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.

Vinyl, Cities, And Why Smart People Are Often Wrong.

A few weeks ago, I was at an educational technology conference, listening to a presentation on the evolution of consumer tech. The speaker used props extensively, showing off relics like 5” floppy disks, and 8-track tapes.

At one point, she held up an LP, and firmly stated, “if you’re under 30, you have no idea what this is.”

Of course, if you’re someone under 30, you know this is crazy talk. While vinyl records aren’t the mass medium they once were, they’ve become extremely popular with a large crowd of young, mostly well-educated people who enjoy the sound of analog music. In many cases, young people are dusting off their parents’ unused record heaps, and giving them a second life.

This may turn out to be a fad. At the very least, it doesn’t mean that digital music is declining, or that the traditional record industry will suddenly be the titan it was in the ‘70s. But it’s an interesting phenomenon nonetheless.

It’s interesting because there’s not really a quantifiable reason for the resurgence of vinyl. Massive, physical records are no practical match for the millions of songs Spotify can magically stream to your laptop. The fact that the revival of a seemingly-ancient format has occurred in tandem with the continued growth of digital music is a delightful paradox that cuts against the linear march O’ technology narrative the speaker was trying to present.

And it’s a testament to the power of the intangible.

We live in an age of data, enthralled by technocrats who can gaze into the future through massive sets of numbers. We’re meant to believe that anything significant about human behavior can be reduced to spreadsheets assembled by economists and statisticians.

One of the most immediate consequences of this laser-focus on data is a continuity bias.The purpose of most data analysis is to identify patterns, like historical trends and correlations between data sets. So, when we discover these little gems, we can only rationally assume that these patterns will hold. And, viola! We have a little portal to the future --  and for writers, a harvest of click-ready headlines:

The End Of _____ !

The Future Of _____ !

The New ______ !

Why What You Think About _______ Is Wrong!

The Upcoming ______ Disaster!

For a while, these predictions seem correct. But then, shifts take place. And the roots of these shifts can usually be found in different realms: the realms of preference, belief, and other mental constructs that can defy numerical analysis.

Take the state of the American city: 40 years ago, any number of experts in the field of urban policy would tell you that the American city was dead. The suburbs were rapidly growing, inner-cities were zones of hopelessness, and the streets of downtown areas were empty. Rationally, this made sense. People wanted space, privacy, and personal mobility. The suburbs offered all those things, and the old city cores didn’t. Their death was a necessary, but inevitable, tragedy.

Today, things have changed. The suburbs are still large, and in some places, still growing. But dense urban cores have replaced suburban areas as the center of the elite class's aspirations. Neighborhoods in and close to downtown areas have experienced massive influxes of wealthy, mostly white, residents. The very people who were expected to continue to seek out more space in the leafy-green sprawl around the edges.

The changes that made this possible were changes in the ideals of the affluent generation that had been raised in the space, homogeneity, and safety of the suburbs. The qualities that had such a great pull on their parents and grandparents no longer held the same appeal for them. New qualities -- authenticity, walkability, excitement -- became their touchstones.

Urban economists can point to an increasing amount of data that shows that density is correlated with a number of positive goods, like the amount of economic innovation, but the fact that these benefits exist is besides the point. The educated people who make up the burgeoning urban class aren’t moving downtown because of metrics that show that patent applications increase based on the amount of people per square mile. They’re searching for a “vibe,” or a “community,” or maybe just some really good coffee.

Numbers are useful, but, they have their limits. There’s a lot that numbers can tell us about a place, a group of people, or a certain trend. But all these things are made of more than just measurable metrics.

Another case in point: every year, certain magazines compile lists of the “best” places/towns/cities, which provide another form of headline fodder for over-worked journalists. Interestingly enough, the places that fill the top of these lists are almost never the cities where millions of people actually choose to move. Inevitably, it’s a string of relatively obscure burgs that look fantastic on paper.

The small Nebraskan city I live in, Lincoln, was recently rated the happiest city in America. Now, I can attest to the fact that Lincoln is a pleasant place. And yet, there aren’t millions of people rushing to the Great Plains to experience the marvelous happiness therein.

In the real world, the places tourists flock to, and ambitious youngsters leave their hometowns for, are often pretty poor based on a number of metrics. Things like unemployment rates, and commute times are an important part of the urban puzzle, but so are things like the “feel” of a street, the “energy” a business community, or the way the sunset looks in a certain park. If you ask a newly-minted New Yorker about why he chose to live there, he probably won’t tell you that he ditched everyone he knew and decided to share a studio apartment with five strangers because Once Prestigious Magazine told him it was #45.5 on a list of places for recent college graduates.

Ultimately, the problem isn’t with the data itself. The trouble lies in the conceit that numbers can provide us with an objective and complete view of the world, detached from interpretation and human experiences. In truth, the widespread availability of data about our lives has provided us with incredible tools. But the usefulness of any tool depends on the hands that wield it.

So, go ahead: use numbers. If you must, make predictions, and lists. Numbers are interesting, and can tell you a lot. But at the same time, be human. Listen to people, and search for the interesting cultural events that happen around the edges, where others aren’t looking. And maybe, when reality capsizes the conventional wisdom, you won’t be so surprised.

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.

The Distant Future. The Year 2016.

In honor of Obama’s second inauguration, I humbly present my predictions for the next four years of our nation’s history. The predictions are in a bulleted list, because those are easy to read. And fun. Bulleted lists are fun!

DURING THE NEXT FOUR YEARS:

• Republican in congress will oppose several bills Obama supports.
• Charges of “political posturing” will be made.
• Marco Rubio will continue to be Hispanic, and Republicans will continue to be excited about that.
• If you have guns right now, you will continue to own them.
• Obama will say, “let me be clear,” in various contexts.
• He will be accused of not actually being clear, in various contexts.
• You won’t have to worry about obeying "Sharia law."
• You still won’t know what "Sharia law" actually entails.
• You might still be kind of worried about obeying "Sharia law" at some point in the future.
• America will still be killing people we don’t like, and people who happen to be near them, using deadly robots.
•  We probably won’t care that much about the robot thing.
• Corn syrup will still be in stuff. Because it’s frickin’ delicious.
• Ever had pecan pie? It’s not delicious because of the pecans.
•  (It’s because of the corn syrup).
• (Pecan pie is basically all corn syrup).
• Michele Obama will remain a controversial figure, due to her insistence on talking to kids about eating right and exercise.
• The nerve! Also, she has muscles!
• That makes some people uncomfortable!
• Rush Limbaugh will say something that some people will interpret as racism.
• Some people will continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh.
• Cupcakes will no longer be a thing. 
• Conservative cupcake lovers, if there are any, will blame Michele Obama.
• Others will just acknowledge that cupcakes were always just normal cakes, but smaller, and move on.
•  I will still make cupcakes, though.
• Obama will scarf down some type of classic American food on camera.
• (Perhaps a burger.)
•  Conservatives will refer to this burger-scarfing as “liberal hypocrisy." 
• Obama will pose with some type of adorable animal on camera.
• (Perhaps a koala.)
• Conservatives will refer to this koala-hugging as "liberal hypocrisy."
• Global warming will continue to wreck havoc on the globe, while simultaneously not existing.
• This will continue to be super confusing. 
• Network morning shows will go for an entire week without a special report on "sexting."
• A day of feasting will be proclaimed.   
• The feasting will be short-lived.

Election Thoughts.

I haven’t been writing a whole lot for the past couple of months. Or at least, I haven’t been finishing a lot of writing. Stringing together coherent thoughts is hard and tiring.

So, I won’t try to.

As you may know, there's an election going on. Better yet, it's the exciting kind where we get to pick a president! Because I graduated from college, I have many thoughts, or ponderances, when elections occur. I wrote some of these down, and am now putting them on the Internet for you to enjoy. If you don't want to read these thoughts, you can continue staring at the patriotic image above. It will undoubtedly stir the soul of all true patriots, due to its patriotic nature, and I'm very proud that I was able to find it via a simple Google image search.

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VARIOUS THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ELECTION, PRESENTED IN BULLETED POINTS

- Joe Biden’s recent campaign trail gaffes reminded me that Joe Biden is still vice president. That, in turn, made me giggle.

- Does anyone truly believe that Obama personally dislikes people who start businesses, and is actively plotting to make people dependant on the government? Inventing secret motives behind an opponent’s policy is a mainstay of American political discourse, but it still manages to irritate me. See also: Republicans don’t really care about abortion -- they want to turn women into a perpetually pregnant slave-race!

- I think most people in the media were thrilled that Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate. Despite the best efforts of the Democrats to paint Romney as a Snidely Whiplash, and the Republicans to portray him as an heir to Reagan, he doesn’t really incite any emotion beyond mild like or dislike. Paul Ryan is a dynamic character in our current political story, and journalists are suckers for narrative. Like 2008, this is going to be an election cycle dominated by discussion of the GOP’s veep-to-be.

- Ryan’s infamous budget plan contains big cuts to almost everything the federal government does. These cuts would be very painful, and a more reasonable approach to reducing the deficit would likely include some sort of revenue increase. On the other hand, such a tough budget would actually tame many of our entitlement-related fiscal problems. Democrats who raise hue & cry over the Ryan plan should be willing to offer their own plan to reign in entitlements. Given the size of the projected deficits in medicare, social security, and other major programs, there will likely be some painful cuts no matter what.

- I am not really an expert on tax policy or entitlements. Luckily, no one in Washington is either, so I can get away with it.

- Even with Ryan on the ticket, I expect that entitlement reform will be pushed into the background. Old people vote, and they want what the guv’mint owes them, regardless of their political philosophy.

- Commentators say that Paul Ryan’s selection shows that Romney isn’t trying to sway women to his side. Ryan’s abs say otherwise.

- Paul Ryan was (is?) really into Ayn Rand, and her ever-popular novel Atlas Shrugged. This has set many folks in the punditsphere a-twitter. As for myself, I read Atlas Shrugged a few years ago, and it was terrible. To this day, I can’t figure out why it appeals to people, since the characters, plot, and morality of the book are all equally dismal. Even the numerous sex scenes manage to be preachy and disturbing. Gross.

- The fact that Paul Ryan has been selected as VP doesn’t mean Romney has to defend all of Ryan’s policy positions. The president sets the agenda.

- Mitt Romney has never been much of a foreign policy buff. Even worse, he seems to be filling in his gaps in this area with advice from dubious Bush-era hawks. Anyone who would like to avoid the mistakes of that presidency should be troubled by this.

- Fortunately for Romney, this race has never been about foreign policy. Voters seem to prefer picking their presidents based on an imaginary role the president doesn’t actually play (magical jobs fairy), rather than the ones he actually does (commander-in-chief of the armed forces, international head of state). Pity.

- Obama hasn’t made any terrible blunders in the realm of foreign policy and national security. He also hasn’t fundamentally changed the trajectory of Bush’s overall anti-terrorism policies. It seems that Democratic foreign policy boils down to, “the war on terror is a ridiculous construct designed to oppress us, but we can fight it better than Republicans!”

- The fact that Obama has largely pursued Bush’s war on terror policies doesn’t leave Romney with a lot of actual things he can contrast his own positions with. So, it seems that Romney plans to do the same things, but in a more American and assertive manner. Obama, for example, has said that all options (including military force) are on the table in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. Meanwhile, Romney says that all options are REALLY, TRULY, VERY MUCH on the table. I’m not sure what this means in practical terms.

- I could care less that Romney isn’t releasing his tax returns. If you’re wondering what they would reveal, I can give you some spoilers: Romney made a truckload of money, and like every other taxpayer, he paid as little as he could within the confines of the law.

- As a PR thing, maybe it would it would make sense for Romney to release his tax returns. But really, this is his choice to make.

- Note to the American public: Obama is not like you. Romney is not like you. People who become president are not normal, and that’s okay. An average Joe has no business running the most powerful nation on earth. Isn’t time we celebrated elitism? Just a little?

- "Celebrate Elitism" will be the name of an annual banquet, hosted by me, as soon as I become wealthy and powerful. If you think this sounds awesome, I'll gladly take donations to hasten my ascent to wealth and power. I accept Paypal.

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That is all, for now.

"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.

A Tragedy, Not A Talking Point.

The previously little-known story of Trayvon Martin’s death has become an inferno of controversy during the past week. It’s shocking, heartrending, and it strikes at the core of America’s identity as a tolerant nation. Like many other stories, it might also prove to be more complicated that it seems.

These are the generally agreed-upon facts of the case:

Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American boy, is walking home after purchasing some candy and iced tea at a 7-11. He’s talking to his girlfriend on the phone. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, spots him, and immediately pegs him as a suspicious figure. Zimmerman calls 9/11, and pursues the boy. A struggle occurs, and Zimmerman shoots Martin. Trayvon Martin is dead by the time police arrive. Zimmerman claims the action as self-defense, and even though Trayvon was unarmed, he isn’t prosecuted.

I first heard the story on the radio. But in my mind, I could visualize Zimmerman clearly.

White.
Probably middle-aged or older.
A paranoid racist with too much time on his hands, and an itchy trigger finger.

Later, I googled “George Zimmerman,” to find out as much as I could. His picture was one of the first items that popped up. And it surprised me.

George Zimmerman, as it turns out, isn’t white, or middle-aged. He’s a 28-year-old Hispanic of mixed ancestry. According to his family, he has many black friends and family members. Given that his town’s population is 30% African-American, that doesn’t sound like a stretch. None of those things preclude racism as a motive. But, they do raise several questions.

How does a young, middle-class Hispanic man living in a racially diverse town end up with a level of racial paranoia that leads him to snuff out an innocent life for no reason besides “walking while black”? Upon further inspection, the racial aspect of the story doesn’t disappear, but it certainly becomes cloudier.

Regardless of the circumstances, prosecuting Zimmerman is the right thing to do. Trayvon Martin’s family deserves justice. But we shouldn’t be too quick in forming simplified narratives about the motives behind the case before all the facts are known. Turning an unspeakable tragedy into an opportunity for grandstanding on the state of race relations in America is a mistake.

We should push for justice, but remain patient for the details.

Paywalling.

Newspapers have been grousing for years about the best way to pull in the revenue they need to survive the digital onslaught. The so-called paywall has lots of critics, but an increasing number of news sources are adopting it. It’s a pretty straightforward idea: good journalism doesn’t happen without money, so the public ought to pony up some dough to access it.

Which brings me to a handy little anecdote: after months of stalling, I’m now a paying subscriber to nytimes.com.

I’m not saying that online subscription fees are the best solution for every organization. My reluctant payment isn’t an endorsement of the business practice. But I paid nonetheless, because it was simply more convenient than constantly trying to work around the free article limit.

I read the New York Times a lot. Even if you’re a Palin-esque conservative who believes that The Grey Lady is a bastion of communism and vice, there’s no question that the New York Times produces more original journalism at home and abroad than any other single source. Every day, I visit the New York Times because I know I’ll read things there that I won’t find anywhere else. It offers a blend of opinion, hard news, and cultural reporting that I’ve relied on for years.

And that, I think, holds the true key to journalism’s survival. The digital space is still a harsh frontier for the news industry. No one knows what things will look like in 20 years. Are online subscriptions the answer? Micro-payments? Non-profit corporate structures?

Frankly, I have no idea.

But I do know that if you offer something essential -- something that people can’t live without -- there’s a good chance you’ll survive. As a consumer, I’m annoyed that I have to pay for something I used to enjoy for free. But I’ll pay anyway, because I want what the New York Times has to offer.

The business side of the newsroom has a long way to go in developing sustainable business models. But unless journalists are creating content people depend on, the most innovative corporate minds won’t be able to save the industry from collapse.

In other words: make the news awesome. The money will come, eventually.

Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

Every morning, I head over to my inbox to skim Mike Allen’s daily Politico Playbook news summary. Today, the subject line promised something about a feud within the Cato Institute. But on the inside, I was confronted by six stunning words that appeared to have been inserted at the last minute: BULLETIN - ANDREW BREITBART DIES AT 43.

My first thought was that it was all a Tom Sawyer-esque hoax. I could imagine Breitbart gleefully watching the media’s reaction to his own death, a glass of pinot noir in hand, relishing yet another chance to humiliate the establishment he despised. But at this point, I’m not holding my breath.

Andrew Breitbart is dead.

I think there are two senses in which someone can be considered great. One is a complete, moral sense. There are great men and women who are admired for what they fought for, and how they fought for it. But there’s another, lesser sense. Some men and women have a greatness that isn't always the same as goodness. They’re great in an earthly sense, because of the shadow they manage to cast during their short time in the sun. They make a dent in the fabric of society, for good or ill.

In that sense, Andrew Breitbart was a great man.

If William F. Buckley Jr. was emblematic of the last generation of conservatives, Andrew Breitbart was the heart and soul of the current one. Buckley was an erudite Ivy League elitist, always ready to disarm opponents with a verbal flourish. He was part of an intellectual conservative establishment that at the very least seemed to value high culture and the search for meaning. Breitbart was an unabashed bomb-thrower to his core. Every action he took was animated by anger against a vast liberal elite, and those he felt had been brainwashed by them. Buckley may have scoffed at liberal protesters in witty columns; Breitbart would march right out to them and yell until he lost his voice. He didn’t just want to fight his enemies. He wanted to destroy them, in hand-to-hand combat if necessary.

And often, he succeeded. Anthony Weiner resigned in disgrace. Shirley Sherrod lost her job. ACORN was cut off from federal funding. Breitbart harnessed his anger to the anger of thousands, and used it to relentlessly push stories online until mainstream news sources could no longer ignore them. He mastered the new media to beat the old media at its own game.

By any account, Breitbart was not a particularly religious person. But the enemy of his enemy was always his friend. His Big Hollywood blog often featured voices ranging from culture-warrior evangelicals to gay libertarians. As long as you wanted to take a wrecking ball to the ivory tower, you were welcome on Team Breitbart. The battle was an all-consuming obsession for him. In Breitbart’s mind, Hollywood elites, liberal newscasters, and hippy protestors weren't just wrong -- they were at war with the country. Somewhat ironically, Breitbart’s tactics were self-consciously modeled after the left-wing radical groups of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Now that they had taken over, he felt that it was his turn to give them a taste of their own medicine.

In style and substance, I never had a whole lot in common with Breitbart. But out of all the conservative political figures in the country, I always felt he would be the most fascinating to have a conversation with. He was a colorful political oddity in a country that manufactures characters by the dozens. He may not have been Limbaugh, but he loved to talk, rambling combatively about the communist plot to take over the country, while making obscure pop culture references and praising the goodness of middle-Americans. The persona he projected was a strange combination of poise and sloppiness, something like a disgruntled think-tank fellow who had just crawled out of bed after a night of heavy drinking. Breitbart was a political conservative who didn’t care for maintaining a clean-cut image. You always got the feeling that he was the guy you’d want to have a beer -- or several beers -- with. But my own chances of grabbing a pint with Breitbart have dropped from .001% to 0.

The man is gone. The media landscape he helped transform remains.

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.