hey, is someone pumping helium into the blogosphere, cause everyone's talking stupid.
- So much space, so little substance in the blogosphere these days.
- A sampling from March 25, 2009:
- AP bureau chief Ron Fournier is concerned about Obama's teleprompter crutch. Chinese gerbils are on the pill. Banking crisis: should we call them toxic assets, troubled assets, fraudulent assets or legacy assets? Did you know Natasha Richardson's organ's were donated? Obama's a socialist, a communist and a fascist. Senator Judd Gregg said something really dumb. Vice President Joe Biden said something really dumb. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said something really dumb. AIG. AIG. AIG. AIG. AIG. Insurance giant AIG changes name to AIU. Journalism is dying. No it isn't! Yes it is! Obama's doing too little. Obama's doing too much. Vibrator-gate-starring Barbara Walters, Mika Brzezinski and Elisabeth Hasselback. ABC's White House correspondent Jake Tapper likes to Twitter. NBC's White House correspondent Chuck Todd asks Obama dumb question. House Republican Eric Cantor went to see Britney Spears concert. Researchers create fluorescent pigs.
- These are all actual topics that I plucked fresh from the web, webisphere, blogosphere, news-osphere, whatever. Sorry if I left some out. There were thousands to choose from, each as equally uninspiring, half-witted and irrelevant as the next, but I was getting weary and slightly delirious so I had to cull it down to a smattering.
- Now don't get me wrong.
- The last thing I want to be subjected to is linear seriousness across the board. There are some great thinkers out there doing some great blogging and reporting and I welcome the wonderfully diverse approaches--honest, in-depth, short, sarcastic, insightful, fun, revealing, poetic, satirical, silly-the common denominator, I believe, is thoughtfulness.
- However, those now exist in an ever expanding cluttersphere of political gossip, mindless chatter and peripheral snippets and snarks, chronicled and quantified and posing not at all cleverly as news in the important dress of the written word. Behold the 24 hour news cycle--a mad rush to write, blog, micro-blog, comment and twitter everything, oblivious to the consequence of communicating nothing. One little snipe--a sound byte that conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh burps up after chugging a can of oil, for example, can ripple infinitely across the internet in the space of a nanosecond and become the one thing everyone with a broadband connection, including kids, parents, politicians, reporters, twitterers, economists, novelists and sociologists will collectively inhale and obsess on for days on end, or daze on end as it were and yes this is a run-on sentence but it's too late to remedy now cause I'm tripped out on helium.
- Come yah, belly up to the meta-bong, mon.
- Experience the webisphere at its most combustible and brainless.
- A word of caution; it is dangerous.
- (Oh, shit. That rhymes, doesn't it? Bad writing. Fuck it. I can't breathe in here. Later. I've got to get some oxygen.)
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I think it means spring is coming. I think it also means that a lot of journalists are freaking clueless as to how to handle good news these days.
Relax. Summer and humidity and mosquitoes will be here before you know it, and then everyone will be griping intelligently again, if not elegantly again.
March 25, 2009 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, and a rec for the rhyme.
March 25, 2009 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
How did I miss the Vibratorgate story?
March 25, 2009 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh man ... don't go there. Babs and a vibrator, not cool. not cool.
But the glowing pig .... totally bad-ass.
March 26, 2009 2:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Glowing pig?
March 26, 2009 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not nice to talk about miguelitoh2o that way.
March 26, 2009 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
yes, glowing pigs, tangerine skies and the girl with Kaleidoscope eyes.
March 26, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
The next step in that eternal quest for the holy grail of breakfast foods: Green eggs and Ham!
here's a link
March 26, 2009 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
AWESOME! I want them on my farm!!! Look out Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailly. We've got glowing pigs!!!
March 26, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
August used to be known as the "silly season" in the newspaper business. Now with the internet and cable news, it's one long silly season 24/7. Just adjust your filters and keep cruisin'.
March 25, 2009 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Blame it on Twitter. The birdbrains are out of their cages and there's shit everywhere.
March 25, 2009 9:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
True that, honey. Here, have an umbrella.
*hands out umbrellas*
March 25, 2009 9:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am with ya on this. Good points. But, I must point out that there are five or six really good blogs here today (not including mine), unions, poetry, health coverage...a lot of better stuff.
Hang in there Gary
March 25, 2009 10:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
oh, there are definitely some great bloggers here, very inventive, insightful, funny, thought-provoking. Keep them coming.
The reporting of news, though, on balance, has gone haywire across the webisphere, blogosphere, twittersphere, so many spheres, crisscrossing, zigzagging and cross-linking, 24/7.
This can all be great and empowering IF you're diligent and patient enough to skip over the chatter and seek out relevant well-thought out journalism and commentary.
The thing with the internet though is that everyone and everything seems to be broadcast at the same volume.
March 26, 2009 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great roundup Gary, lol! Apart from the florescent pigs, I can do without the links, I guess...
I don't know about you, but I now work entirely through RSS feeds. So I don't get a feel for the general insanity out there. It doesn't really bother me. I actually quite like the fact that the volume is flat across the board - I can more easily get the stories I want than I could previously.
March 26, 2009 1:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
i haven't done the RSS feeding tube yet. Fear of direct inhalation:|
March 26, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
heheh - You're SUPPOSED to inhale, stupid! :0P
March 26, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
pas da feed den, mon! I ROPE EEN
March 26, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
See, once you're on the feed, man, you'll see that glowing pig in a WHOLE NEW LIGHT...!
March 26, 2009 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
fluorescent pig=alternative lighting fixture=lower electric bill. Masterful! But how do you switch the pig off?
March 26, 2009 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, you Don't want to turn off the pig! See, at some point you're gonna need some light, and you reeeally don't want to know the degrading unpleasantness involved in turning the pig ON...
March 26, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
well then I'll take two pigs--a 100 watter and a 60 watter.
March 26, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
“I move in this here atmosphere ‘cause anything’s allowed” -P.Smith
Let’s remember that Drudge is like the Jesus of the blogosphere or the original Virgin Mary or something. That damnable free speech does seem to foster stupidity. I don’t know, but what Barabra Walters does with Chinese gerbils in her private life (or on the View) is a small price to pay to be allowed to blather like I’m doing here (or read great writers and find seemingly infinite little stories that are funny, alarming or just interesting at anytime).
I agree with Obey about using RSS aggregators like Netvibes helps to personalize your viewing pleasure and surfing experience cut through the clutter. Then, too, so many blogs, like Mi-Fi, themselves aggregate interesting stories.
One man’s glowing-pig story is another man’s pig-that-glows story. Personally, I’m in the first category (is a blacklight and bong required to get the true effect of fluorescent pigs?). But glowing sheep! Now that’s baaa-d.
March 26, 2009 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
glowing sheep clip, that is deeply deeply funny. I'm not hating on helium so much after all:|
March 26, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don, THE SHEEP ARE AWESOME!!! They deserve a whole blog by themselves, nay, they deserve so much more!!! Great find.
March 26, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cool, huh?! Goes to show there's no such thing as too much time on your hands!
[Not sure what it means, but my pop-up ad at top of page: "Rule for white teeth: OBEY"]
March 26, 2009 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
uh, can't help you with that. maybe they know something about your teeth nobody's dared tell you...
Personally I have lots of pretty Chinese ladies all around my margins. I don't really know what they want.
March 26, 2009 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know the ads are personalized to each user's TIA profile. Well, if they know more about us than we do... Now, I'm slightly depressed.
(note to self: set dental appointment at Oriental massage parlor next week).
March 26, 2009 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL! I'm sure your teeth are fine!
That said, if you need an excuse to go to that parlor, be my guest...
;0)
March 26, 2009 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Awesome. I just put another $10k into Oxee Gentech on Sunday.
They're up $1.49 today.
(Nefarious plan.... working.)
March 25, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
See we fly the airplane in this parabola shaped arc and on the downward leg you get to experience weightlessness. Keep your helmet on and enjoy the ride. It only lasts for a few seconds and then it’s over. Very expensive but it’s all we got.
March 25, 2009 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"We" fly the airplane, Leslie? Err, Larry?
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.
March 26, 2009 12:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
I refuse to quit sniffing glue.
March 26, 2009 2:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tis an entirely different kind of flying. Altogether.
March 26, 2009 2:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
impressive, just hope he doesn't feel obligated to twitter and dive at the same time.
March 26, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the video clip. It reminds me of how I feel every time I try to use the god damn TPM blog editor.
And no, you can not take the inflatable auto-pilot home with you if we ever do land this thing. I have plans to enter it in the upcoming Minnesota runoff election for the Senate.
March 26, 2009 8:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Inflatable auto-pilot enters Minnesota Senate Race--that is priceless, Larry.
March 26, 2009 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Roger, Roger.
We have clearance, Clarence.
What's your vector, Victor?
March 26, 2009 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am proud of my vapid, content-less contribution to the clutter. Not really. I do agree with the poster formerly known as... about vibratorgate with Barbara Walters. Please provide a link. I'm desperate for some hard news.
March 26, 2009 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
zing!
March 26, 2009 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I actually attribute it to exhaustion. Blogs have been going at hyperdrive through the longest election, then financial meltdown, then first black president, then his appointees, republican groping, stimulus, etc, then now, we kinda have a lull, but I think a lot of people are a little tired and not quite sure about everything already set in motion but the results won't be known soon.
Spring break has arrived, time to take a quick rest.
March 26, 2009 1:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Personally I think it has to do with the signal to noise ratio. There's still good stuff out there, but it's just so much harder to find because there is so much more garbage to sift through.
I have been tossing around the idea of a meta-blog that would try to provide a little guidance and rate some of the larger blogs in terms of signal to noise, but I just don't have that kind of time. Too much garbage :|
March 26, 2009 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
sounds like a thought or write-up or patent definitely worth pursuing.
March 26, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
As we are all actors in this we don't get to watch the performance and thus miss the absurdity.
March 26, 2009 3:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did all those bold letters somehow lessen the helium content of the font?
March 26, 2009 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Vibrator-Gate?
March 26, 2009 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I seem to have unintentionally drawn interest to the vibrator-gate story mentioned in my sampling of helium-induced news from across the cluttersphere, when in fact, I had hoped to spark a metaphysical discussion about Chinese gerbils on the pill.
But I'm reminded of the fact that Joseph Kesselring's Arsenic and Old Lace was originally conceived as a heavy drama, but won praise as a comedy.
So without further ado, I present you Vibrator-gate:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/25/vibrator-gate-round-4-baw_n_179059.html
March 26, 2009 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Vibrator-gate?
Ok, first person to add a "Deep Throat" reference wins.
March 26, 2009 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Win!
March 26, 2009 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm all for "serious" blogging too. Glenn Greenwald, Ezra Klein, and Paul Krugman each provide very good analysis of the day's events in their blogs. That said, sometimes I write satirical pieces, or posts that try to point out the ridiculousness of people in the media, etc. I enjoy reading those more "trivial" pieces just as much as I like watching them on The Daily Show/Colbert Report. So in fairness, I have to disagree in part with your suggestion.
I rec'd your post anyway, though.
March 26, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
see my comment to DD upstream. Also, you inspired me to be more clear, so I revised the lower half of the original post to better reflect my point. Thanks for reading and recommending, SBXX.
March 26, 2009 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I rec for the entertainment value of your post.
March 26, 2009 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
the comments have made the post a lot richer than I ever could on my own--seriously, check out the glowing sheep clip Don provided north of this comment.
March 26, 2009 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Big shout-out to the sheep (and dogs!)
Brilliant, eh? ;-)
March 26, 2009 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Barbara Steel Mika vibrator AIG Chuck gerbils AP Cantor assets Biden Spears Ron Fournier twitter Sachs?
March 26, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or, Bskdli sa;li Mvbxlki AIG ;l[weupo SWsloio09e 1alskkirer Cpoiu Sachs, not to put too fine a point on it.
March 26, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink