I'm going to start with what should be the low-hanging fruit.
Obviously, the increasing threats and attacks on Planned Parenthood are tied to the increasingly irresponsible accusations against the organization.
And, obviously, it is just as unfair to blame all Christians or all Muslims for horrific acts carried out by the most radical, unhinged members of their religions.
However, just as obviously, none of this is making much of a difference in the flow of information and opinions crossing anybody's news feed.
The worst part is that, as I said the other day, it's not a Big Conspiracy so much as it is a result of an irresponsible "anything for a buck" approach to media.
That attitude isn't simply confined to putting on nonsensical shows about monsters and exploitive "Real Housewives" swill or shows about gruesome crime.
It's also maintaining a phony neutrality in the name of "fairness," which is, at heart, a too-strong need to be liked at the expense of being honest.
Never mind Fox News: Whether every hare-brained nitwit in the cast of "Fox and Friends" is in on the joke, there's an agenda there that, contemptible or delightful, is at least deliberate.
But there are mainstream media that continue to label as "controversial" things that simply are not true, and it allows Carly Fiorina to claim to have seen a video that doesn't exist, and for Donald Trump to say Muslims were seen celebrating when they were not.
Dammit, those are not "controversies." They're lies.
And other counterfactual statements -- whether or not the candidates know it -- are simply wrong, not "controversial."
Jeet Heer has an article in New Republic about the difference between a liar and a bullshit artist, headlined (spoiler alert) "Donald Trump Is Not A Liar," and it draws, in part, on a study about why people believe bullshit, which is also the source for this Forbes article that's been making the rounds.
That second one is funnier because it dwells on people who don't realize how many of Deepak Chopra's profound statements are utter nonsense.
Well, nobody is proposing handing the launch codes over to Deepak Chopra. Nor are his adventures in twisted Yoda-wisdom going to inspire anyone to go on a killing spree.
Meanwhile, Ruben Bolling apparently had the same thought I suggested the other day, which is that, if Muslims were fomenting such hatred, we'd be droning them.
And on the topic of editors ...
Scott Stantis has the admirable habit of examining and re-examining his beliefs, whether in his editorial cartoons or his strip, Prickly City.
In the latter, while Hunny Bunny began as a stereotyped conservative attack on Hillary Clinton, she has morphed over time into a much more nuanced response to what's happening in the campaign.
She's in an unusually sympathetic position today, as she visits a college campus. I'm on record as cutting college kids a break, given the foolish things we all said and thought at that age.
On the other hand, "Silence is Violence" not only fits in the afore-linked article on Deepak Chopra and verbal bullshit, but the whole thing fits into a pair of linguistic developments that I suspect are strongly linked to the 18-24 demographic that, as I say, is still finding its conceptual footing.
The first example, however, is even more strongly linked to the 85-150-year-old demographic: The New York Times has begun using the honorific "Mx" for people who decline to have a gender identity.
Trying to wrestle honorifics into contemporary issues, I would contend, is similar to seeking an alternative material for the corset stays of young people opposed to whaling.
I remember when the paper I was working at finally dropped honorifics, nearly 30 years ago, and how relieved I was to no longer have to conclude an intelligent conversation with an intelligent woman by asking if she preferred to be called "Miss," "Mrs." or "Ms."
Asking the stupid question was nearly as humiliating as the stunned, incredulous silence that followed before she responded.
My solution to this issue would have been to finally dump the antiquated convention, but the Gray Lady sticks to the rules: Everyone must have an honorific!
Meanwhile, over at the Washington Post, they -- and by "they" I mean a collection of editors -- have decided to change to meaning of "they" so that it no longer applies exclusively to a collection of more than one person.
If a person doesn't want to be identified by gender, they will call them they.
Now, here's my take: First, I'm not unsympathetic to people who feel neither male nor female.
Second, I'm betting they (plural) aren't that numerous.
Third, I'm betting the bulge in their (plural) demographic is at about the college age.
Fourth, as an editor, I would be disinclined to hire a reporter who did not have the writing chops to get around this infrequent dilemma without confusing readers even more.
And finally, this is why I keep saying that the reason editors don't understand comics is that they have no appreciation of nuance and demand that everything be reduced into "rules."
They have meetings from which they emerge declaring that "he was jailed in lieu of $5,000 bail" is impermissible jargon, and then fumble around with nonsensical phrases like "He was jailed because he would not pay $5,000 bail."
And yet, for all their straining after non-existent gnats, they gobble down camels as if they were popcorn.
For instance, they are utterly incapable of understanding the proper verb form for speculation against fact.
"If I was a rich man" is only grammatically sensible if the speaker is unable to recall if he ever lived in a mansion.
"If I were a rich man" is how you speculate on what you would do in that highly unlikely case.
Ditto with "it might have saved his life" vs "it may have saved his life."
If he's dead, A.
If he's alive and you don't know why, B.
As for proper use of "they" as a gender neutral pronoun, it has been properly used by far better writers than ever sat a copy desk, and is here explained by a far better grammarian.
Your servant am I,
and will humbly remain
Comments