America the ‘unaffiliated’

Three observations from this new report on religion in the United States:

  • The ranks of the “unaffiliated” were at 22 percent and the most populated group in 13 states. Predictably, most of the “unaffiliated” people reside in the Pacific Northwest and New England, the de facto centers of progress and enlightenment in the United States, in addition to parts of California and Massachusetts, which no doubt came in with slightly higher numbers of religious people because of the Catholic demographic in both states (see map 1).

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  • White evangelical Protestants still dominate the Southeast and parts of the Midwest. Although the white Protestant leaders and lawmakers in the South have rarely had their best interests at heart down through the generations, black Protestants also are still mainly prevalent in the Southeast, with both groups still under the delusion that god is on their side, even though the two “sides” have been, nearly at all times, mutually exclusive.
  • White Catholics have been for decades and still are mostly pervasive in the Midwest and the Northeast (and California, due largely to the Hispanic population). Among their number are so-called religious moderates and social liberals. In contrast to evangelicals in the South, these are supposedly the more humanitarian-minded, learned religious folks in America, although among their number are people who believe in the literal transubstantiation of the Eucharist into the body of Christ, the sainthood of Mary, the divinely inspired word and authority of the Pope and a whole host of rituals, all of which have not led to any kind of meaningful change in the U.S. or the world for centuries.

Why not more conservative satire?

This article from The Atlantic is certainly worth a read, but without any hard data, I think I can offer some quick answers as to why America doesn’t have more conservative satire. In short:

Reason 1 − Conservatives by and large don’t “get” or appreciate irony in quite the same way as their liberal counterparts.

Reason 2 − Liberals and progressives tend to be more irreverent, even toward leaders in their own camp. This itself is ironic because conservatives, who spend a lot of time railing against government overreach and corruption, should be the ones giving leaders the hardest time.

Reason 3 − Conservatives take themselves and their party and politics and life too seriously.

Reason 4 − Even when conservatives try to “do” comedy, it just comes off as preachy and forced for reasons inherent number three.

In defense of ‘The Daily Show’

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Perhaps Jon Stewart was partially responding to Jamelle Bouie’s recent article in Slate, “Why Jon Stewart Was Bad for the Liberals Who Loved Him,” which referred to Stewart and his show as if he didn’t have months left to go as the 17-year host of “The Daily Show,” when, during the episode after the announcement that he was stepping down, Stewart asked, “Did I die“?

In any case, as someone who says he “grew up with” “The Daily Show,” attended Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear and watched the show on a “semi-regular” basis for the better part of a decade, Bouie speaks as someone who has a profound misunderstanding of Stewart, his shtick and, indeed, for political satire in general and the continued need for heavy doses of it in modern political America.

Bouie’s main gripe about Stewart seems to be this:

The emblematic Stewart posture isn’t a joke or a witticism, it’s a sneer—or if we’re feeling kind, a gentle barb—coupled with a protest: I’m just a comedian.

… His protests to the contrary, Stewart is a pundit, and like many pundits, he’s wed to a kind of anti-politics, where genuine difference doesn’t exist (or isn’t as relevant as we think) and political problem-solving is mostly a matter of will, knowledge, and technocratic know-how.

Bouie here is replying to Stewart’s assertion that he is not, as some would label him, an influential political thinker, but “just a comedian” who is, at the end of the day, solely interested in making people laugh and not being, well, influential. When pressed, this has often been the answer Stewart himself has given whenever he runs the risk of being cast as something more than a comedian, and it may sound like he is failing to own up to what he really is — a comedian and a political satirist — but what other answer could he really give? His show is on a comedy network that is, in its most basic form, geared to generate laughter.

That said, no serious person who has actually paid attention to “The Daily Show” can conclude that Stewart completely separates his comedy on the show from ideology, that he just cracks jokes and “throws spitballs,” as he once said, in a vacuum, or that the show conveys the message that “government is only hypocrisy and dysfunction,” as Bouie contends. The latter is a job and a message for members of the far right, not a left of center liberal like Stewart, who, I would guess, thinks government has a role to play in people’s lives, and as such, it should function as efficiency and logically as possible. That it does not is deeply troubling, and this no doubt provides plenty of fodder for the show.

Bouie also argues that Stewart’s brand of liberalism, or at least the one he conveys on the air, is cynical all the way to the core and has no real substance, and is thus, a bad example for fellow liberals. Bouie’s example of this, his only example, comes not from Stewart’s own show, but from Stewart’s famous interview on “Crossfire” from 2004:

Take his Crossfire appearance. Lurking in his media criticism was a larger idea about the pointlessness of ideological combat. “To do a debate would be great,” he said, responding to protests from the hosts. “But that’s like saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition.” In the context of Begala and Carlson, this was a fair point. But in the larger world, it’s off. No, you’re not going to find sophisticated arguments on cable news, and to the extent that places like CNN are vehicles for nonsense and quasi-dadaist performance art, Stewart is right to mock and ridicule.

Cable, however, isn’t the only forum for debate, and most political conversations aren’t as shallow as the ones you see on TV. On op-ed pages and around dinner tables, Americans have substantive conversations about politics. And while the facts aren’t always right, the discussion is often valuable. Stewart gives short shrift to that kind of talk. Instead, in the world of The Daily Show, the only politics is cable politics, where venality rules, serious disputes are obscured, and cynicism is the only response that works.

Again, to say such a thing about Stewart’s show indicates that either Bouie has actually not watched much of “The Daily Show” — by his own admission, he was finishing up high school in 2004 — or he either does not appreciate or understand Stewart’s brand of satire. Although Bouie didn’t think it was important to provide any actual examples from “The Daily Show” to support his case, I’ll point out some segments from Stewart’s show — out of scores that I could select — that demonstrate that Stewart’s show goes beyond just sneering cynicism.

Sure, Stewart spends a lot of time mocking public officials and cable news channels, since there is so much idiocy that’s worthy of mocking, but to say that is all “The Daily Show” is, is just as short-sighted as the legions of lawmakers and pundits Stewart has hacked up these last 17 years.

In this clip, Stewart takes Obama to task and makes the point that although the president’s campaign was a well-oiled machine, Obama couldn’t seem to bring that level of efficiency to solving real problems after he entered the White House, namely streamlining the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs:

Here is Stewart speaking candidly about the Eric Garner injustice, which belies Stewart’s supposed choking cynicism:

And then there’s this:

The above clips show Stewart at his most sharp, most critical and decidedly least anticynical.

Bouie concludes with this:

The natural response to all of this is a version of Stewart’s protest—He’s just a comedian—and a refrain from The Dark Knight: Why so serious? The answer is easy: He’s influential. And for a generation of young liberals, his chief influence has been to make outrage, cynicism, and condescension the language of the left. As a comedian and talk show host, Jon Stewart has been pretty funny. But as a pundit and player in our politics, he’s been a problem. And while I wish him luck in his next move, I’m glad he’s stepping from the stage.

How exactly has Stewart been a problem? We don’t really know since Bouie didn’t give us any concrete examples, other than to say the show is too harsh on government and expound on “The Daily Show’s” overt cynicism in somehow not engendering political discussion around the dinner table and in the op-ed pages. Would Bouie have felt better about the show if The Washington Post and The New York Times were buzzing every week with opinion pieces on Stewart’s latest shot across the bow? Probably not, but what “The Daily Show” has given us was an unrelenting and fearless critique of the people who are charged with leading this nation, both in theory and in practice, and commentary on the farce that is TV “journalism,” all by cutting through the dishonesty, disigenuity and obscurantism that is pervasive in both. And for these contributions alone Stewart, whenever he decides to vacate the chair, will leave an indelible gap in the national discourse, one that his successor will not easily fill.

Cheap journalism, ‘sloppy’ journalism

Back in the fall, Gannett made the decision to cut its copy editors from The Cincinnati Enquirer staff. Forward three months, and here is editor Carolyn Washburn complaining about “sloppy copy” from her staff. What a surprise.

Just a reminder that clean and accurate copy starts with each reporter and photographer sending clean and accurate copy along to their producer or coach… then that producer or coach reviewing to make sure it’s all good before sending it along to digital publication or the Studio.

I’ve been communicating one/one as I see things, especially things that can still be fixed.

I know we aren’t at full staff. I know our workflow is different.

But I need to share these examples with you now and ask each of you to take full ownership of your own clean copy.

I know none of you want this either. So the only way to fix it is for each one of us — me included — to pay special attention to our own work. (I even made myself spellcheck this email.)

She then listed many errors that any copy editor worth his or her weight in salt should have caught. With “newsroom leaders” having silly titles like storytelling coaches and strategists, it’s no wonder mistakes are falling through the cracks. How can they not? The simple fact is that not all reporters, and I would say only a limited few, are equipped to even begin to try to edit their own work, and even the most steely-eyed editors need a second person checking behind them. Pick your metaphor. Reporters editing their own content is like building contractors performing their own building inspections and then issuing the permits. In no scenario does the work come off looking polished, much less professional.

Is this story about a red light system or the Chicago Tribune?

In the 2014 story, Tribune study: Chicago red light cameras provide few safety benefits, readers first hear about the Tribune’s “state-of-the-art” study — whatever that means — to examine the city’s red light system, and then the writers of the story insert “the Tribune” and the paper itself into the report so many times (“the Tribune” gets not less than 23 mentions) that one can easily forget what the story is actually supposed to be about. Not to mention it’s more than a little distracting.

This seems like a running theme with the Tribune. I’ve always thought that newspapers should not become part of the stories they cover. A newspaper’s job is to report information, and of course, tell readers about any interference public officials give about handing over public documents, but newspaper should not be so presumptuous as to think that the paper’s plight is more important than informing readers.

In any case, and despite all that hard-hitting journalism pitting the city of Chicago and the Tribune’s lion-hearted reporting staff, the Tribune still endorsed Rahm Emanuel for mayor. Go figure.

Corruption central

Gov. Chris Christie’s taste for extravagance seems only rivaled by his taste for corruption:

Letting the king pay for his three-day weekend in Jordan back in 2012 would not have been allowed if Mr. Christie were, say, president or a United States senator; it is illegal for federal employees to accept gifts of more than nominal value from agents of foreign governments. An executive order Mr. Christie signed in 2010 allows New Jersey governors to have travel and related expenses paid by foreign governments; it does not specifically address gifts such as the parties the king held for him, but the governor’s staff said it was covered under a provision that allowed gifts from personal friends.

Mr. Christie has described it as a matter of opportunity. “I relish these experiences and exposures, especially for my kids,” he told a reporter for The Times last summer. “I try to squeeze all the juice out of the orange that I can.”

Thank god he would not be allowed to carry on like this as president, but even if New Jersey law technically allows governors to accept trips from foreign administrations, shouldn’t an elected official with any ethical integrity whatsoever respectively have declined such displays of blatant lavishness, even as members of his own constituency grind away in poverty? Indeed, the more I read about Christie’s various activities, the sicker to my stomach I become.

I would like to say that Christie doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of coming within a sniff of the presidency, but he is one of the two remaining “establishment” Republicans at this point after Mitt Romney announced that he would not run.

Politics of ‘radical Islam’

Peter Beinhart, a contributing editor with The Atlantic, argues that while the United States is not at war with “radical Islam” anywhere and everywhere, as people like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham might have us believe, citing allies like the radically religious states of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, we do seem to be struggling with semantics in ways that Ronald Reagan in the Cold War did not. Some Republicans today, of course, just want to dispense with political correctness and simply declare that we are indeed in a spiritual battle, as Graham recently told Fox News:

We are in a religious war with radical Islamists. When I hear the President of the United States and his chief spokesperson failing to admit that we’re in a religious war, it really bothers me.

And as Cruz said during the Iowa Freedom Summit last month:

You cannot fight and win a war on radical Islamic terrorism if you’re unwilling to utter the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’

But on the other side of that point, neither should the U.S. be “ideologically agnostic,” as Beinhart points out:

American presidents should say they believe liberal democracy is morally superior to Islamic theocracy, just as it was preferable to fascism and communism. But that’s a far cry from declaring war on every regime based upon an -ism we don’t like. For much of the cold war, the United States battled the Soviet Union but not communist China. In the 1940s, the United States went to war against Germany, Italy and Japan but not fascist Spain. And today, the United States is at war with those “radical Muslim” organizations that actively seek to kill Americans while allying ourselves with other “radical Muslim” regimes that don’t. Why is that so hard for Ted Cruz to understand?

Either it really is that hard for Cruz to understand and he is intellectually ill-equipped to speak on any subject of consequence, much less to make a run for the presidency, or he is lazy and does not want to put in the effort to learn about nuances of present and past American foreign policy or he is willfully ignorant about the state of the world. Of course, the latter two options put him right at home with a significant portion, perhaps even a majority, of the voting demographic, so it’s no wonder that he still has a sizable influence and voice in American politics.