Planet Utah

The hackiest phrase in the world?

Not too long ago, Greg over at Espresso Pundit pointed out how lame it is for anyone to use the "shocked...shocked" line from "Casablanca." I agree. That stopped being clever in mid-February, 1943. (I won't bore you with the exact date, time, and location.)

I think I can do him one better, though: the various riffs on "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." For example, here's a story with the ingenious headline, "Mr. Stewart comes to D.C."

You get that? It's like that movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," only they made it "Mr. Stewart," because it's about Jon Stewart instead of Mr. Smith, and they made it "comes" instead of "goes," because the headline-writer actually lives in D.C., and Jon Stewart was coming to D.C., and, well, anyway, you get it, right? Super-clever and funny and original, don't you think?

Uh, sure, aside from the fact that it's already been done 48.6 billion times. Plus infinity.

Why, though, do I say that it's worse than "shocked...shocked"? Well, for one thing, it's been around longer. "Mr. Smith" came out in 1939, a few years before Casablanca. So I'm sure that the first usage was right after the 1940 elections.

Beyond that, though, you're really only permitted one syllable after "Mr." and before "goes." Why? Because "Smith" has only one syllable in it. If you try to send a polysyllabic guy to Washington, you totally screw up the rhythm.

For example, I'm sure somebody must have written the following at some point: "Mr. Eisenhower goes to Washington." But come on! "Eisenhower" has four syllables. You can't do that. It's nails on a chalkboard on top of being hacky, which makes it TWICE as hacky, because it indicates extreme laziness on the part of the writer.

The obvious solution here is for me to issue a binding edict prohibiting further use of the "Mr. So and So..." construction. And so it is done.

Footnote: Speaking of Eisenhower, in 1957 my grandfather cold-cocked a guy in a Detroit nightclub for saying "Eisenhowernomics." I asked him about this many years later, and I'll never forget his response: "Everybody knew you didn't say such an ugly word out loud, particularly in mixed company. You said 'Ike-uh-nomics,' or you kept your mouth shut."

Public opinion polling and the Magic 8-ball effect

I used to work with a woman named Barbara who was a human Magic 8-ball. If you had a question, she had an answer. She was wrong most of the time, but saying "I don't know" was apparently a much worse offense in her world than giving a wrong answer.

(By the way, you can observe this same phenomenon if you ever travel in Mexico. Ask a Mexican for directions, and you will ALWAYS get directions. Very often WRONG directions. In Mexico, it's considered impolite to say "I have no idea; ever heard of Google?" So, your average Mexican will invent some plausible-sounding directions, send you on your way with a smile, and hope he hasn't delivered you into the hands of a major ring of gringo kidnappers.  I asked an ex-girlfriend about this phenomenon once; her parents were Mexican, and she was a first-generation American who grew up just this side of the border. Specifically, I asked her, "Why do Mexicans give wrong directions instead of just saying, 'I don't know'?" She said with a smile, "We're just trying to be helpful." I replied: "How is that helpful?")

What brought all of this to mind was a news report I heard this morning regarding a public opinion poll conducted on the war in Afghanistan. I'm betting that about half of Americans can't spell Afghanistan, and about three-quarters couldn't find it on a map...of Afghanistan. And yet, pollsters have no problem calling up some poor jerk and saying, "Do you think the new counterinsurgency strategy against the Taliban will prove effective, or should the U.S. devote its resources instead to building infrastructure in Afghanistan?"

Like my co-worker Barbara, most people will give you an answer to a question like this. But you'd have just as much luck asking the 8-ball.

Footnote: Recognizing the Magic 8-ball effect, I think it's irresponsible of media outlets to ask many of the questions they do, and to publish the results as if they mean something. I'd rather see polling that begins with the assumption that Americans don't know much about politics and typically don't think about it with much sophistication. We'd learn a lot more that way than by asking a truck driver how he'd feel if Senate Democrats were to use the reconciliation process to pass health care reform.

Ann Coulter seems shockingly reasonable

See for yourself. She and James Carville do a side-by-side interview, and while Carville is Carvile--though he seems a bit more detached from reality than normal--Coulter refuses to be Coulter. I even found her--dare I say it?--likable.

If I were seeing her for the first time, "I'd say, 'Wow, who was that girl? She should do TV more often.'" But because I know who she is, I'll just chalk it up to Ann having an off day.

Everybody just chill

There's a lot of discussion these days about why the Obama stimulus plan isn't working and what that means for Democrats' political prospects.

Please. Things will probably change a hundred times before 2010, let alone 2012.

Think back to 1982. The economy was in a severe recession, everybody said Reaganomics had failed, the Reagan revolution was over, etc. Then in 1984 the economy was roaring, it was morning again in America, and Ronald Reagan won every state except Minnesota.

I know that the 24-hour news cycle demands ever-changing story lines...but that doesn't mean you and I have to take them all seriously.

Who needs cable (he asked rhetorically, but defiantly)?

When I moved to Austin, I discovered that cable TV cost about 50 percent more than it did in Phoenix. I'm not a big watcher of original TV programming, so I decided to go without cable. Let me tell you what I've done instead.

First, I bought a DVR called DTVPal. It's a bit like TiVo, only: a) it doesn't require a subscription; and b) it's not quite as smart. But it can do the basics.

Second, I hooked up a cheap, Web-connected computer to my TV.

Third, I bought the cheapest available subscription to Netflix, which costs nine bucks per month.

With the DVR, I can record regular network TV fare and syndicated reruns, and then play them back at my convenience, skipping through the commercials. This allowed me to watch, and enjoy, an entire season of "24" for the first time in my life.

With the computer hooked to my TV, combined with the Netflix subscription, I can stream movies directly from the Netflix Web site to my TV. You can't stream the very best stuff from Netflix, but there's plenty of good stuff...including lots of television series.

One thing that has NOT worked particularly well is using sites like Hulu to run TV or movie content from the Web to my TV. The video quality just isn't that great. I'm sure it will be, though, in the not-too-distant future.

So, that's my inspirational story. If you want to be like me and cut the coaxial cord connecting you to Time Warner, Cox, or whomever your provider might be, a little bit of hardware and a cheap Netflix subscription might provide as much entertainment as you need.

Did you know Anderson Cooper was gay?

I didn't, until the "tea parties" and Cooper's reference to "teabagging," which I heard described as "a kind of oral sex," but which I think of more as a fraternity prank. Anyway, I'm surprised that Cooper is gay, and I'm surprised that I went this long without knowing that he was gay.

Footnote: In case the link wasn't clear, when Cooper mentioned teabagging, radio commentators started talking about the fact that he was gay, and that that's how he knew what teabagging was.

I guess Ann Coulter doesn't think we're stupid after all

I think about Ann Coulter the same way I think about Rush Limbaugh. First, not very often. Second, primarily as a "media personality" rather than a serious political thinker, and therefore not someone worth getting upset about.

If you know a few things about Rush Limbaugh, you probably know that he's overweight, that he's conservative, that he's got a hugely successful talk radio show, and that Democrats are currently trying to argue that he's the leader of the Republican Party (which is so ridiculous as not even to require refutation). If you know a few things about Ann Coulter, you probably know that she's blond, that she's famous for saying inflammatory things, and that she often refers to President Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama."

During the campaign, when people started calling Coulter on her use of Obama's middle name, she would say something along these lines: "Yeah, and I say 'Franklin Delano Roosevelt,' too. So what?" Or she would say, "That's how his name is listed on his official bio. If you've got a problem with that, talk to him."

These were pretty lame explanations. I mean, everybody calls FDR "Franklin Delano Roosevelt," but Coulter's one of only a few people who say "Barack Hussein Obama." Plus, you can find various bios that list Ronald Reagan's name as "Ronald Wilson Reagan," but Coulter doesn't routinely refer to him that way.

Anyhoo, I just saw this recent quote from Ms. Coulter, which, whatever else you may think of it, at least seems to be honest (for a change): “Doesn’t the middle name ‘Hussein’ in a Democrat reinforce the impression of the Democrats being soft on Islamic terrorism?”

Footnote: There are those who would say that this new explanation still isn't honest. They would say that by using Obama's middle name, Coulter is trying to create an impression of strangeness, of "otherness"; trying to make people think that Obama is not one of us; and possibly even trying to keep alive those Internet rumors that Obama is secretly a Muslim. Is she above all of that? Hell no. But then, neither are Democrats. You may remember them referring to Dan Quayle as "J. Danforth Quayle," as in this Dukakis ad (I don't think the sound works, but there's a button you can click to read the transcript), or more recently, to Bobby Jindal as "Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal." (You can see an example here, courtesy of the Louisiana Democratic Party. It's worth noting that Jindal has gone by the nickname "Bobby" since he was four years old.)

We need one more Indian thing

If one's an anecdote, two are data, and three make a trend, right now the media have almost  everything they need to start writing stories about how all things Indian are hot.

First, you had the success of "Slumdog Millionaire" at the Oscars.

Second, you had Bobby Jindal giving the GOP's response to President Obama's State of the Union speech.

Third...?

Footnote: Come on, India! You can do it!

Good news is no news

Time Magazine is out with its top 10 stories of 2008, and guess what? No mention of the remarkable military and political improvement in Iraq. Also no mention of gas prices going from sky high to snake belly low in the span of just a few months. Curious...

Footnote: Tara Reid entering rehab is #7.

Making good on a threat

I'm done with Sean Hannity. I said before the election that if he didn't shut up about Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, I was going to stop listening. Well, the election is over, and Hannity is still talking about those guys. He's now become the worst thing a talk radio host can become: a bore.

Beyond that, he has a major, undisclosed conflict-of-interest regarding General Motors. GM is a sponsor of Hannity's show, and he does endorsements for their products. It's interesting, then, to hear Hannity's decidedly un-conservative views on the proposed automaker bailout. Hannity says that the automakers are in trouble because of over-regulation and lousy trade deals, so they are due a bailout.

Now, maybe he really believes this, and maybe the fact that GM effectively pays a chunk of his salary and lets him try out their cars for free has nothing to do with it. Even so, he has an obligation to mention his financial relationship with GM when he discusses the bailout. I have not yet heard him do so. This leaves the impression that his opinions are for sale.

A guy like that isn't a guy I'm going to waste my time on any more.