Fact checking the Pauline Howe issue

A couple of days ago, Zack brought up the case of an elderly woman, one Pauline Howe, who was purportedly visited by police for protesting a gay pride march. The story seemed a little unusual, and the visit excessive, so I decided to fact-check it a little bit. In researching, I found that, while a real event, the topic was really only mentioned in a couple of sources, particularly the far-right UK tabloid the Daily Mail. As this might indicate, the event took place in the UK, not any US location. Though free speech is of course still valued there, there is no constitutional enumeration protecting it to as high a level as in the US. As such, an attempt to equate hate crime policies in the two countries is futile at best.

The second issue is that, contrary to the Mail's claims, her attitude toward gays seems rather serious. From the Guardian UK:

The Mail described Howe's letter as an attempt to "complain", although the article later mentions in passing that Howe had described homosexuals as "sodomites" with "perverted" sexual practices that spread sexually transmitted diseases.

Further, it wasn't as if she was simply sitting at home writing letters, but actively attended the rally with the sole purpose of being intentionally intrusive to the marchers. Granted, no one has the right to not be offended, and the police visitation was more than a little excessive, but think: If someone showed up at the Million Man March dressed in the robes of a Klansman, what exactly do you recommend? Contrary to the protestations of some, there is absolutely a connection between these attitudes and very real violence. Attitudes like this don't happen in isolation, and people who go on about how much they hate gays, but always add "oh, but I wouldn't hurt them. I just think they deserve to die" need to learn that.

What's next, Nike's Next Great Shoe Sower contest?

Anyone who's spent any time on Craigslist knows that the site is propped up by two things: Ads for hookers and really, really cheap job offers. Hell, there's a whole site dedicated to compiling and mocking these crappy offers at workingfail.com. If you think about it, though, that isn't all that surprising given the source. It's mostly startups, amateurs, and other people who don't really know what they're asking for. Therefore, imagine my surprise when I find that the Washington Post was making an offer that makes those look outright generous:

The Next Great Pundit Contest!

Yes, that's right, the Washington Post is now pretty much throwing in the towel, seeking to rely more on bloggers and webcam owners, rather than actual reporting. I'm no business major, and I know newspaper subscriptions are down, but is lowering the quality of content really the solution? Honestly, though, the lack of quality they're inviting speaks for itself, so there's not much to say here. Almost as absurd, however, is from the grand prize itself: For a year of work and submissions, you can walk away with a grand total of $2600. Yes, that's the real amount. Oh, and that's IF YOU WIN:

By entering the Contest, each entrant grants Sponsor an unrestricted, royalty-free, perpetual right to display, modify, perform, copy and create derivative work from his/her Entry.

Maybe I'm misreading this, but it sounds like they can use the submissions pretty much however the hell they want, and tough shit to the entrant. If that includes passing it off as their own, so be it. This whole thing is so ridiculous that it's almost past my ability to mock. Therefore, I'm going to let Andy Cobbon do it for me.

Balloon Boy, the Media, and Stupid People

"Who or what the hell is Balloon Boy?" I found myself asking this question Saturday, as I'd heard the name in passing repeatedly, but had yet to hear a definition. When I looked it up, though, I was rather glad to have missed it. It was about the dumbest thing I'd heard in a good, long while. It seems like every few months, something gets into the water supply and a bunch of people buy into some ridiculous bullshit or another. If it isn't this, it's the body of Bigfoot, or President Obama's birth certificate, or the LHC causing black holes, or that the world will end in 2012. (Protip: It won't, any more than it ends every December 31.) Hell, if some crazies are to be believed, 'something gets into the water supply' is more right then I know:



Dammit, people, how are we supposed to improve our society, make ourselves more politically aware, if we can't even see through crap like this? Every time one of these hoaxes/conspiracy theories comes along, I hold out hope that people will learn a lesson, that they'll develop some basic critical thinking skills. So far, those hopes have been dashed every time. Not only that, the level of media coverage surrounding stuff like this shows that people don't even have any interest in changing. It all paints one very disturbing picture: If our society is to come to an end, it won't be an apocalypse, it won't be an alien invasion, it won't be a home-grown black hole, and it for damn sure won't be vaccinations. It will be stupid people who lack anything resembling basic reasoning. Don't even try telling me there aren't enough of those to go around.

Down With This Sort Of Thing!

It might have come to your attention that our society is being destroyed from within. It's true. Our morals are steadily being degraded through the evils in our culture. Our precious children are growing wicked and disobedient, and I think we all know the cause: Sex and violence on television. Or, wait, was it rap? Or Harry Potter? Could it have been video games? How about Catcher in the Rye? I thought it was comic books. Yeah, that or Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe I'm thinking of Rock & Roll, with that Elvis shaking his hips, or maybe jazz. It could even have been "beer, pinchback suits, galloping in horse races ("Not a wholesome trottin' race, no, but a race where they sit up right on the horse!"), smoking, ragtime music, knickerbockers rebuckled below the knee, dime novels, modern slang words like "swell", and "So's your old man""? I just can't remember which of those modern evils we're supposed to be outraged about this week.

Some of these might sound nuts, but I swear, they've all been for real. (Except, possibly, for that list at the end, that was a parody out of The Music Man.) Don't believe me? Go check out the work of Jack Chick. On second thought, don't, that dude's just disturbing. Poe's Law in action, but he insists he's for real, and people on both sides certainly treat him as such. (Dammit, I'm getting off track here.) The point is, as long as there's been culture, people have decried the so-called "moral degradation" of the younger generation. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, ranging from an overly active sense of nostalgia to a feeling of "surely WE weren't like this!" Hell, one of the reasons for Socrates' execution was purportedly a corrupting influence on the Athenian youth, and Socrates himself was famously opposed to the idea of WRITING IDEAS DOWN. Yes, it really does go back that far, and get that nuts. Astonishingly, despite all this evil we've apparently built up, somehow society has absorbed it all and remained intact.

The moral crusaders of today of course claim that exposure to the modern media's sex and violence is hurting children and all that. They usually have some anecdotal examples from relatively current events, but they frequently suffer from two major flaws. Firstly, they often fail to due any real research on the events in question, thereby missing the fact that the connections are often EXTREMELY tenuous. Case in point: Virginia Tech. That just HAD to be because Cho had played violent video games! What? He didn't play them? And he was an unmedicated schizophrenic? So what? It fits what I already know is true, and that's more important! This brings me to the second issue: Even if they do find something, they ignore that it's the exception, not the rule. Most of these anecdotes are just like that guy, they already had something majorly wrong with them. Hell, I'm listening to some Black Sabbath right now (seriously), and I'm just sitting here quietly writing, not out going on a rampage.

Further, the draconian solutions these people propose are, I think, rather telling. People tell them that they do, in fact, have the power to keep their kids from watching programming they object to ( very different from "objectionable programming"), but they worry about their kids being able to see it at a friend's house, or go online and watch it, and so on, and so on, and so on. What, then, do they propose? Why, it should be taken off the air entirely! At that point, I lose what little sympathy I had, because at that point it stops being about them living their lives, but rather telling us how to live ours. Our society is not so weak as to be demolished by a bit of language, sex, fake violence, or girls wearing pants instead of a dress. To Mary Whitehouse, Bill Donahue, Jack Thompson, and other crusaders: Your concern is noted, now go away and let the rest of us enjoy ourselves.

While I'm at it, the inspiration for this post's name seems as good a way as any to finish off.

Objectivity standards? Yeah, good luck with that.

In our current culture, much has been made of media bias toward one side or the other. On the far-right blog/forum/news site Free Republic, for example, I've actually seen people using the phrase "mainstream media" as a pejorative (just don't ask me to explain why I was there). Indeed, it's undeniable that individual sources sometimes hold a slant toward one side or the other (I doubt anyone would seriously argue that Olbermann and Maddow don't lean to the left, or Limbaugh and Hannity to the right). Overall, however, I would hold that there is only one gigantic, monolithic "Media" in scare tactics, and in practice, any real institutionalized bias is next to impossible. There are just too many agendas pulling in too many different directions to be viable. Still, much has been made about the possibility of objectivity standards. I'm actually opposed to such a push, but not for the same reason as many others.

First of all, is such a thing as "objectivity" even possible? Who defines it? I'm biased, you're biased, that jerk over there's biased, so "unbiased" can really only mean "a bias I agree with." Horrible basis for an organized push. Second of all, how would these standards possibly be implemented? One possibility has been the "He said, She said" approach, the "equal time" method that CNN follows so much these days. However, that plan has major problems with it. After all, in any given argument, one side has more evidence than the other. Wouldn't that approach just be biased toward the side that has no such support? Should the media really give equal time to Obama birthers, 9/11 truthers, young earth creationists, and the Flat Earth Society? Not just no, but HELL NO. The "center" in an argument should not be determined by whichever side's crazier.

I suppose we could implement a method by which the evidence is what's presented, with less regard for framing, but that has practical problems as well. First, a metric fuckton of people just won't watch it (and yes, that's an exact measurement). That may sound overly cynical, but let's face it, in our culture, the Food Network gets comparable ratings to C-Span. People just aren't interested in seeing the solid information. It could certainly be questioned whether bad information is any better than none at all, but I'd rather people at least try to keep informed. Second of all, remember the "bias I agree with" bit earlier? It comes back into play. A good or bad lawyer is determined by "how did they do with my case," and the same is true with the media. If the evidence doesn't agree with what the viewer "knows it should be," suddenly there's a media bias conspiracy again. There's just no winning.