Why do news organizations continue to broadcast idiotic man-on-the-street opinions?

An L.A. Times story that ran today, "In the rural religious South, Mitt Romney just doesn't connect," features man-on-the-street opinions about President Obama and the GOP frontrunner that do little to demonstrate anything other than ignorance -- or, of you want to see it another way, the failure of the American educational system, or the success of Fox News and the Republican party in poisoning the minds of ordinary people, or just simple prejudice and ignorance. Oh, wait, I said ignorance.

"I got no use for Obama, and it's not because of the color of his skin," said Leldon Thomas, a retired truck repairman chewing tobacco outside the Wal-Mart that locals blame for siphoning business from the long-established stores along Oneonta's ramshackle main street. "It's his socialist government and all the money he's throwing away."

Around here, Obama, who is Christian, is seen by many as Muslim, and not everyone believes he was born in Hawaii. "It's not that he's black," said Don Tielking, who has been cutting hair at the local barber shop for more than 40 years. "It's that he's not an American citizen."

For Tielking, who took a seat in his barber's chair to chat during a lull between customers, the problem with Romney is his Mormon faith, although he would gladly overlook it if he had to pick between him and Obama.

"Christ is the head of my church, and his was some Smith guy who claimed to be a latter-day prophet," said Tielking, referring to Joseph Smith Jr., the 19th century founder of the Latter-day Saints movement. "I'm not prejudiced against a Mormon. It's just some of their beliefs that I'm against."

Now let's assume that the reporter couldn't find anyone to interview who was more informed or educated than those two crackers. What purpose is served by a national newspaper running these quotations? What are we supposed to do with that mind-aching stupidity? The only possible reaction is: "Oh, hey -- looks like Romney has quite a job for himself in the coming weeks! Of course they hate Obama, but look, they're just as stupid about Romney. Now I see why Santorum is getting votes. God almighty."

But my favorite is this lady:

Sara Holloway, who recently retired as business manager at a nursing home, likes Santorum but might vote for Romney in Alabama's primary. "I like the fact that he was a businessman," she said as she left a hair salon in Oneonta. "That's what government is. It's a business, and he's been very successful."

That's what government is! It's a business! And corporations are people. Jesus Christ, is there any hope for this fucking country?

Be sure to check the newspaper

Among the now quaint touches in the mid-century work of writer Patricia Highsmith is that there are almost always newspaper reports of the crimes or disappearances involved in the story, and Highsmith uses these articles to keep both characters and readers up to speed on plot developments.

For example, take Those Who Walk Away, an unremembered but very representative work. In the novel, two classic Highsmith characters oppose each other: the protagonist, a man in his late 20s who is somewhat at loose ends, and the antagonist, a middle-aged, well-to-do American who is both a busybody and a bully. Early in the book, the middle-aged man, Edward Coleman, attempts to murder the protagonist, not once but twice, and the second time the protagonist lets him think he's gotten away with it. Not quite knowing what to do next, the protagonist, Ray Garrett, leaves his luggage and passport at the Venitian hotel he's staying in (that's another hallmark of classic Highsmith, Americans in swanky European locations; it's a wonder more of her books weren't turned into films on the order of "Charade") and hides out in a rooming house under an assumed name. The hotel notices after a few days that he's vanished and reports it to the American embassy, and like clockwork, there's a notice in the newspaper.

"Perhaps you should speak to the police, Edward," Inez said.

"Wait till I see the paper. I'll speak with them if I have to."

The paper and [breakfast] arrived.

Ray Garret's picture, probably his passport picture, was one-column wide on the front page, and the item below it some two inches long. It stated that Rayburn Cook Garrett, 27, American, had not returned to his room at the Pension Seguso, 779 Zattere, since last Thursday evening, November 11th. His passport and his personal effects were still in his room. Would anyone who had seen him that evening or since come forward...

A chapter or two later in the book, the disappeared man picks up the next day's newspaper:

Ray bought a Gazzetino, scanned the first page before tucking it under his arm, and was relieved to see there was nothing about him, at least not on the front page.

The author uses this trope in many books. Sometimes the protagonist has been accused of a crime, or questioned by the police in someone else's disappearance; in this case it's the protagonist himself who has disappeared, but it's still a news story.

It struck me as I was reading today how quaint this will seem to future readers, who will have no idea of the significance that the story appeared on "the front page" or not, and how many "inches" the story ran. But it's not just the anachronistic nature of the newspaper trope that struck me, because it's just as easy for an author today to say that a character subscribes to the tweet feed of a news organization and gets little updates on his phone. What struck me is the need for the story to have this whole external witness -- a news organization reporting the movements of characters, sometimes of the police. It's sort of a way to tell the reader that the characters have a certain level of substance, that they're capable of doing something that floats for a moment to the "front page" of the news, even though they are, for Highsmith's own purposes, deliberately obscure and anonymous people.

A little later in the book Highsmith introduces another familiar trope: a private detective, hired by the missing man's father, comes on the scene to investigate -- just as in The Talented Mr. Ripley. In fact, the farther I read in Those Who Walk Away, the more it seems like a by-the-numbers effort by Highsmith, a work consisting of no elements not found in her previous works, with the familiar elements re-arranged somewhat. Still, I like reading it. It's certainly better than some of her later efforts, such as People Who Knock On the Door, which is frankly dull.

May as well be on another planet

I've only been on vacation for four days, and aside from the baseball scores, anything coming from the outside world already strikes me as absurd. I just went to cnn.com out of morbid curiosity: what headlines could possibly exist on a midsummer Saturday evening? Behold:

Latest news
3 convicted killers escape in Arizona
Asylum offer for condemned Iranian
WikiLeaks suspect held in solitary
Afghan war papers: What we know
Hamas leader killed in Israeli airstrikes
Obama wants dignity for Rangel
Ticker: Another Dem in ethics trouble
J.Lo can be a great 'Idol' judge, if ... - EW
No quick hearing on AZ immigration law
How to save $1 million by 65 - NNMoney
Chavez orders troops to border
Yankees, Cardinals in deadline deals - SI
Sex offender freed 300 years early
Mom dies after silicone injection

These may as well be headlines from Mars as far as I'm concerned. As for the Gulf oil spill, I completely forgot about it. I mean that I glimpsed it on the CNN page and said to myself, Oh yeah, that happened.

Now this is a good vacation.

She's a sex bomb, my baby, yeah

With her mane of black hair, taut physique, eight tattoos (including the Shakespeare quotation "We will all laugh at gilded butterflies" from "King Lear") and bedroom eyes, she projects an unapologetic sultriness whether she's wearing a bikini in GQ or bending over a '76 Camaro in a tiny blouse in her breakthrough role in 2007's "Transformers" (which not coincidentally has taken in more than $700 million in worldwide box office).

That mind-numbing sentence is only one of the many such sentences composed by an LA Times entertainment writer, who at this very moment may be considering ways to kill him- or herself after turning in an anodyne feature on Megan Fox, star of a recently released "horror comedy" and this year's sex bomb.

My only reaction is, it's nice that a brunette gets to be the designated sex bomb once in a while.

(Title of this blog entry is from the most infamous record by the infamous early 1980s San Francisco punk band Pop O Pies.)

technorati: Megan Fox

If only the Chief Justice subscribed to the New York Post

Did you cringe when Chief Justice John Roberts murdered the Presidential oath of office when swearing in Barack Obama? If only he were a New York Post subscriber, he could have brought it as a cheat sheet:



Who says newspapers aren't important anymore?

technorati: inauguration, Obama, oath of office