CNN
The First CNN Opinion Column That Isn’t Complete Garbage
There must be a calamity at CNN headquarters because they managed to publish someone who’s not a complete loon jackass.
Glenn Beck rewrites civil rights history by Will Bunch
About time someone pointed this out. The whole reclaiming of the civil rights movement as if it was the Republicans who marched for equal rights is just laughable to anyone who isn’t a complete loon jackass, and it needs to stop. That was a different era and the political parties weren’t on the same platforms as they are today. Southern Democrats opposed civil rights, and when the various rights acts passed, the Republican party invited them to their side with the implementation of Nixon’s Southern Strategy. It’s just history and facts, and has nothing to do with today. The people who should get credit for restoring civil rights to black Americans are black Americans themselves. They were the ones who marched and fought dogs and fire hoses.
Glenn’s strategy here is to strip Obama of his special status as the first black president, because once bigoted white Americans feel they were responsible for granting civil rights to blacks, they are no longer perceived as racist for attacking Obama. It’s all a racist attempt to bring down Obama by honing in on his blackness as a political weakness. Obama is a strong politician with few real weaknesses to his credit. Great speaker, interesting personality, visionary initiatives, super-intelligent. Really the only thing he can’t control is the color of his skin. It’s just sick and politics needs to get past this.
Gee, mail.
CNN is back with another cutting edge story about the recent email craze.
Gmail service goes down — again
Nothing spells frustrating like not getting your emails instantaneously, but instead having to get them almost-instantaneously. It’s official, the days of the postal service were the Golden Age of communication.
And who do you go to for a quote when you’re the #1 cable news network for 96 months straight? You go to blogger Ron Schenone, that’s who.
“It seems to me that people want to believe that Google is infallible,” he wrote on the Lockergnome blog network. “Though Google may be the king of search, their equipment is man made and their technicians are human.”
You say blogger, I say poet. Nicely done, Ron. You are the Henry David Thoreau of bloggers, and your blog is an experiment in simple living entitled “Walden”.
The Alan Lebetkin Diet Plan
This lead article summary on CNNNN tells you why you’re so fat.
Why exercise won’t make you thin
While it’s true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger, Time.com reports. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight-loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words, isn’t necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder. full story
You’re fat because you believe that crap.
This article misdirects blame for you being unable to control your impulse to stuff your fat face on exercise, not you.
As long as we’re oversimplifying things, here’s my alternative 5-day diet plan:
MONDAY
Stop stuffing your fat face
Exercise more
TUESDAY
Stop stuffing your fat face
Exercise more
WEDNESDAY
Stop stuffing your fat face
Exercise more
THURSDAY
Stop stuffing your fat face
Exercise more
FRIDAY
Stop stuffing your fat face
Exercise more
I wouldn’t be surprised if you click through to the article and it offers wisdom like:
“Experts agree the best way to lose weight is to watch Dance Your Ass Off every Tuesday at 8!”
WTF?
CNN is reporting that Jaycee Dugard, a girl who was abducted in 1991, has been found. Here’s the paragraph of the article that makes the least sense:
He witnessed the abduction of the blond, blue-eyed girl, who was wearing a pink windbreaker and pink stretch pants as she walked to her bus stop on June 10, 1991.
Why are you telling me that she was blond and blue-eyed, CNN? You think I didn’t care about the story when I thought Jaycee Dugard was black?
Know what I really don’t care about? CNN.
Great Article
Just bringing this to your attention:
Kenyan offers livestock dowry for Chelsea Clinton
The guy apparently made this offer back when Clinton was in office, and now he renewed the offer to Hillary during a state visit:
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, the session’s moderator, commented that given the economic crisis at hand, Chepkurgor’s dowry was “not a bad offer.”
However, Clinton said her daughter was her own person.
“She’s very independent,” she said. “So I will convey this very kind offer.”
The audience laughed, but Clinton’s comments were no joke to Chepkurgor, who described the younger Clinton as a “beautiful, disciplined and well-natured woman.”
We have a word for this behavior in America. Stalking. How great that the role Hillary plays as ambassador of America’s good will means that she needs to play along with her daughter’s stalker.
The other possibility this raises is another Kenyan birth certificate controversy when Chelsea inevitably runs for president of America by 20xx.
Democrats Compromise with Democrats!!! Rejoice!
Well this is annoying:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/29/health.care/index.html
A group of fiscally conservative House Democrats announced today they have reached a deal with the chamber’s Democratic leaders on a health care reform bill.
This whole Blue Dog Democrats nonsense has been very frustrating to those of us who dream of a better society. It’s come down to democratic control of congress no longer being enough for shaping democratic public policy.
On the topic of health care, I’ve been trying to understand why opponents earnestly feel like giving all Americans health insurance is a bad idea. This is a byzantine effort of logic, and I’m afraid the answer is less earnest good will and more genuine selfishness. The arguments all come down to not wanting to pay higher taxes.
I think taxes are a necessary and important part of a healthy society. As long as we’re stuck with the whole social contract concept, we might as well adhere to it.
Anyone opposed to taxes is in effect opposed to public schools, traffic lights, law enforcement, hospitals, roads, clean water, and so on. We pay taxes so the government can provide us with these necessary daily services that are not profitable and thus not managed by the private sector. I’m happy to pay taxes because I’m very pleased to be living in the American bubble, and I’m happy to pay a little more if it gives us all, including myself, health care. I’m not afraid of the government taking all of my paycheck. That’s just nonsense.
People who complain about taxes should be made to live in a parallel society lacking all public services. I suggest naming this place Texas.
Reporting on Reporting
What happens when the media covers Palin ripping on the media? Or, to paraphrase the question, what is the sound of one hand flipping the bird? It’s this:
Palin fires parting shot at media
Palin is working on a book, she says she’ll help other candidates, and she’ll give speeches. One of her first post-governor events will be August 8 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.
She could make good money doing all of that. She also could be on a path that leads to 2012; it’s called keeping your options open.
“It’s called keeping your options open.” Wonderfully phrased. Terse, sarcastic, caustic. You betcha Sarah Palin might do any of these things and we’ll have to report on it cuz unlike Sarah P. we only have one option to consider, and that’s reporting news.
I’ve been watching that very editorial-sounding sentence all morning waiting for a revision and still it remains. They must really hate this woman over at Mainstream Media Inc.
More Burning Car Stories
CNN links to this ABC news story:
Man saves girl from burning car
Don’t tell me I’m not right. (I’m referring to a previous post, if you’re one of those cretins who hasn’t read my whole blog. You should get on that.)
Here’s a comment someone left that I enjoyed:
John McDonald ROCKS! What a real life superhero! He was embarassed about being interviewed, but there was nothing to be embarassed about. It kind of reminds me of the movie Spiderman 2. There is a part where Peter Parker (a.k.a. Spiderman) loses his powers, but still runs into a burning building to save a little girl. John is a real life Peter Parker.
“Spiderman 2″ makes it funnier because Spiderman 1 definitely did not cover the whole “superhero as a regular guy” concept. On the other hand, the Spiderman series are the only superhero films in the history of cinema, so I guess the it’s fair that you’d have to go all the way back to 2004 to find an example of a superhero doing something heroic. By the way, I have a vague premonition that the Spiderman movies were adapted from some sort of source material, but only a genius would know about that.
I will say that I’m glad he detailed his labored comparison by explaining that Spiderman is also known as “Peter Parker” and by noting that actions taken by John McDonald are similar to actions taken by Peter Parker. The logic is truly convoluted and in need of explanation.
God I hate commenters.
The "I Kissed a Black Guy" Defense
Wow, this is pretty great:
Officer says he’ll ‘never apologize’ for Harvard professor arrest
Crowley also said he was exercising caution and is clearly not a racist based on his previous actions.
Those actions, Crowley told the Boston Herald, include giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to former Boston Celtics star Reggie Lewis, who suffered a fatal heart attack in 1993 at Brandeis University when Crowley was a campus cop.
Clearly Crowley is not a racist. I mean, he KISSES BLACK MEN.
Here I Go Again
This is going to sound hyper-cynical and mean-spirited, and that’s how you know it’s coming from me. The lead story on CNN right now:
Strangers saved life of boy trapped in burning SUV
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/21/milwaukee.rescue/index.html
Another feel-good no-brainer from CNN. We, the readers, are supposed to feel awe for the kindness of strangers in an otherwise cold, cold world. CNN brings us hope for repair of the unraveling fabric of society in a world where people are increasingly isolated and mistrust each other.
Ummm, disagree.
Society is not constantly falling apart because that implies that there is an exact state that represents the correct version of how things should be. Society is evolving.
To that end, a crew of strangers pulling a boy out of a burning vehicle is not a miracle by any means. It’s common sense. If you are walking down the street, and you come upon a burning vehicle with a boy trapped inside, you don’t shrug and keep walking. You do what you can to save the boy.
The cynical perspective here belongs to CNN, for expecting that ordinary people would walk away, and that only people already invested in the well-being of the boy could have the capacity to come to his aide. Therefore, it is treated as a story hook that random people would act to save someone they don’t already know.
How news is reported, of course, is not entirely a product of CNN editors, but a reflection of the national mood, and so I think these stories shed light on the constant state of panic people have towards societal change.
We all might relax a little if we can stop worrying over how our culture evolves, and just accept that it will no matter what. I believe that no matter what cultural changes take place, we human beings won’t get to the point where we would walk away from a kid trapped in a burning SUV. Believing that it could get to that point is expressing no faith in humanity, and on a smaller level reveals your own monstrous thinking. Having that “gee whiz!” attitude about something so obvious demonstrates that it might not have occurred to you to help the boy after all.
By the way, I’m talking about Glen Beck.
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