TAKE THE QUIZ

Section One: You Might Be a Cable-News Junkie If...  The Lingo

Which of the following terms do you sometime use as described below:

• You use “dog whistle” as a verb, as in “The candidate is clearly trying to dog whistle the faith community.”
• You use “walk back" as a noun, as in “I think we're gonna see some walk back on these statements.”
• You use “surrogate" as a job title for a high-profile, partisan, political ally, who will either be claimed like family or thrown under the bus, depending.
• You use “get” as a noun, referring to the acquisition of an elusive interview subject, as in: “Congratulations on the get, Rachel!”
• You use “tick-tock" to refer to a minute-by-minute itinerary for important official events. “We should have the tick-tock on the President’s visit to South Korea for you within the hour.”

Section Two: You Might Be a Cable-News Junkie If...  The Coverage

Select one answer for each question.

1.    Which of these is not a part of the press conference non-apology apology:

• A. “I’m sorry if you feel like that was offensive.”
• B. “I’m sorry that I was taken out of context.”  
• C. “I’m very sorry. My behavior was offensive, and I'm the only one responsible. I am mortified, and deeply saddened by the hurt I've caused. I can only humbly pray that I will learn from this experience how to be a better person.”
• D. “I’m sorry I didn't use fancier words to say the stuff I really think.”

2.    Which report about energy sources and proposed alternatives will not air:

• A. Live footage of the fifth hour in a Senate filibuster of the latest energy bill.  
• B. Analysis of a recent ad, which features the stricken faces of townspeople who lost their jobs and homes after a local switch to renewable energy sources, and the deserted playground where their pale, barefoot children once played.
  
• C. Experts in the applicable field presenting feasibility studies, impact projections, and credible cost/benefit evaluations.   
• D. Panelists buzzing about the blogosphere buzz about the disputed attendance estimates for the anti-fracking rally on the National Mall.  

3.  Which of the following cable-news program anchors can go at least 15 minutes on air while scrupulously avoiding an editorial tone:

• A. Seriously?

4.  Which of these is not a phrase viewers will hear during a cable-news discussion:

• A. “That is literally the most outrageous thing I have ever heard." 
• B. “This is just typical, inside-the-Beltway thinking.”  
• C. “You may have a point. I’m afraid I don’t know enough about this topic to responsibly offer an opinion.”
• D. “Once again they are attempting to enact a policy for their own selfish gain, on the of backs hard-working Americans.”
  

Section Three: You Might Be a Cable-News Junkie If...  The Frenzy

You might be a cable-news junkie if you know that "the 24-hour news cycle" only contains news in the first hour, and is actually a 2-hour cycle, repeated 12 times. Note the level of recognition you feel reading the following example, and see scoring below.

Monday
8:00 am
“Speaking at a fundraiser in Ohio Saturday, Senator X said Y.”

10:00 am
“The question is, when Senator X said Y, did he mean to imply Z?”

12:00 pm
“Some (the anchor of the previous segment) are now asking whether in saying Y, Senator X was actually signaling Z.” 

2:00 pm
“There is growing demand (on this network) for Senator X to clarify statements made over the weekend regarding Y. It has been suggested (by the anchor of the previous segment) that the senator may have been insinuating Z.”

4:00 pm
“Staff members here have attempted to reach the office of Senator X to gain clarity about the meaning of his statements. So far, our calls have not been returned, leaving some (ibid) to wonder if there is something he is hiding.”

6:00 pm
“Good evening. In the news today, Senator X was the focus of a swirl of controversy (on this network) regarding questionable statements made Saturday at a fundraiser in Ohio. The senator has yet to issue any statement regarding such statements about his statements. The debate centers on whether the senator’s comments about Y can be taken as an indication of his stance on Z. It’s too early to say how voters would respond if they were to learn what position Senator X has taken regarding Y or Z, but Washington insiders believe that if polling was done today, things would not look good for the senator. Observers (^) are saying that the people have a right to know where the Senator stands. One anonymous but extremely well-connected policy expert has suggested that the senator’s silence indicates that he fears if he speaks out about this he will lose his base.”

8:00 pm
MSNBC panelist: “So, I mean, this is a typical hijacking of the debate by the 1%, right? This whole bent towards saying Y when you really mean Z is a distressing example of how privilege is employed to deny access. As I explain in my book, published by Cambridge University Press, available on bookshelves August 14th, $27.95 for hardback, you can’t talk about Y or Z without talking about race, class, and the international status of women.  This senator is playing right into the fundamentalist meme of the post-911 patriot, underneath the paradigm of a very sort of Christian allegorical construct. Once you parse the senator’s statements, you can learn more from what he is not saying than from what he is saying.”

CNN panelist: “As you can see from the interactive module in our new "Y/Z" room, we're finding an almost unprecedented outrage in response to the senator's recent statements, in nearly ever demographic across the country. Let's take a look at our touch-screen Senatorial Statement Stance Survey. Once we control on either end for the Tea Party and Occupy movements, what’s left is a startling historical picture of what we’re calling “US Outrage Over Time”. If you watch how the green line follows these yellow arrows, you’ll see that we clearly have not seen politics this divisive since 1836, when a senior strategist from the Whig Party accused President Andrew Jackson of releasing a fake jobs report. Any U.S. historian will tell you that the media circus that ensued was so extraordinary that the Pony Express had to hire a hundred new riders, and town criers were seen actually crying. Until we hear more from the senator, viewers can Tweet what they think he meant at #SenXSezYMeansZ.”

FOX News panelist: “Well, folks, Senator X obviously loves moochers and hates God.”

10:00 pm
“US Senator X from Ohio remains in the hot seat tonight. He continues to refuse to respond to or acknowledge our request that he either stand by or repudiate his statements. The question has been raised as to whether he is exploiting the talk about Y to secretly begin to wage a war on Z.  

12:00 am to 8:00 am
Mattress commercials.

Tuesday
8:00 am
>> 24 hours after original story <<
“Shocking allegations about Senator X emerged yesterday amid a media firestorm. After raising eyebrows with comments made Saturday, the senator appears to have gone to ground. His refusal to face the cameras has only fueled speculation. We bring you updates throughout the day.”

End of Quiz
************
Scoring 

Section One: The Lingo
Give yourself 1 point for each term you used correctly in the context provided.
5 points possible

Section Two: The Quiz
Give yourself 1 point for each correct answer.
(1) C
(2) C
(3) A
(4) C
4 points possible

Section Three: The Frenzy
Give yourself 0 points if you felt this section of the quiz was cute, but you've occasionally checked out these shows, and they seem to be talking about real things.
Give yourself 1 point if, while you do find the self-referential and splashy nature of the 24-hour cable news cycle annoying, you think it's overboard to suggest that so much coverage could be based on so little information.  
Give yourself 2 points if you have watched in subdued horror as coverage like this unfolds. And watched. And watched.
Give yourself 3 points if you feel these heroic journalists fearlessly broach critical issues that some would prefer to sweep under the rug.
3 points possible

Results and Recommendations
If you scored 0 points, I don’t understand you and I’m not sure I trust you.

If you scored 1-3 points, you are not a cable-news junkie. You are a well-adjusted, average citizen, with friends, meaningful work, and dreams all your own. You compensate for being slightly under-informed about current events with a longer life expectancy. Don't hang out with cable-news junkies.  Don't sleep with them very often.  And never, ever marry one.

If you scored 4-7 points, you are almost a cable-news junkie. You're in a precarious position. Shake it off. Take a long drive in the country this afternoon, and no talk radio for you. Come on, you can't change the world single-handedly, can you? It's all useless blather anyway, right? Right? Stay focused. Be especially vigilant in the three months before any national election.    

If you scored 8 or more points, you are a cable-news junkie. Actually, you are a pundit. What, do you have a blog or something? Do you realize that everyone but you knows you have a problem? Those people you commiserate with on facebook are not your friends. They are in it up to their necks, just like you. Your Vitamin D is bottoming out. Go outside naked; touch sticks and mud with your bare hands. Buy a real turtle. Check with a family member to see if your grandmother is still living. No, this condition won't resolve itself after the election. There is no treatment for it now, but the CDC is looking into it. It’s all over the news. 

Once a jury is convened in the Trayvon Martin case, its members are unlikely to be especially concerned with the injuries George Zimmerman suffered while he was killing Martin.  They aren't going to find him less culpable because his victim went down fighting.  If I were a juror, I think I would be surprised that Zimmerman was presenting his wounds as part of his defense.  Any cuts and bruises Zimmerman sustained are just evidence that Martin knew he was fighting for his life. 

The jury will also not be preoccupied with the substances found in the bloodstream of Martin's dead body.  They won't find Zimmerman not guilty based on something his victim had smoked.  I don't think they will care whether Martin was high as a kite or drunk on moonshine.  It won't matter if he had on a hoodie, a ski mask or war paint.  In fact, the more the defense tried to present Martin as though he looked like a thug, the more I would wonder as a juror why Zimmerman ever got out of his car.  How did he go from observing Martin through his rain-splattered windshield, to tussling with him on the ground and shooting him?  Zimmerman says he had to kill Martin to save his own life.  How was it that he came to be in such a deadly predicament? 

The jury will be presented with testimony about whose voice can be heard yelling for help, and which man was seen by witnesses on top of the other.  There will be copies given out of Trayvon Martin's autopsy report, with estimates of how far the gun was away from his chest when Zimmerman fired the fatal shot.  The jurors should certainly study all of this information carefully - I know I would want to know every possible detail.

But regardless of what happened at the moment when Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman came face-to-face, Zimmerman has to explain why they came face-to-face.  That is what jurors will care about.  And because he is claiming self-defense, the burden of proof is on Zimmerman.  His attorneys will have to convince those jurors that what he did was not 2nd-degree murder. 

They will have to explain this: Zimmerman spotted Martin walking, thought he looked suspicious, and called the police.  They told him to stay put, but he followed Martin anyway.  There was an altercation.  A couple of minutes later, Zimmerman was breathlessly talking to police, showing them his bloody scalp and battered nose.  Trayvon Martin was lying dead in the wet grass beside them.

Let's be fair and assume that conservatives and liberals agree on this; we should feed the hungry.  And that we all look forward to a time when fewer will face hunger.  The axiom "give a man a fish, he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime" resonates with people from all political persuasions.  The majority of us even agree that the government has some role in providing that initial fish, if you will, so while we do argue about the scope of programs like food stamps, Medicaid, and Social Security, you don’t hear many calling to shut them down completely.

Most of us would also concur that in the long run, we’d rather teach someone to fish, allowing as many folks as possible to participate actively in our social and economic systems. 

You wouldn’t know it by listening to the zealots of any ilk, but most of us, across parties and ideologies, want the same things.  For example, you don’t find mainstream Republicans rejecting interstate roads, safety standards for pharmaceuticals, or a federal court system.  You won’t find most Democrats claiming they don’t enjoy material comforts, appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit, or want young people to aspire to their highest goals, whether that means becoming an artist or a wealthy CEO. 

Most of us, left or right, are neither radical socialists, or robber barons.  

It's when we we turn to the question of how to lift millions of poor-but-able adults out of poverty, our viewpoints do start to diverge.  What should we expect of the individual, despite their circumstances and external barriers to success?  What role should government play?  We know that escaping really tough beginnings is statistically unusual.  And I would hope most people know that many, many people in living in poverty labor hard to improve their lot - research bears that out as well.

Again extending the benefit of the doubt, I truly believe that most of us, left or right, want as many folks as possible to be happy, healthy, and productive.  There is plenty of altruism among every political sector, and there is also a healthy self-interest in seeing the country thrive.  So how do we get there?

The conservative “bootstraps” ideal clashes with the liberal “intervention” ideal, and, stoked by opportunistic punditry and entrenched suspicion, animus has flourished.  It’s a complex area, and stereotypes have evolved to the point of of mythology.  We default to lashing out, with “why can’t these people just get a job??” versus “why do you people hate the poor??”  We fall prey to cynical voices, shrieking that heartless conservatives want to eat caviar while hungry babies cry, or that smarmy liberals want feckless thugs to revel in lives of state-sponsored ease.  

In reality, it is possible for well-meaning people (to paraphrase the old saying) to differ on how to best teach someone to fish.

Some of the misunderstanding may come from of a lack of awareness about the differences between the kind of “situational poverty” that has come out of the recession, as opposed to the more prevalent “generational poverty” that has existed in the US for well over a century.  The most promising remedies to these two very different problems are not the same.  Add that to the fact that poverty is an emotional issue, and that our vocabulary about it has been ravaged by cable news and talk radio, and you have ordinary people with opposing viewpoints seeing each other as immoral lunatics.  

If we could tone down the demagoguery, we could learn to apply the best aspects of both approaches:

• An authentic emphasis on job-creation and recovery could be applied to help those devastated by the economic collapse. 
  
• Robust federal investment into ravaged communities could ease suffering from chronic poverty, and provide a way out.

While Republicans have been forced by a few into espousing radical theories, support for their classic ideas is widely distributed across ideologies.
Eliminating pointless and outmoded regulations allows businesses to use increased revenue to hire more people.
Tax breaks for small business encourage new ventures and expansion of existing operations. 
Federally-funded social programs should be accountable and transparent, and evaluated for effectiveness. 
Without the right formatting, ample assistance programs run the risk of encouraging dependency.

Democrats have been pushed to fight tooth and nail to protect basic entitlements, so their demands may have come to sound strident and one-dimensional.  But the desire is not to simply truck in endless supplies of free goods and services to poor communities, achieving nothing but stasis.
The desire is to provide training, skills-building, support services, encouragement, and access to opportunity, to people who aren’t getting it elsewhere. 
The idea is that people naturally want to better and support themselves. 
That social programs are an investment. 
That by funding the teaching of literacy, job skills, effective parenting, family-budgeting and health management, the country will profit from a stronger and more productive citizenry.  

In any case, we’ll need to re-learn how to work together as soon as possible, because the country can only afford so much fish.

There is enough hyperbole and vitriol to go around on this issue, so you won't find it in this post.  Let's take the slippery slope argument against gay marriage at face value.  Let's assume it is based for some people on a real fear that changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples will make it more vulnerable to a definition that includes polygamy, incest, bestiality, and even something that could involve a person and a thing.

Work with me.

There are two arguments I would make against the claim that "we can't allow this or it will lead to that."

Point One: we use the law to draw specific lines all the time. 
That's what it's for. 

Point Two: warnings about the risks of redefining marriage present gay marriage as though it exists along a continuum with polygamy, incest and bestiality.

About Point One
It is not the case that drawing the line beyond "one man and one woman" will mean we must draw it again elsewhere. 

Think about the laws that govern the freedom of religious expression vs. the freedom from religious imposition.  It is precisely in the courts and the legislature that we monitor the pendulum swings society takes around this issue.  Despite all the Sturm und Drang about it (including on my part!), I think we do pretty well.

Similarly, we will always have to attend to where to draw the line on civil liberties like the bearing of arms, and freedom of speech.  We will always be working to find consensus in these areas - stasis is unlikely.  Maybe that's a good thing: the push and pull keeps us in the middle.

It is a naive argument then, to say "if we allow this, pretty soon we have to allow that."  If we allow people to gather on the National Mall to demonstrate about unfair taxation or reproductive rights, eventually we will have to allow people to let themselves into your home and shout you down about their beliefs?  Of course not.  Allowing 16 yr-olds to drive will lead to allowing 14 yr-olds to drive?  No.  In fact, most of our laws are vulnerable to the slippery slope argument.  How much information should intelligence agencies have to provide?  When is self-defense an appropriate claim?  What accommodations for the disabled should employers have to make? 

We use the courts and the legislature to draw lines - it's how we operate.  People who support gay marriage are asking to have the line moved from including only heterosexual couples to including same-sex couples.  We aren't asking for the county magistrate to ratify the union of a man and his horse.

About Point Two
The various types of unions warned against by people against gay marriage can't all be lumped together. 

Hopefully it's just rhetorical flourish when conservative politicians predict that the demand to marry a sheep or a motorcycle is the logical conclusion of the effort to expand the definition of marriage.  I'm not even certain how to address that one - it tempts me to fall back on an appeal to common sense.  I try not to do that, because as a nation, if we could agree on what is "common sense" we wouldn't be in this predicament now.  But to paraphrase Jon Stewart, "Does your wife know you can't tell the difference between a beloved, life-long companion and a favorite turtle?"  I'll just say that when a person is seriously attracted to an inanimate object or an animal, the American Psychiatric Association calls it paraphilia, and recommends treatment.  They came to their senses and stopped including homosexuality in that category four decades ago, so let's try to separate those ideas now.

Pedophilia can be removed from that list of concerns as well.  It too is considered a psychiatric disorder, it is a crime, and the issues of harm and consent disqualify it from even being considered in the same discussion as the one about marriage equality.  The latter is about problematic laws against the marriage of two consenting adults, who would be legally be eligible to marry someone of a different sex, but are not allowed to marry each other.  The former is about sexual predation.

As far as incest, comparisons have been made with some humor about the greater legal acceptance in the US of marriage between first cousins vs. marriage between same-sex couples.  I honestly know very little about the arguments for and against cousins marrying.  I would just say that concerns that marriage between cousins is waiting on the slippery slope below gay marriage aren't valid, since it is already legal in many states. 

Regarding polygamy, this is the one question along these lines that I think is legitimate to raise.  While it is still a very different animal from same-sex marriage, which is a basic right that is currently being denied, the question of polygamy is most closely related because it is an arrangement that has been widely accepted in some realms, and is not necessarily an expression of individual dysfunction.

Monogamy is a purely social construct, without any grounding in biological necessity or psychological health.  It is a decision a culture makes about how it wants to organize families.  I personally am miles away from even taking the time to sort out the pros and cons of legalizing polygamy.  I don't think it's a priority, and because it has historically been so patriarchal, I acknowledge a distrust of the idea.  But at least here, we have a reasonable question: if we expand the definition of marriage from one consenting adult male and one consenting adult female to include consenting adult same-sex unions, why not three of the above?

This question then returns us neatly to Point One.  Legalizing one does not mean legalizing the other.  If an appreciable national movement to legalize polygamy were to form, it would have to take the same path as we are taking to legalize same-sex marriage.  Obviously, it is an arduous path.  They would have a long way to go to make their case.  And most importantly, the case for gay marriage would have nothing to do with it.  Gay Americans are asking for their constitutional rights to equal protection and privacy.  If people supporting polygamous unions intend to stake the same claim, their challenge to the law, like every other, will be taken on it's on merits, unrelated to challenge being made in the name of same-sex marriage now.

Watch this space for updates on an already fascinating array of Republican responses to President Barack Obama's interview comments in support of gay marriage. 

First in: last night on FOX, Bill O'Reilly and Dick Morris muddle through an attempt to describe this as a bald political move.  They had a tough time of it.  They couldn't settle on what voting block Obama was going after.  Morris first suggests he is trying to lock in the gay vote, while O'Reilly sheepishly points out that the president probably had that vote already.  Morris shifts to the claim that it's an obvious grab for the middle-of-the-road voters.  O'Reilly is forced to acknowledge that minutes earlier they had just agreed that middle-of-the-road voters don't really care about this issue.  Morris flounders and seethes - perhaps Obama is pandering to the fringe.  O'Reilly looks like he'd rather be anywhere but there and vaguely agrees so he can change the subject to Morris's latest book.

(Stay tuned for more scrambling.)

"The higher you build your barriers
The taller I become
The farther you take my rights away
The faster I will run
The more you refuse to hear my voice
The louder I will sing"
Labi Siffre, "Something Inside So Strong"

Sitting here tonight, I have no idea how this vote is going to go.  I worked the early voting polls on several different days, and my experience was about 80% positive.  I knew I was working in something of a bubble at the Board of Elections site in downtown Raleigh.  But I learned tonight from other poll workers it was more of a bubble than I thought. 

We had gathered at the home of a local organizer, picking up flyers and balloons for tomorrow, and the mood was excited and cheerful, but we did talk about how unclear the results are now.  And others described what they had run into at early voting sites in outlying areas.

In Wake Forest, one volunteer had been lectured and insulted throughout his whole two hour shift.  In Johnston County, a woman there described being yelled at and even had trash thrown at her.  They said it was rough going and discouraging.  But at the same time, it's so clear that more and more people are paying attention to this issue and are disgusted by the amendment. 

We parted with plans to meet there tomorrow night, and it will be a party either way.  If the amendment passes, it will just have to be a rally to plan next steps.

North Carolina is my home, and I love it, warts and all.  We may find out tomorrow that we have a hateful streak that runs a little deeper than we knew.  But we also saw so many people whose awareness of this issue has grown by leaps and bounds.

One thing that I know tonight, before we have any idea what the returns will tell us, is that it is only a matter of time before we won't have to fight this fight anymore.  Gay marriage will be legal in North Carolina within a few years.  If the amendment is defeated, we still have to overturn the law itself.  If it is passed, we will just have to start from scratch and get it overturned.  No matter what, if supporters of this amendment think this question will be answered with finality tomorrow night, they have a lot to learn about their fellow North Carolinians.

Fathers, if you have a limp-wristed son, man up and punch him.  Tell him to go outside and dig a ditch, because that's what boys do.  If you have a girl who acts butch, let her know she's going to act, walk, talk and smell like a girl. 

So says NC Pastor Sean Harris.


I'm not paraphrasing here; these are real quotes from a sermon heard by hundreds of church-goers Sunday as their trusted pastor worked to fire them up to go out and vote FOR the constitutional amendment on the ballot Tuesday, May 8th.  And it was just one of the messages preached, to just one of the many North Carolina congregations that participated in the statewide project called Marriage Sunday last weekend.  The right-wing organization promoting the event, Vote For Marriage NC, claims to be in partnership with 6000 churches in the state.  It's not clear exactly what that means, and perhaps not all of them take a line so hard.  But it's frightening to imagine even a fraction of them preaching this sort of message.

Sean Harris, (above left), Senior Pastor at Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville, NC, took the opportunity to urge his flock Sunday to root out any sign of homosexuality in their children early, and with all applicable force.  While he has since stated that he "would never, ever advocate hitting a child", he advocated just that from the pulpit Sunday.  "Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Okay?"  Tell your effeminate sons: "You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male." 

I ask you: how can it be possible in these times to not know that you are planting the seeds of despair and abuse with those words?

Harris later told the Fayetteville Observer that he was joking.  He said he believes members of his congregation know the difference between "when (I'm) saying something seriously and when (they're) supposed to just understand the intent and not the application."  In order to make that distinction clearer, Harris said, in the future he would say it differently.  But he has no regrets about the message itself.  ""Those weren't planned words, but what I do stand by is that the word of God makes it clear that effeminate behavior is ungodly. I'm not going to compromise on that."

Harris has served as pastor of Berean Baptist for six years and is administrator for their sizable school.  There are nearly 400 children, grades K-12, under his watch.  He and his wife also have a son of their own.  Presumably not limp-wristed.

(Fade out with American flag in the background, Holy Bible in the foreground.)
(Their Holy Bible.)
(Which according to the US Constitution cannot be used to define state law.  )

(Shots of wedding rings, roses, and a smiling, "traditional" family.)

Vote AGAINST the Amendment.
For a sample ballot and voter information, visit:
Protect All NC Families.