Making News Out of Nothing At All

The media never ceases to amaze me, and it also never ceases to manufacture news items out of thin air.

Now I am glad that the focus is off Rosie O'Donnell and on the Democratic Presidential Primary debates, but honestly, the media has totally missed the big story, and since it had no story, it invented the one that, to my flabbergastery, everyone is now talking about.

Anyone who watched the Presidential debates knows that the only noteworthy thing that happened was that former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel became the only politician in recent memory to say what he actually thought, and to tell it like it is, bringing to light political realities that have been swept under the rug by all of our politicians for fear of saying anything too negative about the country and losing voters. The media either didn't want to lose viewers/readers, or is either too brainwashed or too complicit in the conspiracy of peddling the same-old same-old, that they didn't talk about Gravel (except for some, that ignorantly dismissed him as "comic relief"), and thus they had no story.

In the absence of a story they somehow manufactured policy differences among the Democratic frontrunners from their 60 second cookie cutter responses to questions. If they didn't manufacture policy differences, they read in character differences, which is equally arbitrary and disingenuous.

If you don't know what I'm referring to then I am sorry to be telling you about it for the first time because it is sad that our media, capable of so much, is wasting their time with this silliness.

So during the debates last friday, Brian Williams asked what each candidate would do if there was a terrorist attack. According to the media, the correct answer, which pretty much everyone but Obama gave, was to immediately say retaliate, and the incorrect answer, was to say anything aside from immediately saying retaliate.

Not to mention the fact that all of these candidates would probably do the exact same thing in the situation (IE figure out what happened and then consider their options based on that), why are we judging the candidates based on their impulse to have missiles in the air as soon as possible?

What's worse is that in a way Obama gave the best answer of all, since he lead off with mentioning emergency response. According to the media, though, any thought given to minimizing casualties from the theoretical attacks would be time wasted in firing up some rockets aimed at...well, it's not important where they're aimed it, just get 'em in the sky.

I mean, let's think about things for just a second. Operation Enduring Freedom, where the US and NATO went into Afghanistan, began on October 7, 2001. So if the Bush Administration, you know, the same people who will pull the trigger and shoot at a bird before checking to realize that their gun is aimed squarely at their friend's face, get to wait a month, I think Obama can spend some of his presidency getting an emergency response plan ready, and he can spend the first five seconds into any attacks saying "send in the emergency response," instead of continuing with the book about the goat.

But because Obama didn't immediately say retaliate, now he is being critisized. Well, I guess, politically, maybe the fact that all of the other, more experienced, candidates knew to lead off with retaliate suggests that that was the best political move -- IE, what the public wants to hear. In other words, the American public is more concerned with firing back a return missle then it's concerned with minimizing the casualties from the attacks that already took place. Maybe all of the candidates believed that emergency response was obviously the first option but you can't say that on TV because the people want vengance. This makes me think of a kind of a chicken-egg problem because maybe "the voters" think that because that is the attitude of the Bush Administration and many in the media, or maybe it is their attitude because it is "the voters'" attitude. Now I have no problem with art imitating life or life imitating art but regardless of why killing foreigners became a higher priority than saving imperiled Americans from death and injury became the prevailing political viewpoint, I award no points for other politicians' echoing it in an attempt to gain votes, and may God have mercy on their souls.

Whether or not the other candidates secretly agree with Obama, Obama should not be critisized by the media for his politically risky answer. In fact, maybe the only reason why his answer was politically risky is because the media are critisizing it.

For a newspaper article by some reporter whose web page is pretty much an anti-Obama blog, see Lynn Sweet's coverage for the Chicago Sun-Times. Her piece is a perfect example of the judging and media exaggeration over nothing - and, by the way, can be found expediently on imaginary controversey stirrer Matt Drudge's website as well. Leave it to the Drudge Report to play into the mainstream media's fun and games at the expense of an American public that deserves better. For a more thoughtful and balanced coverage, although still unnecessarily slanted toward critisizing Obama, see the Washington Post's coverage. For a blog post that, I guess more or less, agrees with what I have just written, see the Daily Kos' response.

All in all, this whole episode sums up (1) what I hate about the media and (2) what I like about Obama. Rather than providing original insight and thoughtful, intelligent opinions about the substantive issues, the media once again looks to blow up some insignificant happening into a sensational controversey, all the while judging things from the same-old, mainstream viewpoint of what it thinks the people want to hear. Thanks for nothing, media.

Obama on the other hand was not afraid -- at least initially -- to give a somewhat unconventional, or unexpected, or un-scripted (from the vote pandering script) response. He gave the most thoughtful answer, and it has already hurt him politically, because it might not be what everyone immediately wants to hear. But politics must be more than regurgitating what everyone immediately wants to hear. It must be more than sticking to a script of the safest, most widely-accepted responses to all questions. It must be about people who lead rather than follow. It must be about leaders who inspire us to think of the best ideas, not just the most widely-shouted ones. And it must be about leaders who have the courage to bring those ideas to the public forum for debate even if such ideas happen to be less common or newer than other ideas, and are therefore politically risky, because, as the (old common) saying goes: no risk, no reward. Thus far Obama seems like he has the courage to take the national dialogue to its full potential, I don't know yet if I can say the same about the other frontrunners.

So let's not be too quick to congratulate the more seasoned candidates for taking the easier, safer path of what people want to hear, and let's not be too critical of a candidate who offers something (very very very slightly) different to the debate. And let's also not allow ourselves to get taken in, manipulated, and fooled by the media into believeing thta there is a big story where there isn't one, for, as the we all know, the greatest trick a media news story ever pulled was convincing the world that it existed.

Is McCain like Imus? If not, what's the difference?

We all know from my post two posts ago that I respect John McCain.

However I can't help but being reminded of the whole Imus thing when I read about McCain's recent comments that have been in the news lately.

Speaking to veterans in South Carolina, McCain was asked "whether he believes the U.S. should send Iran "'an airmail message to Tehran.'"

McCain responded:

"That old, eh, that old Beach Boys song, 'Bomb Iran,'" McCain joked and then added: "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb ... anyway, ah ..." The audience responded with laughter.

Okay, I realize this is a joke, or if not, it was at least intended as a joke. But Imus and Kramer both intended to make jokes before they made the comments that offended the nation. Plus, those guys are comedians. This guy wants to be President. The leader of all Americans. The leader of the free world, so the saying goes. Seems like at the time he was only interested in being the leader of some South Carolina veterans. Here was McCain's response to people who questioned whether his comments were inappropriate:

"Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends," he told reporters. "My response is, Lighten up and get a life."

Talking to some of your old veterans friends? Please yourself. You don't have to be the presidential candidate to know that everything they say to an audience (and some things you say in private) can and will be repeated to the whole country. What does it matter who he was talking to? Would he say the same thing to a bunch of Americans in the northeastern US? To a bunch of Americans of middle-eastern descent? They can vote too, of course, but maybe he's not interested in their votes.

Then comes the icing on the offensive cake:

When reporters asked if the joke was insensitive, McCain said: "Insensitive to what? The Iranians?"

Now this is probably taken out of context, but I am quoting from the Washington Post, so blame them if you want, or blame the Drudge Report and then have Matt Drudge blame the Post. Regardless of the context, the words imply that there is no reason to care about Iranians. They're not people like Americans are people. So we know from Imus that it's wrong to insult African Americans in a joke broadcast throughout the nation, but it's okay to insult/joke about killing Iranians? This "America and Americans are the only thing that matters" -- and not just in terms of our policies, but in terms of who deserves our respect when we talk about them -- attitude is nothing new, as it has characterized Bush's entire presidency. But now we are seeing it from someone else, who I originally thought was much better than Bush, and now I am taking a lot less comfort in the fact that Bush's term is coming to a close.

Regardless of our policy views, when are we going to learn to respect each other?

I-Bituary: Thoughts on Imus, the Media, and American Society & Culture

The Imus Story, 04/04/07 - 04/16-07

Like everyone else I am deeply saddened by last Monday's tragic events, and my heart goes out to those affected. That said, I would like to continue with my somewhat but not completely relevant theme of thinking about the American media and its interplay with our discourse, our politics, and our culture. I mean no disrespect towards Monday's events and I hope not to portray any in what I am about to write.

Maybe, the proper media response to a national (or, maybe even international, becuase this was top news in lots of international newspapers) tragedy, is to drop everything that was being focused on immediately before, and to focus on the crisis. Undoubtedly, things like this make us reflect on the relative insignificance of other things in our lives, as well as various national issues. Allowing ourselves to get upset or stressed out by something, whether a routine part of our daily lives or even a national political issue, we are, the next day, humbled by events such as these. Whether personally or socially, events such as these shake us from our prior state of routine and complacency and force us to reconsider certain things. Personally, or socially, they can make us think of the important things that we have that we take for granted, they can make us consider the important things we don't have that we lose sight of, or they can make us think about the unimportant things that we were stressing about and realize that we were blowing them out of proportion.

Because the dust has perhaps not yet settled regarding Monday's events, and because it perhaps has regarding Imus, I would now like to consider the Imus story, perhaps from a fresh perspective.

The story began on April 4, 2007, when Imus made his comments. Incidentally, many people probably began that day reflecting on Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated on that day in 1968. The media began that day like it begins most days: trying to figure out what sort of coverage would attract the most viewers. Granted, there are amazing breakthroughs of intellect, egregious acts of violence, oppression and injustice, corageous and altruistic acts of people helping one another, and other awe-inspiring signs of hope and despair at all times and at all corners of our world. But, of course, it helps if they involve a celebrity.

It was a day with no completely new injustices or breakthroughs, just the same stuff that's been happening and has been happening. Now this may be the stuff that our life and culture is all about, but it doesn't spell ratings. Viewers want to see something they've never seen before, and they want it to be exicting and unthinkable, like in movies. These things don't happen too much, so when they don't happen, we go to movies. In the meantime the media informs us that Mel Gibson is racist, Brangelina adopted a child from a developing country, Dick Cheney accidentally shot his friend in the face while hunting, and Bill Gates and Bono are trying to eradicate diseases and poverty.

As I said in a previous post, it is interesting how the media discusses social issues through celebrities who, by behaving just like zillions of other people, serve as an example for aspects and developments in our society as a whole. I am not sure exactly what I think about it, because I think it is good to raise awareness of certain issues, and this seems to be one possible way to do it. But I often wonder whether it is a good way or a very bad way to do it.

We are a product of our culture, or experiences within our culture, and our reflections on those experiences. I don't know if it's part of human nature to want to know what's up with Paris Hilton and Brangelina and Imus, and cling to "sexy" news stories, or whether it's part of our capitalistic, consumer drivern culture, and is thus a self-perpetuating cycle. The cycle would go: the media know we want sexy, they give us sexy, we watch sexy, we are seduced by sexy, we want sexy, the media know we want sexy. I don't know at what point the cycle starts, but it's clear to me by observing our culture that once it starts, it spins right round baby right round.

A story about the personal life of a celebrity? Splendid!! This calls for a sexy party!

Many of us have heard Governor Schwarzenegger's comments on how to get more people behind the cause of protecting our environment and how to raise awareness and concern about climate change:

"We have to make it mainstream, we have to make it sexy, we have to make it attractive so that everyone wants to participate."

So even in politics, the fabric of our society, the strategy being touted is "sex sells." Personally I completely agree that we need to get serious about addressing the issue of climate change or global warming or whatever, but I hope that I can honestly say to myself, about that issue, and about every single other issues that I have an opinion about, I hope I can honeslty say to myself that I am not espousing certain opinions because they are sexy.

Maybe it's elitist to say that I want to feel passionate about certain things but for the right reasons, and not because they're sexy. Maybe it's elitist to say I don't want other people to agree with me on certain issues because the issues, or the positions on the issues are sexy.

Or, maybe it's elitist to say "I want everyone to agree with me on this issue, so I am going to "make" the issue sexy, because this is how I will get everyone to agree with me."

To me, this is either elitist or it is expressing a pretty low opinion about people's intelligence, and of course a high opinion of your intelligence that you can control their thoughts or actions by sexifying things. Are people not smart enough to become concerned with issues like the envirnment based on the facts and substance alone? Will they fall for your sexification?

If advertising is any indication, people apparrently respond a lot to sex, and not so much to substance. Advertisers believe this, otherwise we wouldn't see so many commercials for cars, beer, etc that just show attractive women and don't really give us any substantial information about the product.

Once again we can ask: have advertisers tapped into the foundation of human nature and found the most salient and most effective way to get us interested in what they have to sell us? Or do we respond because we grow up and operate within the context of a culture, wherein we are basically from birth inundated with people selling "sex" to us and everyone we know? Have we allowed aspects of our capitalistic and consumer-driven culture to go too far, by adopting the strategy of "whatever it takes" to sell?

In any case, we might say that "sex sells" should be a perfectly acceptable strategy for advertisers, since they should really be free to run their business and advertise their products however they want. Companies have no responsibility to us, unless we are shareholders, in which case their obligation to us is to make as much money as possible. Whether that is, or ought to be true, is of course debatable, but what really needs to be debated is whether we want more powerful and responsible aspects of our culture, our politicians and our journalists, also embracing the strategy that "sex sells," and further engraining it into our national psyche by integrating it into our news and our politics. In my opinion, it makes a profound statement about our culture when our politicians are following the example of Coors Light in doing their job.

Politics aside, there is no question that this strategy has been embraced wholeheartedly by the media. Everyone has heard the cynical saying "if it bleeds it leads" to describe how the media choses what they tell us about and when and how much.

So given these reflections, we have at least one explination of why Imus was all that the news talked about for the last two weeks, which has almost nothing to do with what Imus actually did. To make matters worse, the discussion that the media gave to the issue, and the commentary that pundits offered while weighing in on the issue, was similarly devoid of the substance of discussing the issue of what Imus actually did. By that, I mean, we basically just got people's knee-jerk political reactions to an issue that the media had decided it was going to focus on. Conservatives spoke about the good things Imus has done in his life, and the fact that he had apologized, and said that his treatment in the media was too harsh, and that his firing was excessive. Liberals emphasized his hurtful words and those words' affects on those they referred to and others who had heard them, and said that his firing was appropriate. While Democrats and Republicans alike talked past each other, refusing to even acknowledge that this was a complicated issue where both sides had valid points, everyone seemed to forget that whether he gets fired or not is none of anyone's business except his boss/bosses, who, like all other bosses, are free to fire any employee for whatever reason whatsoever, and under the law they don't even have to give a reason (this is subject to some exceptions that are irrelevant to the Imus situation). Hearing pundits and politicians talking about whether Imus should have been fired makes about as much sense as hearing Hollywood actors talking about presidential candidates - they are no more qualified or knowledgeable than the next guy, yet there they are, on the TV, giving us their opinions, day in and day out.

Now people with ordinary opinions just like ours, getting widespread media coverage of their opinions is merely another example of "sex sells." I can do all of the research and polling I want, CNN ain't gonna have me on the TV to discuss the presidential nominees or Iraq or the Second Amendment or whatever (the same goes for Matt Drudge, etc). Of course if I had starred in Good Will Hunting, Forces of Nature, Reindeer Games, Bounce, Pearl Harbor, The Sum of All Fears, Daredevil, Paycheck, and Gigli, it would be a different story.

So the point is, while Imus didn't do anything that out of the ordinary (not condoning it, just saying, racism unfortunately exists all over this country), the media -- because he is a celebrity -- seized it and didn't let it go. Now that there is a more pressing issue facing the country, we can likely expect the Imus story to get swept under the rug, and go the way of Mel Gibson, Nick Nolte, Kramer, Gary Conditt, Trent Lott, Tom DeLay and plenty of other people that were scrutinized for doing relatively ordinary things, and then the media acted like it was the end of the world for them, and now they are doing great. I mean look at Clinton, after what happened to him, the guy has been a god over the last few years.

I personally find the "sex sells" strategy in the media very concerning, especially when we look at how these stories are so efficiently utilized by the media, and then discarded as soon as either, it is still going sexy but something sexier has come along (is it better to burn out?), or, it has simply outlived its sexiness (or to fade away?). The willingness, eagerness, and ability of the media to do this again and again should at least give us pause. During that pause, we should think about where, if anywhere the conversation should go from here, and we should reflect on what we think about all this, whether we think it is good or bad for our culture, and what, if anything we can or should do about it.

"I'd Like to Have a Racist, but Newsworthy, Word with You"

the title is these guys talking, not me of course

First off, wow. I think we should change our name from the Dissentators to the (Mothman) Prohpets, because this blog never ceases to write different things that synch up in a significant way. First, no sooner do I include Imus in one of my posts (which builds upon previous Dissentary about the use of language and offensive language / political correctness, than he becomes the talk of the town for offending the entire nation with his choice of words! Upon realizing this, I decide to write this post, about Imus and his language and the topic in general, continuing the language discussion, and no sooner do I think of that then I see Brooklyn's post about the top five uses of the word "jive" in movies. Brilliant. Now Brooklyn is en route so just incase he missed it, and for others of you who also have lives and haven't seen the footage of Imus apologizing to Al Sharpton, I will recount basically what I remember of part of the conversation. I don't remember the exact transcript but it went something like this:

Imus (trying to explain himself and apparently not getting anywhere): "I can't get anywhere with you people." (I know!!! Classic!!!!)
Al Sharpton: "What do you mean 'you people'?"
Imus: "You, and the other woman we're talking to."
Woman: "No, that's not what you meant."
Imus: "Oh no, don't try to say that, that's jive."

Jive!!!! How rediculous is it that Imus said that!!! Just refer to Trading Places, Aeroplane, or Tenenbaums (the other two movies use jive a verb so it doesn't really apply) and it looks like this comment is right up there with his other racist comments.

This brings us back to the subject of language, a subject that I don't want this post to be about, but it is worth a mention. I mean Imus I guess probably is racist but he is a professionally trained voice man and smart enough to know that he's not supposed to appear racist on his radio show. Even Kramer at the Laugh Factory, at least according to him, was trying to make a joke (by the way isn't it ironic that the place that produced one of the most horrifying things captured on film and then shown to the entire nation was called the "Laugh Factory"?). Okay well Kramer trying to make a joke is a bit of a stretch, but we can agree that before Imus and Kramer took to the stage/airwaves they probably weren't planning on saying anything racist, but the fact may be that society is changing (I would say, on the whole, for the better, although of course there are pros and cons to political correctness) faster than these old guys can keep up with. I mean these are pretty old guys and the majority of our society (or maybe just the intellectuals?) has left them in the dust, whether in terms of actual racism or comments that (even if the person speaking doesn't initially realize it) can be interpreted as racism. I mean we've all heard and many of us have told stories about how our adorable european-descendent grandparents made racist comments, but we don't get that mad at them, because they came from differnet times. Imus might be as old as some of our grandparents but he gets out more than most of them, plus there's that whole "he's talking to hundreds of millions of people and not just to our family at Thanks giving (btw - Thanksgiving: racist or hijacked by the PC police?) dinner" part, so we're going to bear down on Imus, and softsoap our grandparents. Howard Stern said that Imus should have just said "fuck you, it's a joke."

Anyway though, putting the PC language discussion aside for a moment, I also want to get everyone's opinions on what the hell exactly is going on in our country and in our society, and what exactly is the deal with our morality. One could sum up the last couple of months with the following: White southern boys at a renowned institution of higher learning accused of raping a black stripper, the biggest thing to hit the entertainment world is a comedy about a racist and dim-witted Kazakhstani (played by a Jewish Englishman) going to America and filming his conversations with other (some of which are also, apparently, racist and dim-witted) Americans played by themsleves, then one of the stars of maybe the best comedy series ever (although he was the Ringo Starr of Seinfeld) goes on a racist explosion at an LA Comedy club, and then one of the most famous morning radio hosts (is famous morning radio host an oxy moron?) comes under scrutiny for making racist comments. Now three of these things were pretty unanimously disgusting while one of them, not as much, so right there is another interesting topic of discussion, especially since, aside from the Duke story, everyone involved was an entertainer (well I guess you could say that the stripper was too and maybe even the star athletes), so right there is an example of the fact that there is a line which Sasha Baron Cohen I guess stepped right up to but didn't go over, while those other guys, well, they crossed the fuck out of it.

But I said I wanted to talk about our society and our culture and our morals, which is why I have the philosophers up there. I can't really decide what I think about the fact that the news is teeming with these isolated incidents concerning Kramer and Imus and the Duke Lacrosse players. If you go to Drudge Report (btw another topic for bloggery is whether Drudge is part of the problem or the solution to the (in my opinion extremely depressing and infuriating) problem of the conflation of news with entertainment) right now it is a bit rediculous: Imus, the Duke case, Imus talking about the Duke case, and then the 2008 presidential candidates talking about Imus (this is too far, no? I really don't know if the Imus thing is useful information to keep the public informed and aid in the discourse that shapes our culture and our society, but surely the 2008 candidates talking about Imus - two degrees of Imus if you will - is just three darts (by three darts I mean: too much (see Ace Ventura 2)).

So what I want to discuss is whether this a good thing or a bad thing, that this is our news. I mean we have injustice and racism every day and everywhere, that goes unnoticed and unremarked upon by the media, but when it involves celbrities / rich people the media can't stop talking about it.

Starbucks has started writing me messages when I buy coffee from them, and one of said messages presently comes to mind (don't worry it's not racist):

The Way I See It: #192
Many people lack a spiritual believe system and fill that void with obcessions about celebrities. The celebrities are raised to the rank of gods, and these earthly gods will always fail the expectations the masses set for them. The cycle runs thusly: adoration turns to obcession, obcession turns to disappointment, and from disappointment is just a short emotional jump to contempt.

Now when I first read that I thought to myself: why are you talking about celebrities? All of this can be said about religion, and about God (also a topic for another day on the blog). But now I finally see that it can also be said about celebrities! Of course we don't expect anything fancy from celebrities, we just expect them to be as cool in real life as they are when they're on stage or screen. This is where the disappointment sets in. For example: Michael Richards - definitely not as cool as Kramer. For our celebrities and also for talk show people like Imus I guess we just expect them not to be evil. Maybe part of the reason we are so angry and hurt when it turns out that our celebrities are evil or screwed up, is because we learn that we are better than them, and how the fuck did they get to be celebrities and us not? This can break down into two parts, one of which is our failure, and the other part is the failure of our society: wherein horrible people are able to achieve immense fame and fortune. Well, this and the whole "they are saying these things to hundreds of millions of people as opposed to just your family at Thanksgiving dinner" thing.

So does this explain our reaction? Does this explain, and does it justify, these isolated incidents, exactly the same as so many that happen constantly except that they're celebrities, getting media coverage ad nauseum?

Maybe the explanation is that we are making an example of these people. Oh sorry, let me rephrase that. Maybe we are making an example of Imus and Kramer and of the Duke parties (the parties to the lawsuit, not the keg parties, although, sure, them too). We aren't going to solve all of the millions of isolated incidents, but there are some that we will make known to all (lots of people are going to find out anyway but we will make sure everyone finds out) and then we are going to tell and retell the events and hear what everyone (political leaders and other celebrities and entertainers alike) has to say about it, and then we are going to watch what happens to the perpetrators, in order to demonstrate how we as a society feel about this behavior, and what we as a society deem fit as a response, and if necessary, a punishment.

Is this desirable? One one hand we are bringing social problems to everyone's attention, maybe the only way we could get everyone to pay attention and consider these issues is using celebrities? On the other hand, it glamorizes legitimate concerns of our normal everyday lives, and maybe even takes the focus off of them. Are there better ways to deal with social problems like racism than constant coverage of Imus-gate? If you answered yes to that last question, then couldn't all of the time and energy spent talking about the Duke case and Kramer and Imus be better spent on other endeavors, both in terms of what stories the media is covering and Matt Drudge is posting on his site, and in terms of what we are discussing in conversation and on our blogs?

Is this what we want? Are we happy with how these scandals come up, command national focus, play out, and then die out when another weird incident comes up (anyone heard anything about Kramer lately?)?

If something seems wrong, or strange, who do we blame? Do we blame ourselves for engaging in these discussions about Imus and Kramer that we complain about, and not doing anything to change things? Do we blame the media for rolling around in toxic goo with entertainment and fusing together to form the radioactive seven headed beast that it has become? Is it just us, the blogging intellectuals, who are disgusted with this phenomena, and do most news-watchers think that the news is just fine? If not, why does the news keep doing this? Have they to live up to their responsibilities to society? Or am I being too pessimistic, and do stories like the Kramer and Imus cases serve society in some beneficial way?

Dissentators, mount up.

Encyclopedic Knowledge Part II: You’re an Encyclopedia and You Didn’t Know It!

My previous post was really all I wanted to say about internet encyclopedias. I was supposed to get that off my chest and be able to wash my hands of the matter and get on with my day. I was looking forward to it. Then this happened.

If you are reading my post, you’ve probably read the CapeTownDissenter’s post which mentions the new Conservapedia, a Conservative Christian version of Wikipedia. Now, after having read about how much I hate the original (and utterly useless) Wikipedia, you can probably imagine my disgust when I learned that some lunatics made another one of these things. At first, there was no consoling me. No sooner had I (quite rightly and eloquently) pointed out how ridiculous it is that we even have Wikipedia in the first place (and I did so quite ingeniously, I might add), than the amount of Wikipedias in the world doubles! I mean I was pretty angry. First I considered putting my fist through a wall, but then I remembered that the walls in my apartment are load bearing walls, which means that it was going to hurt me more than it hurt the wall. Next I considered inviting the creators of both Wikipedia and Conservapedia to a cocktail party at my apartment where I would sit them down and, – like a high school football coach who yells at the team after screwing up a big game – after giving all of them the verbal tongue-lashing that they so desperately deserve, I would then stare silently at them for a few minutes, and finally try to give them a motivational speech about how to pick up the pieces of our previous, blissful Wikipedia-free world which they so carelessly smashed to…um, pieces, and try to start anew. Next I considered making pages on both Wikipedia and Conservapedia called “Useless Wastes of My and Your Time” and then explaining (quite systematically and compellingly) exactly why we should all be ashamed of ourselves that we even know that these things exist.

After a couple of deep breaths and one beautiful little ditty by Julieta Venegas (WBUR, you never fail to comfort me during my darkest and most troubled hours) I calmed down. I started to think about it a little bit. First there was Wikipedia, I thought. Well, no, I corrected myself (politely), first there was Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky Button.” Then there was Wikipedia, a shameless rip-off of Google. And, thanks to the CapeTownDissenter who (unforgivably) broke the news to me the other day, now I know about Conservapedia. I was pretty incredulous as to the fact that not only is the original Wikipedia still in existence but that imitations are now springing up, so I went to the site just to see if I wasn’t having a terrifying nightmare (the test is that the internet never functions properly in a dream – it always takes too long to load and every link takes you to the same web site no matter what you are trying to access).

So I visit Conservapedia’s web site and it turns out that Conservapedia is the exact same freaking thing as Wikipedia except they recently started it from scratch whereas Wikipedia is about six years old and about a billion times bigger. I mean they didn’t even try to make it look different, or even change the name (they only changed half the name?! From “Wiki” to “Conserva”?!). Then I realized that Conservapedia means Conservative Wikipedia, which I guess is a Wikipedia for Conservative Christians who want to write these articles instead of whatever bozos are writing them for Wikipedia. Honestly I had no idea that Wikipedia was biased against Conservatives and against Christians (I thought it was just useless), but in any case we now have (an equally useless) one that takes an explicit effort to be biased in favor of these groups.

Now, unlike some of my co-dissentators, I don’t consider myself a member of either of America’s two main political parties, which I guess makes me a (hey voter voter voter voter) swing voter. To give you an idea of my moderateness, I often find myself farther to the right than many of my liberal friends, and I often find myself farther to the left than many of my…actually, wait…I’m not sure if I even have any conservative friends (they don’t call me the BostonDissenter just because I also happen to throw a glorious tea party). So, as a moderate open to all views (except those in favor of these ridiculous web sites existing), even I found this web site over the top. At first I was upset, I thought the “Anti-America bias” of Wikipedia claim was something of a stretch, and that maybe they should call the site “Psychopedia” (even a psycho would admit that name sounds better than Conservapedia (also conservapedia I believe is Spanish for “a whale’s vagina”)).

Then I realized something pretty amazing which totally turned me around on this Conservapedia. I did a little investigating and found out there was like nothing on it. Now, I realize it is just starting up, so this might not be true for much longer, but currently we are living in a golden age where – if we are willing to accept this thing as an encyclopedia – we know more than an encyclopedia. To give you an example of your encyclopedic knowledge, let’s start with a simple one. How about the country Spain. Conservapedia says:

“Country located on the Iberian Penninsula. Borderd by the Alantic Ocean to the west and the Mediterranean on the east. Portuagal is located on the same penninsuala. Is the same country as was in the medieval times. And known for its famous explorers.”

Now if you already knew all that, you have encyclopedic knowledge: the person searching should have just asked you! You maybe even know more! You maybe even know how to spell the words “peninsula,” “bordered,” “Atlantic,” and “Portugal!” Now I know this thing is supposed to favor America so things like countries, oceans, peninsulas and borders don’t really matter, but if we are supposed to be smarter than people from other countries, we should know more about their country than the know about America, which is hard to do post-Borat. So let’s try another country, Germany:

“A country in central Europe that was blamed for both Wolrd Wars and claimed to be the dominate race of mankind.”

Again, if you knew that too, you are as smart as an encyclopedia! And you probably would have called the “world” a “world” instead of a “wolrd!” I mean what is a wolrd anyway? I tried to look it up, but there wasn’t an entry for it. Then I looked up “world,” no entry for that either. Honestly I looked up “earth” and all the page said was “Mostly harmless.” Again if you know more than that about the earth you have encyclopedic knowledge. Now I know what you’re thinking: Conservapedia is pro-America so it really doesn’t matter whether there are articles about the wolrd or the world or whatever the hell that thing is that you were talking about. Well that’s why I looked up some American stuff as well. Now I know what else you’re thinking, you’re thinking what if you didn’t know as much as Conservapedia? For instance, what if you didn’t already know that Spain “is the same country as was in the medieval times”? Well don’t worry because to persuade you that you really are smarter than an encyclopedia, I have found a bunch of things that have no entry at all in Conservapedia, so if you have heard of even one, you have encyclopedic knowledge and you should start charging people to access your brain instead of those charlatans at Wikipedia and Conservapedia and whatever hell-spawned pedia’s that spring forth next. So those items are:

1. Alan Greenspan
2. Drudge Report
3. Rush Limbaugh
4. Argentina
5. David Brooks
6. John F. Kennedy
7. Supreme Court
8. Iraq
9. Mao Zedong
10. Taepodong
11. Ari Fleischer
12. CNN
13. Rolling Stones
14. Rice
15. Boston
16. Brain
17. Condoleeza Rice
18. Garth Brooks
19. Franklyn D. Roosevelt
20. London
21. World Bank
22. Wal-Mart
23. Jon Stewart
24. Harvard
25. Michael Jordan
26. New York Yankees
27. New York Times
28. Liberty University
29. Wall Street Journal
30. Education
31. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Incidentally, I don’t mean for this to be a contest between which of these two useless web sites is less horrendous, but I did find it noteworthy that while Conservapedia has no entry on the Taepodong, Wikipedia has three different Taepodongs in their encyclopedia.

In closing, I believe I’ve (quite nimbly) proven my point – that you are an encyclopedia and you didn’t know it. If for some reason you still haven’t heard of any of the above items, and you are still on equal footing, knowledge-wise, with Conservapedia, I will tell you something about Argentina. So to be smarter than Conservapedia (no one’s ever accused me of not making my readers smarter (than Conservapedia)), all you need to know about Argentina is that it gave us this.