Welcome to the home of the very worst of the meretricious poetasters!
number 30 for 8-20-05:
Fuck Matt Drudge
Even great journalists and writers need a weekend sometimes. Seeing as I am a piss-poor journalist and a half-assed novelist, I took one this week, thus the last two days are missing. I will now do another lightning round, as stories are backing up, but look for a week with MANY stories. They've been stacking up faster than a daily column, if you can believe that. There's no end to the outrageous shit in the news.
Like this:
Now, don't get me wrong. Drudge is a good news source. The problem is, he only reports on the shit he finds interesting and/or the shit that the gullible public is lapping up like gasoline. And that shit is just plain retarded. He also likes to smear people he doesn't agree with. I can dig that. You can bet your ass that if Bush had said in 1996, "Fuck Iraq! I'm gonna get them...somehow! You watch!", I'd be all over that shit like Star Jones on a pizza. But here's the difference. I attack public political figures. Drudge attacks political opponent moms, Hillary Clinton, and Michael Jackson, who might as well be a woman. Who profits from these attacks? Only Drudge with clicks. When I attack, say, the president, you think that's gonna up my clicks? Fuck no. I have no clicks to begin with, and you want to know why? Because this is honest, and this concerns integrity.
That doesn't sell.
But the above? I mean, how desperate is his bias that he would use TWO of his biases to make one shitty corollary point? Here's the logic, in case you can't pare it down.
John Roberts once advised president Reagan not to honor Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson turned out to be a pedophile (who has never been convicted, but hey, that doesn't matter to the media).
Therefore, John Roberts has impeccable judgment and should be a Supreme Court Justice.
Here is a similar argument.
Neal Bailey once advised his parents, neighbors, and anyone he could talk to that the war in Iraq was a bad fucking idea, because they have no WMDs, Saddam was an empty threat, and political pressure would work.
The war in Iraq turned into an amoral torturous quagmire (proven, but hey, that doesn't matter to the media).
Therefore, Neal Bailey is an un-American person just out for attention and should be imprisoned. Or:
Therefore, Neal Bailey has impeccable judgment and should be a Supreme Court Justice. Or:
Neal Bailey just stated the obvious, and blowing what he did up for political favor is tantamount to citing Hitler's penchant to make art when everyone does it in college and only idiots like me try and do it for a living.
In other words, Drudge, please, cut the crap.
It's hard to demonize a pregnant woman. Not because it's sensible, but because people are blatantly biased to children for the same reason they're biased towards seals. Because somehow, people think if something is cute and life affirming, it's obviously better than other things. This is the same attitude behind racism and genocide (my race is familiar! I love it!), but hey, who's counting?
So we have a complex issue at hand when it comes to kidnapping. People seem to somehow identify with white teenage girls who go missing. Especially pregnant ones. Problem is, they never put black missing girls, or Hispanic missing girls, or missing men, unless they're cute, of course (the boy scout a few months back).
So imagine my surprise when a BLACK WOMAN whose case I've been following for about three weeks now FINALLY made it onto Fox News.
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And I'm reading the headline like, what the fuck? Is the world turned on its axis?
Then I read the articles. It's because she's pregnant. It's that whole abortion, babies are sacred vibe coupled with a black lady who straightened her hair and wore white make-up. That's what did it.
Which is almost more bullshit than letting her rot in obscurity because she's black, but not quite.
It still leaves open the question, so now there's one missing black lady on Fox News. Where's the first missing grown man? Even one beloved of family, if you have to have that cute angle?
An interesting and good side product of this bullshit is the fact that no matter how hard you try and smear someone, it's damned near impossible when they're a mother. I mean, look at this story two paragraphs down, read the words, look at that lady's face, and try to hate her. I think she's got some nutty ideas, and I just see her and think, "Mom?"
This article will die, but it's basically a picture of Sheehan above an attempt to call her nutty when she says Bush is the world's biggest terrorist.
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I ask you, what is terrorism, if not killing selectively in offensive action to promote a political cause? Even if that cause is freedom? Because, see, freedom to us is colonization to the Iraqis. Hard to see that through your white colored glasses, I know, but...
In other words, to summate, pregnancy is not the end-all be all, any dumb fuck can do it (and most dumb fucks do), cute does not mean utility, and the obvious, that Michael Jackson is a weirdo, is not prophecy. I should be a justice.
Rick Santorum, the man they named the bloody and semen filled waste that ends anal sex after for his rigidly oppressive regime against both women and gays, is also party to crowd control and the limitation of expression.
Some kids went to his reading to try and talk to him about some of his oppressive viewpoints, and the police banned them permanently from the mall, threatened to take them from their parents, and threatened them with arrest despite any wrongdoing.
This is entirely legal, but when we as a society allow these things to happen without consequences to the actors, we are sad indeed.
Even assume the kids were there to heckle, and had shouted at Santorum and disturbed the proceedings. Doesn't it makes sense to wait until they do? They were on private property, yes, but why do we use that as an excuse to excuse what is obviously a blatant attempt to hide any viewpoint you're not comfortable with or that endangers your personal pride or publicity?
Here's another salute of the ass to you and yours, Rick Santorum. Stay away from the presidency, or you'll rue the day you never met me in print.
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I know you've likely never heard of this, but you may, as soon as Fox and etcetera get the net and start making it front page news like it is instead of goddamned page eight filler.
This is going to sound crazy, but then, read the report yourself.
There was a source called Able Danger that knew about Mohammad Atta and other terrorists, and exactly what they were doing on 9-11. They told people. They were ignored. Since 9-11, the president and even the 9-11 commission forbid this information from becoming public.
Why?
With this news media, we will never know. Just like with JFK. Because the news item is to close to us, we don't want to believe the US had any fault in it.
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Here's a story I REALLY don't fucking get. Most of it is because of the shoddy ass reporting done by the reporter.
Basically, a lady was fired and a restaurant has come under fire because they handed a check to a couple after they ate dinner that said, "Jew couple" on it.
The reason it said that is because they use shorthand cues to remember which check goes where. Like, "Man in blue hat".
Seems sensible to me, right? Well, little did I know, apparently, being Jew is somehow a slur. Because that's what they said it was:
"Elliott Stein and his girlfriend were handed a bill that said "Jew Couple" near the bottom, as a table identifier used by the waitstaff. The slur also turned up on Stein's credit card statement weeks later."
When did saying "Jew" become a slur? I thought it was just short for Jewish, right?
OH YEAH! I forgot. In this country, even if there's no negative connotation, even identifying a characteristic of someone is racism, right? Cut the shit.
What the report failed to show, critically, is if the couple was Jewish or not. If they weren't, this might be an offense to them if they hate Jews. In which case, FUCK them. If they are Jews, then it's just a damned identifier and they're being two sensitive. It's be different if it said, "Kikey Jewish couple." But it didn't.
At least, I think. This report reminds me of a third grade essay, it's so ill informed for the reader. That's two breitbart articles that have sucked so far. Watch this source if you get news from it. It appears to be irresponsible.
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Here's an example of more "discrimination" that doesn't exist.
Mom takes a 7-year-old kid with cerebral palsy and autism to a movie. The kid laughs loudly and disturbs the other patrons. The theater manager asks them to leave.
Now they get a news story.
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You know what? I've seen that annoying, laughing kid in the movie. I've seen that annoying, laughing kid at a dinner I'm paying 25 bucks for.
I didn't want to, but I didn't have any choice. Why? Because we pity the crippled and feeble so much that we pretend that when they're acting out, it doesn't disturb us.
It does.
It's honest, and it sucks, but it's true. The theater owner was within his rights. Is this like the Santorum appearance? Yes. Except the kid actually created a disturbance. Is this like the missing kids? Yes, because it involves a cute autistic boy and his rich white mom.
"Well Neal, couldn't the theater owner have been more compassionate?"
What makes more sense? Piss off one mom and her annoying kids, or piss off a whole theater? He couldn't see the publicity coming, no doubt, but then, I wonder who called the media. Could it be the attention whore mom who feels inadequate because she had a feeble kid and can't just love him, she has to love herself, too? Methinks yes.
If I were the theater owner (which is why I'm not a theater owner) I would have offered them a private showing. In fact, I'd have one showing of each movie where you could yell at the screen, laugh as loud as you want, hell, throw popcorn. That way I could eject all the assholes and just say, "If you want to raise hell, come Tuesday at eight."
Eject the loud, cell phones or retarded. Movies are a place for silent contemplation of one of our art forms. Period.
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An interesting study shows that Fox News does not influence political elections. Good. I didn't figure they did, but now there's a study to back that up. My theory holds true, that people make their own dumbass decisions.
What scares me about Fox, and what continues to scare me about Fox, is not the fact that it "converts" Democrats. Especially given that I am not a Democrat, nor would I be if I had to decide between Republican or Democrat. I am Republican, largely, though the party that presumes to espouse those values is instead an extremist group of shills.
What scares me about Fox is the fact that it has a very large and dedicated group of viewers that allow it to "preach to the choir" without checking the facts. Much like if I said here that President Bush had a visible erection on TV, most people that read it might take me at my word because they believe me to be trustworthy even if I'm full of shit.
But imagine me without the citation, without the integrity, and with an agenda, and you have Fox News. So suddenly Republican A who thinks that Hillary Clinton is a extreme often but has SOME fundamentally good ideologies suddenly finds her to be that whore wife of the philanderer and the antichrist incarnate.
Do people decide that on their own? Yeah. But does it help if Fox News keeps, without proper sources, declaring her a Juden again and again? I don't know. You decide. Fair and balanced, right?
To reiterate, yeah, people make their own decisions. But if something they like keeps asserting that the world is not only flat but has an end, and they were already predisposed to believe that, maybe, just maybe, they'll go to war in Iraq and DIE for that flat Earth.
Just a thought.
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They did it. They're about to shoot Hunter into the sky from a giant cannon. Though I can't be there myself, I am in my heart, and thank you, Johnny, for helping this great man earn his fitting and desired tribute.
I fucking miss Hunter Thompson.
He didn't even put out too much in his last few years. That's not even the issue.
I don't tend to want to meet the people I admire. I know they have their own lives and don't want to be bothered. I honestly think, though, that Hunter Thompson is one of the few people in this world who can understand what I'm going through here for my art, who might have a choice piece of advice or two. I had hoped to meet him.
He is my journalistic idol...and he is a man who will fade, like Bukowski, never knowing his inspiration and just how far it stretches. Nor will the ignorant fucks who don't know who he is or how to use his gift to print, but instead parrot his contribution to society.
Like Drudge.
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