Thanks to Paul Krugman for writing about what is The Soundbite of the healthcare reform debate, first reported in the Washington Post:

At a recent town-hall meeting in suburban Simpsonville, a man stood up and told Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.) to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.”

“I had to politely explain that, ‘Actually, sir, your health care is being provided by the government,’ ” Inglis recalled. “But he wasn’t having any of it.”

Nearly one-third of Americans are already on a government-provided healthcare plan.  Just don’t tell them.  That way, we can keep reading opinion polls like this 7/29 Gallup:

Less than half of Americans (44%) say that a new healthcare reform law would improve medical care in the United States, 14% say it would not change it, and 34% say it would worsen it.

The ‘government hands’ quote might be funny, but only until you realize that such ignorance is what prevents the country from improving the lot of its citizens.

Slate, complaining that this “joke” has started to wear thin, had an astute observation by Michael Kinsley it repeated:

The big lie that Medicare isn’t, nor ever should be, financed and regulated by the government, is a nice illustration of Slate founder Michael Kinsley’s hypothesis, articulated in his 1995 book Big Babies, that infantile denial lies at the heart of much contemporary political disaffection. The American people, Kinsley wrote, “make flagrantly incompatible demands—cut my taxes, preserve my benefits, balance the budget—then explode in self-righteous outrage when the politicians fail to deliver.” Although Kinsley conceded that big babyism had been enabled by both conservative and liberal politics, he wrote: “It is conservatives, more than liberals, who stoke the fires of resentment and encourage vast swaths of the electorate to indulge in fantasies of victimization by others.” This is perhaps 1,000 times more true today than it was 14 years ago.

SEE ALSO:  Are ‘Death Panels’ hurting Republican credibility with voters?

“Once these stories get out there, they’re hard to stamp out because our media do such a lousy job of speaking truth to stupid.” – Bill Maher, July 31, 2009, L.A. Times

CNN's Dobbsian President Jon Klein: "Yes! We have no standards!"

Ugh.  During the recent Lou Dobbs birther dust-up, CNN President Jon Klein confirmed a suspicion I’ve had that the cable news networks have fundamentally debased American journalism (cue laugh track).

King Birther Dobbs

Lou Dobbs should have stuck to business reporting.  Instead, Dobbs has fashioned himself after someone more of his era, Father Coughlin.  From Coughlin’s Wikipedia article:

He was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience, as more than forty million tuned to his weekly broadcasts during the 1930s. Coughlin used his radio program to promote Franklin D. Roosevelt and his early New Deal proposals, to issue antisemitic commentary, and later to rationalize some of the policies of National Socialist Adolf Hitler and Fascist Benito Mussolini.  The broadcasts have been called “a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture”. His chief topics were political and economic rather than religious, with his slogan being Social Justice, first with, and later against, the New Deal.

Dobbs as a modern-day Coughlin was evident with his alarmist xenophobic advocacy journalism on the subject of immigration. Now he enters the fracas as a light of hope for the “Birthers”, recently tying the two issues together to say Obama might be an illegal immigrant:

I’m starting to think we have a document issue. You suppose he’s un — no, I won’t even use the word undocumented, it wouldn’t be right.

The birthers are primarily composed of southern redneck Republicans (the party’s base, and Dobbs’ demographic):

The conspiracy has a regional flavor. Overall, even including Democrats and independents, only 47 percent of respondents in the South said they believed Obama was born in America, with 23 percent saying he was not and 30 percent saying they were unsure. In the Northeast and Midwest, the percentage of respondents who believe Obama was born in the U.S. was over 90 percent.

Ninety-three percent of Democrats say the president was born in the United States, as do 83 percent of independents.

Virtually nobody except for Lou Dobbs and America’s Backwater Republicans gives any serious consideration to the birthers.  So why is Lou Dobbs on CNN  promoting the tin hat redneck crowd’s most delusional hope to an international audience?  Ratings – the only thing that matters in cable news.

After Dobbs first salvo on behalf of the birthers was aired on CNN, he continued giving fuel to the birthers on his radio show by stating that, “Obama should put his birth certificate out there. I’m still looking for validation.”

Dobbs has no intention of backing down, but at least the birther nonsense seems to have hurt his ratings. Thank God for small favors.

Important lesson via CNN President Jon Klein

The most important lesson to be learned here has nothing to do with the birthers, and everything to do with how cable news is operating.  CNN’s President, Jon Klein, has had to defend Dobbs before, but his recent defense is illuminating:

We have no control over what he says on his radio show. It’s not a CNN radio program so he does what he does on the radio separate from what he does on our air. So we ask you and anyone writing about this, to look at what he says on CNN. It’s the only thing we control.

“It’s the only thing we control” is not correct.  You control giving Dobbs a platform.  You control what kinds of opinions you judge to be worthy of airing.

The defense Klein raises is problematic for the public interest, something that a news agency is supposed to hold supreme after “truth”.  It tells people turning to CNN that the network could care less about the integrity of the people they want you to hear, as long as they do their nasty business off ‘their air’.

Yeah, but…Dobbs did say these things on ‘your air’, Mr. Klein, and continued with them on his radio show.

Lou Dobbs as Father Coughlin is one thing, but the debasement of cable news journalism is more evident at Fox News, where few standards are in place for the pedigrees of their pundits, as I wrote last week:

Whether it be foul-mouthed stalker Rachel Marsden; the scandal-fabricating Aaron Klein; former gay porn star and male escort Matt Sanchez; or the crazy racist Hillary supporter Harriet Christian; the number of bottom-feeders with few journalistic–or personal–ethics who are paraded before us by the mainstream media is startling.  It’s not even a left-or-right issue.

With cable news thinking people like this are worth listening to, and people actually listening, there appears to be absolutely no way to fix this breakdown in our national discourse on cable news.  When there are no standards for opinion-makers, the quality of Americans’ opinions suffers.

Thanks, Jon Klein, for confirming that your network could care less what your pundits do and say when they are not on ‘your air’.  It logically follows that David Duke could have his own show on CNN, as long as he doesn’t talk about white supremacy on ‘your air’.

Or maybe even the white supremacy bit is okay, if you appear on Rachel Maddow.

Michigan could learn from Gotham's rebirth.

Miriam Greenberg’s piece in the Brooklyn Rail on New York City is a fascinating read about re-branding a hellhole.  Greenberg illustrated New York’s bottom with a brilliant anecdote: upset over a series of Alitalia Airlines ads in 1971 predicting that New York City was going to disappear (and specified a date).

The airline was promoting its new non-stop Philadelphia service.  The ads displayed ominous images such as the Statue of Liberty sinking in a national media campaign to alert passengers that they no longer needed to connect through Kennedy:

That these over-the-top ads were at once so strangely believable and politically volatile reveals both the deep anxiety that they tapped into and the wider, inter-textual universe in which they emerged. They invoked the trepidation, even dread, with which the “average tourist” now boarded their New York City-bound planes, buses, and trains. And they were only the latest addition to a vivid and disturbing set of images portraying New York City as a sinking, dying metropolis, imagery that was seen repeatedly in magazines, newspapers, movies, and the TV news, and which—in combination with real events on the ground—was to help shape the public perception of the city for a generation.

New York City’s huge comeback from the 1970′s is now the standard playbook for how places with damaged reputations can bounce back (the Israeli government uses it as a model).

The Economist had a story about struggling Michigan, one of the worst-off states in America, and their attempts to re-brand and attract tourists:

The news out of Michigan has been relentlessly gloomy. The one area in which Michigan leads the country has been its unemployment rate—15.2% in June, compared with a national average of 9.5%. But in recent months Michigan has tried to present a more cheerful message. A $10m tourism campaign, aired on national television from March to June, was the state’s most ambitious yet. Though Michigan faces a $1.7 billion deficit, new bills propose to raise money for more promotion.

Here’s one of the commercials that is part of the new campaign, Pure Michigan:

This blog has taken part in outing two gay celebrities.  I was not the first, but  the second person to out Fox News anchor Shepard Smith; shortly thereafter, Academy Award-nominated director Kirby Dick became the third.  Dick’s explanation as to why he focused on Smith in his 2009 documentary Outrage! mirrors my own reasoning:

The film does report on one journalist, Shepard Smith, who was first reported on by Kevin Naff of the Washington Blade. Shepard Smith works for Fox News, which has been a major factor in the rise of anti-gay hysteria in this country over the past two decades. As one of the most prominent people in Fox News—according to the New York Times, Smith makes 7 to 8 million dollars per year—his complicity with the network’s homophobic agenda rises to a level of hypocrisy that I felt was worthy of reporting.

Although my stomach turns every time I see a FreeRepublic.com or eNationalist.com referral hit my Shepard Smith post, I still believe in the merits of outing him.

I know of many gay celebrities who are in the closet that I would not out because they are living their lives, harming nobody in the LGBT community.   Longtime blog readers may remember that I had a chance to out Clay Aiken, but refused despite “Claymates” demanding I reveal the gender of a “friend” I mentioned who was dating him about a year ago.

The same can’t be said for Smith, or Florida Governor Charlie Crist.

Word to the conservative closeted gays who make decisions that work against their own people: the LGBT community has no more patience for Roy Cohns.

The problem with my Smith post is that I wrote it out of anger over Fox News and their destructive, debased “news” that seemingly intelligent people actually believe is fair and balanced.  Writing in anger is cathartic, but it detracts from the message.  I was in Tel Aviv photographing for the Creative Commons, and my hotel only carried Fox News (“We see them as the most pro-Israel,” my guide told me).  Every day for a week I had to watch them to find out what was happening in the U.S.

Forced to watch Fox, outing Shep to the legions of fans of their slanted reporting was the only thing I could think to do.  They are being fed their news by a gay guy.  And there are a lot of gays who work at News Corp.

In October 2007, I interviewed one of the most impassioned defenders of outing celebrities, Michael Musto, who writes a popular column for the Village Voice.  In the 1990′s, Musto outed two of the most famous openly-gay celebrities today: Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres.  Here was our exchange over the subject:

DS: What stands out as a story that you did where you were bowled over by the reaction to it.

MM: In the 1990s I was one of the few people outing celebrities—

DS: —You outed Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen Degeneres—

MM: —I outed Rosie and Ellen, and it’s hard to even imagine now that they ever were in the closet. You have to educate the new people and say, ‘Guess what, they were in the closet at one point.’ It’s hard to believe that Rosie was doing this delicate dance on her talk show where she was the ‘Queen of Nice’ and the single mother who had a crush on Tom Cruise and I was pointing out the absurdity of it. I was even more angry at the media than people like Rosie, because the media would play along with it. They would do huge profiles of her without even addressing the fact that she was obviously a lesbian. I just spoke at Yale a couple of weeks ago and talked about outing, and nobody argued. I was like, ‘Come on! Somebody argue!’ I used to get so many arguments over this that I used to have a list printed out with an answer to each argument.

DS: Do you have a theory or philosophy you follow about outing?

MM: My theory is just that public figures sign an implicit deal with the media that their private lives are to be covered, and to leave out gayness because it is distasteful or there might be homophobes out there is homophobic in itself. It’s hypocritical and it makes ‘gay’ the last taboo. But I don’t get arguments anymore. I’m like, ‘Come on people! Yell at me!’

DS: What about the argument that it is more appropriate for people who are working against the gay community, a Larry Craig, if you will?

MM: People like Michaelangelo Signorile started by outing Malcolm Forbes, not anybody anti-gay. He was just saying ‘He’s dead, he’s gay, let’s say so in the obituary.’ I don’t believe in outing only the hypocrites and anti-gay people because then the only people the public is going to know are gay are horrible, hateful people.

DS: There are a lot of gay people who aren’t talked about in Hollywood now. Merv Griffin was an example. Do you not feel the need to spell it out for some people who lead very openly gay lives but that nobody talks about?

MM: Yeah, that was a big uproar after Merv died. Merv almost came out himself; was it Vanity Fair where he said ‘I’m quarter sexual, I’ll sleep with anybody for a quarter?’ or something? 99% of the obits didn’t even address it the fact that even Merv had almost coyly come out. So yeah, I wrote something to try and rectify that.

DS: But why not write something before he died?

MM: Please! I totally did. In the 90′s there was a group that put up those ‘Absolutely Queer: Jodi Foster’ and Merv Griffin posters? I ran the Jodi and Merv posters in my column. It was huge. I was really going places nobody was going; nobody was running pictures of those posters because everybody was so terrified of lawsuits.

DS: Did you ever come under editorial pressure over those?

MM: No, and the Voice staff at the time was very anti-outing, but nobody told me not to go there, and I’ve never been sued in my life and I’ve been here for 22 years.

I’m a fan of Lil’ Kim; in particular her magnum opus “How Many Licks?” from 2000.  It is a raunchy, unapologetic, foul-mouthed ode to her sexuality.  It could be described as brave.  The melody and beat are infectious; lyrically, it is almost Dada and definitely Degenerate.  It hasn’t aged in a decade.

Wikipedia is not known for the quality of its writing.  Leaving aside the obvious horrors, there is a preference for Spartan prose because people think it sounds more “Neutral Point of View”.

Occasionally, though, a reader will stumble across something written so brilliantly, one has to wonder if the author J.D. Salinger might possibly be a Wikipedia editor.  I have no basis to say this, but I believe there have been whispered rumors for years that Salinger is a Lil’ Kim fan (but only her early work).

Please, when you read the article description below of the plot of Kim’s “How Many Licks?” video , read it aloud, with a pseudo-English Masterpiece Theatre accent:

The music video follows a story line in which the protagonist, Kim, releases a line of comestible dolls, intended to be used by gentlemen to practice cunnilingus. In the initial stanza, Kim rhapsodizes over the multitudinous men from heterogeneous cultural backgrounds with whom she has engaged in intercourse, and how they satisfy her sexually and non-sexually. The figurine introduced during this sequence is christened, “Candy Kim.”

The subsequent verse “goes out to [her] niggas in jail” who smoke cannabis and practice onanism while envisioning themselves having sexual intercourse with Kim; the singer suggests she is so prepossessing that images of her cause the internees to engage in pugilism. She dubs herself “Pin-Up Kim,” whose images festoon the cells of the incarcerated.

The concluding section introduces yet another incarnation, “NightRider Kim.” NightRider Kim drives an ebony Lamborghini at high velocity, decelerating only when she sees a comely man. The watchword for this final section is “She doesn’t satisfy you…you satisfy her.” She demands that the listener appease her, admonishing that, if he fails to do so, he must attempt the task again until he succeeds. She stresses that men should practice cunnilingus on her “like it’s rehearsal for a tootsie commercial.” This allusion reveals the apparent basis for the title of the composition, because since 1970, Tootsie Pops has been running a commercial with the tagline, “How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?”

Mr. Salinger, is that you?  When people compose, anonymously, descriptions of your work like that, you know you’re an artist.

To fully appreciate it, though, you must listen to the words and watch the video.  Beware, it will assault the senses of a proper gentleman or lady:

The Wiki-Conference New York City is on this weekend at New York University, and I’m one of the panelists.  Along with some upcoming summer plans, I will not be able to write again until next Monday.   Enjoy the break and have a good week.

Just a few days ago brother Malachy McCourt said Frank did not have long.  The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angela’s Ashes died today from metastatic melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, according to Susan Moldow of McCourt’s publisher, Scribner.

I met Frank and took this shot of him at a tribute to Benedict Kiely (who had recently died) at Housing Works Bookstore Café in March 2007.   He was 76 and in good spirits.  I was very shy at the time, almost embarrassed, to take photographs of people I respected so much.  My camera was a cheap, 2.3 megapixel Fuji my sister Cheryl bought me for my birthday; it certainly didn’t look serious.  I had no confidence.  When Frank asked me why I was taking the shots, I told him it was for Wikipedia and he brightened.  We talked about the site, and he asked why we didn’t just use PR photographs.  I explained to him that we could only use work whose copyright was Creative Commons.

“David,” he said, “you mean to tell me you give all your photography away?  And don’t make a penny?  My mother might say you were a fool!”   He laughed to show he meant the comment good-natured.

I explained to him that I wasn’t a professional, but that the photography gives me a substantive excuse to go out and do things like meet him.

“Mr. McCourt,” I said, and he quickly corrected me to use Frank as I continued, “my life is far richer for moments like this, with you, than the $10 I would chase to have it published, which would only cheapen the experience.  This camera has given me an interesting life, but only because I’ve shared it.”

Colum McCann, Christy Kelly, Christopher Cahill and Frank McCourt by David Shankbone, March 2007

He looked at me for a moment, and then asked if I was going with the other writers, including Christopher Cahill and Colum McCann, on a bar crawl after the reading to celebrate the Irish poet Kiely (everyone was invited).  I was staying away from drinking at the time and told him my stomach didn’t feel right, so I would miss it.  Then he clasped my shoulder, and said:

“Too bad, it would be interesting to hear more.  Society has become so possessive.  People keep things that have no value unless they are shared.  That’s very respectable that you do what you do.”

Then I took a couple of shots, and he continued to mingle.  It was moments like that which fueled my energy to eventually photograph over 500 of the biggest names found on Wikipedia, and my confidence climbed.  Thank you, Frank.  Later that year I would photograph Malachy McCourt in his Manhattan apartment, where we got into heavy philosophical discussions that have never left me.   The McCourt family had a good impact on me at a time when it mattered, and I am thankful to them.

The portrait of Frank above, like all my photography, is licensed Creative Commons and available for reproduction.  Click on it to download a higher resolution version.

Here is the New York Times obituary.

It was exactly one month ago that Gail Shister entered the race to be “first” to call Walter Cronkite’s pending death.  I almost wrote a blog post last week wondering whether Shister felt at all macabre that the “most trusted man in America” was still alive, until I realized it would conflict with an earlier post I wrote.

NPR has an excellent obituary that I recommend you read. Also, check out Haikuku‘s ode to Cronkite.  I’ve missed journalists of his caliber for years, so my mourning is tempered.

Pat Buchanan was pied in 2005 at Western Michigan University not because his racist views were unknown. Image: Melanie Maxwell

Dear Daily Kos,

I write this as an unabashed liberal: why has your site become a shill advertising machine for the destructive “journalism” of the cable news you oft-decry?

Whether it be foul-mouthed stalker Rachel Marsden; the scandal-fabricating Aaron Klein; former gay porn star and male escort Matt Sanchez; or the crazy racist Hillary supporter Harriet Christian; the number of bottom-feeders with few journalistic–or personal–ethics who are paraded before us by the mainstream media is startling.  It’s not even a left-or-right issue.

The question the blogosphere needs to answer: why perpetuate the sins of these so-called news networks by writing endlessly about the cretins they slap on our screens?

The answer works like this: crazy-talking pundit gets on the O’Reilly Factor, Rachel Maddow or Chris Matthews, and then the blogosphere is happy to have something to write about the next day (“This crazy person on [Fox News/MSNBC/ABC/CBS] said something crazy!  Shame!“).  It drives traffic, baby, and comments!

While there is some fun in pointing out how awful people can be (I’ve done it), sites like Daily Kos et al. have devolved into waiting for the latest clown to be paraded on cable so that they can write about their attrocities.

The networks love it – it brings in viewers, and creates “buzz” around their shows.  Links and embedded video clips ensue.

The blogs should focus less on debating the ponyboy pundits’ words, whose kinked thoughts about humanity merit little serious consideration, and more on why the networks giving such outrageous people air time only seems to bring benefits.  That’s why you are seeing more of these characters.

Instead, Daily Kos and the rest discuss and debate their gutter perspectives, giving them the credibility of artificial controversy.  Our country’s most vile views are pored over in the minutest details, breathing life in to them as people become curious about the fuss.  Blogs like Daily Kos are  unwitting dupes in the game.  They used to be forceful critics of the practice.  Why  take off the air trash-talking nitwits whose documented histories show little integrity, when they get so many people watching, talking and typing?

Racist Pat Buchanan shows the blogosphere’s utter fail

The most recent dust-up is Pat Buchanan, who has been letting everyone know he’s for white men, and that the GOP will continue to flounder with voters as long as they stay away from race-baiting and culture wars.  Never mind that Buchanan has been saying these things for decades, including that he thought the Republican Party could learn a lot from Ku Klux Klansman David Duke (“Take a hard look at Duke’s portfolio of winning issues and expropriate those not in conflict with GOP principles, [such as] reverse discrimination against white folks”).

When Buchanan appeared on Rachel Maddow last night saying the United States was built 100% by white men, Maddow predictably smacked him down.  And the blogosphere predictably went to town on filling its role of advertising the crazy people on cable news and their crazy words.  Maddow, who put this old man with his long-discredited views on her shows, comes out the hero.  Why wouldn’t she put a racist on her show, then?

Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck: they are modern versions of the 1990′s love-fest with Ricki Lake, Richard Bey, Jerry Springer and Jenny Jones.  They put the same guests on, except now they wear suits and there is no live studio audience to boo, hiss and call the guest a “dog who should be in the dog house.”  That’s become the job of Daily Kos and the blogosphere.

Daily Kos, the 24-hour-news cycle’s best advertiser

The Daily Kos is perhaps the most egregious cable news advertising shill out there.  In just a little over a day, Kos and his bloggers have written no less than seventeen posts exploring the minutia of Pat Buchanan and his racism.  They are all predictable diatribes that effectively expand Buchanan’s name-recognition and give his racism a wider airing, often with a video clip:

The Imperial Wizard Of MSNBC.
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 06:07:16 AM PDT
632 comments

Dear MSNBC
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 07:09:06 AM PDT
63 comments

You are gonna break my heart dear Rachel!
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 10:09:53 AM PDT
75 comments

Open memo to MSNBC re: Tonight’s Rachel Maddow Show
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 10:36:20 AM PDT
79 comments

I’m Not Angry At MSNBC.
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 12:34:21 PM PDT
67 comments

Buchanan calls Robinson “boy”?
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 02:26:34 PM PDT
129 comments

Pat Buchanan, your electoral math doesn’t add up
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 03:09:35 PM PDT
15 comments

Maddow calls Pat Buchanan “dated”
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 06:44:45 PM PDT
66 comments

What would white people do…
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 05:40:04 PM PDT
387 comments

Rachel Maddow decides she’s had enough”
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 07:05:03 PM PDT
610 comments

Buchanan is right. This white man is full of resentment.
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 07:21:51 PM PDT
447 comments

Dear Rachel – boot the bigoted “Uncle Pat”
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 07:19:54 PM PDT
66 comments

Why We NEED Pat Buchanan on TV
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 09:09:52 PM PDT
52 comments

A Word on Princeton and Affirmative Action
Thu Jul 16, 2009 at 10:10:22 PM PDT
151 comments

I’m gonna miss you, MSNBC.
Fri Jul 17, 2009 at 05:37:45 AM PDT
109 comments

Mything the point of “White Men Built This Country”
Fri Jul 17, 2009 at 07:08:31 AM PDT
49 comments

Is Pat Buchanan Really Playing with Fire? (with poll)
Fri Jul 17, 2009 at 08:04:53 AM PDT
1 comment

How many different ways can you parse the words of a racist before you are the platform for their views, Kos?

The worst was the Rachel Maddow boot-licker ErinW43′s post  (“Rachel Maddow decides she’s had enough“)  that cheered the same Maddow who handed a racist her platform again:

After seeing MSNBC talking heads continue to treat Pat Buchanan like the lovable but misguided uncle for far too long, Rachel Maddow decided to call a spade a spade on her show tonight during Buchanan’s guest appearance.
[....]
But Rachel Maddow continued to prove her skill as an effective pundit and stopped the MSNBC practice of politely giving him a pass and instead coolly and calmly, but forcefully, called him out on his views.

Yes, but she still put him on as she has done multiple time, and will do so again in the future.  These appearances on what are meant to be serious shows lend credibility to Buchanan, which is how he makes his money.   ErinW43′s shilling forgets the last time Maddow ‘called out’ Buchanan.  From the August 2008 Daily Kos story “The Beauty of Rachel Maddow’s Smackdown of Pat Buchanan Last Night“:

Keep this in mind when you’re watching Pat Buchanan spout his asshat opinions on every show. Here is the Pat Buchanan I know and loathe. And three cheers to Rachel for the SMACKDOWN. You are so awesome!

Erin, how many repeat smackdowns does Maddow need to have before you realize they are contrived?  It’s a game that ErinW43 and many  bloggers play into because they don’t see that when the cameras are off, host and vile pundit wink, wink each other over the fireworks that will get the attention of…ErinW43 at Daily Kos, et al.

They never ask where is Maddow’s responsibility to obtain decent guests who challenge our intellects, instead of bait our moral outrage.  After Buchanan’s performances on MSNBC this week, it’s the only question an intelligent person should ask.

The Jon Stewart-Tucker Carlson feud, where Carlson couldn’t believe that Stewart refused to play by these unwritten rules, should have clued you in, especially since Carlson has never gotten over it.

Rachel Maddow and Daily Kos seek short-term gain, ignoring long-term harm

Maddow is going by the playbook: create controversy, create buzz and watch the ratings climb.  When the cameras are off, guest and host talk about what a “smackdown” it was, and how it will be good for ratings.  That’s how Ann Coulter gets booked.  “What crazy thing will happen next with her?” is not David Brinkley, it’s Ricki Lake.

Whether they are adding anything productive to our national discourse is a meaningless consideration.  That ain’t the game.  It’s short-term gain in viewers and web traffic, over the long-term harm it does to how we respect each other and our views.  The blogosphere, once pointed critic, is now the lap-dog of this pablum. Why?  It brings traffic and comments.

Short-term gain that ignores long-term harm was a key element in our financial meltdown.  People wonder why the media is in meltdown?  Those ratings they are getting from all of this horror aren’t followers; they are people grabbing popcorn and watching the spectacle of their desperate attempt to forestall their implosion.  The blogosphere is now part of the show.  What’s left in our debasement?

McCourt giving a reading at Housing Works bookstore in New York City in 2007.

According to his brother Malachy McCourt, celebrated author Frank McCourt is suffering from meningitis and has as little as a couple of weeks or less to live.  He has been admitted to a New York hospital. Earlier this year McCourt was diagnosed with melanoma.

UPDATE 7/19:  Frank McCourt has died.

“He’s not too good at the moment,” said Malachy, an actor, author and politician who ran for Governor of New York in 2006. “He was doing fine, but he got meningitis two weeks ago and it turned the whole thing topsy-turvy.”

The 78-year-old McCourt was 66 when in 1996 he debuted his memoir Angela’s Ashes, which detailed his growing up poor and adolescence in Limerick, Ireland.  McCourt was born in Brooklyn in 1930, but his family returned to Ireland in 1934.

The photo above, taken with a very cheap camera, is one in a series I did of McCourt for Wikipedia in 2007 at the Housing Works bookstore.  I would later photograph his brother Malachy for Wikipedia at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which was an inspiring and interesting experience.