Matthew Daly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
matthewdaly) wrote2009-06-10 04:13 pm
matthewdaly) wrote2009-06-10 04:13 pm
Five thoughts for the price of four
1. The Obama administration on Wednesday appointed a compensation czar who will have broad discretion to set the pay for 175 top executives at seven of the nation’s largest companies, which received hundreds of billions of dollars in federal assistance to survive.
By my informal count, it seems that the Obama administration now has more czars than pre-Revolutionary Russia. Can anyone explain to me why a term for dictatorial Slavic autocrats would have so much traction in the administrative charts of the White House? Obama has run with this ball, but as I recall this whole silly thing started with the drug czar back in the Reagan's day. I just don't know, but wouldn't "Associate Vice President" be more intuitive and less serving to the forces of totalitarianism?
(ETA: Apparently my belief is not only true but John McCain made the joke first a few weeks ago. There were 18 czars in the history of the Romanov Empire and arguably 28 in the White House. In Obama's defense, the appellation "czar" is generally applied by the media and they seem to hold ordinary bureaucratic titles in mundane life, generally "Special Envoy to..." or "Special Representitive for...".)
2. Those loutish transgender-beating disk jockeys are gearing up to apologize. I haven't followed this too closely, but I haven't seen anything that isn't chasing the wrong story. Getting them to apologize is foolish, because anyone can apologize insincerely and they probably are sincerely sorry that they crossed the line so far that it put a temporary crimp in their advertising budget. They can't say anything that could possibly have the same emotional weight of the harm they caused. At the same time, firing them is dumb-witted, because they'll just get a job somewhere else and keep up their schtick with a new persecution complex angle, and the radio station will just fill their slots with the same edginess to retain their audience.
Following the companies that advertise with them is closer. But you know what? I've seen a list of the companies that yanked their advertising, and I'm not impressed. There is nothing progressive about distancing yourself from someone you shouldn't have been close to in the first place. Do you think that those ten companies won't be back when the attention dies down, or that they aren't still paying for ad buys on the shows of their intellectual peers in every other California radio market? To be perfectly pointed, why wouldn't they be glad to affiliate themselves with the loosest cannons so that they can look like heroes for publicly ditching them at the "right" moment? I want to hear about the businesses that are desperate for the 18-35 male demographic but sufficiently values-based that they won't pay a shock jock's salary to get to them.
3. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor Wednesday to blast Democrats for setting a start date on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing. First of all, kudos to CNN for doing the legwork to show that a 50 day gap between nomination and the start of Senate hearings is quite ordinary; that is the sort of fact-checking that I expect from the news media. Second, I'm just bugged by what seems like the Republican notion that there's no reason that this shouldn't take a really long time. The happy they get from keeping a Senator from taking his seat for over five months now is probably what is driving them to want 8 Supreme Court justices for as long as possible. But it makes you look pretty slow-witted if you can't even imagine doing a fairly well-defined job in four months. Orrin Hatch says "I've been informed that there have been some 4,000 decisions. My gosh, that is going to take some time to go through those decisions." If you're a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and it's been over two weeks since a nomination and you *still* don't even know how many rulings the nominee has made, that's no one's fault but your own. Besides, we live in the future; you can crowdsource the review of her writings for red flags and have the results you want in three days, and nobody believes that you haven't already done this.
4. Carrie Prejean finally de-crowned for failing to live up to her contractual obligations to promote literacy or do boat shows or whatever the hell is expected of her. It was kind of amusing to watch Donald Trump's embarrassing declaration that Prejean and her views were notable because she was so hot and that "Ew, no!" was somehow advancing the national debate on the issue of marriage equity. It seemed obvious to me at the time that Prejean would take the validation that she was bigger than state pageant coordinator Shanna Moakler and jump to the conclusion that she as also bigger than Trump, and I wondered how long it would take him to learn that himself. Actually, it was sooner than I thought. Now the only question is whether more people will ignore her upcoming book or his next beauty pageant. Its hard on me because now I'll have twice as many things to ignore, but I will soldier on.
5. Our well-regulated militia is back in high gear, shooting a security guard at the Holocaust Museum. I can only imagine how angry the accused suspect is that his fellow white supremacists are denouncing him for "hurting their cause" when he was just, you know, following through on it. My recommendation to hate groups like Operation Rescue and Stormfront is that they make far clearer to their followers that they are nothing but talk if they don't want to suffer further embarrassing setbacks like more innocent people dying.
EXTRA-BONUS SIXTH THOUGHT!
6. Have you guys taken the time to try Pepsi Throwback? Holy crap, that stuff is tasty! I'm not even convinced that cola used to taste that good. Get on the ball, it won't be around for long.
By my informal count, it seems that the Obama administration now has more czars than pre-Revolutionary Russia. Can anyone explain to me why a term for dictatorial Slavic autocrats would have so much traction in the administrative charts of the White House? Obama has run with this ball, but as I recall this whole silly thing started with the drug czar back in the Reagan's day. I just don't know, but wouldn't "Associate Vice President" be more intuitive and less serving to the forces of totalitarianism?
(ETA: Apparently my belief is not only true but John McCain made the joke first a few weeks ago. There were 18 czars in the history of the Romanov Empire and arguably 28 in the White House. In Obama's defense, the appellation "czar" is generally applied by the media and they seem to hold ordinary bureaucratic titles in mundane life, generally "Special Envoy to..." or "Special Representitive for...".)
2. Those loutish transgender-beating disk jockeys are gearing up to apologize. I haven't followed this too closely, but I haven't seen anything that isn't chasing the wrong story. Getting them to apologize is foolish, because anyone can apologize insincerely and they probably are sincerely sorry that they crossed the line so far that it put a temporary crimp in their advertising budget. They can't say anything that could possibly have the same emotional weight of the harm they caused. At the same time, firing them is dumb-witted, because they'll just get a job somewhere else and keep up their schtick with a new persecution complex angle, and the radio station will just fill their slots with the same edginess to retain their audience.
Following the companies that advertise with them is closer. But you know what? I've seen a list of the companies that yanked their advertising, and I'm not impressed. There is nothing progressive about distancing yourself from someone you shouldn't have been close to in the first place. Do you think that those ten companies won't be back when the attention dies down, or that they aren't still paying for ad buys on the shows of their intellectual peers in every other California radio market? To be perfectly pointed, why wouldn't they be glad to affiliate themselves with the loosest cannons so that they can look like heroes for publicly ditching them at the "right" moment? I want to hear about the businesses that are desperate for the 18-35 male demographic but sufficiently values-based that they won't pay a shock jock's salary to get to them.
3. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor Wednesday to blast Democrats for setting a start date on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing. First of all, kudos to CNN for doing the legwork to show that a 50 day gap between nomination and the start of Senate hearings is quite ordinary; that is the sort of fact-checking that I expect from the news media. Second, I'm just bugged by what seems like the Republican notion that there's no reason that this shouldn't take a really long time. The happy they get from keeping a Senator from taking his seat for over five months now is probably what is driving them to want 8 Supreme Court justices for as long as possible. But it makes you look pretty slow-witted if you can't even imagine doing a fairly well-defined job in four months. Orrin Hatch says "I've been informed that there have been some 4,000 decisions. My gosh, that is going to take some time to go through those decisions." If you're a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and it's been over two weeks since a nomination and you *still* don't even know how many rulings the nominee has made, that's no one's fault but your own. Besides, we live in the future; you can crowdsource the review of her writings for red flags and have the results you want in three days, and nobody believes that you haven't already done this.
4. Carrie Prejean finally de-crowned for failing to live up to her contractual obligations to promote literacy or do boat shows or whatever the hell is expected of her. It was kind of amusing to watch Donald Trump's embarrassing declaration that Prejean and her views were notable because she was so hot and that "Ew, no!" was somehow advancing the national debate on the issue of marriage equity. It seemed obvious to me at the time that Prejean would take the validation that she was bigger than state pageant coordinator Shanna Moakler and jump to the conclusion that she as also bigger than Trump, and I wondered how long it would take him to learn that himself. Actually, it was sooner than I thought. Now the only question is whether more people will ignore her upcoming book or his next beauty pageant. Its hard on me because now I'll have twice as many things to ignore, but I will soldier on.
5. Our well-regulated militia is back in high gear, shooting a security guard at the Holocaust Museum. I can only imagine how angry the accused suspect is that his fellow white supremacists are denouncing him for "hurting their cause" when he was just, you know, following through on it. My recommendation to hate groups like Operation Rescue and Stormfront is that they make far clearer to their followers that they are nothing but talk if they don't want to suffer further embarrassing setbacks like more innocent people dying.
EXTRA-BONUS SIXTH THOUGHT!
6. Have you guys taken the time to try Pepsi Throwback? Holy crap, that stuff is tasty! I'm not even convinced that cola used to taste that good. Get on the ball, it won't be around for long.
thought #2
firing the shock jocks isn't dumb-witted. i don't care whether they find a job elsewhere, and who will replace them. if they do it again elsewhere, we now have precedent of how much pressure can come down on them, ditto if the new hires were to do the same thing. this sort of hateful crap should have serious consequences. and no, apologising isn't good enough. especially not because they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to apologise after first pulling the "it was FUNNY! don't y'all have a sense of humour?" BS, and are IMO only doing it because several bigname advertisers pulled their money.
instead we're gonna get a fauxpology, but also a 2.5 hour radio show with transgender representatives. that might do a bit of good.
will those go back to advertising with KRXQ? probably. but i think it's damn fine that a fringe group such as trans people is getting this much traction, and being supported by such large companies! it's great news.
Re: thought #2
But the problem isn't with this one day's broadcast. The problem is the other 364 days a year in every major and semi-major city in the United States (most of Canada probably has more sense, but I couldn't say) when these reactionary shows put down minorities of every stripe and don't violate the basic rules of not using the major epithets and not directly advocating violence. It's just as painful to listen to and stokes the lunatic fringe with nearly as much efficiency, but it's free speech and you can't raise a good protest when they use their code words and dog-whistle politics properly. And it's crowd-pleasing for that sort of crowd to kick off a sentence with "Maybe this isn't 'politically correct', but..." and then end it with a completely sophomoric declaration of intolerance.
And these large companies that you suspect of following your will are paying the freight for these shows every day of the year because they are listened to by a significant source of people with disposable income. They are in bed with the people who are stoking the fires of bigotry in the nation, and I don't think they deserve a get out of fail free card. As high-minded as their memos sound, the fact is that they thought that they were paying for red-blooded emotional bullies that were smart enough to not leave bruises on their targets.
Re: thought #2
and yes, it's still news when GLAAD actually stands up for transfolk. and even bigger news when big companies withdraw their advertising dollars for a short time. i don't harbour any illusions that they really CARE, mind you. but this is how it always goes; and if they all fake it long enough, it'll become socially unacceptable, and if we then wait another 100 years, maybe it won't even occur to most people anymore to make fun of transfolk.
i don't actually have any knowledge in how far large companies are tuned in to precisely what shows their ads play. home depot sure didn't sound like they had a clue. i think they mostly care to reach certain demographics, exactly how that's done might not be all that important to them.
i am definitely surprised at some of the companies who acted; i didn't expect they would.