Cenk Uygur’s Daffy Advice To CNN On "Real Reporting"

Liberal talk show host Ceyk Uygur had some advice for the former “Worldwide Leader in News” in a column he wrote last week about the network’s plummeting ratings. Here’s Cenk:

CNN just had their lowest ratings in a decade. They are in disastrous shape. When I was on MSNBC, we would beat them with a stick. Even after "pro-CNN" stories like revolutions in Egypt and Libya, Japanese nuclear meltdowns and the killing of Osama bin Laden (CNN does much better when major news or international stories break out), we still beat them. Now they're doing so poorly I might even catch them on Current.

We started at almost nothing on Current, but we have been steadily improving our numbers. Why are we getting traction? Because people want an alternative -- the real news. So, I should just stay quiet and let CNN drive off that cliff. By the way, when I catch Erin Burnett -- which is not that far off because I'm beginning to see her in the distance in the demos -- everyone will know it. Who knows, that might be the event that precipitates CNN re-thinking their entire model. Imagine if a network that started at nearly nothing catches CNN within a year.

But I am not going to wait until then to give them some friendly advice. I know they won't perceive it that way, but I am actually trying to help them. So here it is -- for the love of God, stop doing "he said, she said" crap that doesn't actually deliver the news to anyone. Democrats said this and Republicans said that -- who cares? What is the reality?! Your job is supposed to be to bring us facts, not what official spokespeople told you in their press releases and talking points.

The problem is that CNN doesn't have the courage to do this. They're afraid it might offend some folks if you tell the American people reality. I want to be clear; I'm not saying they should give us opinion. There's plenty of that in other parts of cable, including my show. They're never going to out-opinion me. But if Mitt Romney says his proposal balances the budget, well, why don't you crunch the numbers and tell us whether that's true or not? Of course the reality is that it creates trillions of dollars in deficits just so that the rich can have more tax cuts. But CNN would consider reporting those facts as being biased.

If the Giants play the Cowboys and beat them silly, it is not biased to report that they won. You don't have a pro-Giants bias if you report the score. I'm a progressive but I have no interest in CNN skewing issues in favor of Democrats. By all means, call them out just as aggressively. The Democratic Party takes huge amounts of cash from corporations and unions to vote a certain way. My God, CNN doesn't even cover the role of money in politics. They take politicians at their word. Are you kidding? It seems like the people who work at CNN are the last people in the country who actually trust our politicians. Congressional approval ratings were recently at 11 percent. How well do you think you're going to do on television if you're sucking up to those guys?

By the way, following along with artificially created Fox News scandals doesn't give you balance. It makes you sad and pathetic. There are plenty of real Democratic scandals without falling into the rubbish Fox talks about. How much money does Chuck Schumer take from Wall Street? What favors does he give them in return? Why do Democratic leaders keep writing legislation rigged against the Internet -- could it have something to do with the tremendous amount of cash they take from Hollywood companies? Why does President Obama get a free pass on following George Bush's civil liberties abuses like warrantless wiretapping and indefinite detentions?

In other words, do your job -- report the news. The real news, not dueling talking points and manufactured controversies. My God, where is your investigative team? What's the last story you broke? Of course, the reality is that you don't want to break stories about Washington because that might offend some people. What kind of a so-called news operation is this afraid of their own shadow? "Oh my God, what if we offended someone in power. They might not come on our shows anymore and they might call us biased." Or they might call you journalists.

There are a couple of important points to make here that Uygur completely misses in his article. First of all, what is the real reason CNN’s brass is so afraid that the network “might offend some people?” Does a global news operation, as Unger supposes, really have anything to fear by ruffling the feathers of some Senator or Congressman, or even the President? Is it the power of the politicians they are afraid of, or as is more likely, do they dread the possibility of angering their corporate bosses, who after all ultimately work for the billionaires whose contributions put the political puppets into office? Don’t piss off the boss is one of the very first rules that people learn when they join the American workforce.

Some might object and say that news organizations have ALWAYS been owned by corporations, and yet there actually was a time when despite that fact they often aggressively pursued stories that that made government officials or even corporate bigwigs look bad beyond just the latest titillating sex scandal. So what has changed?

Quite simply, it is the expectations of the viewer that have changed. Thirty years ago, when CNN was an upstart network first entering the television news landscape, the only other available outlets in America were CBS, NBC and ABC. Those were the days of titans of the medium, like Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley and John Chancellor—when Americans across the political spectrum shared a common perception of what was going on in their country and internationally as viewed through the lens of national news organizations that, while far from perfect, were at least outwardly dedicated to objectivity.

Since the arrival of CNN on the scene, to be joined later later Fox News and other cable outlets, to say nothing of the Internet, the American media landscape has been forever splintering into mutually exclusive audiences. These days, if you’re a Republican and a conservative you faithfully watch Fox News and get all of your information delivered with a Republican/conservative spin. If you are a liberal or a progressive, you watch MSNBC and/or the Comedy Central shows and get, if not a total lock step Democratic spin certainly a liberal/progressive one. It is easy for people caught in this dynamic to look at those on the other side as if they have two heads, because they literally perceive the world in ways that are diametrically opposed to one another.

The problem with advising CNN to start reporting “real news” as a way of boosting its ratings is that this dynamic has been going for long enough now that doing so would cause the network to be rejected by BOTH sides. The sad fact is that most people DO NOT WANT to hear objective truth anymore. They want information presented to them in such a way that panders to their preexisting prejudices and beliefs, and liberals and progressives are every bit as guilty of this phenomenon as are conservatives. Additionally, this dynamic not even include the many millions of people who only care about American Idol, the NFL season and the latest antics of the Kardashian sisters and won’t watch CNN at all unless it covers the never ending antics of vacuous celebrities. That’s your American media landscape these days—a third of the population devoted to one end of the political spectrum, a third just as devoted at the other end and a remaining third that doesn’t care in the slightest.

If you don’t believe me, just imagine for a moment what would happen if CNN were to do a completely accurate expose on the subject of Peak Oil. In order to do so, it would have to tell some truths unpalatable to conservatives—that oil, coal and gas are finite resources, that worldwide production of those resources is peaking and already choking off the possibility of long term economic growth, and that no amount of “drill, baby, drill” is going to change that fact. It would have to follow that with some truths unpalatable to most liberals and progressives, namely that “green energy” is a cruel pipe dream and that “alternative” fuels are not going to allow us to maintain our suburbanized, automobile centric economy. Imagine the reaction of both sides when the show wraps up by saying that our only hope to survive with our civilization intact is for everyone to immediately begin powering down and accepting a dramatic reduction in their standard of living. The days of carefree trips to the mall, motoring vacations every summer and having your own big backyard are over, and they’re never coming back.

Does anyone really think a show like that would be a big shot in the arm to CNN’s ratings? Sounds to me more like a recipe for the network falling into oblivion once the deluge of angry emails and text messages from viewers all across the political spectrum finally started to die down.

The small minority of us who live in what I call the “reality-based community” accept that the resources vital to maintaining and growing an advanced, globalized industrial civilization are rapidly depleting. “Real reporting” on just about any issue—from budgets and “austerity,” to unemployment, to the housing market, to our crumbling infrastructure, to creeping authoritarianism, to the Middle East uprisings, to the breakdown of our political system—has to be built upon that understanding in order to even hope to present our many problems in such a way that allows genuine solutions to be considered.

Because so few people have accepted that reality, “real reporting” will be rejected out of hand by the vast majority. Ultimately, CNN is a dinosaur that’s heading toward extinction thanks to a change in the media climate that it did so much to help initiate. But Cenk Uygur shouldn’t get too cocky. For when the glorious façade created by the Hologram does finally start to crumble, it won’t spare him or his Current TV viewers either.


Bonus: Here's Bill's take on CNN from 20 years ago

Slate Magazine Discovers Idiocracy But Misses The Point Completely

I've said before that I always find it amusing whenever someone residing deep inside the Hologram wakes up momentarily, looks around, and is horrified at just how grotesque our popular culture has become. Just this past week, writer Simon Doonan of Slate Magazine had such an epiphany, but managed to completely misconstrue the meaning of it all. Here's Simon:

My face bears an expression of extreme gravitas. I would appear to have the weight of the world on my shoulders. Want to get inside my head? Want to hear a snippet of my internal dialogue?

Here goes: Blah. Blah. Blah. How long will it take Jessica Simpson to lose the baby weight? Blah. Blah. Is Brangelina tying the knot just to upstage Jen and Justin? Will Kim drag Kanye down the aisle? Blah. Blah. Blah.

Yes, my head is filled with pathetically stupid thoughts about inconsequential people, and so, quite frankly, is yours. We are all in the same boat. And why on earth do we privilege the most superficial idiocies of popular culture over more substantial fare? The answer is simple: We have lost our fascination with accomplishment.

Whoa...I have to stop you right there, Simon, and chastise you for presuming to know what is inside my head. Maybe YOU spend your time obsessing over such garbage, but that doesn't mean everyone else out there does. In fact, the only reason I pay attention to our mindless pop culture at all is to use it as a measuring stick for just how far into the shitter our civilization has descended. That's what you would do as well if you were half as smart as you seem to think you are.

But please continue:

Superficial vamps and tramps and bimbos are nothing new, but, back in the day, they were forced to share the spotlight with more talented folks, exceptional folks. Marilyn Monroe married Arthur Miller, remember! Successful individuals from all walks of life were feted and garlanded and propelled into the spotlight. We were interested in their accomplishments. During the last century, consummate skill was HOT! Accomplishment was a veritable aphrodisiac. Now it would appear to have become a giant turnoff.

A younger person reading this might well roll his or her eyes and assume that some old gay codger is merely having a menopausal things-ain’t-what-they-used-to-be moment. But let me ask you this: When was the last time you saw a nuclear physicist or a world-class geologist on the red carpet? There was a time when it was not such a preposterous notion. In the past, accomplished people from a wide variety of disciplines were central to the culture. This is an objective truth.

I'll concede Simon's point here, and skip over his given examples in the interest of brevity. So why, Simon, do we find ourselves in this current state of affairs?

And what exactly do we celebrate today?

Today we celebrate all the crap I mentioned at the beginning of this article, which basically means that we celebrate audacious women with impressive racks. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not hating on audacious women with impressive racks. I am a big Russ Meyer fan and have, in fact, something of a soft spot for audacious women with impressive racks. They are just great. However, audacious women with impressive racks are like cupcakes, and man cannot live on cupcakes alone. Sometimes you crave the crusty whole meal of an accomplished person. But today, alas, we are on a cupcakes-only diet.

The question is, why? Why have we shoved all today’s accomplished people onto the back burner? Yes, we have Adele, but I am looking beyond the popular-music realm to the broad areas of accomplishment alluded to above and asking where, fer chrissakes, are the glamorous neurophysicists? Where are the charismatic, overachieving innovators and inventors? Steve Jobs? A unicorn! A lone example. You are going to have to do better than that if you wish to upend my hypothesis.

After extensive conversations with my inner Bertrand Russell, I have, of course, come up with a theory about the origins of this dire situation. Et voilà!:
We are living in an everyone-is-special-and-there-are-no-losers society. As a result, we are fearful of accomplished people because they can do stuff that we cannot do, and giving them the spotlight would un-level the playing field. We are, as a result, much more comfortable with the famous-for-nothing paradigm, because then, we, the great unexceptional masses, still have shot at celebrity.

What a load of GAR-bage. Simon seems to have not noticed that this trend he has documented so well in his article has occurred during a time when most of the American media has become consolidated among a handful of big corporations. The corporate media relentlessly pushes lowest common denominator entertainment as a distraction for the masses so that they won't pay attention the very real evils being perpetrated by their corporate masters nearly every single day...like the (ahem) multibillionaire who put up the dough to found Slate magazine.

The billionaire elite who run this country are not stupid. During the Vietnam War and Watergate eras they saw quite clearly how dangerous to the centers of power television in particular can be when the medium is at least partly in the hands of real journalists and other people who care about objective truth. Abby Hoffman knew it, which is why he once said, "A modern revolutionary group heads for the television station, not the factory. It concentrates its energy on infiltrating and changing the image system." That's what this relentless glorification of vacuous celebrities is all about. Corporate America cannot risk the media focusing on serious issues like our hollowed out economy, our rapidly changing climate, the degradation of the environment and wars being fought in the name of profits, so it gives the masses glitz and spectacle to keep their minds occupied instead.

All of this is the very essence of the Hologram. It wasn't created overnight, and it actually took the media moguls several decades to perfect it to the point where it now effectively stifles all opposition or even serious protest. These days, you can pretty much assume that anything you see on television is at a minimum being placed there as distraction. The truth is still allowed to be disseminated on the Internet and occasionally in print because those of us who actually read and are capable of critical thinking are such a tiny, atomized minority of the population. The truth of the matter is that the Hologram has grown so powerful that it can now, as Simon Doonan himself admits at the beginning of his article, overwhelm the critical faculties of anyone who has not completely removed him or herself from its influence. Yes, Simon, the truth is out here, but you've got to shut off the goddamned television once in awhile if you really want to see it.


Bonus: From my new You Tube music channel, you've got to stop before you lose it all

The Type 2 Diabetes Epidemic Among Young People Is A Calamity Just Waiting To Happen

At first glance, this story that appeared on CBS News over the weekend seems to be yet another depressing reflection on just how few people seem to give a damn that their unhealthy lifestyles are not only slowly killing them but their children as well:

There is a growing epidemic among American children, and now there is a new recommendation on how hundreds of thousands of those kids should be treated.

The problem is type 2 diabetes, and it is a problem that is confounding more doctors, families, and health care professionals every day.

CBS News correspondent Tony Guida reports type 2 diabetes was never seen in young people as recently as 15 years ago. Now it's occurring with alarming frequency. Doctors know that a major risk factor is obesity. Beyond that, they were mostly in the dark about this disease.

"Very little is known about the right way to both prevent it and treat it," said Dr. Robin Goland.

A new study out today in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that the standard treatment for type 2 diabetes in children is ineffective because the commonly prescribed drug Metaformin - effective in adults - has a high failure rate in children. Still, a combination of two diabetes drugs is far more effective in treating young people.

"Two drugs right off the bat, that's an important finding," Goland said.

It is important because type 2 diabetes appears to be more aggressive in young people between the ages of 10 and 17, putting them at great risk for life-threatening illnesses typically associated with seniors.

"We want them to grow up and have healthy lives and not be having heart attacks and strokes at terribly young ages," Goland said.

When it comes to preventing type 2 diabetes, more exercise and a healthier diet are key, but doctors know young peoples' habits are tough to change.

"The first surprise that we saw was, number one, how incredibly difficult it was to effect lifestyle change in these children, in these youth that have type 2 diabetes," said Dr. Kenneth Copeland.

Well, of course it is going to be difficult to effect a lifestyle change in those children. If their parents aren't willing to MAKE them change their habits, its a hopeless cause. Right here I could get up on my soapbox about parental responsibilities and and our mindless teevee-dominated culture that has created a generation of fat, slovenly couch potatoes and blah, blah, blah. If you're looking for that kind of commentary, read Karl Denninger's take.

Instead, I'll boil my reaction down to one very simple observation: what in the hell is going to happen to these kids and their parents when our unsustainable health care system starts to break down within probably the next few years? Not to mention that when energy prices become prohibitively expensive, suddenly these wheezing, waddling fools won't be able to rely on their cars and all of the gadgets that make their lives so effort free. I don't think it takes too much imagination to realize that there are many millions of people who are going to be is deep trouble from a health standpoint long before the collapse finally comes.


Bonus: "I hope that you got fat...'cause if you got really, really fat, you might just want to see me come back"

A Sucker Born Every Minute: The Franklin Mint Ripoff

Ever watch one of those ridiculous Franklin Mint commercials and wonder how a company peddling such a blatant ripoff could ever possibly stay in business? I mean, just how dense, for instance, does a person have to be to believe a "one ounce silver collectable coin" contains much if any silver when it is selling for half or less of the current spot price of the precious metal? Well, now we know the answer as shown by this letter sent to Financial Advisor Malcom Berko and published in the Herald-News:

Dear Mr. Berko: During the past 25 years, I purchased more than $47,000 in collectible silver coins and beautiful non-silver coins from the Franklin Mint for my retirement because I thought the scarcity and limited-edition minting of these coins would drive up their value over the years and because I believed the silver content in the silver coins would also increase in value. Now I’m 64 and decided to sell these coins to a coin dealer who offered me $2,500 for the whole lot. He told me most of the coins were worthless, and the only coins that had any value were those with silver in them. I was devastated because when I was buying all those coins, the people at the Franklin Mint told me these coins were minted in limited production and would be more valuable to collectors in the future. I called two coin dealers in Detroit (these coins are too bulky to carry around) and both said they had no interest in Franklin Mint coins and said they don’t know any dealers who would buy them from me. My son told me to write you because he said you might know of buyers for them, and at this point I’d be very happy to get at least half of what I paid for them if possible. Please help me if you can. And if you cannot help me, do you think I can sue the Franklin Mint and recover my cost? And could you recommend a lawyer for me to sue them?

DA

Troy, Mich.

Okay, I dabble a little bit in precious metals myself as I am sure many of you do who are part of the reality based community, so it was probably very cruel of me to be literally laughing my ass off when I read this. Sorry to be such a bastard. I just couldn't help myself. And how perfect is it that the letter writer is from TROY, Michigan. I tell you, the Gods these days are gleefully mocking us dopey chimps.

Actually buying a couple of Franklin Mint pieces of crap is one thing (I think the wife and I have a phone ordered "collectable" or two lying around somewhere). Blowing $47,000 over a quarter of a century without ever ONCE checking with someone who doesn't work for the company to find out the real value of the merchandise places this guy (or gal?) very high on the list of the world's all time biggest suckers.

Being a much better man than I am, Malcom Berko was far more diplomatic in his response to this inquiry than I would have been:

Dear DA: Certainly, you can sue the Franklin Mint. Frankly, it’s their fault you purchased those coins, it’s their fault you overpaid for the coins, it’s their fault the coins did not increase in value and it’s their fault the coin dealer in Troy won’t give you $47,000 for your collection or the dealer in Detroit doesn’t know a soul who would pay you at least $23,500 for your collection. And because it’s the Franklin Mint’s fault, I can’t help you recover your costs. But some lawyers will do their best to get you a settlement, demanding an advance fee before they pick up a pen. However, that settlement will probably be a 20 percent discount on your next Franklin Mint purchase and no shipping charges. But any attorney I know will tell you that you don’t have a chance in China for recovery.

In 1984, I purchased a die-cast, 1935 Mercedes Benz 500K Roadster from the Franklin Mint and sent them a check for $150. Although it was “to scale, “ it was made in China, poorly and cheaply constructed; parts and pieces would fall off, and when the Mint wouldn’t return my money, I tossed the Benz in the garbage. They also make limited edition plates, knives for collectors, figurines, Star Trek plaques and other ridiculous collectibles. One of the Mint’s biggest coups a dozen years ago was the sale of millions of dollars of collectible plates, jewelry and dolls with the image and likeness of Diana, Princess of Wales. Today, that stuff isn’t worth a penny, shilling or pound. You gotta be careful out there.

You overpaid for those coins by orders of magnitude. And you probably paid five or six times the value of the silver content for the silver coins you purchased. So while sliver has tripled in price since 1984, the silver value of those coins is still way less than your cost. I don’t know of a single item produced by the Franklin Mint that can be sold today for its original cost. The Franklin Mint, like the Danbury Mint, the Washington Mint and others with grand-sounding names are selling organizations that place full-page, impressive and official-looking advertisements in local papers with high-sounding words that give the impression of U.S. government affiliation. (It’s disappointing that some newspapers accept those advertisements because the acceptance gives instant credibility to those claims.) The advertisements always are carefully prepared with clever buzzwords designed to infer great value and urgency but grossly misleading to most readers who lack the knowledge to make an intelligent buying decision.

DA, you’ve been snookered, and there’s no chance for recovery. However, I suggest that you separate the silver content coins from the hundreds of medallions and other junk coins and visit the coin dealers once again. But be mindful that most of those dealers will try to swindle you. They recognize you’ve been swindled before (they know this is Franklin Mint stuff) so they figure you are an easy mark. You may have to wear out a lot of shoe leather till you find a dealer who is willing to give you a fair shake. Then try to sell the worthless coins on eBay, and you might get 100 bucks.

Okay, I've composed myself and am going to stop being so mean to the letter writer. After all, he or she really isn't any different than people who bought houses at the peak of the housing bubble because they believed the shysters who told them that home prices only go up, or people who have been furiously pumping their money into their 401(k) accounts and continue to do so even though they have seen little in the way of real returns these past 12 years and have actually lost a huge amount of their nest eggs due to inflation, or really anyone who falls for any of the countless scams being perpetrated by corporate America these days--fleecing their customers in pursuit of ever larger profit margins. Our whole "free market" economy has become one big swindle. The letter writer in this case just got taken a little easier than most people do.


Bonus: The letter writer would have been far better off investing in the New Pornographers' most recent CD

Storm Chasing 'Morons' Hinder Rescues

The headline above is not mine, but the one that actually appeared above this article from the Maine Sunday Telegram:

Given life-threatening wind, hail, lightning and flying debris, chasing tornadoes would seem harrowing enough.

Now add to that what many agree is a new and growing danger on the edge of the violent vortexes: people -- hundreds and hundreds of regular people.

People risking their lives, gawkers clogging roadways, some with kids in the backseats of their cars or in the beds of their pickups. They sit poised with cellphone cameras, stop dead in the middle of lanes beneath roadway bridges, travel at breakneck speeds for the chance to get up close and personal with one of nature's most awesome and awful displays.

Kansas' Chancy Smith, the director of emergency medical services for Dickinson County -- raked by a series of tornadoes April 14 -- caused a minor storm of his own when, after the tornadoes, he publicly called the throng of chasers who flooded his county "morons" for risking their lives and possibly the lives of others by impeding emergency services.

Raked by quick rebuke, Smith has since said he did not mean to malign legitimate storm spotters and chasers or scientists who do much to help the National Weather Service predict and track major storms.

Experienced, longtime storm chasers have expressed similar worries.

They're talking about the others, the hundreds of rubberneckers, gawkers and severe-storm shutterbugs who clogged the exit off Interstate 70 as the tornado swept past Solomon, Kan., parked as if they were at a drive-in movie.

Meanwhile, he said, his firefighters clocked others tearing 60 mph and more through the tiny town in pursuit of the twister like they were kids after a lost balloon. He said some drove, rumbling past fire trucks and over downed, live power lines where a damaged natural gas facility was spewing the explosive gas.

"There were morons out there. There were plenty," Smith reiterated to The Kansas City Star on Wednesday. "I was a police officer for 17 years and a director of emergency services for seven, and I have never, ever seen that many people converge on a storm. There were hundreds and hundreds ...

"My cohorts in other communities are saying, 'Don't apologize for what you said. We have all had this problem.' "

It has certainly hit a nerve among emergency services people and longtime storm chasers who concede that, in recent years, it seems that witnessing tornadoes up close has turned from a risky endeavor attempted by adrenalin addicts to a family spectator sport. Local high school students looking for tornadoes using apps and websites on their smartphones have become common.

"I really couldn't tell you why it's occurring," said S. Joe Koch II, the emergency management director in Saline County, Kan. "It is becoming more common for people to go out and see these tornadoes."

So common, in fact, that when the National Weather Service issued its early warning for last weekend, alerting the public that scores of tornadoes were likely to sweep through Tornado Alley -- the area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Rocky Mountains where tornadoes are most frequent – Koch sent out an alert of his own to emergency personnel: Expect an influx of people.

Meteorologists and others said the reason is clear: technology, TV news and entertainment.

It is no doubt just a matter of time before one of these idiots causes a fatal accident or gets killed getting too close to one of these storms. Because that's what natural disasters have become in this addle-minded, entertainment obsessed culture of ours--just another spectacle to be treated as if it were on a teevee screen and not a very real tragedy for those whose lives are torn apart right in front of the morons who are chasing the storms. This almost makes me root for higher gasoline prices to help put an end to such stupidity.


Bonus: "And as it came towards me, I swear, it sounded like a train"

When "Fifteen Minutes" Becomes "Fifteen Seconds"

The late Andy Warhol once famously proclaimed that, "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes."  The phrase, "15 minutes," then became an overused cliche to describe the television-age phenomenon of people rising to celebrity status overnight despite having no discernable talent, or to fads and trends that have appeared out of nowhere to suddenly become culturally omnipotent before quickly becoming passe.

The rise of the Internet has actually been speeding up this cycle to the point the point of near absurdity.  One example from early this year was the overnight sensation of NBA basketball player Jeremy Lin, who in a just few short weeks this past February went from the basketball equivalent of a minor leaguer to an international superstar--only to then hurt his knee and disappear from view almost as rapidly.

Lin's astonishing rise to fame was almost perfectly matched in its timing with the appearance of the Kony 2012 video...and sure enough, that Internet phenomenon is crashing back to earth almost as quickly as the aforementioned Asian-American basketball player.  The Sydney Morning Herald has the details:

In early March, Invisible Children put a 29-minute documentary on YouTube about the plight of child soldiers in Uganda, calling for action against warlord Joseph Kony.
The group hoped for half a million views for the video. It managed almost 200 times that number in the first week alone, and switched-on under-25s deluged newsrooms and politicians with calls for action.

Higher-profile charities marvelled at the success and wondered how to replicate it. George Clooney, Justin Bieber, Barack Obama and Angelina Jolie voiced their support.

But within days a big backlash questioned the outdated facts, credentials and finances of Invisible Children. Then the star of the film, charity co-founder and Christian evangelist Jason Russell, was hospitalised for "exhaustion, dehydration and malnutrition" after being detained by San Diego police during a public breakdown in the street.

In a final ignominy, the whole event was satirised in a South Park episode last week.

It was the death knell for Kony 2012's hipster credibility, leaving only the idealistic teenage core still excited for the poster campaign.

Putting aside for a moment the questionable motives behind Invisible Children and the Kony 2012 video, what strikes me the most about this story is how consternation about the use of child soldiers in Africa to commit war atrocities became just another fad, seemingly of no more real importance to the people who suddenly became passionate about it than Jeremy Lin's momentary success on the basketball court. People were "outraged" by Kony 2012 not so much for what the video depicted but just because being outraged by it was the hip and "in" thing to do.

What is even more astonishing is just how quickly the fad itself caught on, became a worldwide sensation and then diminished into being yesterday's news.  In retrospect, the fears of those who were concerned that Kony 2012 would end up driving public pressure for the U.S. to intervene militarily in Uganda turned out to be way overblown.

More serious are the implications for anyone who hopes to raise awareness in his or her fellow citizens as to the dire and all too real issues we face in the areas of energy, the environment and overpopulation. As the article states about higher profile charities marveling at Kony 2012's success and wondering how to replicate it, in light of how quickly it is fading into memory can you really call it a success? If your motive is to actually get people to change their behavior and do something rather than just raise a few bucks, I would argue most definitely not.

Kony 2012 became an overnight sensation because it created an intense emotional reaction in its viewers, and like an emotional reaction it had no staying power.  The phenomena didn't even last long enough for it to be properly said to have had its metaphorical "15 minutes." And if "15 seconds" is the new standard for calling attention to a problem, assuming one is even able to strike that sweet spot of an emotional chord, good luck ever getting the masses to focus on the truly important issues facing our industrialized civilization as it teeters on the brink of collapse.


Bonus: Tom Lehrer reminds us that the idea of "changing the world" through mass entertainment is hardly new



Extra Credit Video: My man Charlie Brooker takes down Kony 2012

Twitter = The Idiocracy Chronicles

According to the old saying: "it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." Maybe we should upgrade that to: "it is better to stay off of Twitter entirely than to send out messages showing the whole world what a fucking idiot you are."

There was a time not all that long ago when a person might say a dumb thing, but it at most would be heard by a handful of people and then immediately dissipate into the ether. There was no permanent record of it to come back and haunt the speaker, and even those who heard the words would probably not be able to completely agree as to exactly what was said.

But nowadays, thanks to the dubious miracle that is Twitter, millions of morons pollute the collective consciousness every single day with their "thoughts," giving the rest of us a horrifying glimpse at just how addle-brained many of our fellow citizens really are. I could do a whole separate blog just on this subject, of course, and put up about a dozen posts a day like some Twitter version of People of Walmart, but to prove my point I'll stick to the one example as reported by With Leather:

Depending on who you ask, the Cincinnati Reds probably gave up too much young talent in a deal for pitcher Mat Latos this offseason, but when Walt Jocketty wants a guy, he gets that guy, damn it. Unfortunately, Latos isn’t off to a hot start this season (0-2, 8.22 ERA) but in fairness he had to pitch against the St. Louis Cardinals last night and they pretty much own the 24-year old in his brief career in the majors. The Cards are now 3-1 against Latos since his rookie season, and his ERA in that span has too many digits for me to process without my Texas Instruments graphing calculator.

But who needs stats when criticizing a guy is just plain easier? At least that’s how some Reds fans looked at his awful game last night (5.2 innings, 8 ER) and they took it out on the person who deserved it most – Dallas Latos, Mat’s wife (Bill's note: sarcasm alert).

Wow...stay classy, asshole. Tweeting that sexist garbage to the pitcher's wife just because your sorry ass team is getting its head kicked in is bad enough, but notice that the moron is holding a baby, presumably his, in his Twitter picture.

Idiocracy, the movie, had it right. We're going to hell because the idiots are doing most of the breeding and the smart people are dying out:

"Pothole Nation" = Spoiled Rotten Nation

It must be great to be a liberal think tanker-type...to be able to sit around in your ivory tower coming up with new ways to explain how America can be fixed that have no basis whatsoever in reality. The best part is, because your ideas are only ever considered by other liberals and progressives, there is never anyone around who will be willing to tell you that you're actually full of shit. This is where I, as a former member of the tribe come in.

At first glance this article, entitled "Pothole Nation," by Sam Pizzigati of the Institute for Policy Studies seems reasonable in that it decrys how America has for the past generation or two been allowing its infrastructure to slowly decay:

Investing in infrastructure used to be a political no-brainer. Politicians of nearly every ideological stripe supported government spending on everything from school buildings to bridges.

The more conservative pols would typically favor highways, the more liberal preferred mass transit. But nearly all elected officials considered quality infrastructure essential. Businesses simply couldn't thrive, even conservatives understood, without it.

This consensus remains solid — among the American people. Only 6 percent of Americans, one poll last year found, consider infrastructure "not that important" or "not important at all." Among our politicians, it's a different story. Infrastructure has become a political hot potato. Congress can barely reach any consensus at all. Lawmakers have spent more than two years haggling over a bare-bones transportation bill.

Overall, U.S. infrastructure spending has declined dramatically. Back in 1968, federal outlays for basic infrastructure amounted to 3.3 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. Last year, federal infrastructure investments made up only 1.3 percent of GDP. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that we would now need to spend $2.2 trillion over five years to adequately "maintain and upgrade" America's roads, dams, drinking water, school buildings, and the like.


But lawmakers in Congress are moving in the opposite direction. The House's 2013 budget, if adopted by the Senate, would force massive cutbacks in infrastructure investment.

The impact of these cutbacks? Still more potholes, brownouts, and overcrowded classrooms and buses.

The irony in all this: We ought to be witnessing right now a historic surge in infrastructure investment. The cost of borrowing for infrastructure projects, the Economic Policy Institute's Ethan Pollack points out, has hit record lows — and the private construction companies that do infrastructure work remain desperate for contracts. They're charging less.

"We're getting much more bang for our buck than we usually do," says Pollack.

Yet our political system seems totally incapable of responding to the enormous opportunity we have before us. Center for American Progress analysts David Madland and Nick Bunker blame this political dysfunction on inequality.

The more wealth concentrates, their research shows, the feebler a society's investments in infrastructure become. Our nation's long-term decline in federal infrastructure investment — from 3.3 percent of GDP in 1968 to 1.3 percent in 2011 — turns out to mirror almost exactly the long-term shift in income from America's middle class to the richest Americans. And the U.S. states where the rich have gained the most at the expense of the middle class turn out to be the states that invest the least in infrastructure.

Why should this be the case? Madland and Bunker cite several dynamics at play. In more equal societies, middle classes will be more politically powerful. That matters because the middle class has a vested interest in healthy levels of infrastructure investment. Middle class families depend on good roads, public schools, and mass transit much more than rich families. Rich kids may attend private schools, and the ultra-wealthy can even commute by helicopter to avoid traffic congestion.

Some wealthy people, Madland and Bunker acknowledge, do see the connection between infrastructure and healthy economic development. But increased investment in infrastructure demands higher taxes, and lower tax rates have always been among the "more cherished priorities of the rich."

"When push comes to shove, infrastructure is likely to take a backseat to keeping taxes low," they posit. "There is a significant body of evidence that suggests a strong middle class is important for public investments."

Unequal societies — like the contemporary United States — have weak middle classes. That leaves Americans with a basic choice. We can press for greater equality. Or spend more time dodging potholes.

Notice the most basic element that is missing here? There is absolutely no mention that America is in a deep financial hole and that it is going to take a lot more than just raising taxes on the wealthy to not only get us out of our financial fix but to be able to afford a robust infrastructure repair program.

Instead we get a bunch of blather about the supposed connection between unequal societies and the lack of infrastructure spending. I'm not sure what country Mr. Pizzigati has been living in these past 40 years, but as a child and into my early adult years, I seem to remember America actually having a fairly robust middle class. Certainly, they were large enough in number that they could have voted to support infrastructure projects. But that's not what they did, is it? Nope, instead they voted for the assholes, starting with Ronald Reagan, who promised to cut their taxes. The rich might as a class like lower taxes, but they hardly have enough votes to win elections unless they pull a substantial portion of the middle class (and working class) along with them.

So why did Americans so docilely agree to give away the store? Because even though they may want their government services, they don't want to pay for them and hate paying taxes even more. That is the very essence of Spoiled Rotten Nation. Me first and fuck the rest of you...until one day the whole stinking system collapses under the strain, as our deteriorating infrastructure will no doubt eventually do.

But it's those last two sentences of the article that really made me laugh. This November, tens of millions of delusional idiots are going to go to the polls and cast their vote for rich, Wall Street asshole Willard Mitt Romney, who will essentially be promising to do what every President since Reagan has done. And tens of millions of other delusional idiots will go to the polls and cast their ballots for President Hopey-Changey, who will blow smoke up their asses like he already has for four grueling years, until he gets reelected and then proceeds to continue doing what every President since Reagan has done. Either way, the infrastructure will remain right where it is today: fucked.



Bonus: I don't believe I have yet used a Cars song...time to correct that deficiency

Eight Old School Diseases Making A Comeback

The economic collapse is only just beginning, and already some infamous long thought defeated diseases are alarmingly starting to reappear. The reasons for the resurrection of these various scourges upon humanity vary, but the timing of their return is quite ominous. This helpful list comes to us via Mental Floss.com:

1. Scarlet Fever

This deadly disease was first described in the 1500s. Due to its contagious nature and debilitating, if not deadly, effects, outbreaks of scarlet fever were greatly feared. Fans of the Little House on the Prairie series will remember that it was scarlet fever that resulted in Mary’s blindness.

Penicillin proved an effective treatment for the disease, until last year. A sudden spike in scarlet fever cases in China and Macao, up almost threefold and fivefold from 2010, respectively, has alerted scientists to a new, more virulent form of the disease. It was not just Asia that reported more cases, with a sharp increase in incidents in Michigan last year.

2. Rickets

Rickets was most common in industrialized cities during the 1800s. Children who worked in factories had poor diets and got little sunlight, resulting in a Vitamin D deficiency. This can lead to bone problems, bowed legs, and stunted growth. Since it is such an easy disease to avoid simply by spending a few minutes in the sun each day, as child labor laws limited kids’ time trapped inside, rickets all but disappeared.

Since rickets had been perceived as a disease that was “taken care of” for almost a century, doctors in the US and Europe were astonished when it suddenly started showing up in increasing numbers of children in the last decade, with several hundred cases in England alone in 2009. Part of the problem is that many children are back to having poor diets and spending very little time outside. But the problems also present themselves in infants, ironically because new mothers are trying to do everything right. Breast milk does not contain Vitamin D and as more women breastfeed their children exclusively, and for longer time periods, as well as protecting their children’s sensitive skin from the sun when they go out, Vitamin D deficiencies are becoming more common in infants. Doctors urge women to keep breastfeeding, but to give babies vitamin supplements as well.

3. Gout

The first documented case of gout was in Egypt in 2600 BC. While anyone could get it, it was known as “the king’s disease” because symptoms most often presented themselves in royalty and the wealthy; Henry VIII and George IV were both sufferers. There was no cure, and once someone had one attack of gout they were likely to get it again. The main symptom was unbelievably excruciating pain in a joint, usually a toe. Attacks could last up to a week, made walking almost impossible, and even covering one’s self with a light blanket was usually too much pressure on the joint.

The number of people suffering from gout in the US has almost doubled since the early 1990s, with 4% of adults presenting symptoms in 2010, and the numbers are expected to keep rising, for two reasons. One, our diets are atrocious. Eating rich, fatty foods, and drinking alcohol add to your risk of getting a gout attack. Two, gout is much more prevalent in the elderly. 13% of Americans over 80 suffer from gout, an increase of 7% in the last 20 years alone, and as more people live to that age the number will most likely continue to increase.

4. Syphilis

This sexually transmitted disease first appeared in Italy in 1494. While no one is sure where it came from, the date and location have led many historians to conclude it came to Europe from the Americas. For over 400 years it was completely untreatable, and became an epidemic in some areas. Vincent van Gogh’s brother, Winston Churchill’s father, and Al Capone all died of syphilis, while everyone from Henry VIII to Oscar Wilde to Adolf Hitler are suspected cases.

The discovery of penicillin in 1943 as well as a greater awareness of the dangers of unprotected sex led to increasingly fewer people presenting symptoms of the disease. In 2000, public health officials announced that syphilis was almost completely eradicated in the US. But over the next decade the number of people testing positive more than doubled.

There are a few reasons for this. One is that more people are getting tested for STDs in general, so more cases are being caught. But doctors also say it is because of problems with sex education. Many people who test positive contracted the disease through oral sex, which they mistakenly believe is safe without protection. Also, since the disease was so close to being eradicated, many young people were not taught about it in school and are unaware of the symptoms to watch out for.

5-7. Measles/Mumps/Rubella

In the last 150 years, measles is estimated to have killed over 200 million people. Mumps was once the leading cause of viral meningitis. And rubella epidemics resulted in tens of thousands of miscarriages and deaths. Then in the 1960s, vaccines for all three of these diseases were developed. They were combined into one simple vaccine, the MMR, and the number of cases plummeted.

But in 1998, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet published a study that linked the MMR vaccine to autism. The results were widely reported, fueling the anti-vaccine movement, and large numbers of parents stopped vaccinating their children against these diseases. In 2004 and again in 2010 the article and its findings were officially rejected as “utterly false” by the medical community, but the damage had been done. Outbreaks of all three diseases are increasing.

In 2011, 25 states recorded cases of the measles, the most in a decade and a half. The disease is especially dangerous in populations that have had no exposure to it, as the US hasn’t for forty years, meaning incidents are expected to increase among the unvaccinated. Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Russia and Switzerland all showed increasing numbers of cases in the past decade. In 2010 a mumps outbreak occurred in young, unvaccinated men in Ireland. A mumps outbreak at the University of Iowa lasted 6 months and spread to 13 states. And just last month, more than 20 mumps cases were diagnosed on the Berkeley campus. Doctors expect more outbreaks of these diseases, as the children who were not vaccinated in the immediate aftermath of the article start sharing dorms with each other.

8. Polio

While suspected cases of polio go as far back as Ancient Egypt, the first clinical description of the disease wasn’t written until 1789. While occasional individual cases were not uncommon, it wasn’t until the 20th century that a worldwide polio epidemic occurred, peaking in the 1950s. Franklin D. Roosevelt is probably the most famous sufferer, but at its peak polio paralyzed or killed half a million people every year. Then two different vaccines completely eradicated the disease in all but four countries.

Those countries—Afghanistan, Nigeria, India, and Pakistan—are all showing increased cases of the disease in the last decade. In 2003 leaders in northern Nigeria warned against getting vaccinated, claiming it could cause infertility. This resulted in the disease spreading into Chad, where it had previously been eradicated; 132 cases were reported there in 2011. Afghanistan reported an all-time low number of cases in 2010, but that number more than tripled in 2011, thanks to some people’s refusing to vaccinate their children on religious grounds, as well as the open border with Pakistan, who also saw their reported cases more than double in 2011. Some extremist Muslim leaders in that country have denounced vaccinations as a Western conspiracy.

Of all the diseases on the list, Gout would have to be the least worrisome. There are going to be a lot fewer people eating rich fatty foods and aggravating their joints in the near future. Rickets will probably cease to be as much of a problem when people begin having trouble finding shelter and are out in the sun a lot foraging for food.

As for the others, I can picture them reaching epidemic proportions not long after the medical system finally collapses. This list serves as another sobering reminder of how grim the post-collapse world is likely going to be for most people.


Bonus: Difficult to cure

Crazy Ass Representative Allen West Channels "Tail Gunner Joe"

It was just a tad over 62 years ago in February 1950 when an obscure, back bencher Republican Senator from Wisconsin named Joseph McCarthy first rose to national prominence by proclaiming in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department. Given that the Cold War has been over for more than two decades and that Communism is effectively dead worldwide save for isolated pockets like North Korea and Cuba, one would think that there would be no way a politician looking to score political points would be able to go down that long closed road. If so, one is obviously not familiar with the particular craziness which inhabits the addled mind of crazy ass Representative Allen West of Florida. Here is the Palm Beach Post News with the details:

U.S. Rep. Allen West told about 90 largely supportive Palm City voters Tuesday that locally prioritized federal projects — such as the St. Lucie Inlet dredging — aren't going to matter if Washington officials don't address a mounting deficit.

Later Tuesday evening, a Jensen Beach crowd of 100 with more than 15 protesters greeted the congressman with mixed support, cheers and jeers.

The conservative tea party icon also got in shots at Democrats and President Obama, who spoke Tuesday at Florida Atlantic University. West said Obama was "scared" to have a discussion with him. He later said "he's heard" up to 80 U.S. House Democrats are Communist Party members, but wouldn't name names.

What is it with these lunatic far right Republicans? First it was dingbat Representative Michelle Bachman prattling on about the Soviet Union during her ill-fated presidential campaign and now this. Could it be that they have come to realize that the Islamophobia-terrorism dog isn't hunting anymore as far as scaring the voters into blindly supporting militarism and gigantic Pentagon budgets goes, and they are nostalgic for a bygone era when America at least had a plausibly dangerous foreign enemy? Yeah, that must be it.


Bonus: "Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are...Ha ha ha bless your soul...You really think you're in control...Well, I think you're crazy"

March 2012 Sets Record For Warmest On Record In The U.S.

Deniers are gonna deny and haters are gonna hate...but reality doesn't give a good Goddamn. Here is the Weather Channel with the details:

Last week we revealed the dozens of cities that had their warmest March on record. Now we have the official word from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that March 2012 was the warmest March on record in the contiguous United States. In addition, the January through March period of 2012 was the warmest first quarter of the year on record. Records date back to 1895 in both cases.

NOAA also released information stating that the early March tornado outbreak in the Ohio Valley and Southeast was the first billion-dollar weather disaster of 2012.

Also, check out this amusingly ignorant reader comment that was posted with the article:

Jim Tappendorf · Coleman, Wisconsin
this winter was one we'll probably never see again. I was riding my motorcycle with only a T-shirt on March 17 th and 18th in Coleman Wi. about 45 miles north of Green Bay. Go global warming.

What's the matter with Wisconsin?

Patient Says Fix-a-Flat, 'Toxic Tush' Butt Injections Ruined Her Life

image: trust me, I'm a doctor. Don't you see my white lab coat?

Good morning. It's not just Sunday but Easter Sunday, meaning that the blog traffic will almost certainly take a double hit today in terms of page views. So I beg your kind indulgence if instead of my usual from-the-wilderness rant about America's hopeless economic, political and energy predicaments, I indulge in a topic that's a bit more humorous. At first glance, this article from a local Florida television station appears to be one of those run-of-the-mill, "Gawd, how can people be so STOOPID" stories the media never seems to tire of running. But if you scratch beneath the surface, there is something else going on here that is frankly illustrative of where we are headed as a nation:

A Tampa woman claims a fake plastic surgeon ruined her life after injecting her buttocks with fix-a-flat and cement.

Patients of Oneal Ron Morris, known to them as "Goddess", claim the woman said she worked for a plastic surgeon and knew how to perform procedures like butt injections.

Some of you may remember when the original arrest happened in this case a few months ago because it got a lot of media play at the time. If so, I'm sure you were probably wondering like I was how anyone could be so dimwitted as to allow their ass cheeks be injected with fix-a-flat and cement. Well, now we know the answer:

"She had a white coat on and a little badge, so I felt comfortable with it," the woman said.

Okay, I'll admit that I laughed when I read that. It's hard not to. But then it got me to thinking about how what this unfortunate woman really did was put her blind faith into someone she thought was an authority figure. Is that really any different than what a majority of her fellow citizens do every single day, innocently trusting that the politicians, the government, the corporations, the big banks, their stock brokers and the media have their best interests at heart? I really don't think so.

The article then goes on to describe what caused the desperation of the victim in this case:

The woman, who doesn't want to be identified, lost her job as a mortgage broker when the market crashed and started dancing at strip clubs to make quick cash. She soon learned a bigger backside would boost her business...

If you think about it, the fact that someone who was educated enough to be able to work as a mortgage broker could subsequently do something this breathtakingly dumb explains an awful lot about the housing bubble. And when the bubble finally popped she then turned to a far more desperate measure to try and maintain her lifestyle. There was only one little problem with her brillant idea to enhance her revenues from stripping:

...but when she went to see a doctor, he quoted her $5,000 for the procedure. Morris, she says, would do it for just $1,500 at her apartment.

"She said it was 100% silicone," the woman said of the substance Morris kept in a Pedialyte bottle.

Okay, five grand is not an insubstantial amount, but it doesn't seem like it would take that long to save up for it. But the idea of saving up for something you really want is an anathema to most people in Spoiled Rotten Nation. So instead she decided to take a very risky shortcut. Again, it was a decision not that much different that those who run up massive credit card debts to buy what they want NOW, with no thought about how it will cripple them financially in the future.

Like those people who binge with the credit cards, at first it seemed like a great thing that she saved all of that money on a real plastic surgeon, until reality began to set in:

Immediately after the injections she and four others underwent in 2009, the woman says she was pleased.

She raked in thousands of dollars more at work, and liked the way her backside looked.

But within six months, she started coughing. That turned into pneumonia. When doctors tested fluid in her buttocks, she says she learned the "100% silicone" was 100% something else.

"It came back as bathroom caulking," she said. "You would put a substance in me to kill me? It's not fair to me."

She claims Morris, now facing several more charges of practicing medicine without a license, used super glue on her during the procedure.

"It's to block the holes so the medicine doesn't come back out," she remembered Morris explain. "I said, 'Why is it burning like that?' She said, 'That's just the medicine. That's how the medicine feels. It's normal.'"

In addition to pneumonia, she had discoloration of the skin and a rear-end she describes as "rock hard".

And ultimately, her fate is not that much different from those who run up their credit card bills:

Unable to work, or barely sit anymore, she relies on food stamps, her house facing foreclosure.

She still has the fix-a-flat injection in her because, she says, her case never reached a severe enough level for insurance to consider it anything but elective reconstructive surgery.

Most people who read this story will just laugh at this woman's stupidity, confident that such a thing could never happen to them because they are way too smart to ever be taken in by such a huckster. Instead, they will go on trusting that their stock portfolio is a sound investment, that their employer will never renege on their pension, that their savings account at Bank Of America is perfectly safe, that Social Security will be there for them when they retire, that the media cannot report a story if it isn't true, that the government would never manipulate economic indicators, that billionaires really are job creators, that wars of choice are necessary for the nation's "defense," that either Obama or Romney will keep all of his campaign promises and that America is the greatest nation the world has ever seen and nothing could ever possibly cause its downfall.

Eroding Profit Margins Cause Stores To Reduce Issuance Of Coupons

Issuing coupons have always been a great way for retailers to lure shopper into their stores, or for manufacturers to ensure consumers look to buy their brand over a rival at the supermarket. It's all fine and dandy until those same consumers become driven by a poor economy to start overusing them. Here is the Ft. Lauderdale SunSentinel with the details:

"Why so many coupons?" Ellen DeGeneres asks in an ad forJ.C. Penney. "This is ridiculous."

Some companies are starting to agree. They are scaling back the value of coupon offers and limiting how many of them bargain-conscious consumers can redeem.

It's hard to find a $10 off $40 Whole Foods Market coupon anymore. Publix has cut back on coupons it offers through fundraisers and tightened its general policy. AndJ.C. Penney has abandoned coupons altogether.

"It's harder and harder," Orlando coupon blogger Amy Selleck said. "I used to be able to go out and do deals every day and stock up a cart. Now it seems like the deals aren't there."

In 2011, name-brand grocery manufacturers' coupons fell 8.1 percent to 305 billion compared with the previous year, according to Michigan-based coupon processor NCH Marketing. But consumers used $4.6 billion worth of coupons last year — a 12.2 percent jump.

Coupon use has been on the upswing since the financial crisis in 2008. As consumers hit the brakes on spending, retailers began discounting, sometimes almost desperately. Companies were "chasing business just for business' sake," Dallas retail consultant Steven Dennis said. Now, they're trying to keep coupon redemptions from eroding profits.

More people are scouring websites, newspapers and even recycling bins for deals. Fueled by the tough economy and reality TV, "extreme couponing" has become popular with shoppers who snip their grocery bills down to nearly nothing by combining offers.

"Some retailers have said it's become harder to manage than ever before," National Retail Federation spokeswoman Kathy Grannis said.

Of course it has been the American consumer's incessant obsession over getting things for the lowest possible prices which has wreaked so much havoc in our economy in the first place, from declining wages and benefits of workers who make the products, to the rise of the megastore and the destruction of locally owned businesses, to the dramatically decreasing quality of many of the products on offer. Coupons are not the cause of all of those things, but they are certainly a symptom of the prevailing mindset that has allowed them to happen. Only in a decadent and depraved society such as ours with a value system gone completely askew could a teevee show like Extreme Couponing actually find an audience.

And now, as we remain mired in our economic malaise, stores are finding out that you can only take price cutting so far, especially at a time of rising food and energy costs, before the effort becomes utterly self defeating. The sad irony is that this is now happening at a time when so many financially strapped shoppers could really use the discounts.


Bonus: Extreme couponers--they just can't get enough

Media Shocked, SHOCKED, To Learn That Millennials Are Less Environmentally Conscious

If you've been reading TDS for awhile, you know that I absolutely detest the glaring hypocrisy and self-regard of most of the mainstream media (gee, Bill, tell us something we don't know). The corporate controlled Fourth Estate in America long ago abdicated its duty as the watchdogs of representative democracy and instead became purring lap cats snuggling in the bossoms of the rich and powerful.

So it was with a very skeptical eye that I read this Washington Post story on how young adults have become less enviornmetally conscious than ever before:

They have a reputation for being environmentally minded do-gooders. But an academic analysis of surveys spanning more than 40 years has found that today’s young Americans are less interested in the environment and in conserving resources — and often less civic-minded overall — than their elders were when they were young.

The findings go against the widespread belief that environmental issues have hit home with today’s young adults, known as Millennials, who have grown up amid climate change discussion and the mantra “reduce, reuse, recycle.” The environment is often listed among top concerns of young voters.

“I was shocked,” said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University who is one of the study’s authors. “We have the perception that we’re getting through to people. But at least compared to previous eras, we’re not.”

This study, published online this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, looked at the life goals, concern for others and civic orientation of three young generations — baby boomers, Generation X and Millennials.

Based on two long-standing national surveys of high school seniors and college freshmen, Twenge and her colleagues found a decline over the past four decades in young people’s trust in others, their interest in government and the time they said they spent thinking about social problems.

Steepest of all was a steady decline in concern about the environment and in taking personal action to save it.

Researchers found that, when surveyed decades ago, about a third of young baby boomers said it was important to become personally involved in programs to clean up the environment. In comparison, only about a quarter of young Generation X members — and 21 percent of Millennials — said the same.

Meanwhile, 15 percent of Millennials said they had made no effort to help the environment, compared with 8 percent of young Generation X members and 5 percent of young baby boomers.

Millennials also were the least likely to say they had made an effort to conserve electricity and fuel used to heat their homes.

In the case of heating fuel, 78 percent of young baby boomers and 71 percent of young Generation X members said they cut back, compared with 56 percent of Millennials.

It is important to note that most of the survey data available for Millennials were collected before the country’s most recent recession hit.

The article goes on with a bunch of blah, blah, blah from some befuddled college professors about this phenomenon, but I figured I could spare you that part. What the article did not do was point out what should be glaringly obvious: the media's own primary role in causing young adults to be relatively more callous than those of older generations.

In a way, these survey results perfectly mirror those of a public opinion poll I highlighted last July 4th in my post, "Independence Day Poll Shows a Shocking Collapse of America's Educational System" which showed that less than one-third of adults under 30 could even identify 1776 as the year America declared its independence...or less than HALF of the percentage of Baby Boomer age adults who could do so. At the time, I argued that the results represented a huge failure of our educational system, but upon reading the article above it strikes me that it isn't just a lack of basic knowledge, but an general attitude that disdains knowledge which is at work here.

There is plenty of blame to go around, of course, and certainly schools, politicians and parents are not without plenty of it. But I would argue that the media itself should take the most blame of all for this deplorable situation. Like it or not what the media, particularly television, chooses to emphasize or not emphasize is what a vast majority of Americans will thusly consider to be important or not important. And since the 1970s, the media has gradually turned its back on serious matters in favor of triviality, sensationalism and the celebrity worship.

I don't see how anyone could argue that it's an accident that, as the surveys cited here and in my previous post show, the level of caring about the environment and social programs, or even having a basic grasp of American History, has declined so precipitously and steadily from the Baby Boomers through Generation X to the Millennials. The Boomers came of age at a time in which social consciousness, and the media taking the lead in promoting that consciousness, was at an all time high. By the time this older Gen-Xer followed them in the late 1970s, many Americans had wearied of being concerned about social justice, but as I recall it was still very much a part of the national conversation. That became less and less true, until by the decade of President George Bush the Lesser when today's young adults were in their formative years, anyone who was concerned about the less fortunate, say innocent civilians in Iraq being killed and maimed in an unprovoked war of choice, was actually held in disdain by a large segment of the media establishment, and not JUST conservatives.

And it is not just the news readers, either. Think about the success of highly popular television series from the 1970s like All in the Family, MASH and the miniseries, Roots, all of which tackled sobering and uncomfortable issues, but were among the highest rated and most talked about shows on television at that time. What do we have today instead? Reality show garbage and a hundred American Idol ripoffs, which supposedly serious national media organs like the Atlantic Wire actually devote copious space covering as if they are actually of any importance whatsoever. You can also throw in the fact that hipster icons like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report subtly promote the message that geting angry or upset about the manifest injustices in our society isn't cool. Instead, it's better to just laugh along cynically with Jon and Stephen and then go back to your texting, tweeting and Facebooking.

Some might scoff and say that I am nothing more than just a crabby old fogey shouting for the young-uns to get off my lawn. To that I would reply that I don't actually blame so many young adults for having the attitudes that these surveys would seem to indicate that a majority of them have. It would be unreasonable to expect most of them to behave any differently than the way the have been conditioned by society to behave. It takes a very exceptional young person to swim outside the mainstream and risk being labelled an outsider.

Nope, if these surveys are at all accurate, and I have no reason to believe that they aren't, the real blame lies with all of us who allowed our society to become so astonishingly proud of its collective ignorance and lack of empathy. Our opinion leaders in the media very much helped steer us to where we are now, which is what makes it so galling that they should at all act surprised that we are now apparently seeing the emergence into adulthood of a generation of souls who simply don't give a shit.


Bonus: "Do you remember...your President Nixon?" Not bloody likely, David

Economists "Baffled" By Slow Economic Growth Despite "Improving Employment"

Many of us in the reality based community continually shake our heads at the bald faced lies about the economy being repeated in the media every single day. We often wonder to ourselves how can people continue to believe such nonsense. But here's the thing about propaganda: it works. It works so well in fact, that it even deceives those are responsible for helping to promote it. Case in point is this almost surreal story that appeared on Friday on CNN Money, which starts out with this tag line:

Economists are scratching their heads over the recent failure of a textbook economic law: In order for the unemployment rate to be where it is today, our economy should be growing faster than it is.

"The unemployment rate...where it is today?" You mean, as this chart from Calculated Risk shows, where there are 4% fewer jobs in America than there were at the end of 2007 despite millions of people being added to the overall population since then? Oh boy, this ought to be good.

Lately the improving jobs picture has stumped many Wall Street economists, who say the labor market seems to be doing better than what the pace of economic growth would suggest.

Goldman Sachs (GS) and a few other Wall Street firms forecast real GDP growth of less than 2% this quarter. And yet, the unemployment rate in January dropped to 8.3% – the lowest level in three years. The decline goes against Okun's Law, which economists have historically relied on to forecast what the job market might look like given how quickly (or slowly) the economy is growing. As a rule of thumb, Okun holds that year-on-year economic growth of 2 percentage points above the trend -- widely considered 2.5% -- is needed to lower unemployment by one point. And vice versa.
Since the Great Recession, the unemployment rate has defied the law.

James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington DC-based think tank, has laid out three instances: In 2009, the unemployment rate edged to 10% following a 3.5% drop in GDP. But under Okun, unemployment should have risen higher to 10.4%.

At the end of 2010, the unemployment rate fell to 9.4% from 9.9% the previous year. But given that the 3% rise in GDP was barely above trend, the jobless rate should have stayed flat. And in 2011, when GDP rose a point below trend to 1.7%, Okun would have predicted that unemployment would rise to 9.9%. However, it actually fell to 8.5% from 9.4%.

All this has made many wonder if the economy is doing better than what the data currently shows or if unemployment seems artificially low.

Someone needs to tell John Williams of Shadow Stats that he really ought to give up on trying to report the real economic statistics as the government used to report them back before it became politically expedient to lie. Because clearly, nobody is paying attention, even those whose fucking jobs it is to study the real state of the economy.

The article goes on and at one point does at least touch upon the real issue:

It could be that today's GDP statistics are wrong. The economy might actually be growing much faster than we think, which wouldn't be too surprising since it's not unusual for growth statistics to get revised years later as economic data comes in. In a research note to clients on Monday, JP Morgan (JPM) economist James Glassman pointed to the 2008-2009 recession in which GDP was significantly revised downward last year.

"At the time employment trends were much weaker than the impression left by the real GDP trends," he noted. "That was three years after the fact. With the economy now recovering, there is a high probability that preliminary estimates of national output eventually will be revised up."

Certainly that could happen, but that still doesn't capture the whole jobless picture.

The unemployment rate is also influenced by the labor participation rate – that is, the percentage of working-age persons who are employed as well as unemployed and searching for work. While labor participation has been stabilizing recently, it has declined considerably over the years. And at 64%, the rate is two perecentage points lower than its pre-recession level. As Fortune pointed out last week, the drop might have less to do with discouraged workers giving up their job hunt (as economists widely believe), but also the flux of aging baby boomers retiring and leaving the labor pool altogether.

It is bad enough that millions of people who lost their jobs during the Great Recession and are now permanently unemployed have been cast out of the statistics to make them look better, but it is abominable that these analysts then treat the manipulated statistics as if they reflect reality. The economists' precious economic models are "broken" because they are based upon faulty data...data that they KNOW (or should know) is faulty yet they insist upon using anyway.

But the most laughable statement in the article comes right at the very end:

We probably will have to wait a few more years to know what's really going on. For now, we know that the decline in unemployment doesn't just mean more people are working today.

You will only "have to wait a few more years to know what's really going on" if you have internalized the propaganda to the point where you are no longer in touch with reality. For these are The Lies We Tell Ourselves, and will continue to tell ourselves until one day when the reality proves to be too monstrous to deny any longer.


Bonus: "Watch what you say to someone with nothing...it's almost like having it all"

Saturday Night Video: Louis CK on Currency, Economic Collapse and "White People Problems"

I really wish the outstandingly funny Louis CK would do more social commentary in his routines, because he is really good at it. In this clip he makes fun of lazy, complacent Americans and our "white people problems," speculating that we're not going to do so well when economic collapse hits.

Choice bit: "We're the fattest people in the world, and we have all this stuff. And we HATE it."

Enjoy!




Bonus Video: Juice News did a excellent rap report on the whole Kony 2012 controversy (otherwise known as white people for once actually worrying about black people in Africa problems). Too bad it was recorded before Jason Russell was detained Thursday after his rather bizarre public breakdown because then it would no doubt have been even funnier.

More Housing Crash Porn: Huge Spike In Foreclosures In January

Here is a good companion piece to yesterday morning's post about America becoming a nation of renters, for it now looks like the resolution of the Robosigning paperwork scandal has kickstarted the foreclosure process nationally. Here is CNBC with the story:

Thousands of foreclosures that were stuck in process due to delays over the so-called "Robo-signing" paperwork scandal are working their way through a revamped banking system and heading toward final bank repossession.

Foreclosure starts surged 28 percent in January from December, according to a new report from Lender Processing Services. More than 230,000 loans began the foreclosure process in January.

But here is the really bad news:

Even more indicative of this new surge in processing is that repeat foreclosures hit an all-time high in January, representing 47 percent of all starts, according to LPS. Repeat foreclosures are either failed loan modifications, or loans that banks were attempting to modify but couldn't.

In other words, it does not appear that the many desperate efforts enacted during the height of the crisis to try and save homeowners from foreclosure had much of an effect. Of course, that isn't stopping President Hopey-Changey from trotting out yet another tired scheme to try and stave off the inevitable:

President Obama plans to kick off today's news conference with a pair of housing proposals designed to benefit veterans and homeowners seeking to refinance.

"This is part of the president's overall strategy to support responsible homeowners and the housing recovery," said a White House statement.

In one announcement, Obama plans to say he will enforce a recent agreement between the federal government and 49 state attorneys general to compensate military members and veterans who were unfairly foreclosed upon or denied lower interest rates on mortgages.

Obama is also set to announce rules that allow borrowers with mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration to refinance at lower rates. The administration says that will help homeowners save more than $1,000 a year.

And yet, all bad news is really good news to those who continue to snort the hopium:

"This large amount of foreclosures that have been sitting out there, with borrowers not making payments for an extended period of time, this may be coming to an end," says LPS' Herb Blecher. "This is what the market is looking for."

That's because while painful to housing in the short term, moving the huge pipeline of delinquent loans to their inevitable end will help the overall market in the long term. There are nearly 4 million loans now in some stage of delinquency which have not even entered the foreclosure process. Banks are modifying loans more aggressively now, but many of these mortgages simply cannot be saved, and the sooner they are processed and new buyers are found for the properties, the sooner overall home prices can recover.

"It's the resolution of the crisis. It started with a flood of new troubled loans, bottlenecks presented themselves as delinquent loans piled up. "The necessary resolution before we can get back to a healthy market is that that inventory goes away," says Blecher.

It never ceases to amaze me how just many clueless financial analysts there are out there getting paid big bucks to spew nonsense. It's a great racket if you can break into it.

Sorry to be the bearer of ill tidings, Mr. Blecher, but just clearing out the foreclosure backlog isn't going to do jack shit to initiate a recovery in the housing market. For the market to recover you need BUYERS. That means people with MONEY. In other words, people with GOOD PAYING JOBS with decent benefits, and the expectation that they have some actual job security and won't be sitting on the unemployment line again this time next year. So unless a jobs recovery takes hold in some other sector besides fast food workers and office temps, there is not going to be any housing recovery.

Is that really so hard to understand?


Bonus: Now it's not just the house, but the whole housing market that's burning down