Why I Want Cable TV

Conventional wisdom says you can get statistics to say whatever you want. That's not exactly true. You can trust others will not know enough to be critical of your methodology or you can use bland facts in twisted and misrepresentative ways, but this does not mean the statistics themselves say whatever you want them to. It just means you can sometimes fool people who don't know better or don't think to ask follow up questions.

Montel Williams did this the other day. He wanted me to be afraid of violent crime on board cruise ships. He said the FBI reported something like 20% of 300 maritime crimes were violent assaults. Okay, now I am a lazy researcher so did not look to get his actual numbers and when I was watching it, I did not think I would be writing about it so did not commit them to memory. So that being said. That's not much, I mean it may be sad for whomever is involved, but it's not that large a number. And how does this include cruise ships; does the FBI include statistics for ships of foreign registry? If I get drunk and punch someone on a harbor cruise that gets counted, but would a murder on a Norwegian cruise liner be counted? I don't know. Whatever, the point being Montel was trying to make a point but may have used the wrong data to make that point. He maybe did this on purpose, he might have just had careless writers. In any case, the statistics, combined with the story of the guest, the music, the images and the emotion all combine to give the impression that I have something to fear when I might actually be quite safe. But remember, just because data don't say what you want them to say doesn't mean they don't say something.

I should use a better example. Maybe I'll try to find one before I post this. I didn't.

Anyway, a similar thing is true with images and news. You can close crop a crowd picture to give the impression of greater numbers. Converesely, you can leave out any images and say "thousands attended" when it was tens of thousands. Both are true but one can downplay an event's significance. Check out the story behind this picture. It shows you how images can be manipulated to give a particular impression. In this case the lie was revealed.

News doesn't really exist does it? There is only what we retell and recreate. It is propaganda- for what I'm not sure, but it is similar to Mc Carthy's list of names, Nixon's dog, Clinton's confessions, and W's flight-suit which were all constructed events designed to give the impression of news and substance but were really just attempts at mediating public opinion. What we see on the news is removed from the actuality of an event and used as a prop to tell some other story. While the events may be important, the story we are trying to tell can be more revealing about who we are than the events themselves.

What's the point of all this? Well I want cable TV because I only get to see the Daily show rarely and now there is the Colbert Report to miss.

I love The Daily show because it has a greater and more trusted value than "the real news" not because of the stories it tells, but because how it satirizes the news by using the same methods as the media. And now the the new Colbert Report goes a step further and does this brilliantly. I have only seen what I can get on the website, and by reading accounts of it, (I'm a super nerd) but it is not only hilarious, it is also the perfect counter narrative to what we believe to be news. When Colbert says,"On this show your voice will be heard, in the form of my voice" or "I don't trust books, they're all fact, no heart. That's what's pulling our country apart today. We are divided between those who think with their head and those who know with their heart" he's not just offering a send-up of the self important media and exposing their self-serving narcissism but critiquing the general doubt and self-centered universe it has created. I love it.

I guess I left a lot hanging here. What is the story we're telling about ourselves? Who is this propaganda for? Oh well.

Trying to construct an appearance of hipness with my playlist
Respect Yourself-The Staple Singers
Chain of Fools-Aretha Franklin
Let it Roll-Hieroglyphics
1921-The Who
Offend in Every Way-The White Stripes
In Heaven-The Pixies
God Only Knows-The Beach Boys
Neptune, The Mystic-Gustav Holst