The Peninsula

In the room, the women come and go

Talking of Michaelangelo

Now is the winter of my discontent made grievously disgusting by the endless moral indignation running from the open tap I call my television. As Richard lamented,  without an enemy to unite against, peace will defeat us, make it impossible for us to live with ourselves, impossible to be part of any good and glorious thing. In fear of  winning, we cultivate and perpetuate outrage.


I flip on CNN just to check the stock market without having to go upstairs where the computer lives, but all I get from the usual sources is a rice storm.  Yes, yes, Ray Rice (I'd never heard of him until he sucker-punched his fiance) is a jerk who should have been punished and probably would sooner have been if his wife had pressed charges instead of marrying him, but apparently his misdeed is symbolic and therefore not to be let go with his having lost a lucrative career in the only thing he knows how to do. He's a symbol of all the men who ever abused a women and carries all their sins.

 Let the witch hunt begin, let the media shitstorm never end (until the next big thing happens) and let's ignore all the things that "alter and illuminate our times" as Walter Cronkite used to say on his long forgotten show You Are There.  No matter what 24/7 news outlet you frequented yesterday you were only where they wanted you to be and for only one purpose:  pump up the outrage, pump up the outrage, pump up the outrage, to paraphrase the song.  The CNN blond bombshell of the day looked apoplectic, slamming her fist on the desk because the NFL hadn't replied to her question the way she wanted, that question being "why didn't you ask for the video from the Royal Casino Hotel?"  The answer that they fully cooperated with authorities in their ongoing investigation isn't an answer because TMZ asked and got material the police didn't release -- or so she says, avoiding the question I would have asked her: why didn't YOU ask for it?  I would have asked her about why we don't hear about the number of  more horrific crimes against women (and men and children) perpetrated at the same time?

Of course we can't ask her nor can we get her to inform us about any of the truly momentous and earth shaking stories that alter and illuminate our times. Things that will go into the history books. We can only go to MSNBC or Headline News or God forbid Fox to hear the same relentless coverage of the same appeals to righteous indignation about the same thing.  The Fox, of course is typically under fire for being typically   dismissive of the charges since the victim married the man rather than sending him to jail, (therefore the is no crime you see) but nothing about the atrocities in Iraq and Syria, the world menace of  militant Islamic extremists, the invasion of Ukraine by a nuke rattling Russia, the danger to Europe the dangers to the world  from anti-science religious and Republican Americans, the impending breakup of the UK,  and all the other events that alter and illuminate our times.

No, all that's important and exclusively so, is that a very rich and apparently violent man punched a woman and dragged her unconscious from an elevator and wasn't punished quickly enough in a world that is spiraling toward mayhem and barbarism and where we're falling further and further behind.

But wait, there's another option right there on my screen -- Al Jazeera.  No, it isn't pro-Muslim, it isn't noticeably biased and it isn't a group of gigglers and snarkers batting their opinions around like Badminton birds -- it's just the news and a hell of  a lot more of it than I'm used to getting.  Yesterday the only news program not chewing on Rice, the only one discussing the relative dangers of ISIS and the Sovereign Citizen movement, even interviewing a proponent of the latter rather than making gross generalizations and offering selected facts and attempting to blame it on Obama.

That, of course,  and the Arabic name as well is enough to make it unwise to cite Al Jazeera in an essay or to bolster an argument in our polarized world of pre-packaged opinion and store-bought personality, but this morning's article about Bullets and Burgers and the American attitude toward guns on their website is the best and most accurate and least biased thing I've yet read on the subject.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm still offering no hope for a bright American future. We will continue to fight like cats in a pillowcase until we're helpless in a world that has no further use for or tolerance of  our stench. Bang? Whimper?  Not really. More likely a lot of screeching about how a thousand dearly beloved causes are being ignored, this faith or that is being offended, this party or the other is ruining the country and trashing its principles and the latest new gollygeewhiz offering from Apple as we fade into self-absorbed irrelevance and oblivion.

There’s a Big Brother Inside Every Blogger

In her current post, Leslie asks a reasonable, provocative, and long overdue question: Are Bloggers "Citizen Journalists"?  It’s the kind of honest question that demands some honest soul-searching.

Are we citizen journalists in the same sense as an actual journalist?  Are we hired or self-appointed, amateurs or experts, investigators or merely camp followers?  Do we practice the same standards of journalistic integrity as we expect from a professional?  Or have we merely become part of a noisy rabble indistinguishable from those whom we criticize?

The Internet has been an empowering (some will say 'democratizing') force in the world. More than any medium in human history, the World Wide Web is truly the culmination of Marshall McLuhan’s Global Village. It connects us to commentary, ideas, and newfound friends.  It shapes our perceptions and self-conceptions, enables saints and sinners, empowers reformers and terrorists alike. Have we let the Internet go to our heads? As McLuhan foresaw:

“[As] our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside.”

Does McLuhan refer to the internalization of a dreaded États-Unis Big Brother or the object formation of Big Brother within ourselves?

The Internet has certainly made us more opinionated.  It turns bloggers into instant subject matter experts, justified or not. It has transformed us into pundits, self-appointed guardians of the public trust, snoops and voyeurs, saboteurs and trolls.  It amplifies narcissism and reduces humility to obsolescence. As the Internet connects the Global Village, it has not necessarily homogenized and unified us.  Sometimes it leaves us more fractured than before.

I should talk. Your intrepid Octopus has been as opinionated and predatory as any creature above or below the waves.  Nevertheless, with a hat tip to Leslie, I think we owe ourselves an honest conversation.