The Worse and Worst

How horrible are people?
How much more horrible are we now than we were before?
How much of a reinforcing factor is the media in reporting horribleness?
Does this reinforcement work more strongly for negative stories than positive ones?
Is the media responsible for horribleness, if even slightly?

My kneejerk answers to these questions would be: pretty horrible, noticeably so, a lot, yes, and yes.
I'm not going to link it because the contextual facts of the story are irrelevant, but what got me thinking about this is that I stumbled onto a story about a 35 year old woman who had given up her child for adoption about fifteen years ago. It seems she tracked down this biological son via the internet, befriended/manipulated him, and actually had sex with him.
This story is so absurdly horrible that I at first have a hard time believing that a human being is possible of that kind of depravity all on his/her own, that some vile stew of contemporary evils must have swirled around in this woman's conscious and unconscious beings to create the possibility for her actions.(1)
My next thought was about the old cliche how the major news outlets only report on negative stories and not positive ones. I also thought about how the still-adolescent internet media seems to cycle through stories in an exponential desire to find the most extraordinary or most amazing or most horrible one, as though the hyper-competitive nature of internet news forces that media to deliver greater and greater shock value to slice off whatever attention it can from its overstimulated audience. And how could this constant yearning for extremes, coupled with the clear and longstanding negative focus of these news stories, not lead a consuming humanity into at least unconsciously worse and worse behavior.
It's like the psychology behind copy-cat crimes, only with a baser, least-common-denominator competitive streak.
I think this effect does exist. I think this is a form of radical social evolution that is sped along by the brute power and speed of worldwide web connectedness.
I think as a general rule that the media is definitely complicit in this, but on a macro level and not a micro one. I don't specifically dislike media outlets or forms or any people associated with or responsible for them, but I do with some consistency dislike the observable effects of "media." In a way, you could say that not everyone is prepared to be exposed to infinite information.(2) You could definitely say that not everyone producing media is prepared for the responsibility of infinite information.
It's nice to know things. It's nicer to know that you can know something if only you decide to. But the near-infinite experiences of the world population are too much for any one person, especially when being handily distilled by media into only the wildest and most unbelievable.
I guess in a secondary and indirect way I'm saying to you not to leave out the banality of the world. Indeed, if media only to focus more on the amazingly positive stories that abound in the world, then that would only partly remedy the situation.
Nonetheless, as a consequence of this strain of thought, here in this blog I'm going to try to consciously make note of the wonderful things that I see, both inherent in the world and of course those which come from people.


1. Big time disclaimer here. I'm in no way excusing this woman from blame here. I'm also not saying she did what she did as part of some natural escalation of society. Every crime is unique because every criminal is unique. What I'm saying is that the maybe 0.01% of crazy that got into this woman thanks to her absorption of other negative media stories might be enough to push her ever slightly to ever-worse acts. And if lots and lots of people are absorbing the same tiny sliver of acceptance of depravity, then eventually dominoes will start to fall. It's like the parable if you put a million monkeys in front of a million typewriters and give them a million years, eventually one would produce Hamlet. But if they were all watching a continuous loop of Shakespearean tragedies while sitting in front of the typewriters, you can be very sure that it would take a lot less longer.
2. Naturally, no one could ever be prepared for infinite information, though the thought, as mere theory to consider, is an interesting one.

No B.S.

In a haze this morning, and wondering what the weather was up to, naturally I turned on NY1. The All-Canadian Hero, Pat Kiernan, was just finishing up In the Papers and he segue-ed (no idea how to write that and too lazy to check) like the pro that he is to a bit about local schools re-opening after the swine flu scare. He concluded the segment by very calmly remarking that global cases have plateaued, no new cases have been reported in NYC, and that of the confirmed local cases, all were mild, in fact only resembling a simple seasonal flu.
And that was it. Shove it up your ass, national media. Go find somebody else to try to hook with your irresponsible fearmongering with your proclamations of terror and plague. I'll have none of that because I have the calming voice of reason that is Pat Kiernan. I'm not the first nor the thousandth person to extoll his journalistic virtues, but some things ought to be repeated.

1. Ok. It was a long time coming this year, but I'm finally and legitimately excited for the OSU-Michigan game tomorrow. Michigan's pathetic 3-8 is still not enough to taint what is the most anticipated football game for me every year The only exceptions to this would be if the Steelers were playing in the AFC Championship game or of course the Super Bowl. All other games of any level or importance would be secondary, even, believe it or not, an OSU national title game appearance (though I'm sure this opinion is colored by semi-recent events). So it will be fun tomorrow, and I'm semi-confident that the game might itself be interesting for quite a while, or at least long enough to give Michigan a victory against the historically-high 20.5 point spread.
After our game at noon, what I think might be the biggest game of the year is at 8:00 with Texas Tech and Oklahoma. TT is good and all, but I think a lot of people are forgetting how ridiculous Oklahoma is. I think they're going to put the hurt on Texas Tech, and I think they ought to get into the title game over Texas, even though they lost head-to-head.
This is a small digression, but this would be a great year for a playoff, maybe the best yet. I'm fairly certain there will be no major unbeatens (sorry Alabama), and at least 6-8 legitimately good teams to duke it out, in order of quality: Oklahoma, Florida, USC, Texas, Alabama, Texas Tech, Penn State. Add to that potentially-undefeated Utah and you've got a nice playoff lineup (first-round games: OU-Utah, Florida-Penn St, USC-TT, Texas-Bama. Excellent).

2. There has been a minor controversy online regarding a guy trying to use shady means to prove his theory that Obama was elected because the media covered the race unfairly. First, know that the guy at the center of this, John Ziegler, used to be a conservative talk-radio host, which really is about all you need to know about him. This guy cooked up a survey to show that Obama voters absorbed slanderous news about McCain/Palin better than about Obama/Biden, and that this obviously means that the liberal media played up the Republicans' faults while obscuring the Democrats'. Never mind that Obama is black and therefore belongs to a minority group that hasn't ever been portrayed remotely fairly by any form of media, or the fact that it would take some impressive kind of conspiracy in 2008 to effectively filter info.
Anyhow, I'm not as interested in that part of the debate. I'd like to look at a couple examples of why Ziegler/conservatives are angry about the media's treatment of the election, as found through his survey. People were much more likely to know that Palin has a pregnant teenage daughter and received $150,000 worth of clothes than they were to know about Obama's (out of context and misquoted) comment about the coal industry or Biden's past plagiarism. To any observer, partisan or not, this should come as no surprise. Even accepting Ziegler's general assumption--that this is because the media focused on the former stories and ignored the latter--should not be at all debatable. He--we--everyone, unfortunately--is assuming the media is operating with any kind of journalistic standards in mind, that the media is concerned with reporting honest stories and presenting honest pertinent information. Maybe it's archaic, but the major TV and radio networks are subject to federal oversight because they were originally intended to be responsible guardians of the public's information absorption. This has gone by the wayside, and is only really ever expected out of PBS anymore.
Instead, what we have now in almost all media outlets (and throughout all entertainment in fact) is a constant pandering to a least-common-denominator. The media doesn't give us what we ought to know, they give us what they think we want to know. We're interested in trivial scandal and personal details about politicians, cause lord knows those are the things that affect a person's governance (sometimes I know, they do, but you know what I mean).
I've criticized news and entertainment industries about this stuff before but so many people seem unfazed by this that it bears repeating. Our culture is different now, and not for the better. I don't care that Sarah Palin's daughter doesn't use contraception, I don't care that Eliot Spitzer sees prostitutes, I don't care that Bill Clinton got a hummer in the White House. I care that it's perfectly legal to discriminate against gay people, I care that U.S. leaders don't need to adhere to the same standards we hold to the rest of the world, I care that this country isn't remotely solvent.

3. The other day, I received an email from my good friend David Plouffe asking me for money again. (A reminder, Plouffe was Obama's campaign manager.) It was more or less your standard request for donation, this time to help fund the transition effort, except I noticed a couple lines that hint at something I find--at the risk of sounding naive--wholly remarkable and admirable:

For the first time, transition efforts won't be financed with donations from Washington lobbyists and PACs -- which means we'll need to keep asking for your help. Your generosity during the campaign helped get us here, but building a more transparent and open government means continuing to rely on a broader group of people to do this the right way.

First, the theme is the same as always, the same as it was since the day Obama rejected public financing and instead decided to raise all his money on his own. Through these constant emails from them, the campaign has been consistently proud of this fact. Although it sets a dangerous precedent toward ever-escalating money spent on political campaigns, I'm inclined to agree with their pride. Why not be supported quite literally from your supporters, and not some taxpayer funds or professional lobbyists? I know my ignorance on this forces such simplicity, but it makes sense. Again, I'd be worried about the path this could lead us down, but in this moment, I like it.
The much more interesting part of the quoted paragraph, though, is this: "building a more transparent and open government means continuing to rely on a broader group of people."
Obama has found himself in a difficult position after managing to somewhat transcend some of the usual politics in the eyes of millions of people. It's a corny cliche word here, but he's given hope that he might be different or run things differently than we're used to. In this task, and given these expectations, he will of course fail. He's a politician after all. He might represent better things to people but in the end he's one of them.
Nonetheless, if there is one thing that I've sorta noticed about how Obama and his people have gone about things, it's that he seems to genuinely be making an effort at transparency and accountability. Of course, after 8 horribly secretive Bush years, this is politically fruitful, but it seems more of an institutional mandate for the future from the future Prez himself, rather than a comment on the past. I'm too lazy to provide specific examples here from his campaign or the last couple weeks, but I'm happy to say that it seems to me at least that he's trying to deliver on a pretty important bit of promise that his victory represents. So good for him. But don't fuck it up.

Manufacturing Dissent

Probably sometime today the governor of my adopted state will resign. His name is Eliot Spitzer and it seems he likes the ladies, and this is why he has to resign. My name is Josh Folger, I too like the ladies, but no one is clamoring for me to willfully unemploy myself.
Those three sentences are temptingly simple, and yet for a discerning man with a sense of perspective (me, hopefully you too), those sentences are all that's necessary. For a world that is more complex but unfortunately filled with simpler-minded people, they are woefully inadequate.

1. Why exactly is prostitution illegal?
2. Why exactly is a john completely stigmatized in our culture?
3. Why are people seemingly inherently hypocritical?
4. Why must admitted philanderers always conduct their press conferences with their wives by their side? (The wives didn't do anything, right? I can see it as a show of strength if the wife has weighed the situation and ultimately truly forgiven her husband, but what kind of woman rolls over and plays subservient so quickly?)
5. If the wife-at-press-conference is just a show, what is it in our culture that demands such a show?
6. If in fact this show isn't demanded by anything culturally intrinsic, then who is responsible for deciding that this show is needed?
7. For the person(s) responsible for making this decision, what is his motive exactly?
8. As a responsible member of the society (culture), is it our responsibility to accept (or even consider) this motive?
9. Further, must we also question the decider, the culture itself, the wife, the philanderer?

Yes, we must. And once we've finished doing that, we must finally and fundamentally question ourselves, for buying into the false escalating circle of importance in the first place, for allowing someone else to determine what's acceptable and what's not, for creating this faux world of constant posturing and acquiescing to the assumption of what's preferred by the masses, only it's not preferred by the masses, it's what has been decided that the masses prefer (should prefer), so that the masses are then being spoken for and being spoken to by the same entity and never unfortunately are they encourged to think (let alone to speak) for themselves.
Media, I'm talking to you.
I don't see why a woman can't take money from a man (or a man from a man, etc) for sexual favors if the man is willing to give it. If a doctor prescribes me a pain reliever, I am expected to pay him. Body, mind, and spirit.
I don't care that Eliot Spitzer likes a high-class ho. (Disclaimer--I would care if he was stealing from the public to pay for it.)
I am wholly unaffected by the presence of his wife at the press conference.
I am angered that those in our culture with a voice have used it to decide that all this shit is necessary, that this whole thing is even a story.
I am angered that those in our culture without a voice accept all this and respond in kind, sometimes hysterically.