Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Let's see who's going to be 'hysterical' in two weeks


If I see one more social-media post about not listening to the "hysterical" media -- a group I was proud to belong to, and still do in my own way, and to which my wife, over in the dining room busting her ass for the Omaha World-Herald, still belongs -- I am going to go all Ray Nagin on WWL radio after Katrina.

If not for "the hysterical media," you wouldn't know what the fuck is coming at you like a freight train. You wouldn't know squat about "wash your hands" and how COVID-19 is spread. You wouldn't know that your health-care system is at risk of collapse if you don't stay the hell home and not cause yourself (or your loved ones, friends and random strangers) to be infected.

If not for "the hysterical media," no one would be sewing face masks for hospitals or trying to help out laid-off workers -- because they'd have no damned idea if they weren't hard hit themselves.


https://www.omaha.com/
IF NOT for "the hysterical media," you'd know jack shit about jack squat. (Which still, unfortunately, is too often the case in this country, despite the heroic efforts of "the hysterical media.")

Untold members of "the hysterical media" have given their lives to let unreflective and ungrateful people know the things they'd rather not know but damned well need to. On my darkest days, I don't know why "the hysterical media" bother.

Right now, there are hard-working folks in "the hysterical media" who have been infected by COVID-19 in the course of trying tell you about the threat of COVID-19 and how your fellow Americans are suffering under the plague of COVID-19.

Not that people fucking care. At least, won't care about until they're lying on a gurney in the hall of an overwhelmed hospital, gasping for breath, waiting for death because there's no respirator available.

Your governors have been screaming bloody murder about that shortage. You'd know that if you actually had been listening to "the hysterical media."

Now, please don't get all hysterical when you're blindsided by what you refused to believe was coming. It's a bad look, don't you know?

And please don't say the media didn't try to tell you. They did, and you called them all "hysterical."

Wednesday, December 05, 2018

We must Facebook the music here


It started with the Grinch Who Muted Christmas Music.

It ended with the last straw for me on Facebook after a decade wasting way too much time and productivity there. Here is the one thing you need to know about everybody's favorite addiction: Facebook is the devil. Ask Parliament.

Make that co-devil. The incompetent, greedy conglomerates that ate the music industry are just as evil. I eagerly await the leak of their internal memos and emails.

I don't know exactly why it took me this long -- and why the last straw was a geeky string of muted Facebook videos shot on my iPhone -- to delete my account. But here I am.

Last week, Facebook and Sony Music Entertainment decided that my 1936 Zenith, playing Christmas music in a video I posted last year, was a threat to the entire music-copyright regime. Thus, I was notified that, for all my Facebook friends and enemies, the sound of yuletide also would be the sound of silence.

This was my entirely unconvincing appeal of patent insanity . . . or Digital Millennium Copyright Act insanity, to be precise:

It's background music played on a bloody antique radio, for God's sake. This is absurd.

If anyone is using this video to bootleg music, he is a moron. This is just insane. Stop it.

THIS WEEK, Russia's favorite social-media platform, some other bunch of music charlatans muted a nerdy, geekly little iPhone video of a 1949 7-inch single playing on my 1957 Zenith record changer. I thought it was a bit of audio-enthusiast fun with sufficiently not-good-enough-to-pirate audio.

Which no one was making a penny off of.


Corporate America thought it was a mortal threat. You know, like women smoking cigarettes are for the Islamic State.

And last night, after the copyright Nazis yet again muted the audio on a video of another exceedingly old 45 I got at an estate sale, the reason for my disgust crystallized in my mind. Short version: Facebook is the devil.

Long version: It seems that Facebook is a corporate entity dedicated to eating the capitalistic and societal seed corn. I think you reach that point on a couple of levels -- you successfully addict people to your product, then spend years abjectly exploiting them while you destroy, bit-by-bit, the product's value and utility.

The second level? A good example is the virtual impossibility of posting genial little videos like those of mine that keep getting muted (because ambient-sound music on iPhone videos obviously will destroy all music sales on every level). It illustrates a larger issue about Facebook that doesn't bode well for our country (anyone's country, actually) or our society. Basically, it's a crapload easier to post the worst kind of racist propaganda and hatred, then have it stay on the platform and spread like a metastasizing cancer than it is to post a geeky, innocent video of a radio or a record playing that's more likely just to make people smile and wax nostalgic.

Then we have Boris and Natasha. Has it not been extensively documented how simple it was for Russian saboteurs to flood Facebook with abject fakery and disinformation in order to steal an American presidential election and perhaps fatally undermine the world's greatest democracy?


THIS IS what happens during the terminal stages of capitalism and capitalistic societies, when human beings -- citizens of advanced Western nation states -- are nothing but pieces of meat whose utility ends at the point some corporate entity extracts their last dime.

Bigotry and hatred, corporate America can monetize via platforms like Facebook in much the same manner Donald Trump turns it into political capital. Stupid little videos of old record players playing old records -- or old radios playing Christmas music -- are not nearly so profitable for the platform or those to whom it sells your personal information. Indeed, some music-industry megalith sees your stupid little video as imperiling the extraction of the last nickel from an industry mortally wounded by those self-same corporations' overarching greed and lack of marketing vision.

Not to put too fine a point on it, when you find that you're spending too much time somewhere that expressly makes it easier to do bad than good . . . run. Run far away.

That's what I'm doing -- running. Plus, if I'm exposed to much more of the average level of language-arts proficiency on Facebook, I'm gonna regress to communicating via clicks and grunts.

I suppose one could write strongly worded letters to our corporate overlords. That, however, would take years and cramp millions of fingers. It also, I betting, would avail us nothing.

Or . . . you starve the bastards. Tragically, the only universal language (and common value) today is money. If they can't sell my eyeballs to advertisers, Facebook is diminished just a little. If Facebook can't sell 500 million eyeballs to marketers, it's screwed.

I mean, how many f***ing selfies can you take and overshare? Am I right?


Bye, Facebook. I can feel life becoming simpler (and less overshared) already.

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Meanwhile, at the Russian Embassy. . . .


That Donald Trump. He's such a card.

You say covfefe, I say covFEEfay

Click for full size
Things have come to a pretty pass
Our patience is going fast,
For you tweet this and the other
While we sit here aghast

Goodness knows what the end will be
Oh, your shit is just so bat
It looks as if our POTUS is quite plowed
Please, God! Not a mushroom cloud!

You say covFEHfay and I say covFEEfay,
You say GAMMA RAY! and I say YOU'RE CRAY-CRAY!
CovFEHfay, covFEEfay, gamma ray, you're cray-cray
Let's call the whole thing off!

Friday, May 26, 2017

Q: Are there not men? A: They're gesphincto.

Click on screenshot to enlarge

Once upon a time in Louisiana, the Jesuits owned WWL radio and television in New Orleans, and Douglas L. Manship was taking to the airwaves on Channel 2 in Baton Rouge, WBRZ, to editorialize against the lawlessness -- and the folly -- of segregation.

For that, starting in 1960, Manship became accustomed to the sight of burning crosses in his front yard.

As seen on WWL-TV . . . in 2017
Small men held sway over the Gret Stet back then, but at least some of the media considered pushing back against evil times and small minds a duty, not just one of many possibilities.

In 1960, WWL was on the cusp of building a television-news juggernaut in New Orleans. In Baton Rouge that year, Manship and WBRZ were calling for calm, reason and the rule of law as segregationist passions flared over a federal order to integrate the New Orleans public schools.

As it turns out, advocating for civility (and civil society) when the angry mob is at one's door -- not to mention in control of the Legislature -- is a big job when society is under the sway of the aforementioned small minds and small men. 

In a 1962 doctoral dissertation at the Ohio State University, John Pennybacker, in a study of Manship's editorializing and the impact on Baton Rouge and Louisiana's segregationist governance, sets the scene for how much at odds the South -- how much Louisiana in particular -- found itself with the notion of civil liberties and the norms of liberal democracy:
Into this emotion-charged atmosphere stepped Dr. Waldo McNeir, a Professor of English at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Dr. McNeir, apparently feeling he had seen and heard enough, sent copies of the following letter to State Senator Wendell Harris and Representatives A.T. (Apple) Sanders and Eugene McGehee -- his representatives in the State Legislature.
Segregation is wrong. Interposition is of no legal value. Louisiana is one of the 50 states that make up this nation. State sovereignty is a dead doctrine. We must live under the rule of law or perish. Reason must prevail.

The laws enacted by the state legislature in these two special sessions are a disgrace and a national scandal. They have seriously damaged this country in the eyes of the world. Whatever your personal views, these are the facts. There is still time for you to show statesmanship and rise above your personal feelings.

I was born in the South. I am a citizen of the United States, a legal resident of this state for 11 years, a tax payer, and the parent of a school age child. I urge for you to vote for law and order before tragic results occur.
Legislative reaction to this was quick and to the point.

A House committee Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution condemning a LSU professor for criticizing the Legislature's anti­ integration program in a letter to his representative and ordered an un-American activities probe at the University.

Representative Mike John had this to say: "By what right does an LSU professor dare to attack the character and intentions of this legislature. I won't stand by and permit such a person to level such an unwarranted attack upon what we are trying to do here."

PLUS ÇA CHANGE, plus c'est la même chose.

Or, to quote the more legislator-friendly words of baseball great Yogi Berra, "It's deja vu all over again." "Deja vu," of course, being . . . never mind. The governors, and the governed, of Louisiana may not now (and may not ever) understand, but I assume you get the picture -- in 1960, the importance of segregation was as indispensable to the Southern psyche as the continued existence of Confederate monuments is in 2017.
 
One might assume, probably correctly, that is due to the ongoing psychic centrality of white supremacy for many Southerners -- the root of "separate but (un)equal" and the reason for the cult of the Lost Cause.

Then, just as now for small individuals in high places, the small minds of the angry unwashed have primacy over the quiet testimony of facts and reason . . . and the impartial demands of the rule of law.

The latter are the prerequisites of democratic self-governance. The former? The lifeblood of despotism. Pennybacker again:
Although, as has been noted, Mr. Manship scheduled a study of the integration problem in September of 1961, his first identified editorial was broadcast on the night of Tuesday, November 1. It was prompted by the vagueness of Governor Davis about his plans' for the first special session of the legislature. Mr. Manship called on the Governor to reveal his plans and give the people of the state an opportunity to voice their reactions prior to legislative action. He concluded the editorial with the declara­tion that "government by intrigue, mystery, silence and darkness smacks to us of dictatorship."

The Legislature convened on November 6 and, in the next few days, the plans of the Governor were made clear. On Thursday, November 10, Mr. Manship commented on the program presented. He began by describing the two principal means proposed to thwart the rulings of the court -- inter­ position and closing the schools. It was pointed out that the first of these would be tenable only if the United States were considered a feder­ ation of separate states, but "that theory of the nature of our country was settled violently by the Civil War." The second means "would seem to constitute a deprivation of property without due process of law." Finally, he decried the nature of the special session itself, stating his opinion that "some few . . . would seem to be more intent on defying the federal government and seeing their opposition to desegregation gratified than on maintaining the traditional standards of governmental action or . . . the welfare of the people."
 
On the Saturday prior to the scheduled desegregation of the schools in New Orleans, November 12, Mr. Manship appealed for reason and order. He first pointed out that there were orderly procedures for reg­istering protest of a decision of the Supreme Court. "We may ask that Court to reconsider its interpretation. That remedy having been exhausted, we may seek to amend the Constitution." Any other forms of opposition would be classifiable as rebellion and could lead to the use of force of arms for "the federal government cannot permit a state to flaunt the decrees of its courts." Unfortunately, "already the Governor and the Legislature have surrendered to their emotions." If they persist in their efforts to block integration, great harm could result. He closed with an appeal for wisdom and restraint in the future actions of the Governor and the Legislature.

By November 14 it was apparent that the state government had no intention of abandoning its opposition to desegregation. Consequently, on Monday the 14th, Mr. Manship broadcast an appeal to the people of Louisiana.

This appeal opened with the assertion that the Legislature was inciting the people to violence. Mr. Manship called for order and concluded by (1) urging the Governor to put a stop to the "Tragic comedy now in pro­ gress"; (2) asking the people of the state to inform the Governor of their views; and (3) urging "that all of us exercise reason and common sense in our handling of this crisis, before murder is committed in the name of freedom."
 
Broadcasting, Feb. 13, 1961
Despite the December ruling of the Federal District Court in New Orleans that the doctrine of interposition was unconstitutional, it soon became evident that the state was not to be deterred in its fight against desegregation. On December 9 Mr. Manship commented on the question of "Civilization and Political Action." In this rather philosophical edito­rial he pointed out that a mark of civilization "is the willingness of a people to determine their courses of action on the basis of sincere rational discussion conducted calmly by informed and responsible men." This standard was then applied to the actions of the Governor and the Leg­islature. "To refuse to follow the decisions of the federal courts after they have finally determined what action is required of us under the Constitution is to throw aside the mark of civilization." Finally, after expanding this last point somewhat, he concluded with this appeal. "It is to be hoped that the Governor and the legislature will come to their senses and fulfill their public trusts in a manner befitting officials of a civilized community."
Two days later Governor Davis Issued a call for a second special session to consider the possibility of a tax increase. Reacting to this on Monday, December 12, Mr. Manship raised several questions which were never answered satisfactorily. The questions were as follows:
1. What is the actual anticipated cost for whatever moves are now being planned in the executive sessions of the legislature in this matter of segregation?

2. What are the future financial plans for education? . . . Can the plans be financed without a new tax?

3. Will this legislature saddle the state with a new tax . . . and then fail in their objective because of . . . the federal courts?

4. It has been indicated the tax is to finance the program . . . for giving money to children who want to go to private schools, to avoid integration. . . . The tax would probably produce $45 million, but the need to finance such a program, if Virginia may be taken as an example, probably will not exceed $1 or $2 million, . . . What does Governor Davis plan to do with the rest of the money?

5. What will be the effect of a new sales tax on the hoped for industrial development of our state?
On December 13 the legislature first heard of the letter from Dr. Waldo McNeir and reacted by ordering an un-American activities probe. Mr. Manship editorialized twice on the issues raised by this action. On Tues­day, December 13, he pointed out that the writing of a letter to an elected representative would seem to be more American than un-American. In addition to this, "it is ironic, too, that the House should hint that there is some­ thing un-American about urging action consistent with the Constitution and judgments of the United States.

On December 17, a Saturday, he took a tongue-in-cheek attitude towards the state House Un-American Activities Committee investigation of the entire L.S.U. faculty — an investigation to cost $60,000. As a help to the committee he suggested they broaden their investigation to assure "that, in addition to there being no un-American activities at L.S.U., there are also no witches or demons . . . Really, what the state of Louisiana needs more than anything else at the present time is a good, legislatively sponsored and conducted witch hunt."
 
WHERE, and when, there is evil and lawlessness afoot, sometimes there also are those who stand before the abyss, warning onrushing fools of their impending doom. In the early '60s, in segregation-drunk Louisiana, Doug Manship sat before a television camera to tell Channel 2's viewers that hateful, lawless and self-destructive was no way for a state to go through history.
Today, there is . . . .

Anyone?


Anyone?

I fear all is quiet on the grown-up front. At media outlet after media outlet -- across Louisiana and this fractured, seething land -- the gatekeepers have abandoned their posts, and the mob runs unchecked across website comments sections and media Facebook pages alike.

In the breech, we get filth. Hateful racist filth, with intimations of violence just over the horizon.
 

We used to have the saying, "Freedom of the press belongs to him who owns one."  Today, absolute license is the possession of the foul-mouthed, hard-hearted and ill-educated rabble. The rabble gets this no-purchase, no-lease, unlimited-use timeshare in a fool's paradise from him who owns "the press."

And the corporate owners of a depleted media seem to be OK with that, for reasons of malfeasance or out of a desperate, cynical trolling for clicks, with hate as the bait.

Behold, WWL-TV in 2017. These are comments from its Facebook post of a story about the leader of the anti-monument movement pushing New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to further purge the city of Confederate tributes and iconography. For Malcolm Suber, four monuments gone is just a start.

Unfortunately, this also is just a start:

 

WHAT WOULD the Jesuits do? Well, they wouldn't tolerate this. Not for a nanosecond.

"The planet of the apes (sic) wasn't really about apes it's (sic) was about African-Americans taking over the world"? The Jesuits, d.b.a. Loyola University of the South, not only wouldn't tolerate such toxic waste, they would hunt down one Joey J. Landry and apply the fear of God directly to his racist ass.


WWL television is not alone in its laissez-faire posture toward bigots doing what bigot do on its comments-section and social-media dime. Channel 4 is just the most egregious example at hand, at the moment.

Go to the comments on any race-related story in The Advocate, a newspaper once owned by the Manship family as well, and you'll quickly get the impression you've stumbled into a barroom long past the time when your drunken, racist uncle should have been cut off -- and every seat in the joint is being warmed by your racist, drunken uncle.

In the WWL story on removing public tributes to the Confederacy and the Lost Cause, Suber said Landrieu needed to "finish the job."

On the WWL post on Facebook, Matt Conrad said maybe "the rebels" should "finish the job first."

"These lies against the south (sic) and the confederacy (sic) need to stop," he added. The civil war (sic) was clearly not fought over slavery and this destruction lead (sic) by the misinformed must end and be reversed now!"

From 'Chris Fullerton of Denham Springs, La.'
So little truth, so many "sics."

Back in 1960 -- when the Federal Communications Commission still obligated broadcasters to offer the opposing side of an issue "equal time" after on-air editorials like Doug Manship's -- implicit threats, visible-from-space misstatements of historical fact and a basketful of sic-worthy constructions would not have been part of the bargain. Something approaching reasoned argument, free of obvious lying and fit for an all-ages audience, would have.

Neither Manship nor any other responsible media owner in 1960 (or 1970 . . . or 1980 . . . or 1990) would have given raging anti-Semites the airtime or the newsprint to present vulgar smears about how it's all the fault of the Jews.

Channel 4 just did on the planet's biggest social-media platform. It's like buying the beer for your racist, drunken uncle, only the world is his barroom.


The account of 'Chris Fullerton' may or may not be fake. But the filth is real.

LAST YEAR, I mentioned to a reporter for the late Mr. Manship's television station, WBRZ, the racist and, frankly, incendiary comments dominating his Facebook live stream of a tense and occasionally violent protest after the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling. If the comments had been screamed at a crowd on a Baton Rouge street corner, surely there would have been arrests for incitement to riot.

The reporter's response -- And, for God's sake, should not a journalist know better than this? -- was "they have a First Amendment right."

No. No, the comment-box filth-peddlers don't. WBRZ has the First Amendment right to choose what it does and doesn't promulgate. And Facebook has the First Amendment right to decide what it does and doesn't allow on its platform.

If the racists of New Orleans and Baton Rouge -- and of Omaha and the rest of the United States -- desire to exercise, unfettered, their First Amendment right to say awful and offensive things, they have their options. They can stand on the corner and speechify. They can write up a manifesto, "sics" and all, photocopy it and pass it out to passers-by.
 

LIKEWISE, they can email everybody they know, including The Advocate, Channel 2 and WWL-TV to let them know that it's all the fault of the blacks and the Jews. They can write a letter to the editor and see whether the editor will publish it. Or they can put it up on their own Facebook pages and hope for the best (the worst?).

The combox deplorables of the world even can start their own websites or newspapers to spread their garbage more efficiently. Many have, in fact.

What they don't have the First Amendment "right" to do is make media outlets (or even Facebook) spread their venom for them. Free of charge.


The sooner we find the last actual adult in the news media and convince him (or her) to exercise in full the press' rights under our constitutional order -- including the right to tell the scum of the earth "Not on my dime!" -- the better off America will be.

As previously stated, heat we have plenty of already. It's light that we lack.

Doug Manship, during a period in our history whose echoes we hear today, did not suffer fools in government who thought leadership was as simple as positioning oneself at the front of a racist mob. I cannot believe, were he alive today, that he'd think that providing a free (and very public) rumpus room for the racist mob would be any way to run a media outlet.

Friday, December 02, 2016

This is for all the stupid people. . . .


If you're on Facebook, and you probably are, stuff like this no doubt clogs your timeline.

It's like this: America is full of stupid people, clueless that sense has passed them by. It's enough to make you give up, because there's no silver cup. And when you ride that highway in the sky . . . you'll probably meet this guy:



Before social media, lies and craziness already had a big advantage on the truth and good sense. Back in 1855, British clergyman Charles Spurgeon had this to say in a sermon:
"If you want the truth to go 'round the world, you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go 'round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, 'A lie will go 'round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.'"
I THINK that pretty much covers it.

Now that we have covered our society-threatening problem with social media, let's look at all the ways the Facebook meme at the top of this post offends.

First off, if ours is "one nation under God," it most certainly is one nation under Allah. "Allah" is the Arabic word for "God," nothing more, nothing less. Muslims worship Allah. Arabic-speaking Christians worship Allah, too.

I have been to Byzantine Catholic services -- Divine Liturgies, which is the same as "Mass" for Latin-rite Catholics. And here's a news flash: We prayed to "Allah" during one liturgy that was largely in Arabic.

Do I need to pack my bags and leave this allegedly "Christian nation"?

By the stars and stripes of social media's loudest "Christian" voices, would the problem be that I am not Christian enough or, perhaps, that I'm not effing stupid enough to live in today's infantilized and lobotomized republic?

SECOND, I have had it with the conflation of the gospel of Jesus Christ -- or maybe I should just say Issa to piss off all the right people -- and the United States.

Issa loves Americans no more (and no less) than he does North Koreans, Russians or Syrian refugees. Issa is not on America's side -- in fact, America is generally far from being on Issa's side. Issa finds nothing about America that makes it more or less a "Christian nation" than any other country with large numbers of observant Christians.

And when you wrap Old Glory around the wood of the cross, not only will your flag decal not get you into Heaven anymore, it just may send you to hell as an idolater. God is not mocked, and that breathtakingly stupid meme mocks God.

THIRD, "Islamic" and "Muslim" are the same thing, dumbass. "America is not a Muslim nation" and "America is not an Islamic nation" is just more cant from the Department of Redundancy Department.

Kind of like calling the genius behind this meme a stupid idiot.

Oh . . . one final thing. America is not a "Christian nation." It is a constitutional republic, and it is open to people of all faiths (or, at least it used to be before Nov. 8), as well as those of no faith at all. The only thing required is the freedom to live out one's faith, and to exhibit tolerance for those not exercising yours.


If you have a problem with anything I've said, you may be a pretty piss-poor Christian. It's a damned solid bet that you absolutely are a piss-poor American.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Mind the sign


Just a random thing on the American scene. Though I do have to wonder whether this is a thing in the great state of Iowa, at least such that signs must warn against the practice.

I will have no further comment. Iowa Hawkeye fans may say what they like.

On a fair summer evening


You can't escape the screen, ever.

And at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, the screen gets supersized. Now if they could just put it on a stick and wrap it in bacon.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

America today: Outrage will Trump dialogue

http://www.wtae.com/news/wtae-editorial-march-24-2016/38682372

Donald Trump just might win.

Stuff like Pittsburgh's l'Affaire Wendy Bell will ensure that most terrifying of electoral outcomes.

What's l'Affaire Wendy Bell? You'll be sorry you asked.

Wendy Bell is . . . uh, was . . . a popular news anchor at WTAE television in Pittsburgh. That is, until she got fired Wednesday for saying the kind of thing white folks sometimes say when they unwisely let their guard down.
Wendy Bell, an award-winning journalist with WTAE-TV for 18 years, was fired Wednesday for comments she made on her Facebook page.

A statement from Hearst Television, the station’s parent company, said, “WTAE has ended its relationship with anchor Wendy Bell. Wendy’s recent comments on a WTAE Facebook page were inconsistent with the company’s ethics and journalistic standards.”

WTAE-TV president and general manager Charles Wolfertz III confirmed the news and declined to comment.
 (snip)
Ms. Bell did not return phone calls for comment from the Post-Gazette, but she told the Associated Press that she didn’t get a “fair shake” from the station, and that the story was not about her, but about “African-Americans being killed by other African-Americans.”

“It makes me sick,” she told The Associated Press when reached at her home on Wednesday. “What matters is what’s going on in America, and it is the death of black people in this country. ... I live next to three war-torn communities in the city of Pittsburgh, that I love dearly. My stories, they struck a nerve. They touched people, but it’s not enough. More needs to be done. The problem needs to be addressed.”

Ms. Bell joined WTAE in 1998 and has won 21 regional Emmy Awards.

Ms. Bell had been off the air since Mr. Wolfertz aired a public apology from the station last week, citing Ms. Bell’s “egregious lack of judgment” in posting racial stereotypes on her official Facebook page.

After a mass shooting March 9 in Wilkinsburg in which police still have made no arrests, Ms. Bell wrote, in part, “You needn’t be a criminal profiler to draw a mental sketch of the killers who broke so many hearts two weeks ago Wednesday... they are young black men, likely in their teens or early 20s.

“They have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs.”

She then wrote about a young African-American man, this one a worker she saw in a SouthSide Works restaurant. She said she called over the manager and praised the man, adding, “I wonder how long it had been since someone told him he was special.”
THINGS LIKE l'Affaire Wendy Bell ensure that no, we can't talk to one another. That, yes, speaking your mind can wreck your life. That, probably, when people get tired enough of walking on eggshells for fear of becoming a cultural Untouchable -- when people figure out that social and economic ruin await some lunkheads (like them) and not others (not like them) -- their long, anxious journey eventually leads to the Land of What the F***.

And, they figure, "What the F***" will set us free. It won't, of course, but people take hope wherever they can find it these days.

Having grown up in Louisiana -- and most importantly, having grown up in the Gret Stet in the 1960s and '70s -- I think I know the difference between someone being maliciously racist and someone not-so-artfully jumping to a conclusion, and then a stereotype, and then trying to soften it all by being patronizing.

I'd like to think it's the difference between being flat-out hateful and being cluelessly ignorant. I think Wendy Bell probably was, with all the best flawed intentions, guilty of some iteration of the latter and certainly not the former. There is a big difference between the two, and we ultimately are making this country a lot worse for people of all races by deploying the same one-size-fits-all nuclear weaponry against the clueless as we do against the malicious.

Does "white privilege" exist? Certainly. Does extreme dysfunction exist among the black underclass, and does that have an impact on violent crime? Certainly. Can we talk about that without resorting either to mau-mauing on the one hand or race-baiting on the other? Oh, hell, no.

NO, WHAT WE'RE  going to do is this. We're just going to double down on emoting and Facebook posts WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS, and we're going to fire TV anchorwomen after they get a little too "real" in response to corporate insistence that they build a social-media "brand" and "keep it real."

Well, then. If this is what being "real" and "relatable" and "relevant" gets you as you build a personal "brand" on social media, I think I'd stick to complaining about the weather, "bless his heart" posts and links to the Puppy Christmas video on YouTube.

If we, the politically correct, have no response to someone who sees through a glass darkly other than to scream "Racist!" and send her off to some figurative Siberia -- just like we would some skinhead with a Nazi flag in his hand and the N-word on his lips -- we really and truly are sunk as a country and a society. Shutting someone up is not the same thing as showing them the light.

Shouting someone down is the antithesis of arguing our way toward the truth. Scaring corporate cowards into "disappearing" TV anchors for unwisely saying what a lot of their audience is probably thinking (and a lot less politely at that) will not suddenly embolden the media to proclaim the truth, no matter what.

Here's some truth for you: When we no longer can "reason together," the only thing left is to eliminate the Other.

Wendy Bell, on her Facebook post, emoted before she had all the facts. She took the real problem of familial breakdown among the black underclass (a phenomenon now trending among white folk near you) and weaponized it as an explanation for the actions of still-unknown killers. And then she unwittingly, I'm sure, stumbled right into some "good nigger" condescension straight out of the Bad Old Days.

Did she mean any harm to African-Americans? I'm absolutely sure she didn't. She was frustrated and angry, and she wanted the damn killing to stop. And she blurted.

Everybody blurts. If we're lucky, it's not on Facebook.

Trouble is, today we -- especially those of us in the media -- are expected to do our blurting in public, online, to be seen by whomever and instantly preserved in the postmillennial amber of a screenshot. Let the outrage begin.

Victims Outraged by Evil (fill in the blank) is the new black, and "Sweetie, did you really mean to say that?" is so gauche. "Sweetie, did you really mean to say that?" doesn't have a chance in hell.



HELL. Funny I should mention hell.

You see, if we keep this up -- this perpetual outrage and this continual inability to separate the malicious from the clueless -- hell is exactly where we're going to end up.

Hell is that place where we're always looking behind our backs and Facebooking lots of links to recipes and Puppy Christmas as we try to stay on the good side of President Trump and his What the F*** brigades.

Friday, January 08, 2016

You can't take a selfie with a Super 8


First it was vinyl.

Then audiophiles rediscovered reel-to-reel tape decks. (I never forgot them.)

Some folks have fallen back in love with typewriters, (I have two . . . still.)

Gizmodo
And now Kodak is bringing back Super 8 movies. (Heh . . . I have two Polaroid instant cameras, some 35 millimeter cameras, a couple of Kodak Brownies and my late mother's 1930s box camera. Did you know no one makes flash cubes anymore -- or consumer-grade flash bulbs, for that matter. Ebay is my friend here.)

It would seem that we're discovering that our brave new digitized world is lacking a certain je ne sais quoi. That we're missing something. That maybe, just maybe, our digital, instantaneous, effortlessly expressed, omnipresent selves, thrust upon the world with nary a thought . . . maybe that's not our best selves.


MAYBE we're thinking that our music ought to be touched and not just summoned. Savored and not just hop-scotched through on a smartphone.

Maybe we think our words should be put onto paper with some effort -- and editing marks and Wite-Out -- instead of emoted onto Facebook with abandon and oftentimes without thought. (Dear World: Please stop oversharing. It really is none of my business.)


And maybe if videos, those things we used to call "movies," were a little harder to make, cost us the price of a film cartridge and took us a week to see, we'd be more hesitant to record ourselves at our worst and more likely to spend that time and effort on ourselves at our best.

Maybe, just maybe, we're coming to some sort of subconscious realization that nobody likes an egomaniac, and our instant-on world of digital proliferation is turning us all into narcissistic whack jobs. I admit, typing this with trembling fingers on a computer keyboard, that as I point a finger at the world, three more are pointing back at myself.

Let's call them Blog, Twitter and Podcast. You'll note that I've hyperlinked everything, because we're not only narcissists, but whores as well.


ON THE other hand, maybe I'm just bloody overthinking it all.

Perhaps folks find records a lot more fun than CDs or downloads. I know I do. And at my age, I certainly can read the liner notes a lot better on a great, big LP cover.

It could be that typewriters are just more aesthetically pleasing than your flippin' laptop, which has just frozen the f*** up yet again and I HATE WINDOWS I HATE WINDOWS I HATE WINDOWS!!! I must say that I never had to reboot a typewriter, nor reinstall anything more complicated than a ribbon.

And it could be that Super 8 just gives us all the warm fuzzies. (Though the missus does give YouTube props for Puppy Christmas, which is pretty damned adorable.)

And, thinking about reel-to-reel tape, it is a hell of a lot of fun, as evidenced by the video above from the electronic home of 3 Chords & the Truth. (WHORE ALERT: There will be a new episode of the Big Show this week.)


SO ENJOY, thanks to our digital world, the video of my 1969 reel-to-reel deck playing back the local AM oldies station, which I recorded on 50-year-old tape -- a tribute to the Wonderful World of Analog and times gone by . . . when expressing yourself took a little time, a little effort and a lot more thought.

Does anybody else think that Facebook  should force you to wad up a post and throw it in the garbage can, rewrite it, throw it in the garbage can, rewrite it, throw it in the garbage can and then rewrite it a lot less stupidly before the "Post" button will work?


Maybe that's just me.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Bigfoot lives, and he does social media!


Finally, a news organization not named The Star, the Enquirer or The Globe takes notice of Bigfoot, Yeti, Sasquatch, whatever you want to call him.

It's about time, CBS News!
In the midst of the potent wind and heavy snow, a yeti was spotted roaming around the streets of Boston Monday night.

As the blizzard of 2015 howled in, Bostonians were told to stay off the roads. But as tall figure dressed in a white, fluffy costume with grey gloves embraced the storm, documenting its trip and calling itself the @BostonYeti2015 on Twitter.

The mythical abdominal snowman started its journey in Somerville at 10:48 pm.
HOWEVER, I strongly object to the use of the word "mythical."

Monday, January 05, 2015

YOUR ON NOTISE, ZUKERBURG!!!!!!


Better safe than sorry. As of January 3rd, 2015 at 11:43 a.m. Eastern standard time, I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future. By this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future based on this profile and/or its contents is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute, not to mention Big Guido down the street). NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this that Facebook is not authorized to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future based on this profile and/or its contents. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tactically allowing the use of this declaration that you do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that you do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use your pictures, information, or posts, both past and future based on your profile and/or its contents, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE. You MUST copy and paste.