thoughts from an empty head

Karl Frisch
Media Matters for America

Dear Mr. Frisch:

While I perusing my feeds this afternoon, I noticed your post concerning the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, which you referred to with the appellation of “nerd prom”.

Well, I am sorry to inform you, sir, but that label has been already taken, and by better people that the gathering of stuffed shirts and overblown egos that collected themselves around a mediocre meal this evening.

Allow me to introduce you to the denizens of what the internet already knows as “nerd prom”.

Now, while you may see certain patterns of behavior that are similar to the gaggle of idiots you are forced to spend the evening with, I would like to say that I would rather spend my day avoiding the con crud and breathing deep the odor of overheated and underbathed nerds in San Diego, or any other comic book convention locale, than spend five minutes with the overpaid morons you now find yourself among. The costumed folk are, as a whole, a more decent lot than the fools you are trapped with.

If you are searching for a suitable hashtag for the Correspondents’ Dinner, might I suggest “#stenoconXX”, where XX is the year. That hastag is short for “White House Stenographers and Whorebags Conference”, which, given the ever-present downward spiral that modern journalism finds itself after the last few decades, is more than appropriate. At least, I hope it still is – they aren’t letting Jeff Gannon in the front door still, are they?

Enjoy your meal, sir. And I look forward to more of your work on Media Matters.

Regards,

Steven Perez
Observer and raconteur, thoughts from an empty head

Do you know what reaction to the media coverage to the swine flu epidemic reminds me of? THE MIST.

For the uninitiated. a bunch of people in a small town are trapped in a supermarket when a deadly mist containing strange creatures rolls into their town. Most of the conflict comes, not from the terror outside, but from the terror inside, namely, the various reactions to the crisis.

Some folks are for waiting for the proper authorities to do something. Some folks are for striking out into the mist to look for help. And some folks go full-tilt loony bin and act out in various ways, such a crazy Bible-thumping lady who manages to convince a fair number of people that the End Times are upon them.

Watching the reaction to how the media portrays the swine flu epidemic is much like watching the characters in that movie interact with each other. Some unwittingly (or deliberately) spread disinformation and rumor about the situation. Some more people yell back to stop the nonsense. Some more yell back to stop yelling. Some withdraw, uncomfortable with the drama.

This is not, by the way, an essay on how the media is somehow blameless in this affair. They are not. But I tend to believe that the sensationalism is merely a by-product of the problem that has long plagues news outlets that value flash over substance and ratings over accuracy.

And let’s get one thing straight: the introduction that the swine flu received is plenty scary without any hype. A strange new virus just popped up and killed a few score people before anyone knew what was going on. And then it spread into other countries. That’s pretty freaking scary stuff, especially when precious little is known about the disease. One may mock a disease’s efficacy, but only from a safe distance.

But watching the knee-jerk reaction of some people on FriendFeed at the mere mention of the words “swine flu” takes me back to the lawyer in the supermarket, brilliantly played by Andre Braugher. So tainted by his dislike for the main character played by Thomas Jane, he is unwilling to even entertain the notion that something beyond his ken is happening outside.

So, too, the reaction of those who see the words “swine flu”. Media supersaturation has made them, I believe, unable to palate another story about the swine flu. They’re tired of hearing about it, so they react in a way that they would not ordinarily act to something which they would usually ignore. I’ve not had any major blowouts with anyone, but suffice to say, I have had more than one conversation in the past few weeks that I attribute to media fatigue much more than a disdain for the welfare of others.

And so, to some effect, we are all in the supermarket now, as something new and terrible swirls around outside. It may kill us. It may not kill us. There may not be anything out there. But we’re too busy being interested in how we should react about the whole matter to care very much about the disease itself.

As someone with family right down the road from where the disease first appeared, I just hope somebody brought an extra flamethrower to burn off the mist.

Dear Wall Street:

Re: your latest whinging over how unfair that big meany Obama is by making you work for less money:

“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus.” [James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates]

“If I didn’t pay [bonuses], the people were going to go. … These people didn’t choose to cure cancer. These people didn’t choose to do public service work…These people chose to make money.” [Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric]

“The consequences of it are going to be a massive brain drain of senior talent from those companies that have taken TARP money to those companies that have not.” [Donald Straszheim, managing principal at Straszheim Global Advisor]

“Companies that need the most talented people to fix their problems won’t be able to pay them.” [Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer]

Gentlemen (and I use that term very loosely), let me offer you some free advice: SHUT. UP.

Just who the hell do you think you are, anyway? You brilliant captains of industry didn’t just deep-six your own companies – you also managed to take down the American economy, to say nothing of the damage you boneheads did to the rest of the international economy as well. By all rights, you fools should be living in a wet, moldy cardboard box under a freezing freeway underpass, if not spending time in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for gross negligence.

We do you rat bastards a solid by not letting you go down in flames as you so justly deserved, and now you want to dictate terms? The hell with that. How about we go ask the teachers, firemen, police officers and garbage collectors in NYC if they can live on half a million a year? Governments all over the world are shaking in their hundred-dollar wingtips right now, and you assclowns want to whine about staying competitive?!? Mother. Fuckers. If you gave two tugs of a dead dog’s cock about your businesses, you wouldn’t have treated them as your own personal piggy banks.

And no, I don’t want to hear about how much President Obama makes. You know why? BECAUSE HE HASN’T COMPLETELY ARSED UP HIS JOB. Granted, he’s only been in office for a few weeks, but he’d have to work triple overtime to come close to the level of rank incompetence you morons have reached.

Oh, and by the way, compared to you idle idiots, Obama does more in one hour than you jackasses tend to all freaking year. He has to worry about the failing infrastructure that his idiot predecessor neglected, the health care his people don’t have because clowns like you constantly complain about the cost, the complete lack of defense this country while our armed forces beat their heads against the rocks in the Middle East, the skyrocketing unemployment made possible by fools like you not being able to find your own asses with two hands and a flashlight, and the choking environment that keep getting jacked up by criminal enterprises like yours. And he has to do this while putting up with the slings and arrows from wiseass Republicans who got their asses kicked in the polls but good last November, to say nothing of a lazy-ass press that would rather read back corporate press reports than do any actual journalism.

Oh, yeah, and Obama has to do it on $100,000 per year less than what he wants to give you.

In conclusion, Wall Street whiners: eat a dick. If there was any justice in this world, your heads would be adorning pikes in front of the New York Stock Exchange as a warning to the next ten generations to stop fooling around and do your fucking jobs.

Up yours,

Steven Perez
Observer, raconteur and extremely pissed-off taxpayer, thoughts from an empty head

CC:
President Barack Obama, White House
111th Congress of the United States, US Capitol

Quick, what’s the unemployment rate? Around 7 or 8%, right?

Wrong.

As many as 25 percent of Americans were unemployed during the days of bread lines that symbolized the Depression, but that figure is more than three times the current 6.7 percent unemployment rate, the economists say. Even the most pessimistic estimates only foresee the rate rising barely above 10 percent.

“We are in a very, very different place than the U.S. economy was in the 1930s,” James Poterba, president of the National Bureau of Economic Research told a recent Reuters Summit.

Or are we? Figures collected for Reuters by John Williams, from the electronic newsletter Shadowstats.com, suggest that, while we are not there yet, the comparison is not as outlandish as it might initially seem.

By his count, if unemployment were still tallied the way it was in the 1930s, today’s jobless rate would be closer to 16.5 percent — more than double the stated rate.

“I expect that unemployment in the current downturn, which will be particularly deep and protracted, eventually will rival, if not top, the 25 percent seen in the Great Depression,” Williams said.

16.5%?!?

I can hear the thought forming in your head already: C’mon, Steven, the government keeps track of this kind of stat, and they do a better job of it than some stats geek.

Right. That would be the same government who didn’t see the economic meltdown coming, right? Or the subprime housing meltdown? Or the credit crunch or the job losses or the stock market tanking? The same government that waited two years to finally call the recession “a recession”?

I’m calling this a depression from now on.

Joel Stein
Los Angeles Times

Dear Mr. Stein:

Thanks ever so much for your information-free essay on food allergies. How happy I was to find out that the disfiguring reaction I had to raw pistachios that made my face puff out like a pus-filled balloon was only a Yuppie invention. Now that I have this valuable information, I know exactly whose ass to kick for my descent into sick time hell.

Therefore, if you could please send me your home address, I will be right over with a large bag of pistachios and a can of whoop-ass, you Yuppie rat bastard.

Regards,

Steven Perez
Observer and raconteur, thoughts from an empty head

P.S. On second thought, I retract my offer to kick your Yuppie ass. You already work for a paper that employs asshats such as Max Boot and Jonah Goldberg, and that is punishment enough for any person.