Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Looks like Louisiana’s about to extend its nanny state to picking clothes for its children by outlawing low-riding pants:

House Bill 1626, also known as the “Baggy Pants Bill” states: “It shall be unlawful for any person to appear in public wearing his pants below his waist and thereby exposing his skin or intimate clothing.”

Have your attorneys file for an exclusive disjunction injunction. It will confuse the judge, undoubtedly, just as easily as I have confused myself and you.

Hidden in the ombudsman column of the Boston Globe wherein said ombudsperson explains the chain of events that led to the Globe printing a story about a rabble-rousing city selectman or whatever anachronism those staid New Englanders have in lieu of alderpeople who pee in trashcans during a filibuster who waved around a bunch of photographs depicting American soldiers raping Iraqi women–photographs long debunked here in the blogosphere as having come from topical pornography–we find this interesting admission from the ombudsperson:

Various sources last week said the photos displayed by Turner came from a pornography website, and they may well have, although I could not trace it to the source.

One has to wonder how hard Christine Chinlund scoured the Web for a particular set of pornographic pictures and how many sites she reviewed in the course of her research. And if it constitutes a “hostile workplace” for her co-workers, or if “I was looking for the source of photos of alleged improprieties on the part of American soldiers” works when the boss catches you.

(For more information, see Media Log by Dan Kennedy for May 14, 2004.)

It’s good to remember that some absurdity remains in the world:

Cuban President Fidel Castro launched an immense anti-American protest on Friday with denunciations and ridicule of President Bush, saying the U.S. leader was fraudulently elected and trying to impose “world tyranny.”

The Cuban leader led a sea of Cubans past the U.S. diplomatic mission here on the oceanfront Malecon Boulevard in a demonstration organized by the communist government against new U.S. measures aimed at squeezing the island’s economy and pushing out Castro.

The crowd chanted “Free Cuba! Fascist Bush!”

Are you sure they weren’t using a noun of direct address in their chants? “Free Cuba, fascist Bush!”

“So-Called” Watch: Linda Feldmann, The Christian Science Monitor:

Bush’s gains were notably big in the 17 so-called battleground states, those that were decided by a close margin in 2000 and promise to be close again this fall.

(Thanks, Pejman, for the link which gave another quarter-turn to the stick in my maw.)

Let me see if I get the attribution straight: An Instapundit post refers to something on Roger Simon’s blog which resulted, ultimately, in an essay on The American Thinker.

Read that essay.

The lead:

How do we account for the continued strength of President Bush in the polls, relative to his presumptive Democratic opponent, despite the stream of bad news from Iraq? Much of the journalistic and intellectual establishment is plainly baffled …and dismayed. The answer is not that complex: the public, unlike the class which defines itself as living the life of the mind, understands that we are at war, a war in which our very survival is at stake. This is a gut-level cognition.

Those who pride themselves on their ability to spin chains of logical reasoning, and sometimes arrive at a counter-intuitive conclusion, instinctively recoil from the obvious lesson, especially when it validates the positions of their political opponents. For them, the battle against the hated Bush is more important than the battle against Islamicist terror. Theories which blame the West as the source of all evil take precedence over actual evil, stariung them in the face.

My tangental epiphany:

Major news media are the same as reality television.

Face it, they’re not just people who point cameras and shoot stuff. They’re content providers who need to sell a story. They don’t just dish out facts and events. They start with a story, and then they cut the video and stage it as needed to have a narrative arc, complete with villains who are just people trying to do the best they can, but whose actions the “narrators” cast in unflattering lights and out of context–but within the narrative arc.

Major news media are nothing but entertainment, folks, and the pictures they paint and the artistry they employ might be actually, you know, entertaining or compelling. If they weren’t talking about something vitally important, and if they weren’t trying to base it as a true story. Perhaps “Inspired by Actual Events” would better describe it.

This damn cheap verbal construction sticks in my craw and wiggles and twists. I don’t care to hear this abomination spoken (and I have one friend who applies it to his conversations like barbecue sauce on over-cooked hamburgers), and I find it disreputable when professional writers use it in things for which they were paid.

Current offenders:

• Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times:
  

  Conservative commentators who seized on this tragedy to complain that the so-called liberal media was more interested in abused Iraqi prisoners than a murdered American civilian are either lying or stupid.

• Sara Shipley, St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
  

  The Howard Bend Levee District is nearly finished with a $25 million upgrade designed to protect against a so-called 500-year flood, or one that has a 1 in 500 chance of happening in any given year.

Face it, “so-called” is the “alleged” without the elegance and without, you know, actual allegations. So-called is the drop-in equivalent of an “authorities say” asterisk in a headline, a written sneer that would be denied if someone questioned a speaker who added the equivalent tone of voice. It’s making air-quotes with the English language, and it deserves all the mockery we can summon.

I’m almost tempted to start a “So-Called Watch” blog, but given the underwhelming popularity of Pop-Up Mocker, I think not.

In his column today, Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times endears himself to the other half:

You go first.
In a recent column you brought out the big guns, God and the Vatican,
to condemn Rush Limbaugh for his support of the troops in the so-called
Iraqi prisoner abuse. Who you gonna call on now to comment on the
televised beheading of an American civilian — the liberal high
authority Michael “Freaky” Moore? Let’s just see if this cold-blooded
murder gets as much air time from the media as the naked butts of Iraqi
prisoners.

Alberta Dabrowsky, Lake Zurich

The entire world
should be condemning that horrific, cowardly murder. As for press
coverage: the beheading of the American civilian is a huge story and
was treated as such. Conservative commentators who seized on this
tragedy to complain that the so-called liberal media was more
interested in abused Iraqi prisoners than a murdered American civilian
are either lying or stupid.

My response, of course, is that I read his column online every day Monday through Thursday, so I guess it’s obvious which of the two I am.

Mr. Roeper can be reached for comment at rroeper@suntimes.com.

I, too, have a crush on my best friend!

Should I tell her?

Signed,
Are You A Psychic, Too, Because Your Columnist Name Sounds Like What A Psychic Would Call Herself -Notice How I Subtly Slipped A Second Question Into My Letter For Free

At OpinionJournal.com, Peggy Noonan examines the terrorist threat to Newark. Her analysis:

• Because the Port of Newark is an easy target:
  

  He [Tony Soprano] comes across a documentary about the potential use by terrorists of the nearby Port of Newark. The Port of Newark, the biggest port on the eastern seaboard, receives millions of ship containers each year; the feds say they can check only 2%; terrorists could easily smuggle in a dirty nuke.

  Tony becomes alarmed. He knows Port Newark. The mob is there, his people are there. It is corrupt, lazy, badly run. Suddenly he realizes there’s nothing between his home and kaboom but a chain-link fence and a mall.

• Because the Port of Newark is an attractive target:
  

  Port Newark is just beyond the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. A hit on Newark would cause panic in al Qaeda’s great target, New York–stock market crash, terror in the streets. A hit on Port Newark would deal a blow rich in practical and symbolic terms.

• Because New Jersey is becoming the center, in America, of the movement for cloning:
  

  But there’s more and for me it’s more central, and the reason my pings began. New Jersey is becoming the center, in America, of the movement for cloning. Its governor just signed the most liberal cloning bill in the United States. There is money in cloning research, and status: We’re the coming intellectual center of science! We’re not just the Meadowlands and the mob, we’re Princeton and Einstein! There is greater suburban affluence to be gained, and higher tax revenues for politicians to spend on community centers built through no-bid contracts by big contributors. The Robert Torricelli Psychotherapy Institute for the Differently Abled. The Jim McGreevey Carpal Tunnel Trauma Research Facility.

Cripes, spare me further “Why do they hate us?” projection of whatever bugaboos the commentator has about America in the discussion of terrorism. Who cares? Don’t solve the projected problem, eliminate those who would blow up Newark for whatever reason.

And prevent Peggy Noonan from being cloned, ever. For her sake, and for the sake of generations of future Americans who read conservative commentators.

Check out John Kerry’s bravado here:

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry warned his political opponents on Monday against attacking his outspoken wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, saying, “They’re going to have to go through me.”

That’s a pretty metaphor, Massachusetts. But we here in the midwest respect our elders just enough to not beat them to a pulp when they start talking smack.

Important insight from WebMD Health News:

Commercials featuring topless models with buff bodies and unattainable physiques may make the viewers feel depressed and unhappy with their bodies.

Sound familiar? It is, but this time it’s the men’s turn to feel insecure.

Actually, it doesn’t sound familiar at all, but then again I have what they call “self-esteem” mostly because I have an accurate depiction of why my body is the way it is, and I’m content with it. Sure, I’d like a little flatter stomach, but that would require more time on the gerbil machines and fewer Guinnesses.

So pardon me when I am skeptical when a woman psychologist from Central Florida University intones, seriously:

“The level of muscularity and attractiveness that are idealized in the media often are not attainable for the average man,” says researcher Stacey Tantleff-Dunn, professor of psychology at the University of Central Florida. “Men see more of a discrepancy between how they want to look, or think they need to look, and the image they see in the mirror. Such discrepancies can cause the dissatisfaction and low self-esteem that lead to extreme and often unhealthy actions, such as eating disorders, exercising too much, and steroid abuse.”

You know what I think when I see an idealized level of muscularity and attractiveness in the media? I think, “Hey, I’m in the media!” or “Hey, man, I wish I had time to spend four hours a day in a gym; of course, I would spend it drinking Guinness and reading or napping in a recliner, but the time would be nice.”

I have not posted on this topic much, gentle readers, because the zone has been quite flooded with floor-to-ceiling coverage of the topic. It’s a bad thing, but not as bad a thing as it’s been made out. The coverage certainly outweighs the offense.

I don’t have anything to add. Read what this guy says about it. He covers it.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)