The Five Articles You Meet In Hell.

1. The Urgent / Meaningless Science Scare.

Example:

First Sentence: New research shows that consuming blueberries results in chronic baldness and / or death!

Buried at the Bottom: scientists involved in the research stress that these results are preliminary, and in no way support that thing we said in the first sentence.

Science is complicated, and complicated things are hard to turn into click bait. I understand. But please, stop doing this.

2. The “You Should Make The Same Life Decisions As I Made” Op-Ed.

Example:

I... (a) married early (b) married late (c) got pregnant young (d) got pregnant old (e) got a liberal arts degree (f) dropped out of college ... and so should you!

Also, I have two other anecdotes that illustrate why my choices are right for everyone!

Congratulations! You’re about to be reblogged by hundreds of supportive or outraged people. And you’ve managed to do it without injecting anything helpful into the public sphere.

3. The “Cool Church” Story.

Example:

Pastor Bob Whatshisface isn’t your ordinary preacherman. He wears jeans, is into coffee and skate culture, and often injects pop culture into his sermons! And he’s attracted a large congregation of young people who enjoy homebrewing and skinny jeans!

What’s next? A CEO who wears casual clothing in a downtown loft where young people work in offices decorated with quirky Japanese toys? Modern life is craaaazzzy!

4. The “Important Trend” Piece.

Example:

Five young moms in Brooklyn have started a cat/baby yoga club in which their babies do advanced yoga positions with the help of cats! A sociologist at CUNY says this has something to do with millennials.

A couple of people a friend of your friend knows, deciding to do a thing, does not make that thing a thing. It’s not a thing.

5. The “Twittertroversy” Story.

Example:

After the events of Wednesday, at least five people on Twitter said things that were offensive and bad. A spokesman for some organization was very offended by these offensive statements.

“The offensive comments produced by some people on Twitter, and also the comments section of YouTube, were highly offensive, and clearly show that society is super bigoted and terrible. Everyone should get very mad at this.”

Because any statistician worth his salt would tell you that some people saying some words online are always representative of the views held by the population at large. This has lead many experts to predict that the 2016 election will be dominated by the debate over whether a tiger or a lion is “the best animal.”

Search for “Lion vs Tiger” on YouTube for further reading.

The Pope's Words: I Don't Think They Mean What You Think They Mean.

If you want to start thinking critically about the news you consume, there’s one important thing to remember: journalists are biased. Just not in the way you might think.

Yes, journalists tend to identify themselves on the liberal side of the political spectrum. But when it comes to what they actually write, the bias that skews their coverage is a bias toward cohesive narratives. Journalists are storytellers -- their job is based around taking people and events, and fitting them into a narrative structure that’s easy to understand. Often, this is useful. Often, this is necessary. But just as often, it distorts the truth.

In the case of Pope Francis, the distorting effects of a devotion to clear-cut narrative have been on display for the world to see.

Journalists began their coverage of the new papacy with a simple narrative about the Catholic church already fixed in their brain. In short: the Catholic church is locked in a battle between conservatives and liberals, and the primary importance of any new pope is which of these two camps he’ll end up siding with. The first flaw of this narrative is the assumption that all religious conflicts are battles between liberals and conservatives, groups that mirror their counterparts in secular politics. For journalists, this makes sense, because they have a pretty good grasp of politics, and little to no grasp of theology. But while this conservative / liberal divide does exist in a certain form, most of the issues that any given religion deals with don’t fit into this political dichotomy. (See, most of the church schisms and divisions that have taken place over the past few millenia).

Due to this ready-made narrative, journalists have one goal when the Pope opens his mouth: find bits of information they can plug into the story they've already decided to tell. Because Pope Francis is a nice guy, doesn’t look like Emperor Palpatine, and sometimes takes selfies, journalists have largely decided that Pope Francis will tilt the church in a "liberal" direction. When the Pope talks to the public, only things that fit into this story will make the headlines.

Thus, after the Pope gave a complicated and nuanced interview to a Catholic paper, it’s not surprising that American journalists only noticed a few sentences. The sentences that happened to fit into their narrative.

You’ve probably already seen the headlines. The Pope wants to find “new balance” when it comes to social issues! The Pope says the church doesn’t need to talk about abortion and homosexuality “all the time”! In other words: THE POPE IS A LIBERAL AND HE LIKES GAYS AND STUFF.

Which would be fine, if those headlines were an accurate assessment of the Pope’s own words. If you read the full interview, which is incredibly fascinating, you’ll find it isn’t primarily a statement about how the church has become too conservative, and must adopt the cultural values of modernity. Much of the interview centers around the Pope’s influences from Catholic history, and meditations on the nature of Christian spirituality. Translation for journalists: boring religious stuff. He does talk about the way he wants to shift his papacy's focus -- but he doesn’t speak in a way that adheres to liberal / conservative thinking. What the Pope seems to be communicating is that he wants the Catholic church to become more focused on evangelism, which means proclaiming God’s offer of salvation before all else. All the moral teachings of the church on social issues -- which Francis affirms as “clear” -- are important, but they’re useless when they’re not paired with the message of the gospel.

(It’s important to note that if journalists wanted a completely different narrative, they could also back it up with another out-of-context quote from Francis: Pope Francis: Church Teaching on Homosexuality “Clear.”)

For most Christians, this isn’t groundbreaking material, but it's refreshing to hear it expressed in an articulate way. As an evangelical protestant, I was impressed by the Pope’s richly textured expression of faith. It's true that Francis doesn’t go on an angry screed against gays and nonbelievers, but then again, neither do the vast majority of Christian leaders, regardless of how "conservative" they are. The press's breathless reaction to the Pope's interview is reminiscent of the awful coverage of “hip” evangelical churches that largely consists of ignorant statements along the lines of, “Pastor Coolface believes in the bible, but on a recent Sunday, he didn’t even mention gays!” Journalists have a narrative about “conservative” Christianity in their heads -- that all churches care about is gay marriage and abortion -- and they’re not sure what to do when they encounter an authentic statement of faith that defies this narrative.

I don’t expect that coverage of Christianity in general -- and Catholicism specifically -- will improve in the near future. Religion is hard, and journalists have to pump out stories with click-ready headlines as fast as their underpaid fingers can manage. Even if fitting facts into simplified narratives is frustrating to me as a consumer of news, I understand it. And since he’s such a swell guy, I’m sure Pope Francis forgives journalists for it.

But as fellow consumers of news, it’s your responsibility to dig deeper, and question the narratives. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they’re not.

In other words: Do journalists get caught up in artificial narratives? Is the Pope Catholic? Contrary to what you might have heard recently, the answer to both is yes.

A Glass House.

Are you ever saddened by the fact that you’re unable to share every waking moment of your life with other people? Sure, your fancy phone is all right when you want to share pictures of cats, or carefully arranged lunches, but all of that taking-it-out-of-your-pocket-and-touching-the-screen business can really weigh you down.

Enter Google Glass -- a computer thing you wear on your face, all the time!

The existence of Google Glass -- Google’s foray into wearable computing -- isn’t exactly news. But Google just released a new video under the heading “How it Feels,” to convey, well, how it feels to use Glass. It’s an inspirational montage of footage, presumably taken by Glass wearers, that demonstrates just how much this technology will enrich your life.

Please, check it out:


Oddly enough, Google Glass is the least interesting thing about this video. The images are captivating -- tumbling through the air on a flying trapeze, jumping on trampolines, riding in hot air balloons, drifting down a canal in Thailand. At best, the little floating Glass display in the corner seems like an irritating distraction. And the functionality of the device isn’t exactly revolutionary either. If Google is trying to convey what Glass is capable of, the answer is clear: the same stuff your smartphone does. The difference is that Glass, in theory, is always on. Always a part of you.

The goal is to take you less out of experiences than your phone does. Instead of pulling out a little device, and staring at its screen, capturing your everyday existence will be as natural as breathing.

At least, in Google’s mind.

In reality, the concept falls short. If you’re eating lunch with your friends, is turning toward your plate of Pad Thai and saying, “Okay, Glass. Take a picture. Share with friends,” really more natural than pulling out your phone and snapping an old-fashioned, pretentious mealstagram? And if you really want to be more immersed in an experience, wouldn’t a better solution be to just experience something without worrying about documenting it?

In the age of social media evangelists and their gospel of an evermore-connected-world-in-which-personal-stuff-is-shared, this is blasphemy. The idea that perhaps someone would prefer not to take pictures and videos of everything they do is never considered. The inherent message of the Glass promo is that all the fantastic things the Glass users are doing are made more significant, and more magical, simply because they’re doing them while connected to the digital universe. Social media users already fall into the mindset that the things they do are meaningless unless they’re shared with others. Google Glass takes that concept, and puts it on steroids.

I’m not sure that’s what anyone needs.

However, philosophical objections probably won’t be what sinks Google Glass. The sheer, shall we say, dorkiness of Google’s product, paired with a lack of compelling functionality, make it unlikely to succeed. Visions of the future, even ones dreamed up by very intelligent people, are often remarkably wrong. Glass is a product that seems designed to evoke a sense of being futuristic, without actually filling a human need. This isn’t the best recipe for success in the marketplace.

I mean, am I the only one who immediately thought of this after seeing the first pics of Glass?

I rest my case.

"LOUD NOISES!"

As long as people disagree with each other, there will be arguments. And as long as we have the Internet, there will be more arguments than you can shake a mouse at.

(The computer accessory, not the rodent. Unless you’re a terrible person.)

The problem is that what passes as an argument in the age of digital media and cable news isn’t always an argument. Confused?

Well, let’s say that I believe butter pecan is an excellent and delicious ice cream that should be enjoyed by everyone. (Which happens to be true). However, if given the choice, some people would rather eat vanilla ice cream. I feel this is wrong on a gut level, but to convince others, I need to provide reasons. Clearly, some sort of argument is called for.

Here’s one way I could approach it:

Butter pecan is a better ice cream than vanilla, due to the sophistication and complexity of its flavors. Whereas vanilla merely offers a single tone to the tip of your tongue, butter pecan is a veritable orchestra of flavor. One key difference between the diets of humans and lower animals is that while animals almost always consume one single item at a time -- grass, an antelope, etc. -- humans are capable of combining and blending multiple ingredients with multiple flavors. This ability to understand and appreciate complexity is a bedrock of civilization. A single note does not a melody make, and likewise, a single brush stroke doesn’t form a complete painting. To choose butter pecan ice cream is not only to enjoy a better dessert  -- it’s to be more human.

This argument isn’t airtight, and other people could easily disagree with some of my premises. (We're talking about ice cream, for crying out loud.) But it is an active attempt to explain why I believe my position is the correct one. Delivering an argument, even a good one, won’t result in instant victory. It should, however, make your opponent think about what they believe, and come up with a response that deals with your assertions in a substantive way. The end result is that players on both sides of the argument are forced to develop their ideas with increasing complexity, and perhaps even cede certain points, if they must.

Unfortunately, all this complexity can be mentally exhausting. It’s almost, like, you have to think about things. This is where a second strategy comes in. A very popular strategy. This method of argumentation relies on proving something’s badness (or goodness) due to its mere association with a certain time period or group of people, and makes frequent references to either inevitable progress, or an idealized past. The “progressive” version of the argument would go something like this:

Lovers of vanilla ice cream want to send us back to the 1800s with a regressive flavor that reeks of a paternalistic society. In the last few decades, we’ve made strides toward a greater diversity of flavors in our ice cream, but the persistence of the vanilla crowd frequently makes me ashamed to be an ice cream eater. When our almost-certainly-butter-pecan-loving grandchildren look back at this moment in our history, they’ll wonder why it took us so long to give up the hatefully mono-flavored dessert that plagues us today. Stand up for butter pecan. Stand up for the truth.

The tone of this argument suggests that its author is very passionate about something, but doesn’t know why. So, reason is substituted with outrage, in an attempt to disguise the fact that there are no substantive arguments being offered. Rather than trying to attract a strong response from its opponent, the goal of this statement is to make people who agree with it feel righteous, and opponents feel ashamed about their life choices. Arguments like this also tend to be based on a painfully cheapened view of history that can only be accepted if you’ve never studied it.

In other words, it’s not really an argument at all. It’s noise.

I think it’s reasonable to believe that some things people did in ye olden times were wrong. Olden-times-people, like modern-times-people, were a little messed up, and sometimes had bad ideas. However, the very fact that a certain view was held by people in the past doesn’t make it wrong. Conversely, the fact that a certain view was held by people in the past doesn’t make it right.

So, if a liberal tells you that conservatives are wrong because they want take us back to the 1950s, or some other sinister time period, you should politely tell them that this isn’t an argument, and make them restate their case in terms of actual reasoning.

And if a conservative tells you that something is right because our leaders in the 1700s said it was, you should remind them that politicians in the 1700s were still just people, and they would probably be disappointed in such a shoddy argument.

After all, this is the 21st century! People who lean on chronological snobbery or golden age thinking will end up taking us back to the Manchu dynasty. Instead, we should return to the perfection of classical Greece, where reason and virtue reigned on jewel-studded thrones.

And we should all eat more butter pecan ice cream. It rocks in a big way.

In Good Spirits.

I’m not much of a liquor connoisseur.

But I’m definitely a liquor review connoisseur.

Liquor reviews are wonderful, because they are also ridiculous, and written by crazy people.

You see, when I evaluate something, I try to follow the Kind of Baffling First Principle of Reviewable Attributes:

Any object of evaluation shall be evaluated based on properties of an evaluatable nature within said object, with which that object may be evaluated in light of... those properties. Of the object.

For example, a review of an apple might involve references to its levels of crispness and sweetness, because those are actual things your mouth notices when an apple is inside of it.

If, however, I were to compare the apple’s flavor to, say, a rare steak or a garlic-roasted turnip, that would not be acceptable. Those flavors just don’t exist within the context of an apple.

Meanwhile, over in liqourland, such rules of reality are routinely cast aside, allowing the whiskey-soaked elite to craft odes to the distillery’s bounty that soar somewhere between the stratosphere, and Dick Cheney’s armored moon-home.

(Dick Cheney was once our vice president. If you haven’t heard much about him lately, you can probably chalk it up to his residence in said moon-home.)

To get a clearer picture of this phenomenon, let us examine one particular member of the liquor family: American bourbon whiskey.

Bourbon is the stuff you get when you distill alcohol from a corn-majority blend of grains, and let it mellow in new oak barrels for a while. It’s pretty decent, all things considered.

Taste-wise, bourbon is very, well, bourbon-y. It’s about 50% ethyl alcohol, so you have that flavor/burn going on in a big way. The barrel any given bourbon is aged in lends some flavor, usually an oakiness or slight smokiness. (Rhyming!) But basically, we’re not getting too fancy here. This is something good American farmers invented to get drunk on, because it’s sure as heck easier than wine-making, which despite California’s peculiar insistence, is for French people and Bacchus.

Bourbon enthusiasts, however, do not burden themselves with the dull physical reality that has been poured into their thick glass tumblers. As a slightly inebriated Yoda was known to remark, “luminous libations are these, not this crude whisky!”

Hiding beneath the caramel-colored surface of America’s native spirit, true bourbon lovers find... things.

Things like vanilla, cardamom, cinnamon, pepper, leather, grapefruit, toffee, blueberries, mushrooms, orange rind, freshly-baked bread, and, I swear, persimmons.

Freakin’ PERSIMMONS.

To watch these flavors unfold through the written word is like witnessing a delicate ballet I do not yet understand, and likely never will.

Case in point: I recently bought a bottle of Old Grand Dad bourbon, because I wanted to make mint juleps, which in turn was because I wanted to pretend to be a fancy southern person like that guy from Gone with the Wind, or Colonel Sanders. If I were to write my thoughts on this comfortingly-retro-looking bottle of whiskey, they would be roughly as follows:

Old Grand-Dad seems pretty good to me. It didn’t cost very much, which is something I like, as I do not yet have very much money. It doesn’t burn in your throat too much, and it doesn’t have an unpleasant aftertaste. Sometimes, whiskey makes your mouth feel gross, and that wasn’t going on here. Props, Old Grand-Dad.


It made a heckuva julep, which made me feel adequately fancy, although not quite so much as I had hoped. The fanciest southern men I know of have what I refer to as “signature facial hair,” and I feel like this could be a missing piece in the puzzle. Will explore further.


Overall Score: 4 out of 5

If I were a bourbon enthusiast with a website called something like downthewhiskeyriver.com, things would be quite different:

Upon opening the bottle, I was enraptured by the heady aroma that filled my nostrils with pleasuresome vapours. It was like the calm of a field recently soaked by rain -- a well-needed respite from a drought, if I’m not mistaken. Also noted were mixed hints of a cherry pie cooling on a nearby window sill, and rich shampoo lather. After the first sip, I detected a robust flavor, like an entire grilled chicken stuffed with pine-nuts and quinoa. This was followed by the rich sweetness of a fudge-covered brownie, and the tart sting of a salt-encrusted lime. The viscosity was excellent, with a mouthfeel akin to a fresh ocean surf foaming betwixt my teeth. On the throat, I felt the soothing mellowness of a tiny cherub and his angelic cohorts massaging my uvula with gifted hands. The finish was strong, starting with a bushel of pomegranates, and then followed by the tears of a small child who has just learned a disillusioning truth about life, which left me emotionally drained, but eager for future tastings.


Overall Score: 3.8694 out of 4.94

To truly review a whiskey, one must transcend the immediate reality, and enter into a strange form of free-association poetry that reveals the deeper spiritual nature of booze some guy made from corn. The results are breathtaking, and in this writer’s opinion, should be extended to other fields.

Specifically, politics.

It’s only June, and we’re already sick of reading the same dull write-ups of each candidate’s performance on the stump:

Romney spoke to a small but enthusiastic crowd, in the wake of a new poll showing, blah, blah, momentum, etc.

You get it.

It’s time to whiskey-up some real journalism:

Romney’s voice wafted like the aroma of my late great-aunt Dorothy’s famous pecan crisp bars. The crowd was distinctly Mezozoic, and one could very clearly perceive a tension in the air, like the moment before a litter of kittens is born. This comes in sharp contrast to Obama, whose recent public appearances have evoked a mixture of grass clippings and slightly-burnt sage.


Altogether, a refreshing day, but one that lacked the strongly pronounced notes of unicorn and honeysuckle so prevalent in recent weeks.

The general populace will be unable to glean any useful information from these stories, thus maintaining the status quo. But the politically inclined among us would be able to have delightful debates over whether the correct random labels were attached to events, and then offer colorful-sounding, meaningless descriptions of our own to counter them. Then, instead of dealing with boring, weighty issues, political discourse could become an endless game for the amusement of the well-educated.

Completely different from the system we have today.

I’ll let the journalist-types sort out the details. My julep’s getting warm, and this “signature facial hair” isn’t going to grow itself.

The Sporting Life.

Based on the general rumblings emerging from the Internet-o-sphere, I’m aware that basketball-related events are happening right now. Basketball-related events that somehow fall under the banner of “March Madness.”

I literally have no clue what this is. None.

As it stands, my interest in sports is exactly equal to the amount of interest a porcupine has in knitting tiny hats for human babies. Which is quite low, unless you happen to be Knudsworth, The Knitting Porcupine Who Loves.

My first instinct is to ridicule everyone who thinks that sports are significant in some way. However, since everyone else on the planet falls into that category (with the exception of Knudsworth, whose legendary abundance of love does not extend to sports), I’ve since learned to suppress my instincts.

In fact, if you’re totally into sports, I respect your lifestyle. I don’t understand it, but I respect it.

You see, if you follow sports, you have a crazy amount of stuff going on in your brain. The casual sports-talk that normal Americans are able to rattle off is completely mystifying to me. Sports people know a mind-boggling number of things. They know hundreds of teams, and the players on those teams, and the records of those players, and players in the past they can compare them to. They know about coaches, league organizations, strategies, obscure lingo, and rules.

And they know all that without any sort of formal education on the subject. By any measure, that’s pretty darn impressive.

Granted, my inner-Knudsworth can only think, “Gosh, if people devoted a fraction of the brain-space they use for sports to local politics, think about how healthy our communities would be!” But I know this is a false choice. There are people who are completely savvy and politically engaged, and know millions of sports factoids as well.

Again, my tiny, non-sports brain can’t comprehend this. I don’t know how people can seemingly know everything about the constantly changing world of sports, and all the personalities therein, and also fit other information into their brain. But millions of people do.

I don’t like sports. But I respect anyone who knows many things about things, even if those things are things I don’t understand.

So, to all those who know what “March Madness” is: I salute you.

You make America great.

Now, go back to doing... your brackets... for the games. I hope Michael Jordan scores lots of touchdowns!

(And Knudsworth sends his reluctant blessing as well. He's already knitting hats for your present and/or future babies.)

Things I Dislike: Via Satellite Magazine.

At Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, a variety of magazines can be found scattered about the building. Some of them are quite interesting, like little hidden treasures of the office. One of them is terrible.

I’m speaking, of course, of Via Satellite magazine, the self-proclaimed “leading magazine in global coverage of the satellite enabled communications marketplace.”

Via Satellite magazine is a magazine aimed at people who are deeply interested in the business of satellite communication technology. In other words, this is a magazine aimed at a group of people that doesn’t actually exist.

You see, when I open a magazine, I expect to be delighted by either,

a) celebrity gossip,
b) political gossip,
c) pictures of food,

or,

d) a surprising story about a thing that an animal did.

Via Satellite has none of those things. It is literally the worst magazine. Nothing about what is printed in Via Satellite is enjoyable to read or look at, because everything in the magazine is about satellite technology. Reading Via Satellite is the magazine equivalent of eating a piece of meatloaf made of moist woodchips: disappointing, painful, and only mildly enjoyable in very special circumstances.

As far as I’m concerned, a satellite is just a thing in space that does something. Until America decides to stop being lame, and start using satellites as nuclear-armed death platforms, I don’t want to think about them, or read about them. No one does.

Now, some of you may be thinking, “But Abe, you’re being ridiculous! You can’t expect to be in the target audience for every obscure trade magazine in existence. Doesn’t the fact that copies of Via Satellite are stocked at NET imply that certain professionals in the broadcasting field are interested in the contents of Via Satellite?”

But, this is a terribly misguided line of thought. Let’s assume for a moment that I’m the kind of guy who deals with satellites as a part of my profession. It’s 11:30. I’ve had a tough, satellite-related morning, and now I’m jonesing for a pack of chocolate Zingers. I head to the break room, looking for a brief respite from the drudgery of my normal life. Do you think that I want to be confronted with a magazine about the very thing that makes my life a hellish slinky of tightly-coiled stress? Do I want to kick back with journalistic gems like “Eutelsat Free-to-Air Platform Looks to Capitalize on France’s Analog Switch-off?”

Of course not. I want to be entertained. I want to enter a world where b-list celebrities and lovable animals become friends, and team up to accomplish amazing things. I want to read about how Steve Buscemi and Carlton the Walrus saved an asthmatic child at Disney World. Does that sound remotely like anything that would ever be published in Via Satellite Magazine? No. Unless Steve Buscemi and Carlton the Walrus team up to increase data transmission rates to receivers in the Ukraine, their exploits will be quite absent from that rag.

Which is a tragedy.

So, for being totally boring and full of lame business and science, Via Satellite gets relegated to my personal hall of shame.

Via Satellite, shame on you. May I never encounter you in a restroom stall again.