TimWoolery.net Documenting the Journey and the Learning Curve

#77 – You Do Not Represent Us

#77 - You Do Not Represent Us

For reference - the general, all-around grousing I do about different topics tends to become background noise for many. It's been pointed out to me by several people that I just have the knack for being everyone's favorite little brother. The guy you love to mess with, the guy you love to be messed with by. The enertainment value alone is worth the price of admission, except for when I'm screaming at the Oakland A's scoreboard because a vendor I do business with sponsored that idiot dot-racing game they show between innings. Then, you want me to settle down. Relax.

Whatever, I've got something new to have a beef about. For context, let's examine the following two newspaper articles from two different newspapers:

Article 1 - Take your friend on a Man Date.

Article 2 - Girls Cut Themselves.

As for the overall speciousness of the idea that people of a similar gender spending time with each other can only be explained in the context of romance or homosexual overtones pretty much goes without saying. See for yourself here. But that article, coupled with the other one (which is a column, really) where the author says "If you have a daughter and this surprises you, it only confirms that you are out of the loop" - now I've got a beef. A really big beef - one that Clara Peller (the "Where's the Beef" lady) would have no trouble finding.

The hard part of writing something called "Dose of Reality" is that sometimes, things will happen that are so insane, so unbelievably dumb, that for a while, it makes you question the reality that you have come to accept. Don't look at me like that, you know what I'm talking about. The kind of moments that happen any time you get two diametrically-opposed political pundits in the same room. The kind of moments that inspire Lewis Black to come up with his very own five-minute monologue. For those of you that know of Mr. Black, I'm talking about his "If it weren't for my horse, I would never have made it through college" story.

Things like a columnist of the Chron, a fairly well-established bastion of journalism, having the temerity to tell me when I am (or am not) out of the loop. Even if you are a columnist - I'm assuming that you attended at least a few basic courses where you learned one of the very basic rules of writing the news, or writing about it: Where facts are printed or alleged, you better know what you're talking about. Leave judgemental comments for the Op-Ed page - stick to the facts. It's weird how writing for the news has become more and more about editorializing issues as they happen and sometimes even beforehand.

So yes, I'm angry. But I'm also puzzled - I'm also scratching my head and going, "Is it me? Am I the one who's insane?" I know what quite a few people would say in reply but I'm being quite serious here. I was listening to NPR a while back, actually it was just on as I was moving a car. A show about the Nazi's influence over Germany was running and some analyst/talking head was discussing how the Nazis were able to run roughshod over a substantially larger amount of people in the days before they weilded the power they did over the state. An explanation of sorts was given, I'm couching this by saying that I don't have a reference to a work that backs up my statement, I'm honest enough to admit that. The explanation was that the average person in that time was so unsure of his ground; even though things were happening that were terrible, illogical and just plain wrong - that everyone else around that person was accepting it and going along, he was unsure of how much it was worth to be that one lone dissenting opinion. The pyschology of herds and whatnot.

Reporting news, communicating data, all activities where we play the proverbial "Telephone" game are intrinsically subject to random, arbitrary factors. You always run the risk of being misunderstood or taken out of context. Ever look at the Bible? Most debated book in history - even stuff like "No fornication" or "Do not steal"...people are still after 6,000 years going "Wait...oh, No stealing....wow". You can be as clear as you like on a topic, people will still misunderstand if it suits their purposes to do so - ask the parent of any child. Ask Dennis Leary, he'll do a 20-minute bit on it. It's hard enough to be understood when you're just being bare-faced, no-holds-barred honest. Actually, it kind of freaks people out. Then you get sent to classes on diplomacy and tact because your honesty is seen as tactlessness and abrasiveness. The world is full of discrepencies; I'm just trying to be part of the solution.

Back to the subject - given the fact that communication is so tenuous, that the odds of being clearly understood in both statement and context, is it really responsible to go around intimating fact when it's so obvious that an opinion and not a fact is involved? I've got a running beef with the local rag - the Argus - which I documented here that falls into the same category - making decisions about the publication of news that has little or nothing to do with the scope of the audience. You have so much power in the publication of data that you become an arbiter over the hearts and minds of thousands of people you will never meet. That's scary...Lord Acton's quote about the corrupting influence of power springs to mind.

Back to the subject, in any given newspaper, on any given day you can open it up and read examples of how that person, that editor or that publisher had an axe to grind it comes out in the stories they write. In how it's being reported. I can listen to 560AM (Home of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh) and here their news reports - "Democrats vote to KILL TERRI SCHAIVO" and then flip the dial up a couple of notches to 960AM - "Republicans vote to SENSELESSLY PROLONG THE SUFFERING OF TERRI SCHAIVO". I can't take it - it's shamelessly spinning events in real time and all it's making me do is completely mistrust whatever you're saying. The old story about the boy who cried wolf - pretty soon, when he did have a problem nobody cared. They were tired of being fooled. With clear lines in the sand drawn by people who are supposed to be objective sources of information, all you get are screaming monkeys that make Josef Gobbels sound like a DJ on an easy-listening station.

So, what do you propose, Tim? I propose nothing - I trust that you are (or have the capacity to be) an intelligent, thinking human being. I think you should make your own decision. With that little piece of hope / faith / whathaveyou...I'm giving you more credit than people like Sean Hannity, Dr. Laura or Randy Rhodes ever will. Sean Hannity says it often..."Now more than ever, we need you three hours a day". He said that during the election, it sounded almost like he was frothing at the mouth in those last few days. I thought it'd calm down once the election happened and GWB won but it wasn't over. He kept going. He still suggested to us that we listen three hours a day. I keep meaning to call in one of these days and just simply ask: "Sean, what happens if I don't listen?" I've gone one better and just turned him off. Between afternoon traffic and Sean H., I almost need a Valium by the time I get home to calm down.

And it's amazing how quickly you do calm down once you turn it all off. Stop watching cable, stop listening to talk shows on the radio. Stop subjecting yourself to people who interrupt their haragues about how money-driven their opponent is to sell you stuff like Vermont Teddy Bears, cell phones and mail-order roses. Irony overload, man. It's gotten so thick and so heavy that it's developed it's own gravitational field. It'll be like a collapsed star that eventually explodes and takes out everything in the near vacinity.

I'm sure a bunch of people have pointed this out before and I'm honest enough to admit that they probably said it better. I'm still working the kinks out of my little home radio station...no commercials, no DJ's. You might want to do the same.

- Tim Woolery, 4/28/2005