COVER STORIES

 Blogging today about the evolution of my latest cover over at the Thalia Press Authors Co-Op Blog.

Are Google And Sweden Going to War?

Latest Newspaper Column:

Sweden. Pearl of Scandinavia. It's one of the richest countries in the EU, also known for its beautiful women, excellent meatballs, and a liquor called aquavit that'll strip the enamel right off your teeth.

The Swedes are, by all accounts, a nice people, a peaceful people, at least since the early 1800s. But now, it seems, the Swedes are threatening an epic tussle with the American Internet company Google. The point of contention? A single word.

We all know how big a player Google is when it comes to the Internet. The search engine that gave the company its name has become the default term for "looking something up on the Internet." ("Wait, let me Google that.") In addition to its mighty search engine, Google's Android operating system runs more than 32.9 million smartphones and tablets, making it the leading platform for mobile devices. 

Yes, Google bestrides the Internet like a colossus. So when the Swedish Language Council's end of the year list of "new words" in the Swedish language included the word ogooglebar, meaning a word that can't be looked up on Google, the California company got tough.

First, a bit of background. It seems that Swedes are mighty fond of coining new words, words that take a few syllables to sum up concepts that other, clumsier tongues like our own require whole phrases to describe.

Take, for instance, the word livslogga. The word literally means "life logging," and it describes the annoying habit of "continually documenting one's life in pictures," according to the online Swedish-American journal "The Local." A Swede, for instance, might say, "My friends are always livlsogga. It's driving me crazy," except he'd, you know, probably say the whole sentence in Swedish.

Other new Swedish words include nomofob, which describes someone pathologically afraid of being separated from his or her cellphone, and fulparkerare ("ugly parker"), which describes those who park their vehicle in particularly inept or inconsiderate ways.

Enter the Swedish Language Council, which Wikipedia describes as "the primary regulatory body for the advancement and cultivation of the Swedish language." Every year, the council publishes its list of new words being officially "admitted" into Swedish. But when it approved ogooglebar, the people at Google apparently felt as if their trademark was being encroached upon. It appears they sent the council one of those dreaded Stern Letters, the generation of which appears to be a primary function of trademark lawyers.They "wanted the council to specify that the word's definition only covered searches performed using Google, and not searches involving other search engines," according to The Local.

This may seem silly, but such is trademark law. One of its quirky principles states that if you don't vigorously defend your right to exclusive use of a trademark, you lose it.

The council backed down without a fight. It announced that it was going to take the word off the list entirely, with only a weak statement expressing "displeasure with Google's attempts to control the language."

But then the Swedish people found out about it. As is true with most very nice people, when the Swedes finally decide to get their back up, it gets way up. Swedish social media exploded in a storm of invectives, including lots of vowels with those little dots and circles over them.

The Swedish Academy, the people who award the Nobel Prize for Literature and, as it happens, publish the official national dictionary, entered the fray by announcing that Google had "shot itself in the foot" and that they might very well decide to put the word into the next edition of the dictionary. "Then let Google roll out its cannons," said permanent secretary Peter Englund of the Academy, "because we have cannons too."

OMG, as the kids on the Internet say. Did the Swedish Academy just throw down the gauntlet? Will this blow up into the next major international crisis? Are Swedish commandos readying a lightning strike on Google's Mountain View, Colo., headquarters? Will Google attempt to pressure the plucky Swedes by cutting off access in that country - rendering, I suppose, everything ogooglebar for them?

And, I have to ask, why isn't Secretary of State John Kerry on this? Do we really have enough strategic meatball reserves to withstand a Swedish embargo? It's a scandal. A scandal, I say! It calls for a couple of hundred hours of congressional hearings, at the very least.

It's too bad the liberal press is so far in the pocket of the Obama administration, or this coverup would be exposed. It's time for the right-wing blogosphere to step up and do its part in exposing Ogooglebar-Gate.

The Closed Loop of Ignorance: A Case Study In Wingnuttery

Actual online exchange I observed today: 

Commenter #1: "Lower gun violence= no gun free zones"

Commenter #2: " I'd sure like to see proof that getting rid of gun-free zones reduces crime. Give it your best shot."

Commenter #1: "heck I'd love to be able to prove that theory of mine about gun free zones. But the liberal media and the liberals in D.C. will never let that happen."

So the fact that there is no evidence is evidence of the conspiracy to suppress the "facts" that you have no evidence for. 

Right. Got it.

Let’s examine this exchange because it illustrates so much about the wingnut “style” of argument.

First, there’s the bold assertion of so-called “facts” which are really just prejudices, half-baked notions, and/or “gut feelings” raised to the status of truth.

Then there’s the admission, when challenged, that no, there isn’t any evidence of the assertion but that that just proves the point, because  there’s a liberal conspiracy to hide the “truth”. This combines several of the central tenets of wingnuttery:

(1)    The insistence that the person speaking is part of an oppressed and eternally put upon class of people who are, despite their oppression, smarter, harder working, and more enlightened than their imagined oppressors. Ironically, the person claiming this oppression is almost always white, Christian, and heterosexual, and the majority are male—by far the least “oppressed” and best advantaged group in the United States, possibly in all of human history. 

(2)    The angry and bitter attitude that it’s hopeless that the truth will ever be known because of a vast conspiracy by the oppressors.

(3)    The rejection of any idea that they need to support their claims because the data they need to do so is forever unavailable, and

(4)    The unshakable conviction that their “facts” are, nonetheless, true, despite the lack of evidence, because their innate “common sense” (really just the above-mentioned prejudices, half-baked notions, and “gut feelings”) is more important than proof.This is the core of the anti-intellectual, chip-on-the shoulder resentment that marks a certain class of wingnut.

You have to admit that there is a certain twisted genius to this sort of "argument." It basically frees the speaker  from ever having to actually justify even the most outrageous claims, and creates a perfect protective force-field around the ignorance they cling to as if that ignorance was a gift  from God.

Unfortunately,  that’s not where ignorance comes from.

The Best Show On Right Now

     Today's column (once again, not online at the paper's website until probably tomorrow)

    I heard the rumble of the truck in the yard, followed by the squeal and hiss of air brakes. I was up out of the recliner and ready to meet the delivery guy when he knocked on the door.
      “Hey,” I said, “you got here just in time. I was about to run out.”
     He looked at the clipboard in his hand and his brow furrowed in confusion. “Wait, this isn’t a movie theater?”
     “Nope,” I said. “This is my house. What made you think it was a theater?”
     “Well,” he said, “you’ve ordered an entire tractor trailer load of popcorn. And it says here, you got another one last week.”
     “Yep,” I replied.
     “You really eat all that popcorn?”
     “Buddy, if you were watching a show like I’m watching, you’d be chomping down a lot of the stuff too.”
     “What show?” he said. “Survivor? Duck Dynasty? House Hunters International?”
     “Nope, nope, and nope. Much bigger than that.”
     “American Idol?”
     “Even bigger. I’m watching the civil war in the Republican Party.”
     “The what?”
     “Remember last year? The election?”
     He grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”
     “Remember how the Republicans were so sure they were going to win? And how shocked they all were when Mitt Romney got his butt kicked by a guy they insisted nobody liked?”
     “Yeah.”
     “Well, ever since,” I said, “they’ve been sniping at each other, pointing fingers, trying to make someone else take the blame. One wing of the party demands change, another demands that they double down on the crazy.”
     He looked dubious. “And you’re enjoying this.”
     “You bet I am!” I said. “The Tea Party blames the ‘establishment’ for not nominating candidates bat-spit crazy enough to make them happy. The ‘establishment’ big shots like Karl Rove blame the Tea Partiers for driving away women, gays, lesbians, Latinos, African Americans, and pretty much anyone not a right wing nut case. Rove even started a new political action committee called the ‘Conservative Victory Project’, to try and boost non-Tea Party candidates so the Republicans wouldn’t have another debacle like the ones they had with Richard Mourdock. Or Todd Akin. Or Sharron Angle. Or Christine O’Donnell.”
     “Come on,” he said, “I can’t believe it’s that bad. Didn’t Ronald Regan used to say that the 11th Commandment was not to speak ill of other Republicans?”
     “I see you know your history, my friend. But that principle fell by the wayside long ago. Come see.” I stepped aside and let him in. “Check this out,” I said, sitting down at the computer and calling up a website. “Remember Sarah Palin?”
     “Didn’t she have a reality show?”
     “No, before that. She ran for Vice President.”
     “Oh, yeah. So what’s she doing now?”
     I clicked on a YouTube video. “Watch.”
     An image of Governor Palin appeared, standing behind a podium. “This is a speech she gave at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week.” I turned the audio up. 



     “If these experts who keep losing elections and keep getting rehired and raking in millions,” Palin said, “if they feel that strongly about who gets to run in this party, then they should buck up or stay in the truck. Buck up and run.” The audience cheered. She smirked. “The architects can head on back." The cheers redoubled.
     “Wait,” the delivery guy said, “Wasn’t Karl Rove called ‘the architect’?”
     “You’re quite well informed for a deliveryman,” I observed. “But yes.”
     “Nice slam there. So what did Rove say?”
     I clicked on another link. This one showed Rove on “Fox News Sunday,” saying “If I did run for office and win, I would serve out my term. I wouldn’t quit mid-term.”
     “Ohhhh, SNAP!” the delivery guy said. “He just burned her, but good.”
     “See what I’m saying?” I said. “Is this a great show or what?” 
     “I get it,” he said. “But really, is this infighting good for the country? I mean, sure, it’s entertaining, but don’t we need at least two viable parties?”
     “Hmmm…” I said. “You might have a point, Mr…what was your name again?”
     “You tell me,” he said. “I’m a figment of your imagination.”
     Suddenly I sat up in my chair, blinking. I realized I’d been dreaming. I looked at the computer screen, where I’d been looking at a news story about a website called primarymycongressman.com. It was sponsored by the conservative Club For Growth “to raise awareness of Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) who are currently serving in safe Republican seats.”
     I looked at the empty bowl on the table beside the computer. This called for more popcorn.
    
     Dusty Rhoades lives, writes, and practices law in Carthage.
    

That's AWARD WINNING Liberal Blowhard To You, Pal

 Your Humble Columnist thanks the North Carolina Press Association for the First Place Award for "Serious Columns" in Division C (Community Papers with over 10,000 circulation). 

They also had this to say: "Mr. Rhoades makes his columns seem effortless. Besides strong writing, narrative power, and clarity, he strikes a good balance between humor and biting criticism. So many good things to say about these entries; among them: they’re well paced, descriptive, effective. And so pleasurable to read as a journalist and as a reader."

This is the second win for me, since I also won in the same category in 2005. It's ironic--the column's intended to be humorous and I keep winning in "serious columns." The editors tell me it's the subject matter, not the tone that makes the determination. But I notice that, even though my fiction isn't intended to be humorous, I keep getting put on humor panels at conferences. Curious, that. 

The column that won me the prize is here and here.

  

Congratulations to my fellow winners from The Pilot: Hannah Sharpe (First Place in General News Photography, Best Video, and Best Multimedia Project, Third Place education reporting); Fearless sports photographer Donna Ford (First Place, Sports Feature Photo); Deborah Salomon (Third Place Headline Writing); The staff of The Pilot (First Place Headline writing, Second Place Appearance and Design,  Third Place Photo page, Third Place Use of photographs); Andie Rose and Steve Dodson, (Third Place,  Niche Publication for Pinestraw Magazine); and my long-suffering editor, Steve Bouser ( First Place editorial page). 

Thanks to Editor John Nagy for his support, for continuing to publish me every week despite the slings and arrows of the right wing goon squads,  and for dinner.

Woodward Wimps Out

Latest newspaper column (which, for some reason, doesn't appear on the website. No one else's Sunday column did, either....another glitch by The Pilot.
 
Geez, when did Bob Woodward turn into such a wimp?

You may remember Bob Woodward as the fellow who became a journalistic folk-hero when he, along with partner Carl Bernstein, broke a series of stories about skullduggery, dirty tricks, and outright criminality in the Nixon White House that become collectively known as the “Watergate Scandal,” and which eventually led to the resignation of a President.

Since then, Woodward has released several books, some of them quite interesting, like “The Brethren”, his inside look at the Supreme Court, and “The Commanders,” an account of the prelude to the first Gulf War. He’s also written some that, to put it as politely as possible, strain the credulity of the reader. Books like “Veil,” in which he claimed that CIA director William Casey dramatically confessed his knowledge of the Iran-Contra scandal to Woodward himself on his deathbed. Or “The Agenda,” which opens with a description of a conversation between Bill and Hillary Clinton. In bed. Just the two of them. Perhaps Woodward was hiding underneath the bed. Reading Woodward in the past few years has usually led to a lot of eye-rolling and “yeah, rights” on my part, and the occasional book chucked across the room in disgust. 

Recently, however, Woodward’s attention-seeking made him a bit of a laughingstock. At issue was an op-ed Woodward had written in which he claimed that the Obama administration was “moving the goal posts” in sequester negotiations by asking for additional tax revenue as part of the deal. Woodward went on Wolf Blitzer’s TV show and intimated that he’d been threatened by White House aide Gene Sperling. “They were not happy at all,” Woodward said. “It was said very clearly, 'You will regret doing this.'"

Later, in an interview with Politico, “Woodward repeated the last sentence, making clear he saw it as a veiled threat… ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I think if Obama himself saw the way they're dealing with some of this, he would say, 'Whoa, we don't tell any reporter that you're going to regret challenging us.’"

This made Woodward a hero to the right, since they’re always ready for anything that will support one of their favorite bogus claims: that Obama and his people are “thugs.”

Woodward was even invited on Sean Hannity’s show for a round of “show us how the bad man threatened you.”

Unfortunately for Woodward, the White House released the full text of the exchange, starting with Sperling’s e-mail:

“Bob: I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today. My bad. I do understand your problems with a couple of our statements in the fall — but feel on the other hand that you focus on a few specific trees that gives a very wrong perception of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. But I do truly believe you should rethink your comment about saying that Potus asking for revenues is moving the goal post. I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I think you will regret staking out that claim.”

Wow. “I apologize for raising my voice”? “My bad?” “Perhaps we won’t see eye to eye?” Terrifying. This Sperling guy’s a regular Tony Soprano.

(Gene Sperling, in Bob Woodward's Imagination)

Woodward’s response indicated that he knew there was no threat: “Gene, You do not ever have to apologize to me…I for one welcome a little heat; there should more given the importance.”

Merriment ensued among the DC press corps. “Hezbollah is intimidating,” Jeffery Goldberg of The Atlantic wrote on Twitter. “‘I think you will regret staking out that claim’ is not intimidating.” Even conservatives had to admit that, in the words of the Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis, “we were played.” Eric Ericson of RedState ruefully admitted that he’d “moved into the ‘not a threat’ camp.”

I remember back in the day when journalists had some cojones. In the summer of 1972, a pair of reporters discovered that the Nixon White House had a secret slush fund controlled by Attorney General John Mitchell. Katharine Graham, who was at the time the publisher of the Washington Post, discusses in her autobiography what happened when they called Mitchell for comment:

“After [one of the reporters] read him the first two paragraphs, Mitchell interrupted, still screaming, "All that crap, you're putting it in the paper? It's all been denied. Katie Graham is gonna get her [vulgar expletive for a female body part] caught in a big fat wringer if that's published."

That, by golly, is a threat. “As a friend, I think you may come to regret that,” doesn’t even come close. You’d think that, since one of the aforementioned journalists was Bob Woodward himself, he’d know the difference. But since those glory days, Woodward’s become one of the Beltway Insiders, a fading fabulist looking for attention, desperately trying to reclaim former cachet, and not above a little right-wing style drama-queenery and fake victimhood to get it. Or maybe time really has rendered him that gutless. Either way, it’s sad.