits by $197B over 10 years, $700B in next 10 @AP

***

Somebody's got their thumb on the scale.

Posted by: WalrusRex at June 18, 2013 05:37 PM (Hx5uv)

177 @philipaklein

CBO: Lawful Permanent Residents would be able to receive Obamacare subsidies immediately. (pg 27)

Posted by: Tami at June 18, 2013 05:37 PM (X6akg)

178 Ace, or cob-loggers, can we please have something utterly silly/funny to post about?

I'm so fucking exhausted from everything in the Age of Obama.

Need some kittehs or puppehs or something.

****

yes!!

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:37 PM (DPdf7)

179
153My wife grew up watching it all the time, like my younger sister. She
gets up in the morning and watches it at 7 and the f****** TV stays on
all f****** day.

I've been in homes like yours. I'd go absolutely postal if I had to do it for more than a day. Constant background noise is pure torture, and you can't tune it out because it's always changing.

--------------------
It's kind of like following Daily Kos. Or HuffPaint. Or MSNBC. Or.... well you get the picture.

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn at June 18, 2013 05:37 PM (nWMhf)

180 Elves? As in Keebler elves?

And never ever mention the Costner abomination called The Postman.

Can SMOD smite in 140 characters?

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:37 PM (UVBO7)

181 she wants to sit at home, watching TV, "spending time together."

The whole point of the TV is that she doesn't have to talk to/listen to you.

Posted by: HeatherRadish� needs a beer at June 18, 2013 05:38 PM (ZKzrr)

182 OT. The Chinese have invented a legging for women that looks like extremely hairy legs, with the thought it would repel would be perverts. I would link but I do not know how.

caption with the photo reads

Super sexy, summertime anti-pervert full-leg-of-hair stockings, essential for all young girls going out.�

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:38 PM (nH8jP)

183 That damned immigration ad is running on m t.v. right now.

I want to throw something.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:38 PM (DPdf7)

184 I don't have a TV now, but when I was a kid - I didn't have one until, I don't know, I was 8 or 10? And then I would rarely watch without one of my parents there, and we would talk about what was on.

I would watch documentaries and take notes.

This would not surprise some of you.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile at June 18, 2013 05:38 PM (qyfb5)

185
Somebody's got their thumb on the scale.

CBO just weighs the bullshit they're given.

Posted by: zsasz at June 18, 2013 05:39 PM (MMC8r)

186 182
OT. The Chinese have invented a legging for women that looks like
extremely hairy legs, with the thought it would repel would be perverts.
I would link but I do not know how.

caption with the photo reads

Super sexy, summertime anti-pervert full-leg-of-hair stockings, essential for all young girls going out.�

Wow. That beats the hell out of lace wigs.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at June 18, 2013 05:39 PM (lVPtV)

187 Damn. Speaking of television I just saw the damn immigration ad that features Rubio and saying conservatives have a plan. First, secure the border.

I shit you not. They are still playing this garbage.

Posted by: JackStraw at June 18, 2013 05:39 PM (g1DWB)

188 How can anyone say television has blunted our thought processes when on the Today Show this morning, they featured a chorus line of transvestites?

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:39 PM (nP389)

189 Depressing thought: What if all our posturing about 'LIB' is in the same
family. What if there is no conflagration and society just shudders,
shakes, and sinks into oblivion?
==========
I hate to tell you but, that's exactly what is and is going to happen.

There's too many like us that still want to fight for a nice slice of pie and still buy the lie that you can get it.

Going Galt will never happen for the same reason the lottery lives on--you can rob people blind just so long as you keep a few suckers you can hold out as "winners."

So, there'll be just enough people propping it up, just enough slaving night and day for a better life to bleed dry for the bureaucrats.

But there will never be a "general strike" where the productive class says, "shut it down." It'll just peter on and as there are fewer and fewer around.

Posted by: RoyalOil at June 18, 2013 05:39 PM (VjL9S)

190 There is also perhaps a "class" distinction at play: "proles" (the Low) and "plebs" (the Middle).

Posted by: Mirror-Universe Mitt Romney at June 18, 2013 05:39 PM (5PQkc)

191 Well file this under 'Doh!!'

Former NYC mayor Ed Koch's headstone got chiseled with incorrect birth year.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/52234388

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:39 PM (UVBO7)

192 People's memories are shorter, too. Once a person of any pretension to literacy could quote great, or new favorite poets by heart...Patrick Henry's liberty or death speech was re-created years after the fact with the aid of George tucker, who was not only present then and remembered its force and spirit, but remembered its form and key phrases distinctly. People read long things, and heard important things, and comitted them to memory.

Today, one moveson.org and that's the end of your history.

Posted by: SarahW at June 18, 2013 05:39 PM (LYwCh)

193 Daily Show is quintessential Postman example.

I remember reading this book in college (because, apparently, I'm old now), and it seemed superficial even then (I didn't realize it had just come out when I was writing a paper senior year at BU (Boston, not Brigham). But the premise has haunted me ever since; actually, it's kind of why I ran away from the media and went to law school...

Posted by: @ParisParamus (Twitter) at June 18, 2013 05:40 PM (N/iLt)

194 Greetings:

I like to think of the level our culture has fallen to as "Bread and Circuses".

Bread-wise ,we have loans that don't have to be re-paid, payments from the taxman, covert welfare in just about every piece of legislation, disability payments, unending unemployment insurance, Obamaphones, financial aid, and old-fashioned welfare.

Circuses-wise, we have movies, TV and cable, radio, CDs and DVDs, iEverything, video games, internet, tablets, smartphones.

Don't worry. Be happy.

Posted by: 11B40 at June 18, 2013 05:40 PM (83X7I)

195 CBO: Lawful Permanent Residents would be able to receive Obamacare subsidies immediately. (pg 27)

Posted by: Tami

The GOP owes someone an apology.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at June 18, 2013 05:40 PM (XS/b3)

196
178Ace, or cob-loggers, can we please have something utterly silly/funny to post about?

I'm so fucking exhausted from everything in the Age of Obama.

Need some kittehs or puppehs or something.

****

yes!!
-----
I think a nice post (with pic) about some lib-tard, pointy-eared, skag who's candidating for her PhD and writing about cartoons or children books. Or something.

You know, something we can really sink our claws into.

Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn at June 18, 2013 05:40 PM (nWMhf)

197 Jeebus. The Five just showed Obamaphone Bitch.

And that margarita I was drinking went down waaaay too easy.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at June 18, 2013 05:40 PM (lVPtV)

198 I've been saying this for years, and as a result I'm not even slightly rich or famous. Just FYI.

Posted by: BeckoningChasm at June 18, 2013 05:40 PM (xjpRj)

199 Marxists more or less postulated that one's perception of reality was a function of one's class, and while the way in which they thought of this was somewhat imbecilic, as all Marxist thinking tends to be, it did perhaps touch upon some truth.

Posted by: Mirror-Universe Mitt Romney at June 18, 2013 05:40 PM (5PQkc)

200 The Five just reaired the Obamaphone moron video.

Ugh.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:41 PM (DPdf7)

201
CBO just weighs the bullshit they're given.

There must be the mother of all fly swarms around there today.

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:41 PM (nP389)

202 And never ever mention the Costner abomination called The Postman.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:37 PM (UVBO7)

I heard a rumor there was a book.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile at June 18, 2013 05:41 PM (qyfb5)

203 61
I have often thought of Amusing Ourselves to Death in the years since.
It's interesting to ponder how "Text Messaging Culture" has probably
further refined the 'Sound Bite Culture' of TV.

Posted by: Pastorius at June 18, 2013 05:14 PM (FlrhL)

It's sad and funny in a way that TV news has been reduced to the replaying of tweets and viral youtube videos as news. But there you go.

Posted by: assault flounder at June 18, 2013 05:41 PM (Kkt/i)

204 the need for hairy stockings seems to indicate there are unintended consequences to the woman shortage

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:41 PM (nH8jP)

205
Huh. Russell Brand calls out MSNBC for lack of manners? Well, when he's right, he's right: http://goo.gl/wbxrO

Posted by: Waldo at June 18, 2013 05:41 PM (RZwdH)

206 Television also causes several types of perspective distortion. One of these is that people become so used to seeing world class that if they happen to run into in person they can't appreciate what they are seeing.

Another perspective distortion come from television news. When the news covers anything it is the equivalent to holding a microscope to the event, and it always looks larger than it really is.

A third kind of perspective distortion occurs to television reporters; because they cover bad events every day they soon become convinced that bad events are all that happens and that the world is a much more dangerous place than it really is.

Another example of this kind of perspective distortion comes from things like warning parents about Halloween candy. In the history of the United States there has been one case of Halloween candy poisoning - and that was a parent poisoning their own child. Yet all of us are convinced that poison candy is a real problem.

Much of our belief that we live in a dangerous society comes from television news. In the 1950's in my neighborhood nobody locked their doors at night. Today everyone in the same neighborhood does - but crime statistics today are no worse than they were then. TV has made us paranoid.

Posted by: An Observation at June 18, 2013 05:42 PM (ylhEn)

207 Daily Show is quintessential Postman example.

***

Speaking of the Daily Show, I turned over to it last night and found that it is imminently more watchable with Oliver sitting in for Stewart.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:43 PM (DPdf7)

208 Had to read it in communications class.
Exceptionally telling.

Look at "edutainment" channels in the last 20 years.
20 years ago:
History: Lincoln's last days.
NOW:
History: Hick Fishin'

Discovery Channel: The Death of the Dinosaurs
NOW:
Amish Gangs

TLC: The Operation: A neurosurgeon must remove a dangerous tumor from the pituitary gland.
NOW:
21 dwarfs obsessed with eating paint

Posted by: CAC at June 18, 2013 05:43 PM (m/GP5)

209 The book was written by David Brin. And there is no freaking mule in the book. Ggrrrr. And Costner put that sappy ending that did not exist in the book. Hey Peter Jackson you are following the path of Kevin Costner in butchering books.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:43 PM (UVBO7)

210 I think a nice post (with pic) about some lib-tard, pointy-eared, skag
who's candidating for her PhD and writing about cartoons or children
books. Or something.

You know, something we can really sink our claws into.

NO! That would be mean.

(j/k, Fenelon)

Posted by: pep at June 18, 2013 05:43 PM (6TB1Z)

211 I meant "run into a person who is world class"

Posted by: An Observation at June 18, 2013 05:43 PM (ylhEn)

212 damnit!

eminently

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:44 PM (DPdf7)

213
Alternate post title:

We Have Become A Nation of Mushrooms: The People Are Kept in the Dark, Fed Bullshit All Day

Posted by: soothsayer, now with 20% less ruth at June 18, 2013 05:44 PM (NLH1M)

214 21 dwarfs obsessed with eating paint

I own that one on Blu-ray.

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:44 PM (nP389)

215 Posted by: CAC at June 18, 2013 05:43 PM (m/GP5)

***

How the hell does Pawn Stars figure into educational programming?

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:45 PM (DPdf7)

216 I'm working on some hairy-ballsack shorts.... they'll be ready for consumer testing in August..

Posted by: Yip at June 18, 2013 05:45 PM (/jHWN)

217 Bravo was supposed to cover the fine arts, hence the name

now its all about "real" housewives who get drunk and beat each other up in between divorces and bankruptcies.

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:46 PM (nH8jP)

218 Maru video
http://youtu.be/oJ2zBtBw148

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:46 PM (UVBO7)

219 215...How the hell does Pawn Stars figure into educational programming?

It teaches people how to pick the good stuff, when looting.

Posted by: wheatie at June 18, 2013 05:47 PM (hR+mj)

220 20 years ago:
COURT TV: Trials and analysis
now:
changed to TRU-TV: OperationRepo(staged, poorly)

20 years ago:
A&E: Biography of Thomas Jefferson
NOW:
Slut Hoggers

20 years ago:
BRAVO: Showcase on Hitchcock
NOW:
Gay Housewives of Whole Foods

Posted by: CAC at June 18, 2013 05:47 PM (m/GP5)

221 now its all about "real" housewives who get drunk and beat each other up in between divorces and bankruptcies.

Couldn't they rechristen the network "The Obama Channel?"

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:47 PM (nP389)

222 Jeff Flake over on twitter retweeting the CBO bullshit

Do you think he actually BELIEVES that bulshit?!

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:47 PM (DPdf7)

223 Television also causes several types of perspective distortion. One of
these is that people become so used to seeing world class that if they
happen to run into in person they can't appreciate what they are seeing.

This is apparently what's happening with the younger generation, most of whom are marinating in round the clock porn. Heavy porn viewing rewires their brains to expect anatomical perfection and constant change, and when prospective mates don't live up to that standard, the viewers check out and live for faptime.

I suspect that much of the birth dearth traces back to this development.

Posted by: pep at June 18, 2013 05:47 PM (6TB1Z)

224 Almost all modern documentaries are crap, though (some old ones, too).

I mean, laughable crap. A friend calls them "mockumentaries" because of what I do to them when I'm in the room and one's on. Used to put one on just to see me react.

My favorites are the Moche People documentary that kept repeating the claim that they weren't cannibals, out of the blue, and the one about dino-to-bird evolution where they kept going back to a Chinese dig site without ever mentioning that the deeper they dug, the *newer* the fossils were. And each new one proved a different part of their hypothesis.

I'm sure it was just that they put it in that order for the show, mmm-hmm.

Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile at June 18, 2013 05:48 PM (qyfb5)

225 "209 The book was written by David Brin. And there is no freaking mule in the book. Ggrrrr. And Costner put that sappy ending that did not exist in the book. Hey Peter Jackson you are following the path of Kevin Costner in butchering books.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:43 PM (UVBO7) "

Meh. The movie is usually worse than the book. The medium is simply "retarded." Have you read the one with the genetically engineered dolphins and "uplift" (Startide something or other)?

Posted by: Mirror-Universe Mitt Romney at June 18, 2013 05:48 PM (5PQkc)

226 Bravo was supposed to cover the fine arts, hence the name

now its all about "real" housewives who get drunk and beat each other up in between divorces and bankruptcies.
Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:46 PM (nH8jP)

It's all about marketing and sales. If they could show us the womens waxed and bleached assholes, I'm sure they would.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at June 18, 2013 05:48 PM (XIxXP)

227 hick fishing? i haven't seen that show......now, hillbilly hand fishing i've seen

Posted by: phoenixgirl@phxazgrl at June 18, 2013 05:48 PM (8JJ6O)

228 lets not forget the fine award winning "documentaries" of Michael Moore

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:49 PM (nH8jP)

229 Bravo was supposed to cover the fine arts, hence the name

***

The top interviews were with James Lipton. Now they are with Andy whatshisname and the Real Housewives.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:49 PM (DPdf7)

230 212
damnit!
eminently

I just want you to know what a titanic battle I fought with myself to avoid pointing that out.

Posted by: pep at June 18, 2013 05:49 PM (6TB1Z)

231 NOW:
21 dwarfs obsessed with eating paint

Posted by: CAC at June 18, 2013 05:43 PM (m/GP5)

Someone here is trying to get these guys for the blog, right?

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at June 18, 2013 05:49 PM (V1ZIU)

232 If I wanted to watch assholes I would watch the JEF's pressers

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:50 PM (nH8jP)

233 Bob Dole doesn't read much either.

Posted by: Bob Dole at June 18, 2013 05:50 PM (9+3no)

234 hick fishing? i haven't seen that show......now, hillbilly hand fishing i've seen
Posted by: phoenixgirl@phxazgrl at June 18, 2013 05:48 PM (8JJ6O)

My girls 9 & 13 love hillbilly handfishing. If they want to be crazy rednecks. I'm good with it.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at June 18, 2013 05:50 PM (XIxXP)

235 womens waxed and bleached assholes would make a fine name for a rock band.

Posted by: Dave Barry at June 18, 2013 05:51 PM (6TB1Z)

236 Jeff Flake over on twitter retweeting the CBO bullshit Do you think he actually BELIEVES that bulshit?!
Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:47 PM (DPdf7)
-
No, he is just spreading the lie. If he really was doing it for the tax money, he would be out in front for a national sales tax to replace the income tax. We wouldnt need amnesty, and we would collect previously uncollectable revenue from hookers, drug dealers, and AC repairmen at the same time.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at June 18, 2013 05:51 PM (ZDP2l)

237 To make a long story short after Emily quit her job in 2007 the TV was on 24/7 and the sheer shallowness & stupidity of it drove me nuts. After she died it was the first thing to go- saves $720 a year.

Posted by: backhoe at June 18, 2013 05:51 PM (ULH4o)

238 Amusing Ourselves to Death

***

Tell me about it.

Posted by: David Carradine at June 18, 2013 05:51 PM (Hx5uv)

239 If I wanted to watch assholes I would watch the JEF's pressers
Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:50 PM (nH8jP)

Good point. I remember when MTV had music.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at June 18, 2013 05:51 PM (XIxXP)

240 Waiting for the movie version.

Posted by: Tonic Dog at June 18, 2013 05:51 PM (TaUie)

241 Years ago:
NASA TV: Pathfinder on Mars
Today: Muslims in Space Vs. Zero Gravity Wet T-Shirts

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:52 PM (nP389)

242 Just getting ready for the invasion... how do I say eleventy in mexican?

Posted by: Yip at June 18, 2013 05:52 PM (/jHWN)

243
OT. The Chinese have invented a legging for women that looks like
extremely hairy legs, with the thought it would repel would be perverts.
I would link but I do not know how.

First internet porn video featuring starlets in Chinese hairy leggings will be out by the end of the week. Perverts will watch them while fapping.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at June 18, 2013 05:52 PM (qoQi/)

244 Bob Dole doesn't read much either.

***

He doesn't have to. He's got a life time supply of boner pills.

Posted by: WalrusRex at June 18, 2013 05:52 PM (Hx5uv)

245 Tell me about it.

Posted by: David Carradine

Alternative title: Hoist by Your Own Retard

Posted by: pep at June 18, 2013 05:53 PM (6TB1Z)

246 When I wasa kid, my dad often said television would be the ruination of this country. He was right, as usual.

Posted by: bicentennialguy at June 18, 2013 05:53 PM (6+R5g)

247 He doesn't have to. He's got a life time supply of boner pills.
Posted by: WalrusRex at June 18, 2013 05:52 PM (Hx5uv)

Yep, fuck or read? Fuck or read? Fuck or read?

Fuck.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at June 18, 2013 05:53 PM (XIxXP)

248 If they could show us the womens waxed and bleached assholes, I'm sure they would.

That is Plan B if the OWN network ratings start falling.

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:54 PM (nP389)

249 139 What was that about? I saw bits and pieces on twitter but didn't have the time to go putting it together.

Kristina Ribaldi is the Director of New Media at FreedomWorks. Yesterday she responded to another tweet via her personal account by opining that Mark Levin is "an angry elf". Levin is upset about it and some people on Twitter are condemning her, with a segment of the aforementioned demanding that she be fired. Frankly I thought the elf comment was a bit immature but angry ranting is part of his shtick and last I checked there is no litmus test regarding conservative talk radio hosts.

Posted by: Miss80sBaby at June 18, 2013 05:54 PM (YjDyJ)

250 Ace...thanks for posting about this.

It's a subject that we should stay mindful of.

Years ago...there was a simple study about the effects of a TV screen, on people's attention span.
They used babies.

The babies were placed on the floor.
A large TV screen was in one corner of the room...with the sound OFF.
The babies were placed Facing Away from the TV.

In spite of there being toys on the floor, for the babies to play with...
One by one, the babies began orienting their little bodies toward the TV.

In no time at all, all the babies werestaring at the TV screen.

The TV screen is a powerful draw for us humanoids.
Same with the computer screen and telephone screen.

Posted by: wheatie at June 18, 2013 05:54 PM (hR+mj)

251 Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War for first trilogy. Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore, and Heaven's Reach is the second trilogy.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:55 PM (UVBO7)

252
Half the shows on television are named hillbilly this redneck that.

Posted by: Waldo at June 18, 2013 05:55 PM (RZwdH)

253 last I checked there is no litmus test regarding conservative talk radio hosts

Last I checked, it was "interrupt your guests with some banal inanity before they can string 3 words together."

Posted by: pep at June 18, 2013 05:55 PM (6TB1Z)

254 Frankly I thought the elf comment was a bit immature but angry ranting is part of his shtick and last I checked there is no litmus test regarding conservative talk radio hosts.
Posted by: Miss80sBaby at June 18, 2013 05:54 PM (YjDyJ)

Mark Lavin has a purpose, he is that thing in the wash machine that gets the clothes clean, the agitator.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at June 18, 2013 05:56 PM (XIxXP)

255
Scandal, scandal, scandal...but Kim finally gave birth to Kanye's baby!!! Why the frack should anyone but Kim's or Kanye's families care about this stupid birth?I am pretty certain people become more stupid the more they watch that goddamn idiot box, and I even watch it from time to time, when I want my brain to rest. But I don't believe anything on it, that's why I can't talk to many of my co-irkers, because "Mass shootings are caused by video games!" "There are no background checks at gun shows!" "TV just reflect real life!"
I cannot speak that language, for it is stupid and gets on my goddamn last frikkin' nerve.

Posted by: Quint&Jessel, Sea of Azof, Bly, UK at June 18, 2013 05:56 PM (7v5Ct)

256 Jeff Flake over on twitter retweeting the CBO bullshit Do you think he actually BELIEVES that bulshit?!
Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:47 PM (DPdf7)

---

Remember when the Obamacare fight was going on and Ed Morrissey was constantly spam quoting the CBO like he got a commission for it?

I hate that guy. Not personally, just internet.

Posted by: Yoshi, Aggrieved Victim of the White Man at June 18, 2013 05:56 PM (dh83Q)

257 I have a weird theory

there were a lot of vampire movies in Germany in the 20's and 30's, and they seemed to be a metaphor for the antisemetic feeling towards Jews. Vampires were not presented as glamorous, they had large noses and drank the blood of children (blood libel) and attacked women, and were seen as leeches on society.

It seems for the last several years, horror movies have been very focused on zombies. I wonder if the fear of zombies is reflective of the fear of being over run, by immigration run amok. Just thinking out loud

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 05:56 PM (nH8jP)

258 "251 Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War for first trilogy. Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore, and Heaven's Reach is the second trilogy.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:55 PM (UVBO7) "

Ha. Well done. :-P

Now list some Heinlein or Spider Robinson. ;-)

Posted by: Mirror-Universe Mitt Romney at June 18, 2013 05:56 PM (5PQkc)

259 Half the shows on television are named hillbilly this redneck that.
Posted by: Waldo at June 18, 2013 05:55 PM (RZwdH)

It's all that's left that hollywood can't fuck up.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at June 18, 2013 05:56 PM (XIxXP)

260 Posted by: Miss80sBaby at June 18, 2013 05:54 PM (YjDyJ)

The elf comment sounds pretty funny actually.

Posted by: Yoshi, Aggrieved Victim of the White Man at June 18, 2013 05:57 PM (dh83Q)

261 I love this.

A staffer to Rep. Steve Stockman took the #SNAPChallenge and had money left over.

Unlike the Dems who made a show of how they were starving, he shopped at the Dollar Tree and has the receipts to prove it.

http://freebeacon.com/acing-the-snap-challenge/

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 05:57 PM (DPdf7)

262 We've replaced burning books with arresting people who have the temerity to make youtubes that say mean things about Mohammed.
Isn't that guy still in jail, and none of the Hollywood elitists who stood up for that pedophile rapist Roman Polanski have a problem with it.

So the message is: Raping a 13 year old vaginally, anally, and orally, AOkay. Making a mean video about that pedophile Mohammed, baaaad.

Posted by: nerdygirl at June 18, 2013 05:57 PM (DpI6K)

263 252
Half the shows on television are named hillbilly this redneck that.

They are the opposite of a protected class, the so-called hicks and countryfolk. They are officially the sanctioned clowns and whipping boys in our politically correct culture. You may not mock most other groups.

Posted by: George Orwell what enjoys going to the feelies at June 18, 2013 05:57 PM (nP389)

264 Yesterday she responded to another tweet via her personal account by opining that Mark Levin is "an angry elf". Levin is upset about it and some people on Twitter are condemning her, with a segment of the aforementioned demanding that she be fired. Frankly I thought the elf comment was a bit immature but angry ranting is part of his shtick and last I checked there is no litmus test regarding conservative talk radio hosts.

Posted by: Miss80sBaby at June 18, 2013 05:54 PM (YjDyJ)

FFS.....Mark needs to put his big boy pants on and get over it.

Posted by: Tami at June 18, 2013 05:58 PM (X6akg)

265
I thought Breaking Bad was starting up this week but it looks like I have to wait until 8/11.

Walter White needs to die but I have this horrible feeling it will be poor Walter Jr. or the baby instead.

Posted by: Waldo at June 18, 2013 05:58 PM (RZwdH)

266 >>The TV screen is a powerful draw for us humanoids.
Same with the computer screen and telephone screen.

Yea, we know.

Posted by: NSA at June 18, 2013 05:58 PM (g1DWB)

267 It's all about marketing and sales. If they could show us the womens waxed and bleached assholes, I'm sure they would.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at June 18, 2013 05:48 PM (XIxXP)

If you have a broadband connection and you're not already getting your fill of women's waxed and bleached assholes, you're doing it wrong.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at June 18, 2013 05:58 PM (8ZskC)

268 Shaka, when the culture fell.

Posted by: Dr. Varno at June 18, 2013 05:58 PM (bYRF2)

269 163 NewsBreaker ‏@NewsBreaker 6m BREAKING: CBO: Senate immigration bill cuts deficits by $197B over 10 years, $700B in next 10 @AP

I criticized Heritage's scoring methods but the one of the things they did right was score over the course of a lifetime as opposed to the budget window.

Posted by: Miss80sBaby at June 18, 2013 05:59 PM (YjDyJ)

270 Go frak yourself with Podakyne of Mars or suffer through We the Living..

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:59 PM (UVBO7)

271
And it increases national security, too!

Posted by: soothsayer, now with 20% less ruth at June 18, 2013 06:00 PM (+oin+)

272 Despite the longtime impression of the left, Orwell was not writing about just any country in 1984 but the USSR in 1948.

Posted by: Lady Billingsgate (of the North) at June 18, 2013 06:00 PM (QtFCE)

273 @261

From the article, here's all you need to know Dem Congressmen who claimed they couldn't eat adequately on the current SNAP money.

"While some SNAP Challenge participants
opted to spend their $4.50 at expensive stores such as Whole Foods,
Ferguson opted for a dollar store and a Shoppers supermarket."

Posted by: pep at June 18, 2013 06:00 PM (6TB1Z)

274 They are the opposite of a protected class, the so-called hicks and
countryfolk. They are officially the sanctioned clowns and whipping boys
in our politically correct culture. You may not mock most other groups.

I caught a bit of Honey Boo Boo a while back (don't ask). The overt freak show aspect of it made even me a little queasy, and nobody has ever accused me of having a sensitive nature.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at June 18, 2013 06:00 PM (8ZskC)

275 Hence the lack of a TV in our house. Cable Free since 2006, OTA free since 2011, selective use of Netflix, Amazon, and AppleTV solve all needs. Cheaper, too.( 7y x 12m x $40 = AMMO)

Posted by: Jean at June 18, 2013 06:01 PM (CMlD4)

276
And the Senate immigration bill helps fight Climate Change, too!

And it creates jobs!

Posted by: soothsayer, now with 20% less ruth at June 18, 2013 06:01 PM (KwX0v)

277 anna

we the living is a great book

Posted by: phoenixgirl@phxazgrl at June 18, 2013 06:01 PM (8JJ6O)

278 257 "It seems for the last several years, horror movies have been very
focused on zombies. I wonder if the fear of zombies is reflective of the
fear of being over run, by immigration run amok."

Considering who runs Hollywood, it's more likely that the fear of zombies is reflective of the fear of being overrun by "a non-thinking mass seeking to convert."

AKA libs use zombie movies to speak to their fears of conservatives, both Christian social conservatives and Tea Party types

Posted by: The Q at June 18, 2013 06:01 PM (XQzGn)

279 I love Duck Dynasty

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 06:01 PM (nH8jP)

280 They are the opposite of a protected class, the so-called hicks and countryfolk. They are officially the sanctioned clowns and whipping boys in our politically correct culture. You may not mock most other groups.

***

Truer words never spoken.

Posted by: Yoshi, Aggrieved Victim of the White Man at June 18, 2013 06:01 PM (dh83Q)

281 by immigration run amok.

More like the ghetto run amok.

Posted by: Lady Billingsgate (of the North) at June 18, 2013 06:02 PM (QtFCE)

282 "270 Go frak yourself with Podakyne of Mars or suffer through We the Living..

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 05:59 PM (UVBO7) "

Heinlein's first book had too much of the wrong kind of Heinlein. I never got too far into Whatever of Mars (I think you misspelled it. :-P)

Later. ;-)

Later, all.

God bless. :-)

Posted by: Mirror-Universe Mitt Romney at June 18, 2013 06:02 PM (5PQkc)

283 thunderb

i love duck dynasty too.....favorite show

Posted by: phoenixgirl@phxazgrl at June 18, 2013 06:02 PM (8JJ6O)

284 From the article, here's all you need to know Dem Congressmen who claimed they couldn't eat adequately on the current SNAP money.

"While some SNAP Challenge participants
opted to spend their $4.50 at expensive stores such as Whole Foods,
Ferguson opted for a dollar store and a Shoppers supermarket."

***

How about the Dem eating Campbell's soup straight from the can whilst sitting in the back of his limo?

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 06:02 PM (DPdf7)

285 265
I thought Breaking Bad was starting up this week but it looks like I have to wait until 8/11.

Walter White needs to die but I have this horrible feeling it will be poor Walter Jr. or the baby instead.

Posted by: Waldo at June 18, 2013 05:58 PM (RZwdH)

This is the only television show I really watch. Otherwise it's news, some sports, and a few movies.

I could've swore they said new episodes in June last year but they obviously want to drag out the suspense for a couple more months.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at June 18, 2013 06:02 PM (V1ZIU)

286 Jane D'oh--- Need some kittehs or puppehs or something.

- Mike Hammer's Cat:
http://tinyurl.com/munlqlh
And then....

http://tinyurl.com/lodze42

Posted by: Mike Hammer at June 18, 2013 06:03 PM (aDwsi)

287 Posted by: The Q at June 18, 2013 06:01 PM (XQzGn)

I'm pretty sure zombie movies exist so the average gun-opposed asshole can fantasize about being badass.

Posted by: Yoshi, Aggrieved Victim of the White Man at June 18, 2013 06:03 PM (dh83Q)

288
now its all about "real" housewives who get drunk and beat each other up in between divorces and bankruptcies.

My wife watches shows like that....I can't stomach them. All the women look like they'd been rode hard, and put away wet, for starters. The constant sniping bitchiness between the women, and the faux outrage, and constant bleeped out cursing, as they act out their play-fights on camera, (along with the neutered metrosexual men in these women's lives), make Jerry Springer look interesting, and refined by comparison.

Peeping Tom TV. After you've seen one episode, you've seen all past, and future episodes of the same, and similar shows.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at June 18, 2013 06:03 PM (qoQi/)

289 PG what I get for going from memory. The book I meant is For Us, the Living.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 06:03 PM (UVBO7)

290 the rise of the Zombie movie, IMO, is directly tied to Political Correctness. They can't make movies about race riots and black gangs or drug cartels in inner cities killing minorities.. noooo.... we have to invent boogeymen and Zombies. Oh, wait... I left out the Muzzies... damn

Posted by: Yip at June 18, 2013 06:03 PM (/jHWN)

291 They are the opposite of a protected class, the so-called hicks and countryfolk. They are officially the sanctioned clowns and whipping boys in our politically correct culture. You may not mock most other groups.

Yeah, the difference between us and the (insert protected class here), is we don't give a shit. Give us two hours with anyone at a mudhole with a 4-wheeler and we will have a convert.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at June 18, 2013 06:04 PM (XIxXP)

292 Maybe it's a taxi.... still

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 06:04 PM (DPdf7)

293 Yes. I've seen this in my 16 year old daughter whose writing style has declined until it resembles 140 character tweets. Little color or texture, just fragments of sentences that barely pass for a complete sentence. Very sad.

Posted by: lauren w at June 18, 2013 06:04 PM (VSNEK)

294 Little color or texture, just fragments of sentences that barely pass for a complete sentence. Very sad.

That bad.

Posted by: Reality show viewer at June 18, 2013 06:05 PM (6TB1Z)

295 Jane D'oh--- Need some kittehs or puppehs or something.

- Mike Hammer's Cat:
http://tinyurl.com/munlqlh
And then....

http://tinyurl.com/lodze42

***

Please tell me you don't kiss that cat.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 06:05 PM (DPdf7)

296

And then there is the Kardashian, i.e., how to get famous by making sex tapes and giving rich black guys head...

Posted by: Waldo at June 18, 2013 06:05 PM (RZwdH)

297 I am the form of the destructor you have chosen!

All hail ~~Gozer~~ Obama!

Posted by: Honey Boo Boo at June 18, 2013 06:05 PM (XvHmy)

298 I vacillate between calling all of the pseudo-reality TV shows "freak shows" and "emotional pornography."

The former when I'm in a good mood, otherwise, the latter.

For some reason utterly incomprehensible to me, my otherwise intelligent wife loves to watch that shit. Especially truly appalling crap like "Hoarders."

Posted by: filbert at June 18, 2013 06:06 PM (7vimm)

299 I love Duck Dynasty too.

A-and-E probably gave the show a 'go', thinking that it would be another way to show rednecks in a derogatory way.
But it has backfired.

Posted by: wheatie at June 18, 2013 06:06 PM (hR+mj)

300
Fourteen or Fight!

You know it's coming, bitches.

Plan B was the lead in.

Posted by: Max Frost at June 18, 2013 06:07 PM (n0B9h)

301 It's all that's left that hollywood can't fuck up.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin

Ah. I see you haven't witnessed the horror that is Redneck Island. It's a virtual lobotomy.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at June 18, 2013 06:07 PM (XS/b3)

302 Well, I had a discussion at Quora not long ago, about Shakespeare's language, and those audiences, too, were capable of taking in a lot of information by ear, as anyone who might have had to have listened to one of John Donne's sermons could probably have attested. As for the language, though, it was elevated discourse, as rhetoric used to be taught to anyone who continued on in school after having mastered the very basics, and that was a part of the American curriculum as well, before the 'reformers' got ahold of it, as you will discover if you ever call up examples of 8th grade addresses by students in those days, quite a bit more sophisticated than what we're used to seeing on the Senate floor, even if we agree with Sessions' sending up the Gang of Eight immigration monstrosity.

Still and all, though, Elizabethan dramatists elevated the discourse, because the language was the special effects. Even a company, such as Shakespeare's, that had its own theater, had very limited resources, even compared to the mechanics of the 18th C. stage. So, you were pitching your work at everyone at the same time, at least in the large public outdoor theaters, whether groundlings or seated in a box, with a considerable disparity of formal education. That meant that the dramatist had to strive for clarity and sophistication at the same time, and in the case of a great dramatist writing popular plays, such as Shakespeare in the prime of his career, it meant employing language that would deliver the gist, but have depths and complexities that repaid repeated audience, and even, perhaps, the publishing of the play in an approved quarto edition, to be sold beside Paul's Cathedral.

The plot of the play or other literary work at the time was generally denominated its 'argument,' though plays were less well-respected than many other forms, since they were, after all, most of them, pitched to draw the generality as well as the quality. The reason that plot was referred to as 'argument' is that literature, or at least that which aspired in some manner to the name, was expected to present cogitation on a topic or related group of topics. It might be an essay, in the technical sense of the term, advancing an understanding without reaching for any absolute conclusions, but it was expected to fulfill the function of narrative intellection in some way. That which the plot treated would have been the 'matter,' as in the 'Matter of Arthur,' as expressed in any long-form treatment of that mythos, and representing all its inter-related themes, as knit together by a skilled teller such as Chretien.

When Keats, on the eve of his final voyage to Italy to die, responded to a letter from Shelley, who was a bastard in his personal life, but who was really a decent chap to have inquired how Keats was faring, Keats advised Shelley not to be too metaphysical, and to "load every rift with ore," which is something that Keats had learned from Shakespeare. And what Keats meant was to embroider and re-embroider your lines, so that the web of connections is supersaturated, while at the same time not losing or obscuring the thread of the argument. And this is a very, very difficult thing to do, but something that Keats did in spades in his great odes.

The odes connect to one another as well as internally, and to Keats' poetry generally, and to the poets that influenced him, Shakespeare above all. And Shakespeare references craftily his previous plays and those of his contemporaries and his sources in a thousand ways, and also nods at his own sonnets, just as the Sonnets nod at his plays from time to time, and both plays and sonnets to his own lesser known works, such as The Rape of Lucrece or Venus and Adonis, but also to material that was more evanescent, but in the forefront at the time of a particular writing, such as the pamphlet wars of his time, especially Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe. Those echoes were calculated to be part of the 'aha!' effect that would delight at least the cognoscenti within the audience. Hardly anyone reads the Bible anymore, but it's the single greatest source for those effects in Shakespeare. Fortunately, a lot of his pre-post-modern commentators realized those effects that are lost to us in ways that we hardly realize, so they're available in notes in the best editions, i.e. the New Variorum ones, that try to stick closely to the First Folio, before the 'emenders' and 'clarifiers' substituted their own words for Shakespeare's in passages that were difficult to them then and to us now, principally because we immediately blame any lack of clarity on typesetters rather than on Shakespeare's allusions. I don't doubt that he had an eye for posterity, and this comment is already too long, but he was drawing a very mixed audience, and some of them might have been momentarily confused, but others would have caught the allusions.

So, there I've given you the basic argument of Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. We no longer catch the references in key pieces of our own culture, because we no longer bother to learn what's behind them. And we no longer do, in large part, because we are amusing ourselves to death with crap that flatters our prejudices rather than presenting an 'argument' on a 'matter' of any seriousness. And I'm as guilty as anyone of sound-biting my posts and comments, especially in Twitterdom, but it's nice when Ace or anyone else worth reading does this longer-format posting about Ideas Worth Thinking Upon. Anyone reading this who does blog, consider once in a while loading every rift with ore.

Posted by: Dan Collins at June 18, 2013 06:07 PM (RBQYR)

303 But it has backfired.
Posted by: wheatie at June 18, 2013 06:06 PM (hR+mj)

I wouldn't call the pocket full of cash they are making a backfire.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at June 18, 2013 06:07 PM (XIxXP)

304 Hoarders gives the viewer an opportunity to feel superior to mentally ill people

Posted by: thunderb at June 18, 2013 06:07 PM (nH8jP)

305 It's Huxley if you want it. If you don't, it's Room 101. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Posted by: The Grinch at June 18, 2013 06:07 PM (qAMin)

306 "They are the opposite of a protected class, the so-called hicks and countryfolk. They are officially the sanctioned clowns and whipping boys in our politically correct culture. You may not mock most other groups."

Here's the thing. Until recently, how were gays treated in movies and tv shows. Not to mention over-weight people.
Hell, most kids probably got the idea that it's okay to ridicule and humiliate gays and obese people from tv shows, movies, and comedians.

Media people are the biggest hypocrites on the planet.

Posted by: nerdygirl at June 18, 2013 06:07 PM (DpI6K)

307 Give us two hours with anyone at a mudhole with a 4-wheeler and we will have a convert.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton
--------------------------

Attended a 'Civilian Police Academy' with a number of local folk. One was a middle aged hippy lady who said she was there because she was interested in 'Social Justice'. After a few weeks, she was whooping it up at the firing range with a .40 Sig.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at June 18, 2013 06:08 PM (aDwsi)

308 Also squarely in the "emotional pornography" category is pretty much everything on Lifetime and (especially) Lifetime Movie Network.

Yeah. Wife likes those, too.

Posted by: filbert at June 18, 2013 06:08 PM (7vimm)

309 I love Duck Dynasty too.

***

There's a lot to love about that show but they lost quite a bit of favor with me when they went on someone else's property and fired into a beaver damn and had the police called on them.

It left a bad taste in my mouth.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 06:08 PM (DPdf7)

310 Posted by: Dan Collins at June 18, 2013 06:07 PM (RBQYR)

Try the executive summary.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at June 18, 2013 06:08 PM (XIxXP)

311 Yip, yes. There are seedier places on the internet wherein Zombies are a "code" for the darker skinned, urban hordes.

Posted by: Jean at June 18, 2013 06:09 PM (CMlD4)

312 Posted by: Dan Collins at June 18, 2013 06:07 PM (RBQYR)

Now that's funny!

Posted by: filbert at June 18, 2013 06:09 PM (7vimm)

313 uLittle color or texture, just fragments of sentences that barely pass for a complete sentence. Very sad.

Sux 2bU

Posted by: Dorothy Parker at June 18, 2013 06:09 PM (8ZskC)

314 You want a dog story? I'll give you a dog story.

The standard is that your dog brings you the paper or your slippers. My dog brings me the remote. He meets me at the door with the remote in his mouth. I didn't train him. He just does it.

A while back I read Dean Koontz A Little Life about his dog, Trixie. I liked it so much i bought three copies and gave them to my mother and my two sisters. My sister then told me that she goes to a chiropractor and when you are laying on the table, his dog comes and holds your hand to amkeyou more comfortable.

Posted by: WalrusRex at June 18, 2013 06:09 PM (Hx5uv)

315 Hell, most kids probably got the idea that it's okay to ridicule and humiliate gays and obese people from tv shows, movies, and comedians.

---

Huh, I must be too young to remember that. Or too used to the current state of affairs.

Posted by: Yoshi, Aggrieved Victim of the White Man at June 18, 2013 06:10 PM (dh83Q)

316 Please tell me you don't kiss that cat.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse
-------------

You got something against Eau de Commode?

Posted by: Mike Hammer at June 18, 2013 06:10 PM (aDwsi)

317 Reality TV shows, just Jerry Springer re-packaged.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 06:10 PM (UVBO7)

318 Damn. Speaking of television I just saw the damn immigration ad that features Rubio and saying conservatives have a plan. First, secure the border.

I shit you not. They are still playing this garbage.

Posted by: JackStraw

Funny link at Drudge, about Jeff Sessions commenting to Rubio "there's somebody impersonating you on TV".

Posted by: Reader C.J. Burch writes more nonsense ...... at June 18, 2013 06:11 PM (RFeQD)

319 Hell, most kids probably got the idea that it's okay to ridicule and humiliate gays and obese people from tv shows, movies, and comedians.

Yep, watch the Birdcage or a myriad of other movies. Might as well put a black man in baggy pants with a glock and a 40.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at June 18, 2013 06:11 PM (XIxXP)

320 This was a wonderful read. I've seen this phenomenon in the short attention span my kids have, too. It started with 3 min videos and now its stupid memes and 10 sec gifs. Everything they consume is short, thoughtless and amusing, so the depth of my childrens understanding of world events is the same. Gives me much to think about.

Posted by: lauren w at June 18, 2013 06:12 PM (VSNEK)

321 Anyone who doubts this should look at old children's textbooks. I am a collector, and you can see a deterioration between 1920, 1940, 1960, and today. So that leads me to think that part of it is due to the educational system.

Another thing that demonstrates this is to look at old movies from the thirties. The level of language is much higher, even in such popular movies as "Gone With the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz."

I have noticed my attention span deteriorating, and it is because of the internet. It alarmed me so much I made a conscious effort to read. If you don't want to start with difficult items like Dickens and Austin, get a copy of one of Brad Thor's books and read it. The initial importance isn't the level of language, but actually following a plot without illustrations or sound.

It is really important to do this, so you don't become a zombie-like consumer of mass media.

Posted by: Miss Marple at June 18, 2013 06:13 PM (GoIUi)

322 Damn. Speaking of television I just saw the damn immigration ad that
features Rubio and saying conservatives have a plan. First, secure the
border.

I shit you not. They are still playing this garbage.

Generically speaking, "secure" can mean a lot of things. Like "eliminate," for instance.

Posted by: Holly Paz, Linguist at June 18, 2013 06:13 PM (8ZskC)

323 So the medium speaks to the listener.

Match the listener to the medium....BAM you've got a connection.

Posted by: mare at June 18, 2013 06:14 PM (A98Xu)

324 You can also mix in narcotics and psychotropic drugs as a little kicker to the TV.

Posted by: Jean at June 18, 2013 06:14 PM (CMlD4)

325 This essay is the perfect antidote to the problem it describes. As long as there are first-rate writers, there will be serious readers.

But the change may also have something to do with ambition, not just medium. WF Buckey's NR used to be only for the few. It was plain-looking and featured long, wonky articles that provided pleasure in part for the very reason that they were long and wonky--i.e., not like Time or Newsweek.

Today's NR? Not so much. The difference seems to be the desire to garner more subscribers and have more...dare we say it...share of voice. There's a lot of pandering going on, both in the writing style and in the positioning and subject matter. KLo and Jonah, call home.

Grab the golden ring? Sure, but you'll have to give something up. And in the writing game, what you will have to give up is seriousness.

Posted by: Body Builder at June 18, 2013 06:14 PM (DrC22)

326 I wouldn't call the pocket full of cash they are making a backfire.
Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at June 18, 2013 06:07 PM (XIxXP)

----------

If their intent was to reinforce themock-worthystereotype ofa 'redneck'...then, yeah, it has backfired.

The guys on Duck Dynasty laughingly refer to themselves as 'rednecks'...and revel in it.
Like wedo here, in calling ourselves Morons.

Posted by: wheatie at June 18, 2013 06:15 PM (hR+mj)

327 My 16 year old watches Duck Dynasty marathons till 3 in the morning now
that school is out. And he doesn't hunt, fish or shoot. Just likes it.

Posted by: Tobacco Road at June 18, 2013 06:16 PM (4Mv1T)

328

Normal
0

"Fast cuts, short sentences,
information stripped of context, a disdain for abstractions -- indeed, a
disdain for anything that cannot be filmed occurring in the
here-and-now."

Gee, what if we could train the brains of the masses to do that in early childhood?

What if we could even force the taxpayers to subsidize a program we develop which, through strobe-like camera cuts rapid-fire stimulation, encourages their kids to develop short attention spans and discourages them from developing the cognitive skills required to engage in extended critical thinking and to be able to follow complex, abstract analysis?

Posted by: Big Bird & Ernie's Babysitting Service Inc. at June 18, 2013 06:17 PM (4tWSk)

329 @filbert @oldsailors Crap. You mean this isn't the green room?

Posted by: Dan Collins at June 18, 2013 06:18 PM (RBQYR)

330
There's a lot to love about that show but they lost quite a bit of favor
with me when they went on someone else's property and fired into a
beaver damn and had the police called on them.

It left a bad taste in my mouth.

I started losing my interest in that show at about the same time. It was too obviously contrived, and scripted for starters. The 'ranger' just left all those rifles laying around on the ground? And the ATV just sitting there? It was in character for any of the men on that show to trespass, and act like such fools on another's property?

Many...if not most....of their earlier shows were also scripted, and that trend has only gotten worse. If I want to watch shit like that, I'll tune in Honey Boo Boo Chile, (and her three thumbed baby sister).

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at June 18, 2013 06:18 PM (qoQi/)

331 But surely we have great cinema with inventive story writing, writing complex, involved, and engaging plots, so television watchers can go to the theater or watch movie channels and become exposed to complex nuanced ideas comprehensively portrayed so all points of view have expression in art?

Posted by: MikeTheMoose DOOMCASTER! at June 18, 2013 06:19 PM (0q2P7)

332 Miss Marple at June 18, 2013 06:13 PM (GoIUi) Good points.

Posted by: lauren w at June 18, 2013 06:20 PM (VSNEK)

333 I started losing my interest in that show at about the same time. It was too obviously contrived, and scripted for starters. The 'ranger' just left all those rifles laying around on the ground? And the ATV just sitting there? It was in character for any of the men on that show to trespass, and act like such fools on another's property?

***

this, too. There was a lot about that scene that stunk.

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 06:20 PM (DPdf7)

334 amnesty thread up

Posted by: Niedermeyer's Dead Horse at June 18, 2013 06:21 PM (DPdf7)

335 Hmmm. What's that "Normal o" doing there in 328?

I take it the italics button would rather make an editorial comment to my post rather than change format as requested?

Oops, it's back to lurkerhood where it's safe for me! ;-)

Posted by: Big Bird & Ernie's Babysitting Service Inc. at June 18, 2013 06:21 PM (4tWSk)

336 Is it bad that while trying to read this movie review, I thought "there's that fag talk we talked about"

Posted by: HoboJerky, Hash Hunter at June 18, 2013 06:21 PM (X4HxX)

337 #310 Dan Collins, I read your entire post which was most excellent, and I thank you.

Mockers heed, you need to be reading longer articles with actual ideas, rather than just a few lines of snark. It's for your BRAIN, not for your amusement!

Posted by: Miss Marple at June 18, 2013 06:22 PM (GoIUi)

338 @Miss Marple, thanks, but one must expect to be mocked for yammering. Especially here.

Posted by: Dan Collins at June 18, 2013 06:25 PM (RBQYR)

339 #338 Well, I still think it was an excellent post. I monored in English lit, though my major was geology. I loved your post and thoughtful points.

Posted by: Miss Marple at June 18, 2013 06:26 PM (GoIUi)

340 "It�s an ancient, somewhat universal human attitude, and often they give
it full voice. But it�s been being given voice for thousands and
thousands of years. You can go back and see the ancient Greeks doing it.
You know, �All that is good is gone. These young people are incapable
of making art, or blue jeans, or whatever.� It�s just an ancient thing,
and it�s so ancient that I�m inclined to think it�s never actually true."
William Gibson

Posted by: steve l. at June 18, 2013 06:28 PM (R0MFk)

341 264 FFS.....Mark needs to put his big boy pants on and get over it.

Levin is good writer and a highly skilled lawyer but like a majority of pundits he thinks he knows everything there is to know about everything. Further, the ranting, raving, and spinning for the sake of creating controversy have become a huge turnoff. I also think that Levin is not so much upset as he enjoys the publicity and watching people fight. But he is hardly alone in that. Talk radio would cease to exist without controversy and those in the business have a series of cards they can play to maintain interest.

Posted by: Miss80sBaby at June 18, 2013 06:29 PM (YjDyJ)

342 From H. Beam Piper and John McGuire. When being a 'Literate' is held in some suspicion. 1953. Title is Null-ABC.

There's some reaction these days that
holds scientists responsible for war. Take it one step further:
What happens if "book-learnin'" is held responsible ...?

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18346/18346-h/18346-h.htm

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at June 18, 2013 06:36 PM (UVBO7)

343
The standard is that your dog brings you the paper or your slippers. My
dog brings me the remote. He meets me at the door with the remote in his
mouth. I didn't train him. He just does it.

When I was just a wee little lad, we had a pet parakeet named 'Spook'. He was pretty much completely white, outside of his flight primaries, which my Dad kept trimmed....so he could fly only short distances. That was the most sociable bird I'd ever seen. Bright too. He enjoyed family game nights, and insisted on being on the table while we played Life, or Monopoly, and would run his beak down any piece of game money held out to him....punching little triangular holes down the edge. My Dad would sometimes 'divorce' his Life wife, by passing the little pink peg to Spook, who would obligingly chew the little pink peg into confetti. (This always pissed my Mom off, because he wouldn't do the same for her).

On the weekends, when we all sat down for breakfast together, he'd join us, (and he demanded his own piece of buttered toast), and would converse with us, squawking, whistling, and repeating the many words he'd learned. If he was not given his own slice of buttered toast, he would wait until a slice was unguarded, and would run across the table, and walk back and forth across the toast, thus making it his, because no one would eat it with little bird foot prints all over it.

His final trick....which my Mom never realized....was after we sucked the candy coating off the daily vitamins she gave us, we'd pass the remaining bit to Spook, who loved them. He was the most vitamin enriched bird on the planet.

Posted by: Sticky Wicket at June 18, 2013 06:42 PM (qoQi/)

344 And then there is the Kardashian, i.e., how to get famous by making sex tapes and giving rich black guys head...

Posted by: Waldo at June 18, 2013 06:05 PM

Someone said the other day that if aliens were monitoring our planet, they'd come to the conclusion that Kim Kardashian is our queen

Posted by: kbdabear at June 18, 2013 07:14 PM (/9IC1)

345 Listen to any Top 40 station and you can hear the vacuousness between the commercials and TMZ updates. The tunes are simplistic and repetitive, the lyrics are for those with IQ's around 70

Most people live in the Ryan Seacrest world

Posted by: kbdabear at June 18, 2013 07:16 PM (/9IC1)

346 I think it's worth pointing out that the world did a bunch of really stupid shit before the Founders... and before television.

Posted by: The Mega Independent at June 18, 2013 07:26 PM (Lq5WC)

347 This review of a blog reviewing a book is too long. Can you give the gist of what you're talking about.

Posted by: Mr. Meta Irony at June 18, 2013 07:31 PM (dSE0q)

348 Lincoln's speechifying, which may sound overly-complex for spoken argument today, was in fact fairly common of the style of rhetoric at the time, and people had no particular trouble following it.

In the 60s I took lots of journalism classes, both in high school and in college --I thought that was what I wanted to do back then-- before I flicked all that in and went to Vietnam courtesy of uncle sugar. Back in those days, learning to write and edit copy, we were TOLD to write everything to the level of a 13-year old. They told us good journalism was written on this level. It was supposedly a clarity thing, to promote readability. Whatever. Regardless of how the public got dumbed down, it's been going on a long time.

Posted by: random thought generator at June 18, 2013 07:40 PM (a7j2Q)

349 An interesting post comparing an old and a modern wedding photo, and musing on what it says about the culture: http://goo.gl/2ht2O

Seems to dovetail with the cultural rot that's driving these empoweredmaids photos.

Posted by: Jack Nine at June 18, 2013 08:10 PM (zZahl)

350 @349 Shit -- wrong thread.

Posted by: Jack Nine at June 18, 2013 08:11 PM (zZahl)

351 There's an acronym for this trend, INRATS, as in, I'm Not Reading All That Shit. Ace does an entire post in which he purports to have insight into how people prefer to receive information and what they won't bother to read, and he writes it 10k words long. I don't think he has very good writing comprehension.

Posted by: docweasel at June 18, 2013 09:05 PM (eX3h/)

352 Oddly enough, I was just thiniking about this last night. The Australian Government - left wing looneys, the lot of them - is addicted to twitter on the individual ministerial level. Not easy to say much that's meaningful in 140 characters; very easy to spread lies and slander and capture the imagination of not-very-bright young voters with celebrity fever.

Posted by: perturbed at June 19, 2013 09:47 AM (u6Ueb)

353 I agree, no outside influence is necessary for civilization to fall. History shows that each civilization in earth's history fell into an idiocracy and indeed the enlightened part of each civilization was at the beginning. Witness ancient pottery of the Chinese and Sumerian eras. Both show that the pottery was elegant and detailed in the early years then fell into the most simplistic in the later years. Mankind does not evolve, that is simply our egos talking. Mankind without assistance always devolves. Before you criticize using modern 21st century technology as your example, doublecheck your facts about how many people today really understand the technology that they use.

Posted by: Ago Solvo at June 19, 2013 11:02 AM (k8JkR)

354 Reminds me of Primetime Propaganda by Ben Shapiro, except he's a conservative, so its probably a better read.

Posted by: Hotice at June 19, 2013 04:40 PM (mwDO5)

355

Posted by: trainer says HI to the NSA at June 21, 2013 10:06 AM (UWioT)

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