Countdown’s Worst Persons In The World: Don’t Bother Me With Facts Edition
This was the relevant (and highly curious) part:
And finally, the gold goes to Roger “Jabba the Hut” Ailes, president of FoxNews for the singularly most perplexing entertainment news since Lynn Spears announced she was writing a book on motherhood. Ailes fired production assistant Jennifer Locke for publicly saying “I voted for you in the primary, you’re going to win.”
Wait, Rog, you guys fired a P.A. for publicly endorsing the Republican presidential nominee while in front of your own Fox cameras? I’m missing something. Does this mean you’re now going to fire everyone there?
And not to get all tin-foil hattish on you, but McCain’s response: “You’re not supposed to reveal that,” struck me as oddly phrased, in light of what Locke said. I would have expected “Thank you for your support” or “Well, we’re trying…” but “You’re not supposed to reveal that”? Reveal what? Her support or her knowledge that he is going to win?
And yes, I am still absolutely PMSL over Lynn Spears writing a book on motherhood! And they say irony is dead! LOL Now I expect Bushmoron to write a book on how to be a successful business tycoon! LOL Hmmm… I suppose it could be a “Don’t do what I did” kinda book. 😀
Ohhhh…. I think I need to lie down now. Too much hilarity at one time is exhausting!
]]>Knowing you have a problem is half the battle to fix it. 🙂 I have said it before (and people laugh when I do), that one day, American’s will thank G. W. Bush for being the moron he is! LOL 😉 You know what *they* say… No pain, no gain! 😀
So, you know what the problem is… what will you do about it? (or, do you feel as I do most days lately… “I’m too old for this sh*t!”) 😉
Cheers! 🙂
]]>The only to way to stop this crap is break up the media conglomerates which amounts to 6 corporations controlling almost everything on television, and well as in the cinemas. It is an absurd level of consolidation that prevents dissent.
The same sort of thing is going on with radio stations and newspapers. Truth be told there was more diversity in the Soviet Union, simply because of the failures on there internal lines of communication necessary to spread the Party’s message.
Trying to run everything from Moscow, when there is minimal communication in the eastern Soviet Union more than 50 kilometers from the TransSiberian rail bed, leads to a lot of unexpected autonomy. It makes for interesting reading when you factor in some of the rather odd beliefs of Russians.
I guarantee that Obama will never be able to shake being “a Muslim” and ” a crazed black nationalist Christian cultist” in the minds of the same people. The capacity for self-delusion has never been lacking among Americans.
Despite tens of millions in tax dollars spent on investigating the Clintons and finding nothing, all of the old stories will resurface. Being found innocent is no protection, and as a “public person” it is almost impossible for her to win a libel suit in US courts.
]]>You are essentially correct. 😀
Cheers!
]]>When I went to Calabria (Italy) many years ago, I was at first treated with suspicion, as an *outsider*. They are a fiercely tenacious people who hold on to their traditions with an iron fist and brook NO outside interference. 🙂 It was only when they learned that my paternal Grandmother was Calabrian and a famous singer there to boot during WW2, that I was allowed (indeed, I had no choice or say in it) to become a *returned son of Calabria*! That would seem to imply that Calabria is a town or city. 🙂 It’s really a region of many small town and communities on the Mediterranean coast. and each within Calabria is independent and have their own regional language and squabbles, until an outsider tries to interfear! Then the meet the entire Calabrian People as one! It was so strange for me. Because although I knew the birthplace of my Grandmother, she toured all over Calabria and sang and lived all over, so that many towns claim her as their own! And it can get dangerous. LOL I saw parallels to that in the USA and UK (Essex for example, though on a much smaller scale.)
No. What we discovered in the USA was a concerted, planned effort to control the way American’s thought and perhaps more importantly, what they feel. We saw and documented certain *triggers*. For example, to trigger an intense patriotic response with a certain message. Many Americans don’t believe it can be done, or has been done. Who would? But I see now that people (thanks to the arrogance and ignorance of Chaney/Rove/Rumsfeld primarily) are beginning to question their responses since 2000. 🙂 It will take time.
The current actions of the MSM (and other groups) to control the outcome of the Presidential election is no accident or knee-jerk reaction.
*sigh* Well… we’ll see what happens. I believe however, that forewarned is forearmed. 😉
]]>I tend to ignore that crap because I spent so many years reading and listening to Soviet agitprop, that I filter it out.
I don’t doubt it comes as a shock to outsiders to encounter the concentrated effort to alter meanings, but a little spine on behalf of Democratic politicians and the media would eliminate the problem. “Newspeak” is alive and well among Republican consultants.
]]>I spent time researching in many US States, and I have commented to many that the USA seems less like a *Country* than a collection of small Nations, or tribes. 🙂 And of course, it is a Republic of States, each with a fierce pride in each States own heritage and *independence*. And it does also extend (as I saw) to small sub-groups (even to small Towns) within each state. Part of the conclusions in the paper were that the USA is a fractured Nation. We spent time traveling through several States, and even managed to peak the curiosity of an Amish community and they allowed us to live and work with them for a time. And I must say, it was one of the very few places in all of the USA where I really felt at peace and comfortable. I loved parts of Arizona, Massachusetts, San Francisco (CA) and especially Santa Cruz (CA). I also felt very uncomfortable in New York (city), Washington (DC), LA and most of Texas (and in fact, the only place we really had any trouble,which we did not initiate, was in Austin, Texas). Oh, I also didn’t like Salt Lake City. We saw the Mormons as penultimate hypocrites. And they actually can’t stand outsiders more than the Amish (unless you choose to become a Mormon, which you are under pressure to do!) They will strenuously deny it, which makes my point. 🙂
Look up the work of people such as Dr. Alvin Donovan III, Abraham Maslow and many in the field of Advertising and Marketing.
Cheers. 🙂
]]>The media tends to be a Midwestern version of American English, but the entire thing breaks down when you introduce vocational jargon. Everyone understands “media English”, but no one outside of the Midwest and the media speaks it.
It isn’t just the pronunciation, it is the vocabulary and the actual meaning of some words that alter depending on location, including words that have opposing meanings, i.e. the same word may mean something positive in one area and extremely negative in another.
The military and law enforcement are some of the worst offenders when it comes to euphemisms, but the corporate world can be as bad. You can tell after a while what large corporations an individual has worked for simply by their speech.
While there is a great deal of churn in American English, there are also deep pockets of stasis. There are places in the Appalachian region that still use Elizabeth pronunciation. If you wonder what Shakespeare really sounded like, there are people in North Carolina who still speak that way because they have remained relatively isolated.
]]>The US is different. There, the meaning of the English language itself is being corrupted almost daily. Perhaps people should be asking why?
Of course, none of this is that simple. If it were, it wouldn’t have taken my team years to put together a paper on the state and direction of the US language. I won’t go into why the paper was commissioned in the first place… let’s just say that certain Politicians and Military types here were curious about what they saw as a trend. It’s always easier to see the forest from outside. 😉
I can send you an email with some (possibly redacted) excerpts if you’d like.
]]>