Let me point you to a post on MyDD on the idea of pluralism and how it intersects with American politics right now; I had an interesting back and forth within the comment thread on defining pluralism and what demands it makes from a cultural standpoint – a theme that might be familiar to you if you’ve been reading this blog, but the conversation is worth a look.
With the news that ABC has announced a planned end date for Lost three years from now, I’ve imagined recurring guest star Mira Furlan holding seminars entitled “What to Do When My Executive Producer Cuts My Steady Gig Short Because His Story Has an Ending.”
Given Furlan’s presence on Lost, I have found it kind of amusing that there hasn’t been much mainstream mention of Babylon 5’s defined five-year structure. Then again, B5 barely scraped by year to year, and Lost is a Top 20 hit. So it’s clearly a much bigger deal for a network to say, “Yeah, we’re gonna end this thing, no matter how popular it is,” and to say it so far in advance.
Interesting AP report on the Web today about Keith Olbermann’s anchoring coverage of the recent Republican presidential candidate debate, shortly after making a Special Comment that criticized Rudy Giuliani. There’s a parallel drawn between the way Republicans view Olbermann and Democrats view Fox News, and a discussion of whether someone who quite openly editorializes on television can also have the neutrality that we tend to associate with “objective” news reporters/anchors.
It’s an interesting question, but I think the article comes close to setting up false dichotomies. It says that “the danger for MSNBC is provoking the same anger among Republicans that Democrats feel toward Fox News Channel.” I find it hard to believe that one person could generate the kind of hostility that Democrats feel toward Fox as an institution. Olbermann is followed by former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough on the air, and preceded by Chris Matthews – who didn’t do much to hide his antipathy toward Bill Clinton – and conservative pundit Tucker Carlson. Liberal bloggers like Atrios have even wondered why MSNBC hasn’t taken note of Olbermann’s ratings performance and tried to develop more shows/personalities to appeal to Olbermann’s audience. The closest I can think of to an analogous Democratic presence on Fox is retired General Wesley Clark’s time there as a military analyst, and from what I understand Sean Hannity’s co-host is supposed to provide some liberal balance. (And I’m deliberately leaving aside here the issue of how the two networks’ anchors cover news, since I’m sure different sides of the partisan divide have very different views.)
As for whether or not Olbermann can be neutral enough, I guess that gets us back to the old question of whether it’s really possible to do what the AP article claims is the historic standard: “maintain strict objectivity.” Is this possible? What does it mean? Does it mean removing all efforts at intelligent analysis? If it does, what’s the use of having a trained journalist ask questions?
It’s also worth noting that many of the reporters who are supposed to have the “objectivity” in their day jobs wind up assuming the roles of pundits on TV news programming, at which point they have to start having a point of view. So why not make that point of view clear? Now, if that point of view starts leading to falsehoods or selective editing of information, then we should start to be concerned. But then again, striving for “objectivity” and “neutrality” has led some journalists to hold information back from the public for fear of seeming to interfere with the political process. So, again, what use is there in pretending to be objective when one isn’t? You can have an opinion and still be even-handed in considering both sides of a question. I wonder if that’s just a skill we’ve lost.
All that said, if Giuliani or any other candidate was concerned that he would not be able to accurately get his message out with Olbermann as an anchor, I wouldn’t blame them from stepping back from the debate. We’re all kind of feeling our way through this right now, and it will be interesting to see how the media comes to define its role and its code of behavior in the years ahead.
Spent most of today on some long-delayed gardening-type projects in the front of our house. We have a very small dirt hill next to our front walk/front steps, and a very thin strip of dirt between our driveway and the neighbor’s driveway. Last year we had our retaining wall replaced with a new brick wall, and we were very happy with the results. But we never got around to actually doing anything to the small dirt areas inside the wall. So today we went out and bought some garden soil and some flowers and set out to try and neaten things up. We still want to get some small garden stones for some of the areas, rather than plant there.
I truly have no idea how people with larger houses maintain large lawns and gardens. I appreciate the aesthetic appeal, but it is such a time sink. Then again, several years ago my brother was talking about the type of house he’d one day like to have, and mentioned that he probably had different goals than me. “I mean, not everyone needs a lot of land. What’s Dave gonna do with land, anyway?” There was absolutely no malice there, just a recognition that, yeah, Dave isn’t much of an outdoors type.
Still, it was nice to add some color to the front of the house. Now let’s set the clock running and see how long it’ll take for the neighborhood rabbits to come and make off with the flowers. If it weren’t for them, I probably would’ve just set up an herb garden and been done with it.
So Pete Yorn, having previously opened for R.E.M. and collaborated with the Dixie Chicks, will be doing some shows opening for the reformed Crowded House in August, including a show in Philly. One of these days I really ought to go see Yorn headline a show, but if he keeps opening for groups I’m going to see anyway, he’s going to make it hard.
Reaction on Yorn’s message board is sparse and mixed. Some people like the idea, but at least one person is wondering at the wisdom of opening for a band that, truthfully, many people outside the adult album alternative market will write off as an exercise in 80s nostalgia. (Never mind that for me, Crowded House is a 90s nostalgia band, given how much I love Together Alone.) I can see the point. On the other hand, the AAA market seems like it’s the one place that’s still really supporting Yorn. So it probably doesn’t hurt to get a little additional exposure in that market while he’s between tours.
And hey, it’d be great if more acts would pay attention to what I want to see anyway. 🙂
As I was sitting here trying to think of a topic to blog about that won’t fry my exam-week-addled brain, I’ve been keeping tabs on the Giants-Phillies game in San Francisco via Major League Baseball’s site. Now, watching a game over an Internet play-tracking system can’t give you the excitement of watching a play unfold. But it’s amazing how much data you have at your disposal – you can see what the whole lineup has been doing. Every pitch’s location and result is tracked. Charts for each batter’s previous at-bats are right there. It’s pretty cool.
Pat Burrell flying out to end the inning with men on first and second stinks on the TV or on the Internet, though.
The last issue of DC’s weekly series 52 came out today. This would probably be a good time to read the last, oh, 32 issues or so.
Buying a weekly series of issues really has to rank as a lousy idea on my part. Especially because by all accounts, the story shifted somewhere along the line so that it’s original purpose – helping to explain what happened during the “One Year Later” gap – got tossed to the wayside in the name of helping set up yet another chapter in the ongoing continuity-fest.
Ah well. Plenty of trades out there waiting for me to buy ’em.
‘Cause our five year old, she’s always up to semantics.
We have a rule that Alex can only watch a certain number of shows a day, whether that’s on TV, On Demand through digital cable, DVDs, or other sources. And it must be said, she normally does a very good job of following this rule. But we have been engaged in a long-running dispute in which she thinks she has found an exception. The Nick Jr. website includes streaming versions of some episodes of their series, along with other video clips. These are are identified with a “Videos” button on the website. So I have had the following conversation roughly nine million times:
Master Bedroom. ALEX is seated at the desk, watching Nick Jr. on the computer monitor. Enter DAD.
DAD: OK, Alex, that’s your last show of the day.
ALEX: Daddy, it’s not a shooooow. It’s. A. Video!
Sounds like she’s already qualified to head out to L.A. and start denying residuals to actors.
So Wired magazine lets you subscribe dirt cheap – a dollar an issue – and Pattie and I both agree that it’s a great deal. There are many thought-provoking stories that I’m sure will provide much blog fodder in days to come. But there’s a trend in the reporting that makes me wonder if I’m hopelessly behind or the folks at Wired aren’t quite living in the world we are. There’s a lot of talk about the death of the PC and the upcoming future where all of our applications live on the network and we just access them from our web/net terminals. I’m sure I’m oversimplifying, and I apologize for that. But the paradigm example that was discussed in one article was e-mail and webmail, and the rise of Yahoo Mail and Google’s G-mail. And let me tell ya, I can not stand webmail. Several of the schools where I teach have web-based e-mail setups such that I can not use Mozilla Thunderbird to pull the messages down to my home desktop. This aggravates me to no end. I do not want to have to have several web browsers open at one time to be able to get my e-mail. I do not want to have to keep logging into a particular website to get my mail. I want to open my frackin’ e-mail program and tell it, “OK, fella, every couple of minutes, you go check all of my e-mail accounts and bring home the stuff that isn’t spam.” It ticks me off because when I can’t get to the net, or if I get absorbed in other projects, I miss e-mail from people that I would like to be able to respond to more promptly, and then I wind up feeling like an idiot. And I am not in favor of any technological advancement that makes me feel like an idiot.
Now here’s disturbing news, and so soon after our trip to Hershey. The Chocolate Manufacturers Association apparently has a petition before the FDA to redefine chocolate – and the new definition wouldn’t require any of those pesky coca butters or cocoa solids.
Can’t wait to see the revised factory tour that discusses those delicious hydrogenated oils.