Woke

A few years back the Black Lives Matter movement coined the adjective “woke.” This argot meant “up with the struggle” (even if based on deception), generally the black struggle. Obviously this word’s derivation suggests it evolved from waking up ... and it has been adopted by the woke talking heads throughout the cable TV industry. It has become a badge of hipness.

This observer finds it curious that many of these woke talking heads are white ... presumably enjoying white privilege. Yet they feel compelled to appropriate this idiom to demonstrate their inclusive skills ... a possible indication of black privilege?  This borrowing is just one of many such cross pollinations over the recent decades. Perhaps there really is some amalgamation of our two Americas taking place.

Talking Heads

Some cable TV channels do have scripted opinion shows. However, those that are in the slightest impromptu require their talking heads to keep talking. Dead air is death. As a consequence, a lot of what is said on these political shows us drivel ... and mindlessly echoes what is said by other "pundits" on other shows or even a few minutes earlier on the same show. Most talking heads are inherently lazy and couldn't come up with an original idea or perspective if their inflated salaries depended upon it. This must be the reason why a particular political bent takes over these channels and seldom changes. And this is why they are rightfully called "echo chambers."

Let me offer an example -- once I was invited to offer my thoughts about bar tending in a panel discussion. Even though I had no experience in this profession, the money was good, so I agreed to fake it. I did this in the following manner -- I was always late answering questions and would reword a previous respondent. I did this so successfully that I was offered a follow-on gig that never happened. However, using this experience as a template, I understand how many cable TV talKing heads can offer opinions on things they know absolutely nothing about.

Next time you watch one of these shows, follow carefully and see if I am not right.

Fooling Themselves?

MSNBC shows like the Rachael Maddow Show and Morning Joe have been climbing the cable TV ratings charts ever since they moved to the vanguard of the never-Trump movement. CNN on the other hand is emulating the Hindenburg. What's the diff? I think that the audience expectation for CNN is for news ... an area where it has lost great credibility ... whereas MSNBC is looked at for opinion which it offers in abundance ... mostly rabidly anti Trump and anything he stands for.

The question is: Is MSNBC and other "resistance TV"  channels fooling themselves? Surely, many Hillary voters are finding solace in the anti-Trump spittle spewing on these channels. But those on the right, like myself, also tune-in to see how over-the-top the rhetoric can go on these channels. The fact that Fox News has also moved leftward has also freed up some conservative viewership looking for comic relief.

Bottom line: If the liberal cable channels think that these ratings bumps are permanent, they may be disappointed once the American psyche adjusts to Trump's unorthodox style ... and these opinion rants become hyperbolic, like too much rich food ... and it's time for a diet.

Valley Talk

I know ... I know ... I am a curmudgeon. But I just watched an English professor from Yale discussing  its curriculum choices there and she spoke in what is increasingly infecting the women of this nation ... and an occasional pajama boy (Tucker Carlson comes to mind) ... and that is "valley talk." This is where, when speaking a declarative sentence, the speaker emphasizes the last syllable of the last word in each sentence as though she/he is unsure of the point being made ... and turns everything into a half-question. This zika-like plague is now seen on cable TV where more of the female "pundits" under the age of 40 are clearly smitten with this guttural way of communicating. They think it is eliciting sympathy for their viewpoint. To me, it does just the opposite.

This verbal tic apparently started years ago with the teeny-bopper girls in the San Fernando Valley outside of Los Angeles and traveled east for whatever reason ... perhaps because we have a national inferiority complex. But, when it reaches into the ivied halls of Yale and into its English department no less, we know that our spoken language is slip-sliding away. I am not a linguist but I do understand how spoken language patterns take hold ...  as, when the king of Spain had a lisp, it then became fashionable for everyone to lisp (still persists to this day). But why gum-chewing valley girls? Why are they to be emulated?

(If I were speaking this last sentence my voice would go up on the "ed.")

Optics

These days, television, in particular cable TV, seems to be increasingly able to shape public opinion. Be it the Israeli commandos rappelling down on a Turkish ship running the Gaza blockade … or a live shot of that broken British Petroleum “containment valve” one mile down spewing a cloud of evil oil into the pristine Gulf … or President Obama kneeling down on a Gulf of Mexico beach to examine a tar ball … it is all about the visuals that the news editors can effect on their viewing audience. The term that has gained current popularity for this phenomenon is “optics”. And, I don’t know about you, but I am getting a little tired of seeing that same ten yards of Gulf Coast wetlands with the BP oil slick lapping on its marsh reeds or those same Turkish militants (soon to be martyrs) wailing on the Israeli commandos. And now we are beginning to see oil coated pelicans (pelican?) consigned to bird heaven … covered in immoral BP petroleum.

These visuals can’t be the whole story by any stretch, but the gullible American public seems to be wedded to this form of information pabulum. I may be swimming against the tide here (so to speak), but 45 days into this BP drilling rig explosion, there seems to be remarkably little ecological damage (numerous pelicans die every day from shark attacks) relative to what we have been led to expect by the hysterical video and copy editors. (This morning on Morning Joe they graphically extrapolated the oil slick moving into the Atlantic and polluting shorelines all the way up to Cape Cod.) “A majority of Americans see the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico as a major environmental disaster.” (The Pew Research Center on May 11th)

These dire predictions may in fact transpire if this leak is not contained for months to come, but I for one am skeptical … particularly when I see the environmentalist and politicians expeditiously stepping in to take advantage of the publics’ angst. Viz: President Obama has shut down all drilling for oil in the Gulf for six months (a far bigger economic disaster) and the Democrats in Congress are smacking their lips about using this incident to push through their Cap and Trade (read carbon tax) legislation this summer.

May I suggest that famous Clintonista line? “Let’s all step back and take a deep breath.”