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Media melodrama: Push this back

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah “Caribou Barbie” Palin continues her reign of stupidity in American culture by her remarks over the weekend that the president’s health care reform would result in “death panels” to decide who lives or dies.

The ex-leader and failed Republican vice presidential candidate later backed off and asked for “restraint,” perhaps because folks in her own party were calling her contentions “nuts.”

Perhaps what is worse than the moronic expressions and downright silliness coming from those who are basically shills for big corporations who oppose health reform is that national media coverage of it all has received so much play.

If it could be proven that the anger we see each day on TV at townhalls is genuine as opposed to manufactured, or Astroturf, then the overwhelming media coverage would be warranted. But I think enough doubt and enough evidence has been raised that these shouting matches that pass for civic discourse is largely a tactic by big business and the Republican establishment to scare and whip opposition for health reform into a frenzy.

It would seem after being used to gain public support for an unnecessary war in Iraq that the media would get it.

So much of what one sees today in, at least the national media, is political conflict. That seems all that matters to news producers and editors in these national newsrooms. It is like Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz observed in a WP online chat yesterday when he said that the media likes to “keep stirring the pot and reducing everything to melodrama.”

Is the media in such coverage these days reflecting what the public wants to hear or are they molding the message to keep stirring the pot and turning the news into soap opera fodder?

That’s what it all seems like sometimes to me and I wish the media would stop it. And stop it right now! Cover the news, damn it. If I want soap operas I will watch “One Life to Live” or read about the Palin family.

And while you are at it, will you all in the national media and on cable channels quit using the gratuitous use of the word “pushback.” Yes, it is a real word and in most cases the meaning is being used somewhat in a correct fashion. But it is a buzzword and buzzwords get old in a hurry, especially if they aren’t funny.

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More to Mike Vick story than football

Lately, the local sport talk radio station has been one of my more frequent stops on the FM dial.

It is a good time for sports talk. Football season is on the horizon and major league baseball is winding down with the playoffs in the not-too distant future. Besides, one has little to pick from when it comes to music on FM in the Beaumont-Houston area. And on AM, of course, it’s practically all right-wing radio unless you get in just the right geographical spot and can get the Cajun station out of South Louisiana.

A lot of the radio sports guys have recently spent a lot of air time on the fate of Michael Vick, the one-time Atlanta quarterback who was recently reinstated into the NFL after serving federal prison time for organizing dog fights.

As a story — be it sports or just news — Michael Vick’s is a compelling one given the standard for news stories these days. It is a story tinged with race as well as that of animal cruelty. If gay abortionists were somehow involved in the story you would touch just about every hot-button out there.

The sports talkers are, not to a man, mostly missing the boat when it comes to the fate of Michael Vick. Many of these talk show folks I have heard want Vick back on the field where he belongs (their sentiment). There also seems to be a good-sized element of the African-American community who feel Vick is being, pardon the pun, black-balled from playing football. After all, Vick was one of the top NFL quarterbacks before his trouble with the law began.

I can’t speak for the sports guys and certainly not for blacks. I do believe though that the former are swimming against the tide in a great cultural gulf. Some of the sports talkers can’t understand why, if the NFL commissioner has reinstated Vick, that he has not been automatically snapped up by the league’s teams. Some have even gone so far to say the team executives must be worried about PETA showing up on their 50-yard lines.

But my guess is that the concerns go way beyond PETA. Some of the same folks who abhor animal cruelty show up on Sunday’s in the seats and skyboxes of the NFL’s stadiums. Countless others are chomping down on hot wings and drinking Bud Light at home while the games televised into their living rooms feature young guys knocking the bejesus out of each other. Yet many of these same fans go ballistic when they see abandoned or abused puppies on the evening news.

During my career as a, full-time, journalist I covered double homicides, wrecks killing or maiming handfuls and other miscellaneous mayhem. But never, ever, did I get as many phone calls and e-mails than the next day after a story I did involving stray dogs and cats.

This guy had become a one-man animal rescue and he kept taking in dogs and cats until animals had occupied one house and mostly took over another. I was out at this guy’s house when sheriff’s deputies came to take the animals away because this otherwise Good Samaritan couldn’t properly feed or otherwise care for these strays. It was as sad as it was vile, if you can imagine nothing but dogs and cats everywhere and doing pretty much as they do when not housebroken.

I notice that the local television news reporters lately also jump on animal abuse stories like a duck on a June bug. These stories run at the top of the newscasts, ahead of fatal car wrecks, Saturday-night stabbings and armed robberies. That’s because they know such stories play on the basest of human emotions. That is, at least for those who have the compassion to understand what is taking place.

I won’t dwell on the racial aspect of it because that is something which I personally know little about. However, there is also the “gangsta” element in the dogfighting cult that ticks off people of more than one race. Some people just can’t abide by crack-smoking, drive-by shooting, thugs for some reason.

NFL owners know the tightrope they are walking. Should they give Michael Vick another chance? And then that one little nagging thing: What if he lost some of his umpph while he was in the joint?

I have thought that perhaps Vick deserves a chance at some point in time but only after he has shown sincere remorse for his actions. I thought perhaps his talk in Atlanta to some kids over the weekend might have been a start. Although, some folks see it more as self-serving.

In the end, neither the sports talk guys nor Jesse Jackson nor PETA nor I, will have the say as to whether Vick suits up again for the NFL. Whether that is the case, ultimately, is another story.

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When automobiles age

 Most certainly do I wish that I had been born mechanically inclined. I envy those folks who shrug their shoulders or even express a little glee when something needs fixing on their automobile.

 I drive a 10-year-old Toyota pickup. While such pickups are very rugged and tend to hold up over time and mileage, they do have problems every once in a while. I don’t know what 10 years is in automobile age, or specifically, small truck years, but I would guess it to be the equivalent of being 50 years old in human years. If that is the case, then I am breaking down physically much faster than my Tacoma. Two spinal surgeries, I would think might be a human equivalent of a couple of Tacoma transmission replacements. I have had the former but, knock on wood, not the latter.

 Today’s problem is seemingly minor, I hope. The hardest thing has been trying to determine just what the hell the part is that has failed. Basically, it is what makes — or in my case doesn’t make — my passenger-side door close. Looking online I have found various terms which might describe it. Oh well, I’ll figure it out in awhile or ask my neighbor, who is a mechanic.

 The latest problem points to the fact that I need a newer, if not new, vehicle. The problem is paying for it. The cash for clunkers program will be no help. I just ran my information through and found that my truck was supposed to get 21 mpg. It might still, I don’t know. But eventually I will have to get a new truck or, God forbid, car. Maybe some auto dealer will see this and want to work out a trade for advertising. Hey, I’m game though I will not hold my breath.

 In the meantime, I will have to determine just what the part is called that needs my immediate attention and get it shipped here post haste. I have a feeling driving around holding my door shut will quickly lose its quirky appeal.

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The Black August of 2009

Black August. Perhaps some day the folks who were once proud to call themselves Republicans will look back on that month — August 2009 — painfully and remember it as the month that that the once Grand Old Party went down in flames.

It all started out so well. Party operatives who helped gin up faux outrage over voting problems in Florida which resulted in Bush v. Gore were really getting little old ladies and Joe Sixpack riled up over the Obama health care plan. The media, lovers of conflict more than life  itself, were eating it up. Local TV reporters would run over their own grandmothers to catch a town hall meeting held by a local congressperson, just hoping for soundbites by those feigning anger, some of whom consumed Medicare while screaming against government-run health care.

Even some polls were saying the American public was, for awhile, not all on board with insurance reform if a public option was to be part of the system.

But as the month waned and late summer drifted into its last few weeks, the Republicans saw their well-oiled machinery come apart at the seams when their opposition was smacked down by the “Big B.” Yes, backlash.

It didn’t take much to turn the public against the anti-reformers. A couple of Democratic congressmen got roughed up at their townhall meetings. Other rallies got out of hand. Some punches were thrown, some signs batted about, a couple of women, children and their pets were hurt.

The backlash grew and grew. The next midterm election saw an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress. State assemblies which once were governed by solid GOP majorities fell. The following year saw rancorous state Republican conventions throughout the country. The conflict between the extreme right and moderate wings of the party became so intense, that the party finally splintered.

Today, most Republicans see little hope that their once loved party will ever regain its stature as a national party. Perhaps there would be one GOP today instead of several little parties that are unable to generate voter interest had things been differently way back when. During that dark, black August so long ago.

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Beware the government in their helicopters

 The government is coming in their helicopters to my area and perhaps to an area near you, that is if you live on the Texas coast. But they’re white helicopters and not black ones.

 Our state’s environmental agency says folks will notice white helicopters hovering over pipelines, oil production and other industrial facilities in the vicinity of several coastal metro areas of Texas next week.

 The helicopters will be flying over the Beaumont-Port Arthur, Houston-Galveston-Brazoria and Corpus Christi areas measuring volatile organic compounds and other hydrocarbon particles that are too tiny to be seen by the eyeball, says the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the agency formerly known as the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, TNRCC, or “Train Wreck.”

 VOCs are compounds that can be found in gasoline or other industrial chemicals. They can combine with nitrogen oxide, light winds and sunlight to form ozone which can burn through your head and scramble your brains like cooking an egg on a Texas sidewalk in August. Not really. It’s the ground level ozone — think smog — that they are talking about.

 A special infrared camera on the helicopters can take images of the compounds as well as look through your clothes, so be sure you are wearing (lead-filled) underwear next week if you are out gallavanting on a pipeline somewhere around China — that’s China, Texas. Actually, I just made up the part about the camera looking through one’s clothes. I’m not sure if the infrared cameras can do that.

 This public service message is brought to you by the Texas Gulf Coast Council on Lead Underwear and Ground Level Ozone Pollution Control where our motto is: “We aren’t sure what one has to do with the other, but we are willing to entertain your theories.”