Dear Rand Paul: Fuck you.

So now that the Iraq War is over, Rand Paul takes the courageous step of actually doing something to repeal the legal authorization for it. *slow sarcastic clap*.

Look here, you preppy asshole, I was against that war when some people regarded it as treason and weren't shy about telling me so. (My favorite was the e-mail warning me that "They hanged Benedict Arnold, you know," which managed to be both vaguely threatening and historically inaccurate). I wrote about what a bad idea it was to invade Iraq when it actually had fucking consequences, like my own father publicly stating in a letter to the local newspaper that people like me and my wife were responsible for 9/11. 

Fuck you, Rand Paul. Fuck you with a rusty fence post wrapped in barbed wire.

Journalism Goes to the (Starving) Dogs

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

It seems that the speedy decline of the international news media is continuing at its accustomed pace, and may even be accelerating.

The latest example of sensational, shoddy journalism from people who should really know better came in the reporting about the execution of Jang Song Thaek, the uncle and political rival of bat-spit-crazy North Korean dictator Kim Jong-in.

As you probably remember, reports filtered through last month from that secretive country that Jang had been removed from all his party positions, expelled from the party itself, and jailed. In a move straight out of Orwell’s “1984,” his image was Photoshopped out of photos with other leaders and removed from all official media.

Then, on Dec. 13, the North Koreans officially announced that Jang had been executed for, among other things, “politically motivated ambition” and “obstructing the nation’s economic affairs.”

Then things started to get weird.

Since very little actual information makes it out from behind the veil of secrecy the Kim family has maintained around North Korea for years, the news media resorted to their usual technique of reporting rumors, harebrained speculation, and outright deranged fantasy to fill the information gap.

The New York Times reported that two members of Jang’s faction had been executed with heavy caliber anti-aircraft guns. Another story in the British press quoted unidentified “Japanese media” as saying the executions were carried out in such a gruesome fashion on the orders of a “very drunk” Kim.

Then, to cap it all off, American TV networks, including NBC and Fox News, reported that Jang had been executed by being “stripped naked, thrown into a cage, and eaten alive by a pack of ravenous dogs, according to a newspaper with close ties to China’s ruling Communist Party.”

The Singaporean newspaper the Straits Times expanded on the lurid details, saying that “120 hounds, starved for three days, were allowed to prey on [Jang and his compatriots] until they were completely eaten up.”

Am I the only one who read reports like this and went, “Now, wait just a gosh-darned minute here” (or some reasonable facsimile thereof)?

I mean, Baby Kim’s a homicidal loon, no mistake about it, but when I see something that reads like an account from a James Bond movie or one of those unexpurgated versions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, I tend to get, shall we say, a little skeptical.

As it turns out, we skeptics were right. Reporter James Pearson of Reuters traced the “Jang was eaten by dogs” story all the way back to a Dec. 11 post on a Chinese satirical website called Tencent Weibo. It did not, in fact, come from any intelligence source, insider or actual witness. It was a joke, albeit a particularly odd one.

Perhaps there’s a lot in Chinese humor that gets lost in translation. Perhaps it’s also payback from the time a few years ago when the Chinese press printed a story from The Onion (”Kim Jong-un Named The Onion’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2012”) as truth.

The clue should have been when, as the NBC News website put it, “the story could not be independently confirmed.”

Now, I’m just a simple country lawyer, not a big-time famous print or broadcast journalist, but I seem to remember hearing about a day when, if a journalist couldn’t get independent confirmation of a big story from at least two sources, no editor would run with it.

But that day is not this day. These days, “independent confirmation” has been replaced with, “Well, I read it from someone who read it in another place who may have seen it on Twitter,” and so on, until there are no real sources or confirmation of anything anymore, just a bunch of credulous rubes on their laptops or iPhones, desperate to generate content and blindly repeating what someone else said he read on another website or Twitter feed, maybe adding a little embellishment before passing it on to the next sucker, each echo getting louder until there’s nothing but a full-throated chorus of total balderdash.

It’s journalism reduced to the level of middle school gossip, only louder and stupider, and it reaches its truest heights of absurdity when its original source is a joke repeated as truth by people who didn’t get it.

I’ve often said that the hardest part of writing satire these days is staying ahead of reality. It gets even harder when satire is breathlessly reported as reality by sensation-hungry media hucksters for whom some stories are, as the saying goes, “too good to fact-check.”

I suppose that’s also meant as a joke, but the end results are more grotesque than funny.

What A Long Strange Trip, Amazon Edition or: Bring On the Drones!

Okay, so on December 30th, I use the last of the Amazon gift card my mom got me (thanks, Mom!) to buy a new set of headphones to use on the computer. I'd borrowed a pair of the same brand (Skullcandy Uprocks) from my son when he left them here, and I really liked them, even better than the pair of Sennheisers I bought a couple years ago which have been nothing but problems and finally crapped out when the wire broke near the plug (which is how most headphones die).

They are very nice headphones, and I'm enjoying them. But they took over a week to arrive, and I can show you why.

The 'phones were shipped from Amazon's warehouse and fulfillment center in Whitestown, Indiana. From Whitestown to Carthage, North Carolina where I live is 628 road miles, like so:

(all distances courtesy Google Maps)

Except that's not how they got here. From there they went  to Edison NJ, to Queens NY, all the way back to Hebron Ky (south of Cincinnati and 134 miles from the originating point) to Charlotte NC to Carthage NC, a total distance of 2009 miles:

 No wonder the things took so long to get  to my house (and missed the projected delivery date by 2 days). What's funniest about this is that the name of this shipping method is-wait for it-- "FedEx Smartpost."

I suppose there is a rationale that makes traveling 2009 miles to go 638 "smart," but I'm too simple minded to see it, I guess.

 Bring on the delivery drones!

Trollin' Trollin' Trollin': Duck Dynasty Edition

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Listen: Phil Robertson is trolling you.

If you’ve spent any time on the Interwebs, you know that a “troll” is someone who, in the words of Urban Dictionary, “posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.”

However, in the age where the Internet continues to push its influence more and more into real life, where news organizations routinely go to Twitter to find out what’s going on, where the latest meme or viral video becomes the water-cooler conversation du jour, the trolling that used to be the province of socially maladjusted teenagers online is now a PR technique.

The pattern has become depressingly predictable: Minor celebrity or previously unknown CEO says something racist, misogynistic or homophobic. The Internet explodes with outrage, calls for boycotts, etc. Within a day or so, the counter-outrage begins with a disheartening number of people claiming, in essence, that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech means that saying something stupid should have no consequences whatsoever, even criticism.

Voila! The previously little-known figure is now front-page news. And once again, America has been trolled.

If the original troll gets really lucky, their work or their product (say, for example, chicken sandwiches) now becomes something that racists, sexists or homophobes now feel like they NEED to consume as much out of a sense of “we’ll show those libs!” as out of actual enjoyment. Because nothing sweetens the taste of a wingnut’s chicken sandwich as much as thinking that he’s sticking it to “those people” with every bite.

Which brings us back to Phil Robertson. The so-called “patriarch” of the clan featured in A&E’s rednecks-with-money reality show “Duck Dynasty” caught a lot of flak recently for an interview with GQ magazine in which he trotted out the tired old canard about how tolerance of homosexuality would lead to “bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” and asserted that gays would not be admitted into heaven.

He also claimed that pre-civil rights and “entitlements” he never saw any black people complain and that in fact, they were “happy and singing.” Later, a speech Robertson had made a few years ago popped up in which he urged men in their 20s to marry 15- or 16-year-old girls because they won’t pick your pocket, “they’ll pick your ducks.” (I’m hoping that’s not some kind of weird euphemism.)

The reaction proceeded according to the usual playbook. Twitter and Facebook went nuts. A&E suspended Robertson (but didn’t say anything about cancelling the show). Cracker Barrel removed some Duck Dynasty products with Robertson’s bearded visage on them from their “Country Store.”

The counter-backlash occurred right on schedule, with people claiming that A&E’s suspension of Robertson violated his First Amendment rights (showing once again that the people who clamor loudest about the Constitution have clearly never read it). Sarah Palin weighed in on Robertson’s behalf, but later admitted that she hadn’t actually read the interview. Pretty soon “I Stand With Phil” petitions began to appear, followed by the inevitable T-shirts. Cracker Barrel quietly returned the Duck Dynasty stuff to the shelves. A&E not only reinstated Robertson, they ran a Duck Dynasty marathon over the holidays. Successful trolling achieved!

The thing is, the show, like most “reality” TV, is a fraud. I’ve seen a few episodes as I meander around the channels. Sure, it’s amusing. Phil Robertson and his sons, heirs to the multi-million-dollar “Duck Commander” hunting supply fortune, come off on screen as some sort of modern-day Beverly Hillbillies dressed in camo and bandannas and sporting beards that make them look like a ZZ Top tribute band.

But the whole thing’s as big an illusion as that so-called “Country Store” mentioned above. Pictures have surfaced all over the Internet of the college-educated Robertsons dressed as what they grew up as: rich frat boys who grew up to be rich yuppies.

There’s even one embarrassing shot of brother Willie with frosted tips in his hair.

 Phil Robertson himself admitted in another interview that A&E inserts “bleeps” in the soundtrack as if the boys are doin’ some down-home cussin’, but they’re actually not.

It’s all marketing, and this latest controversy is just another example of how there’s no such thing as bad publicity. The vast majority of the people who’d get riled up over Papa Phil’s remarks aren’t going to be buying his products anyway, but he and his sons can count on the tribalism, persecution fantasies and resentments of right wingers to help line their pockets.

Trolling’s not only become an art form, it’s become a profitable one. And it ain’t just the ducks gettin’ plucked.

2014: The Year in Preview

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Other columns and stories look back on the year just past, but your Humble Columnist prefers to look ahead and away from a year that, quite frankly, has passed about as pleasantly for him as a golf-ball-sized kidney stone.

So, once again, our annual year in PREview:

JANUARY: The opening of the new congressional session is delayed when Sen. Ted Cruz vows to stand in a front entrance to the Capitol and sing the children’s folk song “Froggy Went A-Courtin’” until Obamacare is repealed.

The tactic is foiled when, after a six-hour standoff, the legislators recall that there’s a back entrance.

FEBRUARY: Tea party congressmen threaten to block any increase in the debt ceiling until President Obama agrees to step down, plead guilty to four counts of first degree murder in the Benghazi attacks, retroactively veto the Affordable Care Act, and admit to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, but not before issuing an executive order to give that “Duck Dynasty” guy his job back.

“Why won’t this Kenyan Socialist Marxist Fascist Chicago thug ever agree to negotiate with us?” demands North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx when the president refuses to consider the demands.

MARCH: Republican legislators in Tennessee introduce legislation to legalize beating food stamp recipients with sticks.

“We just feel that not allowing people to physically assault the poor just perpetuates a culture of dependency,” explains state GOP Chairman Clem Flenders. “What incentive will people have to even look for work if they’re not in constant fear of injury?”

APRIL: Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly is forced to take a leave of absence after an on-air meltdown during which she begins screaming at guest Juan Williams about the race of the Easter Bunny. “He’s a WHITE rabbit!” Kelly raves. “WHITE, do you hear!?”

She then begins rocking back and forth, hugging herself and softly crooning “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” until gently led offstage by Williams.

MAY: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden drops another bombshell when he reveals a program run by the secretive agency that collects intimate data on millions of Americans, including such highly personal details as how much alcohol they’ve had to drink over a 24-hour period, pictures of what they had for dinner, the names and ages of household pets, and even their moods.

The bombshell fizzles when it’s revealed that the “program” is just NSA employees surfing Facebook when they were supposed to be working.

JUNE: A major breakthrough occurs in relations between the U.S. and North Korea as baby-faced lunatic dictator Kim Jong-un offers to give up nuclear weapons and initiate major political and economic reforms so long as we never, ever let Dennis Rodman travel to North Korea again.

“We thought he was interesting at first,” Kim says through a translator, “but MAN, that dude gets annoying after a while.”

JULY: After rehearsals for the MTV Video Music Awards, teen pop idol Miley Cyrus is rushed to the emergency room when she sprains her tongue by sticking it out so far she becomes unable to put it back into her mouth. Cyrus later tweets to her followers that “Mama always said if I made faces it’d stick like that. Never thought it actually would. #blurredmind”

AUGUST: Half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin uses her Facebook page to complain that a “Godless left-wing conspiracy” is behind the fact that someone responded to one of her sneezes by saying “bless you” rather than “God bless you.” Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee all take up the cause in what comes to be known as the “Remember Jesus After Your Sneezes” campaign.

SEPTEMBER: A notable TV personality gets suspended or fired for saying something egregiously racist or homophobic. Right-wingers propose an amendment making it a fundamental constitutional right for a conservative — but only a conservative — to have a TV or radio show.

OCTOBER: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford wins “Best Costume” at the city’s annual Halloween party when he shows up as a sober person and no one recognizes him.

NOVEMBER: A midterm election is held. All those who lose claim they lost because of voter fraud. Or voter suppression. Or something other than their flawed message or lousy campaign.

DECEMBER: Christmas comes around again. And once again, I don’t get a pony.

Happy New Year, folks!

That Person-of-the-Year Thing

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

OK, so one week I write a column lauding Pope Francis I and the very next week he gets named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. More than coincidence? Perhaps. But as much as I do admire this pope, I think Time made the wrong call.

It’s always been somewhat puzzling to me that the choice of Person of the Year is eagerly awaited by the media and often causes controversy. A lot of people seem to regard it as some sort of reward or honor.

This, despite the fact that every year Time stresses that the award goes to the person who “for better or for worse, has done the most to influence the events of the year,” not just one who’s been the nicest, most positive, or most beneficial to mankind.

(This still doesn't explain why Time said demented teen songstress Miley Cyrus was among its top contenders this year, but perhaps there are some things we aren't meant to know.)

Time’s been naming a Man of the Year since 1927, when aviator and Adolf Hitler apologist Charles Lindbergh got the nod. Hitler himself was named in 1938, which is probably why he felt cocky enough to invade Poland the next year.

Other luminaries achieving the status of Man (or Person) of the Year include Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

It was in 1999 that they started calling it Person of the Year. Sometimes, the Person of the Year isn't an actual person at all, like the years the magazine named “The Computer” (1982) or “The Endangered Earth” (1988).

Then there was the year Time copped out completely, put a mirrored panel on the cover and proclaimed that the Person of the Year was … wait for it … “You”! It was like something from some half-baked self-affirmation book, or maybe an Oprah episode.

You may have gathered from this that I think the whole POTY thing by Time is pretty lame, and you’d be right. Especially this year. I think the title should have gone to that prolific leaker of NSA secrets, Edward Snowden, who only made runner-up for POTY.

Whatever you may think about Snowden himself (and I for one don’t think anyone who flees to Russia is any kind of hero), there’s no denying the effect of his revelations about just how far American surveillance of people, even its own citizens, has gone.

People were also stunned to discover just how much of it is legal, such as the collection of so-called “metadata,” showing what numbers were called when and for how long.

The Supreme Court, as far back as 1979, ruled that that kind of data collection wasn’t even a search for Fourth Amendment purposes, because “we doubt that people in general entertain any actual expectation of privacy in the numbers they dial.”

No one thought much about that at the time, because hey, we were fighting crime, right?

But once the Supremes ruled gathering that kind of data wasn’t a search, it meant it was fair game for any purpose, anywhere.

Even when programs like the FBI’s Carnivore and DARPA’s Total Information Awareness (TIA) came to light in the early 2000s, only a few voices, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (and, it must be mentioned, your Humble Columnist), expressed any alarm at all, and they were regarded as crackpots at best.

At worst, they were told they were trying to subvert the Dear Leader George Dubbya’s Global War on Terror and that they wanted to bring on another 9/11.

It wasn’t until Snowden revealed the breadth of the net the NSA was casting (and until the election of a Democratic president terrified wingnuts into realizing that giving power to one president meant the next one kept it) that the general public started to wake up to the need to ask some hard questions about how much privacy we’re willing to give up, and how maybe we need to change the laws as they stand.

The words and deeds of Francis I may have an effect far beyond this year. I hope they do. In that case, I’ll enthusiastically endorse him for Person of the Decade, may even of the Century.

However, as much as I admire and respect His Holiness for, in Time’s words, “pulling the papacy out of the palace and into the streets,” it’s Snowden pulling NSA surveillance out of the shadows and into the light that’s “done the most to influence the events of the year.”