Category: Culture

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Spending time off the net

I just got done spending about 10 days without Internet or cable service. I did have the usual withdrawal symptoms but eventually made due by trying to find things to occupy my time. I wrote some stuff out about what I did. It is a bit long so I may post it in parts.

1. Watched the regular television networks. My ISP is also my cable company so I had no cable TV and I usually read my newspaper online. I borrowed a Digital TV converter and tried that out on my set. Digital TV is almost as bad as the old school rabbit ears when you use to have use aluminum foil to get any signal. I would set the antenna and sit down and the picture would mess up. I would stand back up and reach for the antenna and the picture would be fine then sit back down and the picture would cut in and out again. Very aggravating. The picture quality is great – no snow at least and it got me thinking I might cancel my cable TV altogether and just use the Internet and the converter box to watch TV. I was looking at the selection of my cable company and found out that although I had the top digital package, 90% of the channels I watch are on the cheaper standard service. Of course…. lol….

Channel 4 and Channel 6 have extra programing on their 2nd digital channels. I would graze them when I had cable but really got a chance to watch them these past 12 days. WCMH has RTV which shows old TV shows – really old like 30 years or more. Seeing supposed cowboys of the 1850’s with pastel colored clothes was funny on some show about Texas Rangers filmed in the 1960’s titled “Laredo”. They also have my favorite “Emergency!” and “Kojak”.

Channel 6 has My Network TV and also shows “THIS” which plays old movie of the weeks from the early 1980’s. I like these because some are not that good but fun to see some actors before they got famous. One was about a biker club reunion called “Return of the Rebels” that starred Don Murray and Barbara Eden but had a fresh faced Patrick Swayze playing a bad guy. Another movie was about skateboarders called “Thrashin'” which starred Josh Brolin after he had been in “The Goonies”.

2. Got to watch the 6:30 PM network news broadcasts for the first time in years and I remember why I don’t watch them. CBS sounded boring but the others seemed to lack news. I am so use to the detail that some cable channels go into on some topics or the stuff I can read on the Internet. Other than catching the noon or 6 PM local news there isn’t any news available on the networks. That was hard to deal with – guess I am hooked on 24/7 news cycles. The funniest bit was during the NBC Nightly News from Pittsburgh due to the G20 Summit and someone with a megaphone was protesting Brian Williams live on the air. There was one point when his audio was not there and you could hear megaphone guy shouting “They’re lying to you!!!” clear as day… HA! Great TV….. When Williams signed off for the evening he signed off for the guy with the megaphone too.

3. Watched the premiers of a lot of network programing for the fall season. “How I met your mother” seemed a bit flat but “Big Bang Theory” was extra hilarious. I didn’t care for “Mercy” – or rather Grey’s Anatomy on NBC. I did like “The Good Wife”. I really didn’t like “Accidentally on Purpose” – I just don’t think unplanned pregnancy between two unmarried people is funny. The issue is too serious for a comedy series. The movie “Knocked Up” did the same topic but there was some pathos and heart to it. “Accidentally…” has no heart….. knowing me it will probably be the next “Cheers” and be on for 10 years. Hope not.

“NCIS” and “NCIS LA” were pretty good and didn’t seem to miss a beat from last season. “Law & Order SVU” was okay. “Modern Family” was funny and looks good. “Flash Forward” seemed interesting and right now less esoteric than “Lost” did but we will see.

“Gary Unmarried” was good but I miss Gary’s buddy and his girlfriend from last season. “The New Adventures of Old Christine” was very funny but they ripped off a bit of Seinfeld with the airplane trip. I just don’t care for Elaine when she gets bitchy.

I still don’t like “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation” but “Community” seemed okay but the previews seemed funnier than the actual show. “Brothers” was another I didn’t care for and I skipped the other Fox shows because the canceled “The Sarah Conner Chronicles”.

Another season of “Survivor” that doesn’t interest me but “Amazing Race” was amazing again.

“Weekend Update Thursday” was funny but I worry they are using their best material before a Saturday show. The Joe Wilson fake out skit was one of the best of the year so far.

I totally ignored the crappy dancing shows and fat people shows including Jay Leno.

I was really hoping Jay Leno would do a show like the old Dean Martin Show with a mix of sketches and singing and dancing but what we got was his Tonight Show without that title. – Bleh!

Of course Conan O’Brien isn’t helping himself on his “Tonight Show”. It still seems he is holding back from doing the goofy stuff I loved that Jimmy Falon is doing on his show now. What is it about 11:30 that makes grown adults stiffen up? David Letterman did the same thing when he moved to CBS. If grandma and grandpa don’t like edgy goofiness then they should go to bed.

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9/11 images were war pornography?

September 11th 2001 was a dark day in American history. That isn’t disputed. What is debated is how the country reacted afterward. I read a blog entry on a website today that bothered me because the writer seemed to be blurring how events turned out rather than what was known that day.

On the website Crooks and Liars, writer Susie Madrak posted an entry titled “Flashback: The Day The Earth Stood Still”.

It was a very personal account of what happened to her on September 11th 2001. I was interested in reading the essay as it matched my feelings that day until I got to the end when she wrote this:

My grown son was staying with me while he looked for a job and was sleeping on the couch when I came home. I flipped on the TV and it woke him up. We watched as they showed the planes crashing into the building, again and again and again.

“Turn it off,” he said after an hour or so. “This is pornography, war pornography. Turn it off.”

So I did.

When we have our limbic brain punched over and over again by horrific images, and those images are then used to justify more horror, there is only one solution: Turn off your TV.

My son was right: The 9/11 images were war pornography, something watched over and over as we stroked ourselves into wargasm.

Flashback: The Day The Earth Stood Still

Those words bothered me because of the way I spent my day that day. I watched the TV coverage all day and into the evening because it just didn’t seem real and I need to see the live coverage to keep driving it home that it happened.

Yes the attacks were used to justify an unneeded war in Iraq – later. On that day in September is was impossible to know how it would turn out. How could someone claim the TV images were being used to manipulate people.

That would be like saying the newsreels showing the attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was used to trick us into war.

The war was started by those attacks just as they were in September 2001.

Calling the news images that day “war pornography” is either an after-the-fact colorization of the event or a cold hearted reaction to mass murder.

I hope it is the first and not the former.

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Organized disruptions of constituent town halls are un-American

Congress is in recess until September. At these times many go back to their districts and have town hall meetings with constituents to find out their views on issues the Congress member has been dealing with. It is one way to take the temperature of the electorate. During this recess and with health care reform on the table, conservative groups have been organizing so-called “grassroots” protests at the town hall meetings. They and their major insurance plan backers want to make it look like the “public” is opposed to reform and if the Congress person doesn’t agree then they shout them down and disrupt the meeting. These thug tactics by conservatives are un-American and give a false perception of major opposition to reform.

Here is an example:

David Neiwert at Crooks and Liars wrote:

No one has a problem with right-wingers marching in protest of the health-care plans. That’s certainly their right. And no one minds that they choose to participate in these forums. But town halls were never designed to be vehicles for protest. They have always been about enabling real democratic discourse in a civil setting.

When someone’s entire purpose in coming out to a town-hall forum is to chant and shout and protest and disrupt, they aren’t just expressing their opinions — they are actively shutting down democracy.

And that, folks, is a classically fascist thing to do.

Are Republicans and their thugs killing off the Town Hall as a democratic forum?

But before you say “well liberals have done it before….”, Paul Krugman had this to say:

Some commentators have tried to play down the mob aspect of these scenes, likening the campaign against health reform to the campaign against Social Security privatization back in 2005. But there’s no comparison. I’ve gone through many news reports from 2005, and while anti-privatization activists were sometimes raucous and rude, I can’t find any examples of congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds.

And I can’t find any counterpart to the death threats at least one congressman has received.

The Town Hall Mob

The fact is that polls show majority support for Obama’s ideas on health care reform (starts with question 37) and the people who show up and disrupt the town hall meetings are the same people who can’t stand a Democrat is President, who has been encouraged by conservative groups and pundit douchebags, and many who are horrified that an African-American is President.

Rush Limbaugh got it wrong when he claimed the President and Democrats were using Nazi tactics in the reform debate, it seems the conservatives are doing the Nazi tactics. Back in the 1920’s Brownshirts would invade and disrupt meetings of other political parties in Germany. Even the Nazis learned that thuggery wouldn’t win them the election so they ended up reducing the influence of the Brownshirts and stopping the meeting disruptions.

When are conservatives going to learn the same lesson?

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What we really should be looking at since the death of Walter Cronkite

Uncle Walter passed away on Friday and so this weekend the press corp have been celebrating the anchorman who set the standard of what the press is suppose to be. It is ironic that as they celebrate the icon of TV news, current TV news is nothing like what Cronkite stood for or broadcast back in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

The current members of the press commented on objective and tough Cronkite was in his reporting. He told us all what we needed to hear and sometimes what we didn’t want to hear. That doesn’t happen today.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com says it better:

Despite that, media stars will spend ample time flamboyantly commemorating Cronkite’s death as though he reflects well on what they do (though probably not nearly as much time as they spent dwelling on the death of Tim Russert, whose sycophantic servitude to Beltway power and “accommodating head waiter”-like, mindless stenography did indeed represent quite accurately what today’s media stars actually do). In fact, within Cronkite’s most important moments one finds the essence of journalism that today’s modern media stars not only fail to exhibit, but explicitly disclaim as their responsibility.

Celebrating Cronkite while ignoring what he did

Too bad it is all true.

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Conservatives losing the debate makes them show their ass

You would think that when a political debate involved adults, that there would be a civil debate about issues. If either side resorts to name calling then they have lost the debate. Conservatives know they have lost the debate on many current issues like the upcoming health care reform, so they resort to name calling and basic racist banter. Then when you call them on it they cry about “freedom of speech”. I agree they should be allowed to say what they want – even when it shows how much of an ass they really are.

A good example was a recent e-mail that was sent out with a picture of President Obama with a bone in his nose:

And then this morning someone forwarded me this email, which as far as I know is unrelated to the Malkin contest BUT follows a similar vein AND has been “making the rounds,” as the kids say, under the subject line Obamacare Healthcare is coming soon!

That’s right, folks! Barack Obama will tax your health benefits and then flee with the money to Africa, where he will convert all the tribespeople to Socialism and become their king after developing inhumanly muscular calves.

The Health Care Debate is Unleashing Creativity from Every Crevice of America

Then there was this:

“A typical street whore.” “A bunch of ghetto thugs.” “Ghetto street trash.” “Wonder when she will get her first abortion.”

These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative ‘Free Republic’ blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama’s 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a T-shirt with a peace sign on the front.

The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured the caption, “To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds.”

Conservative Free Republic blog in free speech flap after racial slurs directed at Obama children

And that happened after Conservatives basically accused comedian David Letterman of being a pedophile for telling a bad joke about Sarah Palin’s daughter – never mind that the joke was about the 18 year old daughter and not the 14 year old daughter the Conservatives tried to pin it on.

But like I said when you have no real answers to the policy debate it is easier just to call people names. I mean it worked in school – right?

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