Several different authors have been hinting at it for decades, but I believe this by Abraham H. Miller is the first piece I've read that cuts directly to the truth about a university "education."
The Realities of ‘College Education’
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Monday, June 15, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Anderson Cooper Sucks Balls!
Normally, the people who bring us our cable McNews are so steeped in professionalism and obsessed with meeting strict, self-imposed standards they forget that they need to sprinkle all that weighty fare with the levity of a lighthearted, childlike tee-hee every now and then.
That's why it was so good to share a giggle with Anderson Cooper, Ali Velshi and David Gergen last night on AC 360 in their discussion of the Tea Party tax protests:
Of course, light-hearted riffing on "tea-bagging," or some variation thereof, has achieved full-fledged meme status within the past couple of days. The normally self-serious Rachel Maddow and guest Ana-Marie Cox delivered a segment well spent on the subject, and Keith Olbermann, that exemplar of journalistic and personal integrity, featured the term two nights running, with the "tea bag" tally running well into the hundreds.
Maddow, Olbermann and Cooper are especially in need of fun and frivolity at the moment, if only to take their minds off the fact that they're all getting pounded in the ratings. Unfortunately, gravitas is not much to Americans' liking, no matter whether such seriousness is an objective reality or only a empty claim. They may have professional perfection to purvey, but as far as the public is concerned, they're just selling sedatives. To put it more succinctly, nobody's watching them. (Present company probably excepted).
Cooper's show, in particular, is really taking it on the back end ever since Glenn Beck took his act over to Fox News earlier this year. Say what you want about Fox and Beck, and I reckon a lot of what you say would be true, but the question is, What does this tell us? What it tells us is that there is or was enough to this tea party business to make people stop caring what the Coop, Maddow or Olbermann had to say. Talking up the protests to Cooper's former viewers has been quite a coup for Beck, and it's only a matter of time before AC360's sponsors start to follow the money. It seems unfair, but that's the way of things sometimes. It's enough to make a really serious news reader to feel like he's been rode hard and hung up wet, as we used to say in the South.
They've got to somehow win all those rubes and those advertising dollars back. That's why it's so important for Cooper, et. al to answer Fox's tea party distractions with jovial incessant references to "tea-bagging." That is, if they want to continue to claim the mantle of professionalism.
That's why it was so good to share a giggle with Anderson Cooper, Ali Velshi and David Gergen last night on AC 360 in their discussion of the Tea Party tax protests:
Of course, light-hearted riffing on "tea-bagging," or some variation thereof, has achieved full-fledged meme status within the past couple of days. The normally self-serious Rachel Maddow and guest Ana-Marie Cox delivered a segment well spent on the subject, and Keith Olbermann, that exemplar of journalistic and personal integrity, featured the term two nights running, with the "tea bag" tally running well into the hundreds.
Maddow, Olbermann and Cooper are especially in need of fun and frivolity at the moment, if only to take their minds off the fact that they're all getting pounded in the ratings. Unfortunately, gravitas is not much to Americans' liking, no matter whether such seriousness is an objective reality or only a empty claim. They may have professional perfection to purvey, but as far as the public is concerned, they're just selling sedatives. To put it more succinctly, nobody's watching them. (Present company probably excepted).
Cooper's show, in particular, is really taking it on the back end ever since Glenn Beck took his act over to Fox News earlier this year. Say what you want about Fox and Beck, and I reckon a lot of what you say would be true, but the question is, What does this tell us? What it tells us is that there is or was enough to this tea party business to make people stop caring what the Coop, Maddow or Olbermann had to say. Talking up the protests to Cooper's former viewers has been quite a coup for Beck, and it's only a matter of time before AC360's sponsors start to follow the money. It seems unfair, but that's the way of things sometimes. It's enough to make a really serious news reader to feel like he's been rode hard and hung up wet, as we used to say in the South.
They've got to somehow win all those rubes and those advertising dollars back. That's why it's so important for Cooper, et. al to answer Fox's tea party distractions with jovial incessant references to "tea-bagging." That is, if they want to continue to claim the mantle of professionalism.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
"Post-Partisan" O to Republicans: "I Won...Bitches"
Every single day for eight long years, I've had to see and listen to brain dead left-wingers, thinking more with their bile ducts than their brains, screaming about a recklessly arrogant president, not taking the opinions or concerns of others into account, belittling their points of view, etc., etc.
Our current president swore to change all that. He promised to be the "post-partisan" president, and vowed to listen to left and right alike.
A respectful president he vowed to be. A listener: A uniter, not a divider. A man not infected with the sickness of hubris.
That's why his behavior toward House Republicans concerned over wasteful spending in his "stimulus" legislation has me so confused.
The New York Post from Friday night reports that the president handled Republican objections in the typical left-wing fashion: When you've been called out for doing or saying something incredibly stupid, don't defend your actions. Instead, make some snide remark about the other person listening to Rush Limbaugh.
For one thing, when you want to take the taxpayers' checkbook and write checks for nearly a trillion dollars on an ecomonic "stimulus" that's only going to stimulate porkbarrel projects for unqualified contractors in Democratic districts, it doesn't require someone listening to Rush Limbaugh for that person to have doubts about the whole plan.
For another, when you want to do something as stupid as this, could it be that all the ideas or advice that Rush Limbaugh might wish to share couldn't possibly make things any worse than you're rushing to make them?
And finally, could you be a bigger fucking baby if you tried?
Can you imagine if your predecessor had handled Democratic objections to his economic policies by saying: "I won. I'll trump you on that."
Can you imagine the animal howls of rage from the Left if Bush had tried to dodge responsibility for his own proposals in such a rude and churlish fashion?
I can't imagine it, quite frankly. Because President Bush never said anything this childish or this reckless.
Not that any of this will matter to most of those few who hear this troubling account of President Obama's childish arrogance. For them, he will always be the "post-partisan" leader he promised to be, not the tyrant he actually is.
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