Tag: media

Shortcutting History for the Sake of a Headline

Context like facts can be a stubborn thing.

Context like facts can be a stubborn thing. Headlines on the other hand often move beyond stubborn into stupid. Jamelle Bouie in the New York Times provides a very good piece of context on the Electoral College in The Founding Fathers Don’t Have the Answer to Every Question. It’s worth your time to give it a read. But please, skip the headline. 

Constitution 56fbf46c3df78c7841b12968.

Bouie provides very good context on the evolution of the Electoral College, tracing many of the changes it has undergone. That evolution is the key to understanding how much we rely and avoid relying on what the Framers intended. Depending on context. 

I don’t take any of Bouie’s history or his opinions on the subject into question. As I understand history he’s pretty accurate and on point. What I take issue with is how the headline, and how summaries or attention getters like it, diminish and impede our understanding of issues both simple and complex. It’s pretty easy to toss the blame onto a bunch of wig-wearing old white men sweating it out in Philadelphia. But it’s ultimately reductive and insulting. 

The Founding Fathers did indeed have an answer to every question. It’s called the amendment process they enshrined in Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution. It’s not an easy answer because it requires moving political Heaven and Earth to amend the Constitution and it’s become an increasingly heavy lift over the years. 

I’m reasonably sure the Framers made the process cumbersome for the purposes of trying to avoid moments like we’re in now. They had a pretty good understanding of human nature, our strengths and our weaknesses. I believe they knew we would struggle with great change as evidenced by our original sin of slavery that resulted in compromise in order to bring the document into being. 

What they missed, and missed badly, are two things:

1. Our growing capacity for avarice and that we’d turn all of this into a money making machine instead of poltical debate over differing opinions.

2. Our seemingly endless capacity for embracing and extending stupidity. 

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Slam! Destroy! What’s With This Boring Bullshit SEO Headline Writing?

Click bait headline writing has become so ever present, overused, and tired that it has certainly lost all meaning to anyone except the chronically bored or the algorithmically programmed.

Whether it was “Pow!” or “Bam! Zoom!” it was usually the preface to “Right in the Kisser!” That’s what Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Cramden would exclaim to his wife Alice in The Honeymooners when she got under his skin. For some reason SEO experts think we’re attracted to this kind of cartoonish, wrestlemania-type of violence and have slobbishly skewed that assumption into the seemingly never ending stream of headlines saying “So and So Slams So and So” or “So and So Destroys So and So.” Internet publications and ad mills have followed the gravy train right along. “Rips,” “blasts,” and “bashes” also seem popular.

This type of click bait headline writing has become so ever present, overused, and tired that it has certainly lost all meaning to anyone except the chronically bored or the algorithmically programmed. As lazy as it is, I guess it works. Which is not only a sad commentary on humanity but a sadder one on algorithms and the SEO industry.

I mean where’s the creativity? Why not use “lambasts,” “harangues,” “admonishes,” “berates,” “objurgates?” Or for those with syllabaphobia how about “dress down,” “haul over the coals,” “lays into,” “lace into, or “slag off?” 

And just imagine how many of those boringly inept and inutile headlines are being fed into AI training engines. 

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

The Groans Come Out for Ronna and NBC

NBC brought out the groaners, the howlers, and the passersby by announcing the hiring of former RNC Chairperson Ronna McDaniel (nee Romney) as a political commentator. Judging by the volume I’d say that got just what they bargained for: more attention.

I can’t say I’m really surprised. NBC has populated it’s talent pool with a number of former GOP stars from the past, including at least one other former RNC Chairperson, Michael Steele, who hosts his own show on weekends. Given that most of those folks have established reasonably anti-Trump street cred, it will be more than interesting to see how this plays out. My suspcision is we’re not looking at yet another Come-to-Jesus conversion. I expect NBC wants to turn more segments into a Crossfire-like spitting match. But even that seems too simple, so who knows.

If NBC had any balls and integrity as a news organization it could have created a different story with this hiring. Maybe even practice some journalism instead of entertainment. Knowing full well the shit storm it would kick up, they could have announced it and then produced a segment with Ronna and one of their more respected show hosts, wherein Ronna is questioned hard about her past activities and statements covering for the forces that want to upend elections and the constitution. It’s all well chronicled and on tape in the NBC vaults. Set her up with a 2 or 3 block segment with Nicolle Wallace and let it play out.

But, as I said, that would take some balls. The decision to roll the announcement of Ronna’s hiring out the way it did speaks louder than the actual hiring itself.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Some Things We Just Know On The Merry-Go-Round We Call Life Today

On the merry-go-round of life some things we just know. Some things we just know but find that others want to pretend something different. Here are some things we just know.

Donald Trump is a criminal, a rapist, an insurrectionist, a scumbag, a loser, a lousy liar, and more beyond redemption than most of the evil people in recorded history. He’d love to top even that list. He wants to dismantle the US Constitution and any other aspect of governance as long as he can stay out of a prison jump suit that might clash with the color of his makeup while grifting his way to the grave.

The Republican Party is the largest collecton of cowards and liars ever gathered under the guise of a political party, afraid of any shadow with a hint of orange in it, and terrified of the ignorant constiutents they represent and claim to love. They deserve whatever comes from their cowardice and lying. The rest of us don’t.

Elon Musk is a drug-addled fool who just happens to control a few companies, somehow has a national security clearance, a hoard of wealth, and could care less about anything other than for whatever is in his brain at the moment. Or the next.

Too many American voters don’t know which way to turn because either fork in the road seems like a tortured path. Too many American voters need to pay better attention, because if they are not careful they’ll lose the ability to make choose how severe the torture is going forward.

Big Tech isn’t Big Tech anymore. Big tech, like most other human endeavors, is in the Big “Let’s Make All The Money We Can before the merry-go-round stops” game. The merry-go-round always stops.

Artificial Intelligence can be both a boon and a bust. It will be both. You don’t have to be intelligent or real  to see that coming. 

Social Media can be fun. Social Media can be harmful. In either case, only if you let it. 

Wars are destructive, foolish expressions of ego and and desire. Rules and Laws of War are silly made up sing-songs  to allow men to destroy each other and anyone in their way in service to those egos.

The Media is a mess of its own making in covering any of the above, and seems to enjoy swimming in its own slop with its mouth agape. Anyone in their right minds would have stopped the bleeding by now. Unless they just enjoy self-harm. But if it bleeds it leads. Even it’s draining the lifeblood out of you.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.