Tag Archives: Twitter

A Handful of Things I Could Not Care Less About

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I don’t have to make a list of even a fraction of the truly, deeply serious things going on in the world. Everyone’s aware of Russia terrorizing Ukraine, the American West drying up, sequoias on fire, Trumpist grifters and idiots running for office, the daily mass shootings and on and on. All of it, really bad stuff.

But lately I’ve been amazed, or I should say re-amazed at stories we are all just as aware of … that I could not care less about … but still clog our common bandwidth. So as a therapeutic exercise, here’s a handful that bewilder/annoy me most.

1:  Elon Musk v. Twitter: I accept that 2022’s professional media and pundit class has an umbilical attachment to Twitter. The platform’s offal doesn’t so much drip into their veins as it gushes in a way that makes everything require immediate attention and a “take” to sustain their relevancy. So when you add the world’s richest man, (who is an attention addict) and Twitter itself, god help the rest of us who couldn’t give a flying [bleep.]. Will he or won’t he … buy Twitter? Be sued by Twitter? Tweet again this morning? Not only don’t I care, I don’t need to know … which is why I don’t care. Nothing about it matters to me or 99% of the people I know. But Musk is rich, and because he’s rich he’s famous … and it includes Twitter right there in the headline. So everyone who thinks they’re someone has to talk about it. 

2:  Any and all, including the latest, super-hero movie:  Ok, great, they put butts back in theater seats. So, being, you know, a business, Hollywood can’t snort enough of comic book heroes and villains. And it’s true, the paychecks for them for otherwise serious actors covers a lot of arty work they might want to do later. But Martin Scorsese (another old guy, like me) is dead-on right. These Marvel etc. movies are basically numbingly formulaic theme park rides designed as much to avoid pissing off Chinese censors as entertaining movie fans. That said, I red-lined the whole  AvengerThorWakandaDr.StrangeSpidey universe years ago. Mainly because, in case you haven’t noticed, they’re all the same damn movie. So yeah ok, I’m a crank. But I did finally see the new “Top Gun” sequel … and sat looking around the theater wondering if everyone else noticed it was basically another re-fitting of the latest generation “Star Wars” movies? Only with 50 wide-screen Tom Cruise Superstar close-ups. Don’t care! Won’t be back! The Seven Story Archetypes have been reduced to two … or maybe one.

3:  Foodie “journalism.” I like to eat. Believe me. You don’t get a body like this nibbling raw roots. But I don’t believe I’ve ever read an entire food “review”, if that’s what they’re called. I don’t doubt the talent of the myriad “celebrity chefs” regularly populating food-specific websites, so-called “lifestyle” publications and piling up atop each other on cable TV like pastrami on Katz Deli rye. But once you’ve worked inside the sausage factory of modern media and understand how absolutely essential restaurant advertising is to the aforementioned “journalism” you quickly learn to dismiss the hyperventilated excitement over so-and-so’s latest “award-winning” concept or the succulence of their Matsusaka beef. “Food journalism” is – to me, a crank, I think I mentioned that – a pervasive form of fan boy/girl PR flackery no different than the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, that sad collection of cat ladies and ponces who once staged the Golden Globes … solely for the checks they got from agents and TV networks.

4:  The personal pro-noun thing.  Because I want to be careful about this, I’m saying up front that anybody and everybody has the right to be called or “identify” as anything they want. I certainly don’t care. “He”, “she”, “it”, “non-binary humanoid #7”, whatever works for you. Go for it. Personally, I’m trying to get friends and family accustomed to “Hey, Serpent King” when asking me to pass the salt and pepper. My interest here is that this, which is attached to the “trans” rights movement, has become, “a thing”, as the kids say. In my liberal news bubble, sites like The Daily Beast, Salon, Jezebel crank out a story or three a day with some kind of trans or identifying angle. And it strikes me, a relic of the civil rights era, where blacks composed fully 13% of the population, as remarkable given that the trans community represents something between 1% and 5%. (Although, perhaps as proff of it’s “thing-ness”  the number of adolescents identifying as “non-binary” has doubled in recent years.) In our hyper-personalized social media world, where everyone can curate an arresting, distinctive image for themselves, being anything other than merely “he” or “she” can seem irresistibly appealing. Again, I see no harm. But I just can’t help but wonder if come 2040 there won’t be a lot of looking back and seeing this pronoun revolution as “a ‘20s thing.”

5: The crypto frenzy. Not being particularly astute with money and investing, (I was the guy snorting when Google debuted at something like $100 a share), it’s not surprising I don’t get Bitcoin, Dogecoin and all the other Scamcoins currently out on the market. Not only does the whole enterprise walk and talk like a Ponzi scheme where “profits” depend on the chumps dragged in after the big boys, but I don’t understand what problem the whole concept is trying to solve. Regulated and insured banking?  

Dividend-possible investing? But never mind me, when the likes of (Nobel Prize winning economist) Paul Krugman regularly rail against the underlying concept and the abundant frauds, and bona fide smart guys like Ezra Klein flat out admit, “I don’t get it”, I’m more convinced than ever that it’s all just another variation on tulips and collateralized debt obligations. The only real fascination I have is the psychology of crypto’s true believers. FWIW here is a link to a very educational conversation between Klein and crypto expert Dan Olson. And here’s a recent column by Charlie Warzel at The Atlantic. And a sample from Krugman.

Lying in political ads is legal. Really.

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Guest column by Noel Holston

Athens, Georgia — Throughout the day, and especially around evening news time, Atlanta’s commercial television stations are bombarding viewers in the greater metro area with paid political advertising. The primaries for Georgia governor, U.S. Senate and other races are just three weeks away.

One spot in particular jumps out. Former President Donald Trump, in a voice-over, endorses David Perdue for Georgia governor over incumbent Brian Kemp. Trump derides Kemp for refusing to find him the votes to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 and for failing to exercise his supposed authority to simply throw out the ballots.

This is, of course, a bald-faced lie — indeed, part of the “Big Lie” that is even now being investigated by a U.S. House select committee.

Mainstream media ads also amplify The Big Lie.

Even as a grand jury convenes in Atlanta to determine whether Trump criminally interfered in the election when he phoned Kemp and pressured him to alter election results.

Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Secretary of State, both Republicans who themselves had voted for Trump, simply declined to exercise powers that didn’t have. They refused to ignore recounts and facts. They refused to cheat.

But still the ad runs and runs, with Trump kvetching about what was “stolen” from him and his supporters.

How can this be? How can these TV stations keep showing attack ads that make claims that their own news anchors, both local guys and their respective network counterparts, routinely mention only with the modifiers “false” or “baseless”? Is there no “truth in advertising” requirement?

Short answer: No.

At least not where political advertising is concerned.

I emailed my concern about this a couple of days ago to WXIA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Atlanta that I most often watch for news. What can I say? I have a crush on Andrea Mitchell.

A WXIA representative got back to me this afternoon. Here’s the reply. I’m guessing you did not know this:

“The Federal Communications Commission’s political broadcast rules actually prohibit television stations from refusing or altering political advertising from any legally qualified candidate,” WXIA’s spokesperson said.

“More specifically, the FCC says that a person who has publicly announced his or her intention to run for nomination or office, is qualified to run under the appropriate federal, state or local laws to run and has met all of the other necessary qualifications to run for and hold the office they are seeking, is permitted to purchase political advertising time within 45 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general or special election in which that person is a candidate.

“Additionally, television stations cannot censor or alter the content of political ads being run in any way. The ads must be run in their original form — even if their content differs from the ordinary program content that the station would regularly air.

“A station is also prohibited from rejecting a political ad from a candidate, despite its content. As a result, broadcast stations are not responsible for the content of those particular political ads, even if the content may be demonstrably false or defamatory in nature.” (bold italics mine)

So, even if Trump accused Brian Kemp of sheep shagging or Kemp said Trump and Perdue are having an affair, the Atlanta stations would be obligated to televise their ads uncut. And so, in similar situations, would all other federally licensed commercial TV stations in other parts of the country, including yours.

And we worry what Elon Musk is going to do with Twitter.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He regularly shares his insights and wit at Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.

Let Us Praise Devin Nunes’ Golden Cow … and Mom.

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I like to remind friends anguishing over “the state of things” that — at least until we hit the fatal tipping point — there is a counter-balance to the stupendous landfills of venality and criminality choking the headlines. And right now there’s no story making that counter-balancing effect clearer than Devin Nunes suing … Devin Nunes’ Cow … and Devin Nunes’ Mom.

The no-doubt atheist writers for the Jimmy Kimmels and Stephen Colberts of the world had to have fallen to their knees in praise of Yahweh and golden calves for this latest heaven-sent torrent of “you can’t possibly top this” comic material. I mean, Nunes is outraged that people (maybe the same person) claiming to be his cow and his mother are constantly making mercilessly fun of him, mainly for being a witless tool of a corrupt moron? Where could they possibly get that idea? And how dare they!

Technically, Nunes — the California Republican most identified as a complete Trumpist stooge — is suing Twitter. On the grounds that the OCD-inflaming social media platform is damaging his hard-earned reputation … for being a witless tool of a corrupt moron, apparently. He’s demanding $250 million in damages for this suit and is threatening to bring “many more” in his valiant effort to rid the world of snarky bastards who make fun of public fools.

In case you’ve missed the first chapter:

” … the lawsuit objects to a colorful array of claims made by the since-suspended account @DevinNunesMom:

– ‘Nunes is ‘not ALL about deceiving people. He’s also about betraying his country and colluding with Russians’

– ‘I don’t know about Baby Hitler, but would sure-as-shit abort baby Devin’

– ‘Alpha Omega [Nunes is an investor in a Napa vineyard] wines taste like treason’

and

– “falsely [suggesting] that Nunes might be willing to give the President a ‘blowjob.’”

The lawsuit also accuses ‘Devin Nunes’ Cow’ of spreading false claims to its 1,204 Twitter followers. Those claims include stating that ‘He’s udder-ly worthless and its [sic] pasture time to move him to prison” and “Devin is whey over his head in crime’.”

Naturally — and also hilariously, where Devin Nunes’ Cow had 1204 followers before Nunes’ suit, the number exploded to over 152,000 by the end of the day, with off-shoot accounts like “Devin Nunes’ Goat”, “Devin Nunes’ Grandmother”, “Devin Nunes’ Lawyer” and “Devin Nunes’ Cock” sprouting by the minute. [UPDATE 3/21: @DevinNunes’Cow = 528,000 and still growing.] Simultaneously, “Devin Nunes’ Mom” — with a gleeful push from snark-loving liberals — was pushing north of 300,000 with the goal of more followers than (the real) Nunes. (Oops! It’s now suspended.)

This is all gob-smacking, extremely funny, cathartic and reassuring. When the history of the Trump era is carved in granite, Devin Nunes will be there as the most … well, I can’t use “witless stooge” again so soon in the same rant, can I? The guy’s a nearly impossible tool/fool. You really wonder what weird, anomalous genetic combination spawned someone so astonishingly devoid of self-awareness and common sense?

But there’s an element of this Twit-storm carnival that gnaws at me.

Not being a Twitter guy, (Life Goal #14: Less time staring at a glowing screen, not more), this may be another opportunity to remind snarky, hipster, tech-inhaling liberals that Nunes’ people, the crowd out in Fresno that keep on re-electing him, probably because of his witless stooge-ism, isn’t living on a regular diet of Twit.

The modern press corps and the entertainment industry have an intravenous relationship with Twitter. And it’s not just the appeal of the immediate news flow. The second-by-second call and response of Twitter is like an individualized Nielsen rating for every reporter, pundit, comic and elected official’s ego. You can tell in a flash if you’re tracking or not. If you matter, or not. If you’re a player, or not.

But while Twitter is 99% of the conversation at The Cool Kids’ Table, it’s (very) telling that Team Trump 2020 is making its biggest social media investment in … Facebook, otherwise known as Crazy Grampa in Sun City’s Slow-Mo Twitter.

Nunes’ — my guess here — represents a whole class of people who, A: Don’t “get” Twitter, B: Don’t “get” irony and satire, but C: Do get an enormous chunk of their “news” off of Facebook. The tales of how Facebook has allowed itself to be gamed over and over again by Russians and other cynical actors are well-established. But Team Trump is betting that it can do what it did all over again next year. Facebook nation hasn’t changed.

Facebook better suits a crowd — picture your average 65-plus retiree with a couple free hours before the weekly gun show meet-up — that isn’t on the move. They can sit home and scroll through what their tribe is trading today: Hillary Clinton sex rings in pizza parlors, invading Honduran toddlers with machetes for lopping off the heads of heroic Vietnam vets, skinny wackadoodle liberals coming to take your hamburgers away.

Nunes gets that crowd.

For me, I’m left wondering who is backing the guy’s latest shameless absurdity? Who’s going to pick up his legal bills? And/or how much of this nutjobbery is just a Michelle Bachmann-style set-up to extract “legal fund contributions” from the Crazy Grampas on Facebook?

 

 

 

 

Friend and Foe Drop the Hammer on Ilhan Omar

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Well, it appears the Democrats have dropped a five-ton “Zero Tolerance” hammer on my newbie congresswoman. That’s gotta hurt.

The reaction to Ilhan Omar’s tweets about Jewish money in American politics could not have been more swift and indignant or filled with any higher level of dudgeon. Another breath was not going to be taken without hearing her unequivocal apology … which she kinda offered.

Within hours of her glibly tossing out a reference to an old P Diddy song she (and all Democrats by association) were being condemned for “hating Israel”.  Minutes later she was being taken out behind the barn for a whoopin’ by Nancy Pelosi and every Democrat close to a microphone. Yikes. Bad day, madam.

To be clear, the dagger’s edge of the condemnation of Mar wasn’t directed at her complaint about money in politics so much as it was … the inference of the “trope” she banged out via Twitter. To everyone that mattered, any reference to the way AIPAC (the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) doles out cash in Congress is exactly the same thing as saying “Jewish bankers control the world.”

I’ve said “yikes” already, right?

Several things come to mind.

1: Public officials in general would be very well-advised to reserve Twitter for only the blandest pronouncements. For example: “Today is Mothers Day. Let’s all tell Mom we love her.” On Twitter (which, “When it isn’t kindergarten it’s a sewer”*) anything else leads to instantaneous re-re-interpretation, flame wars and grief. Stop trying to prove you’re more clever in 20 words and an emoji than everyone else and stick to a speech or policy paper when you’ve got something important to say.

2: A nuanced conversation about Israel is damned rare in the USA. The reasons include the often psychotic tribalism of both the genocidal dictators over there in the ‘hood, (Saddam, Bashir al-Asad) and our oil-rich Gulf allies. (That sound you hear is the bone saw carving up the reporters our gas station buddies don’t like.) That and the perilous position Israel is always in relative to those neighbors. That reality has a way of severely out-weighing the innumerable ways Israel makes its situation worse by being controlled by its arch-conservative religious “leadership”. Given that pretty medieval crowd, there’s not much chance puppet governments like Benjamin Netenyahu’s will ever stop piling more and more people into West Bank developments and rubbing Israel’s affluence in the face of the average Palestinian, penned in and governed by their own rotating cast of demagogues. (And forget about ever sorting out which is the chicken and which is the egg.)

3: Omar is part of the current Congress’s 0.6% Muslim representation, (1% of total US population.) By contrast, Congress today includes 31% Catholics, 14% Baptists and 6% Jews. 3% of 535 declared either “don’t know” or “refused”, so they might be our atheist representation. Praise be!) Point being, Omar’s in no position to do anything other than register an occasional (albeit much too glib) complaint about the US government’s near-total deference to Israel … and the wealthiest of the Middle East’s Muslims. (But hey … when that Palestinian rabble strikes oil, we’ll take their calls.) Omar’s a voice in the wilderness, and yet she’s getting hammered by friend and foe alike as though she’s winding up to lead a jihad. Proportionality isn’t much in vogue these days.

4: It goes without saying that virtually every Republican in Congress and the pundit-ocracy is a hypocritical fool when it comes to condemning “hate speech.” Somewhere, a few of them might have expressed discomfort with Trump referring to the cro-magnon, tiki-torch, in-your-face-anti-Semitic Nazi-bros in Charlottesville as some of the “good people on both sides”, I just don’t recall at this moment. But it’s unfortunate even a few Democrats don’t use this fleeting window in the news cycle to reinforce Omar’s underlying complaint about money — from wherever — steering US politics.

Unfortunately, Zero Tolerance within the herd means everyone stays on the same script in these moments of (Twitter-sparked) crisis.

So much then for making lemonade out of this outrage.

(*Me. Often.)

The Tweet The Gophers’ Coach Should Have Sent

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When University of Minnesota football players boycotted practice because they didn’t approve of how fellow players were being treated by the University during a sexual assault investigation, head football coach Tracy Claeys took to Twitter to praise them lavishly:

“Have never been more proud of our kids. I respect their rights & support their effort to make a better world.”

cursor_and_sexual_assault_university_of_minnesota_-_google_searchThere were a lot of problems with that tweet. Coach Claeys presumably didn’t have all the facts, yet, by making the “better world,” comment, he seemed to be siding with the accused over the accuser.  He was publicly crossing his bosses, University Athletic Director Mark Coyle and President Eric Kaler, who did have the facts.  Importantly, he expressed no concern about the seriousness of an extremely disturbing allegation.

Both in terms of football and morals, Claeys was following his players instead of leading them. A strong moral and football leader have tweeted something more like this to the community and these emotional young men:

“Until we learn the facts about these disturbing allegations, we’re going to be students & players, not administrators. Back to practice men.”

Don’t take sides on the investigation.  Don’t side with the accused over the accuser, or vice versa.  Don’t undermine your bosses facing a difficult decision.  Don’t allow your players to dictate when they will and won’t choose to practice or play.

If Coach Claeys would have chosen something like those 140 characters to lead instead of follow, he would have had some young men angry at him.  That happens to leaders.  But he would have taught his young players and the rest of the student body an important lesson about how to act and lead during a time of uncertainty.  He would still have the respect of his university and community. He would still have a chance to rebuild the reputation of the program that was so badly damaged by his entitled players.

But Coach Claeys chose a very different 140 characters on Twitter, and the characters he chose prove that he is not the right person for that very difficult job.  For that, he has no one to blame but himself.

The Donald’s Lost Twitter Rampage

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NEW BLOG PHOTO_edited- 3Apparently 12 million Twitter followers and the press were so flabbergasted by The Donald’s graveyard shift rantings Thursday night they missed all the good stuff that followed. Fortunately, I’ve captured everything since, including misspellings

8:35 am … Wheels up on classiest plane ever. Chik-Fillet brunch. First class company w/first class people. Mayor Rudy telling very funny Mexican joke. #CrookedHillary still eating krumpets? Let’s see those cankles! #NoCanklesOnMelania.

8:46 am …  Saw no ratings @MorningJoe  w/#RiggedMedia calling ME crazy!? Where did Mika spend the night? @Joe’sPlace? Lots of people say so. Must be true. So many low class #DyingNewYorkTimes  “experts” Not!

8:52 am …  #PuckeredForDemocratsCNN “amazed” by me calling out #CrookedHillary for getting duped by #SexTapeMissU. Know what’s amazing? #ClintonNewsNetwork still in biz. Loser TV for losers!

8:55 am … Bloomberg TV. Show some kohonays and watch #FatTrampMissUSexTape. Total trash!!! WORST MissU ever!!! Couldn’t do sit-ups when I sat on her. Will fix Bloomberg problem when in WH!!!

9:01 am … #BestInBizFox&Friends says it like it is. #BlubberButtMissU Clinton Democrat. People say in 1996 too. Probably true. #Brilliant Steve Doozey in better shape than #FlabbyArmsMissUWhiningDemocrat. #NoFlabOnMelania.

9:06 am … Got call from #ShouldBeOnSupremeCourtSeanHannity saying #RiggedMedia unfair as usual. Watched #AlwaysBloatedThirdWorldMissUSexTape. Says it proves #AlwaysRightDonaldJTrump was against Iraq war in ’96. #CorruptRiggedNYTimes will ignore. Unfair!!!!

9:11 … #CrookedHillary still not showing cankles! Why hiding? Hobbled on stage at empty rally. People saying she has gout and Alzheimers. Must be true. WHO is “unhinged”?????? Did #OneGuyYouCanAlwaysBelieveDonaldJTrump give LON WET KISS to ISIS? No. #RiggedMedia will not report.

9:14 am … #NoRatingsChannelsABCNBCCBSMSNBC still saying I lost debate! Total losers! #TrustBreitbart says #DonaldJTrumpInKnockOut cleaned #CrookedHillary’s flabby clock. #DrudgeBest poll said so BEFORE DEBATE WAS OVER!!!! #MelaniaClockNotFlabby.

9:22 am … #PatheticSenateRepublicans “embarrassed” by #ReallyNastySoDirtyYouGottaSeeItPorkyMissUSexTape. So many losers. Have you seen their wives? Reason why. #MelaniaStillRockingBikini.

9:33 am … Just got note from #BrilliantWillBeOnTrumpSupremeCourtRogerAiles. Says #CrookedHillary paying off #RiggedMedia. Roger very misunderstood. Very unfair what #LowRatingsDyingMedia saying about him. Smart viewers like blondes. Everyone knows. #EvenThoughMelaniaNotBlonde.

9:41 am … #OldFlabbyThinksShe’sFunnyDemocratSenatorMcGasket says I should have daily “weigh in”. Ask Dr. Oz! 236 pounds! Great stamina!!! Ask #NoBodyFatMelania. So many lies!!! SO UNFAIR!!!  America wants change. #VeryStrongDonaldJTrumpWillJailFlabbyDemocrats.

10:03 am … Landed for #HugeEnormousRally. People say crowd lined up since July. Must be true. I don’t know. Three miles long. Sounds right. Democrat fire marshall refused so many. Very unfair! #DemocratFireMarshallsWillBeFired.

10:17 am … Fabulous reception in #GreatestAmericanCityEastBogaloosa from #OnlyGreatAmericansWantDonaldJTrump!!!!  Great looking “Bikers for Trump” supporter w/Trump’sNoPussy face-tattoo said it best. “Save Us from Crooked Cankle Bitch!” So many good-looking people!

10:44 am … Called out #LousyCrummyRatingsRiggedMediaReporters at back of rally! Really unfair!!! So biased.!!! #PutinRealLeader knows what to do. Not like #VeryWeakKenyanWithPeopleStillSayingNotRealBirthCertificate. So many not so great looking girl reporters. #JealousOfMelania. Many with #ButtAsBigAsFatSluttyWorstMissUEver. Disgrace!!!!

11:13 am … Wheels back up. First class lunch on #World’sMostFabulousAirplane. Chickenfingers. Gravy. Coke. Best in world American food!!! #MelaniaSickInToiletButStillHotterThanRosieO’DonnellThatPig.

Paul Begala: Wry Wing Politics Devotee

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Okay, call me a rube, but my obscure little blog doesn’t get linked everyday in Tweets by national talking heads like Paul Begala.  So when it happens, I have to take a moment to feel self-important, before I slink back to my dark  corner of the world.

Begala_tweets_wry_wing_politics

 

Yes, Paul (I call him “Paul” now) links to among the least unique posts I’ve ever penned.  (And trust me, there is plenty of competition for that honor.)  Yes, it is surely his first and last visit to WWP.  Yes, this happened because of Rick Weiland’s great work, not mine.

But still, a sideways glance from Paul freakin’ Begala makes a backwater gadfly’s little heart go pitter-patter, and page views go through the roof.

I’m thinking I’m probably now on his holiday card list, right?