Paralysis of the Mind

I just don't care about immigration.

Apparently, this puts me in the very small minority of people, because according to all the self-important news sources, immigration is a VERY BIG ISSUE in the next election (possibly several elections).

I've never been able to reason why. Most of the people who are against immigration are the same people who vote for the politicians who are most likely to OK outsourcing jobs. Because it's not OK for a Mexican to take your low-wage job in Arizona, but it's cool for a Pakistani to get it in Pakistan, apparently.

Furthermore, we're all immigrants here. I know that's an overused historical marker, but that doesn't make it any less true. Civilization started on the other side of the world; we all had to make our way to this end of Earth to be here right now. Doesn't mean we should let everyone into the country, but it also sort of notes the silliness of strolling the border with a gun ala the Minutemen.

And what are we protecting, exactly? Very few illegal immigrants are going to show up and take high-powered (and high-paying) jobs. This isn't a knock against someone doing a menial labor job, but if you can be easily replaced by someone who doesn't speak the language and will work for peanuts, well, you need to improve yourself.

I know, it's very easy for me to say, having gone to college and having plenty of advantages that lots of other people never had. But seriously, these people are fighting so hard to work in a meat-packing plant? Where the injury rates and chance of dying on the job are the highest of any work in America? It might pay the bills for now, but golly, don't expect to be able to walk properly by the time you're 40 (and definitely don't expect to be on the pension plan).

And that's the rub, I guess. It's a lot easier to shriek at how unfair it is that those dirty (and they're always called dirty, for some reason) immigrants are stealing jobs, rather than saying "Jeez, I work in a place where I can be replaced by someone who doesn't speak the language or know the local customs."

That's a harsh reality that nobody really wants to face, but that's pretty much what the story is. It could be changed, of course, but -- again -- most of the people who hate immigration hate unions, and will vote by their feet and by their ballots to stop unions wherever possible.

In that light, it's hard to give a crap about immigration, because the opportunities are there to make it a non-issue, to make it a minor point, to make it something that very few people HAVE to worry about. But so long as the downtrodden worry about gay marriage, tax rates and abortion, someone will be making money by stepping on their necks.

Perhaps they should emigrate to Mexico.

Gobble, gobble.

Things to be thankful for:

1. 1/21/09

2. Josh Beckett (welcome, welcome)

3. My own personal Christmas ham (aka the blog mascot)

4. Family, friends, acquaintances (too lazy to spell), co-workers, detrius, hangers-on, posse members, blog readers, street performers and of course, stray ferrets

5. Boston (city, band, beans)

6. Prussian Blue
(Note to humor impaired: That's a JOKE. Funnier joke? That Teen People was going to do a story about them as "up and coming artists, comparable to the Olsen twins." That's totally thank-worthy.)

7. The slap-fight between "Little Katie Communist" and "Douchebag Lauer" during the holiday parade this morning.

8.Oh yeah, and Al Roker didn't blow away during any of the hurricanes this year. Big fan.

9. America. (Bless it... BLESS IT...)

and of course...

10. Snow on thanksgiving! WooT!

Enjoy the bird.

News story after news story crow about the end of the daily newspaper.

Cutbacks at the Baltimore Sun? Early retirement for 130 employees at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch? Las Vegas losing papers? Every news item is delivered with either humbly-concealed glee (from TV newscasters) a tone reserved for obituaries (newspapers) or 88-point shrieks of delight (the Internet).

To be sure, newspapers have a difficult time in our digital age. The Internet is simply unbeatable for instant information. TV will always be faster than the newspaper.

Yet within all this crowing (or, conversely, the re-reading of newsprint's obituary), everyone seems to agree that a) this is the fault of newspapers b) this is pre-ordained and c) this is how it ought to be.

Unfortunately, these three statements are matched by a much more important fact that is often neglected: People, at large, read newspapers less because they're dumber than they used to be.

And when I say dumber I don't mean in the "SAT score" sense. I mean dumber in the sense of what passes for news these days.

See, at one point in time, people gave a shit about what was going in the world, the nation, the state, and the town. At least to a point, a large segment of the population considered it important to know a little bit about what is going on in the world around them.

Things haven't changed -- if anything, world news is more important now than ever before -- but what people care about reading today has nothing to do with what once was. Newspaper circulation is down, but celebrity trash magazine readership is at an all-time high. CNN Headline News, once the standard-bearer of TV news now devotes 2 hours a night to a terrifying monstrosity called "Showbiz Tonight." The "newsiest" story on that show? Why, it's 10 minutes devoted to the possible Jennifer Aniston-Vince Vaughn romance!

And that's dumb, when it comes right down to it. But it's what the audience expects, apparently. Newspapers and magazines are under guidelines to use more briefs, more boxes, more visual elements -- all at the cost of having fewer or shorter stories.

There once was a time when that would be considered "dumbing down" the product. But at some point, our culture-at-large decided there WAS no standard of information, and that really, bite-sized chunks was the best way to present things. Thus from The Washington Post came USA Today. And Life turned into People, which was broken off into InStyle. Print organizations hold up their hands and sigh, "That's what the people demand."

But is it really? Hollywood made a decision once that special effects and big-named actors would carry the big movie months of the summer. They dumbed down their movies as much as possible to attract a young audience -- and have, instead, infuriated anyone who ever wants to see a movie with a compelling plot and decent characters. This year has turned into one of the worst, in terms of both profits and good movies, that the industry has ever seen.

Will people go to see good movies? The answer has to be yes. Movies like "Revenge of the Sith" can co-exist with something like "Sideways" without people crying a death knell of plot-driven buddy films. So why can't real sources of information co-exist in the world where "people" can't read more than 5 inches of text at a time? Newspapers increasingly turn to the "big-budget effects" to draw in more readers.

The answer, of course, is yes, and "people" really means "corporate ownership and advertisers who want to make a fast buck."

Some of these changes are good; papers make their way on the Internet, newspaper design has become a lot better over the past 10 years and photography has improved and become easier in the digital age. Nothing wrong with any of those things at all.

But the crux of the matter remains "Do you know more now, having read the paper, than you did before you picked it up?" Probably. But considering how astonishingly little Americans know about world politics -- let alone the national, state or local variety -- just being a little informative isn't enough. After all, you can Google "Belize" and learn oh-so much in 45 minutes.

What you can't get, though, is a local look at your candidates. And you might not be able to read an in-depth piece on Samuel Alito. Those are still a newspaper's job, idiot magazines aside. A newspapers job is not to get suckered into becoming a fashion rag -- which some are spiraling into -- to catch the eye of "young" (read that as stupid) readers.

Furthermore, despite the crowing from digital corners, looking at most websites, the biggest stories that break and are discussed are linked from "old media" like newspapers and magazines. Bloggers who sneer at newspapers never seem to have a problem droping copious links to the media they slam. It's ain't plagarism, but it's verrrrrry hypocritical on their part.

And lastly, why can't we blame the readers?

Fine, I say, you can't read about history, politics, science or art? Don't. Nobody can stop anyone else from being a rube. But I can tell you, Brad Pitt doesn't want you to read those trashy magazines. After all, celebrity "journalism" has become so bad, so galling, that it's hard not to feel a little sympathy for stars. They need the media, sure, and they use the media, but it's starting to get ridiculous.

Britney Spears is pretty obviously an idiot; if other idiots want to read about her, they're free to do so. But it shouldn't be in a place where well-read people like to tread, and the trend of people buying trash magazines should by no means signal the death knell of anything but basic common sense.

Today is Election Day.

There's always a lot of static about voting that tends to crop up 'bout these times. Last year it got a little crazy, what with P-Diddy threatening random New Yorkers with his .44 if they didn't vote. Vote or die indeed, bitch.

It's a great idea that always angers me. Pushing people who don't want to vote is only going to anger them. I don't know why, but it's human nature to say, "Hey, @$%& you, I'm not gonna vote because you told me to."

No one, it seems, takes the time to explain WHY we should go vote. And it isn't just a "Of course TV isn't going to take 20 minutes to tell us why we should vote" it filters all the way down to schools. Civics lessons? Right. Just as soon as we get out of those standardized tests in 12th grade.

I nearly puked tonight reading my local newspaper's "Teenwise" feature, a man-on-the-street thing featuring young folks. Of the 14 people surveyed, did any of them know any of the local candidates? Of course not. Did any of them care? No, including a particularly great response from a 16-year-old who said he only cared about his job. Hope MickeyD's treats you right in your 30's, man.

I'm not going to rant and rave about the education problem. But I will rant about what it is doing to our country.

Democracy is very much a fragile flower. Just because America has a stable government to date doesn't mean it will last forever. No, I'm not expecting the government to collapse to be replaced by Christian/Islamic/Jewish/Voodo-fascism. But give politicians an inch and they will take 50 miles of your land (probably to put up a hotel complex and a Wal-Mart).

And people complain that because of that, the system doesn't work or isn't responsive. But that's the system -- we elect people to speak for us and then we have to watch them like hawks until we know we can trust them. It seems so obvious, right? You wouldn't let a random person hold your checkbook on the street and then walk away -- but that's exactly what you do if you vote and then ignore what your representative is doing with your voice and your money.

Worse, if you don't vote at all -- well, you're still paying into the system. You're still letting someone get your money with NO say at all. Either you're far too trusting or else you're completely insane.

And I know that the two-party system isn't fully representative. But if you don't like how the government is being run, you can vote for the opposition every time out. Eventually, someone's gonna notice that incumbents are winning 0% of the time. Or you could "throw" your vote away on one of those batshit loser third parties. Which, I suppose, could mean that they wouldn't be losers anymore. (But I don't want to get crazy with ideas, here.)

If you appreciate roads, schools, the military, hospitals, police, firefighters, border patrols, the FCC, the Internet (hooray for Al Gore!), the patent office, or even Donald Rumsfeld, today you have your chance to do your small part.

Don't vote if you don't want to, but don't complain if you don't have your say.

Michelle Malkin is one of my favorite writers.

First, she's a wacko conservative who claims she has no bias. Then, as a Phillipino-American, she claimed her in last book that interning Japanese-Americans during World War II was a good plan.

Sadly, she based her book on something that was a historical forgery. And one that was easily found to be such, too.

Now, despite the stake holes stabbed near her heart and the silver bullet gunshot wounds that -- apparently -- haven't slowed her, she's back with a new book about how only lunatics are liberals. And she's got lots of good examples, including small-time felons, message board posts and several statements from Democratic politicians that she doesn't care for.

Fair enough. There's some loonies out there that nobody wants on their side.

But my biggest problem with her type of "journamalism" is that her message is "Look at me, I'm fair and unbiased." And you know, she's almost right -- if her starting point wasn't "Look at me, I'm fair and unbiased -- and going off the well-known fact that everything that has gone wrong in history was caused by liberalism."

And that's where conservatism starts, sadly enough. Surely, there are completely logical and fair right-wingers out there. But when the starting point of the message is "Everything on the left is wrong" there's absolutely no room for fairness, now is there? You can be totally with-it and rational and fair and ready to debate, but if the starting point is "Everything you're about to say is wrong" then there's really no debate.

Furthermore, Malkin makes the weird choice (again) of saying that the mainstream media is always wrong about conservatives. But of course it is, again, if you're going from the starting point that conservatives are always right, because the media giveth and taketh from BOTH sides -- as it's supposed to, as it was designed to do. That message filters in to these supposedly unbiased people and says, "You need to listen to us, because we're on your side."

How can you be unbiased if all you read and listen to is people who you agree with? Unless you accept information that MAY contradict what you hold to be true, you're always going to be biased, because what else can you base your feelings on? If you surround yourself with yes-men, you're gonna feel pretty damn smart -- and people like Malkin are enormous yes-men for lots of angry and disaffected white men who love Christmas and hate the fact that the scary liberals are going to take it away. Why do they think that? Well, you can't trust the media -- so we'll trust the message.

But they're not biased; it's just all they know.

And they know it because people like Malkin are on all the time selling that message. Okay, some dude in Kentucky took a chainsaw to a Bush sign in October 2004? Great -- tell me how that's worse than Ann Coulter, who said flat-out that the only way to talk to a liberal was by beating them with a blunt object, getting consistent air-time? Or the sick-fetish society that is The Wall Street Journal Opinion page? Conservatives try to hold up that one guy on Dailykos.com who says "Fuck Bush, I hope he dies" is equal weight with Rush Limbaugh making up stories from whole cloth about Democrats?

But it's not biased, you see, because BOTH sides do it. See? A message board remark does equal 30 minutes on a cable-TV network; an off-the-cuff remark by a Democratic mayor in Podunk does equal a ridiculous lie from the WSJ editorial page. The right is so good at making that equivalence stick that they've even hypnotized some major media into making that slick comparison. "But both sides do it," they say, and reporters turn into human tape recorders, obligingly reeling off quotes from both sides as if that's fair.

And they're sort of right. Both sides do it. But it's not the same malevolence or frequency or volume. And those are the important things. I can make up a lie and say that my uncle used to be George W. Bush's cocaine dealer. I'm lying. So were the crazies that came up with the Swift Boat scheme that touched off the public's imagination. Is that equal... really, really equal?

Michelle Malkin would argue that it is. So would Coulter, who wishes violence against someone like me. Or Limbaugh, who thinks drug-users should be executed. Or Peggy Noonan, who thinks magic dolphins brought Elian Gonzalez to America. These people have wide forums in which to share their views, but act as though they're relegated to putting up yard signs in Kentucky as their only method of communication. Or how they seem to think they're powerless, despite having a fantastic media share and basically the entire federal government at their disposal.

Once you start from a position so ridiculous (Only liberals have power, only liberals get in the media, only conservatives are right) you end up with nothing good, no matter how biased or unbiased anyone is. Do I really think Anne Coulter would condone murders if she could? Probably not. But are there people out there who would be inspired by her? You bet. And while I believe that free speech almost always means more speech, that doesn't mean we have to give hate speech a spotlight. And it definitely doesn't mean that a little blog is the same power as a newspaper page. But don't tell Michelle; she's probably reading this post right now so she can equate it to a position paper on why everyone who is liberal and wears glasses is gay.

I'm sure she'll be on Fox News soon to complain about how she can't get time in the media.