Sign of the Apocalypse #51: George and Britney

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Watching Back to the Future yesterday for the millionth time -- yes, it's that good, and the two sequels aren't far behind -- I was struck once again by the scene where Marty and Dr. Brown meet for the first time back in 1955. This part, in particular:

Doc: So tell me, Future Boy, who's president of the United States in 1985?

Marty: Ronald Reagan.

Doc: Ronald Reagan, the actor? Ha! Then who's vice president? Jerry Lewis? I suppose Jane Wyman is the first lady.

Marty: Whoa, wait Doc.

Doc: And Jack Benny is the secretary of the treasury. Ah.

Marty: Doc, you gotta listen to me.

Doc: I've had enough practical jokes for one evening. Goodnight, Future Boy.

To Dr. Brown, it is inconceivable that the president in 1985 is an actor -- particularly, one imagines, such a second-rate actor and right-wing blowhard as Reagan. He wants proof that Marty is from the future. This fact is a joke, however, not proof.

Marty soon provides ample proof. He knows how Doc bumped his head, knows about the flux capacitor. And then, of course, he shows him the De Lorean. And the video camera:

Doc: This is truly amazing, a portable television studio. No wonder your president has to be an actor, he's got to look good on television.

Doc is right, of course. Presidents, and presidential candidates, need to be telegenic, and tech-savvy. They need to look good on television -- as well as on YouTube and the campaign videos they put up on their websites. Policy, principle, and character still matter, but image matters, too, more than ever. I'm not saying anything new here. Everyone knows this.

But consider how far we've come. The line between entertainment and politics has been blurred -- by Clinton, to a great extent, but any president of the '90s would have blurred it, been required to blur it. Bush is less Hollywood than Clinton, but he is no less a product of our multimedia age, a politician-president dependent on the manufacturing of image, on how he is sold to the American people and to the world beyond. And we all know what he and his manufacturers wanted that image to be: a man of conviction, of deep religiosity, a common man, tough, determined, strong, the virtuous leader who stands firm against infidels at home and abroad.

But what a joke he has become. Are we even in a position to understand this?

Nixon was unpopular, too, a generation ago, and for good reason. He was a crook, a drunk, a paranoid, and there was Vietnam and Watergate. But my purpose here is not to compare Bush to Nixon, and certainly not to diminish the gravity of that horrible period in American history -- liberating, in the end, but horrifying, at the time. It is, rather, to remark on the appalling poverty of George W. Bush and of the Bush presidency generally.

For all that he has done wrong, for all that has gone into making him one of the worst presidents of all time, and his presidency one of the worst of all time, and without diminishing the gravity of this horrible period in American history, Bush has become a laughingstock, the butt of a perpetual political joke, an embarrassment, to himself and to his country.

His address on the Iraq War and Occupation this week was but the latest episode, predictably appalling. There was an attempt to present the manufactured image, a resolute president, but the image is transparent now, and has been for a long time. We all see through it, at least those of us who aren't trapped by delusion, and the content and substance of Bush's address could be, and was, observed and analyzed for what it was: as much of a joke as the man who delivered it.

Just how much of a joke? I wasn't quite sure until I read an intriguing post by Michael Currie Schaffer at TNR's The Plank:

On Sunday night, it seemed pretty clear that Britney Spears' performance at the MTV awards ceremony was the biggest prime-time fiasco of the week. Then came Thursday night and President Bush's Oval Office address on Iraq. At first blush, coverage of the white trash kid turned tabloid fodder and the rich kid turned good ol' boy would seem to have little in common (besides, of course, the four years of high-profile futility that followed the respective 2003 triumphs of Spears' In the Zone album and Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech). But what's astonishing is the similarities in this week's coverage of the two fallen ingenues.

Schaffer goes on to compare the coverage in juxtaposition. And it fits: Bush is Britney, Britney is Bush, they are two sides of the same coin, the same joke.

Whatever one can say in retrospect about Nixon, what is now abundantly clear is that the best comparison to Bush is a white-trash pop tart with a drug problem and possibly serious mental-health issues.

What more do you need to know about the state of America today? This is a Sign of the Apocalypse, to be sure, but it is also, if there ever was on, a Sign of America's Imminent Collapse.

Thankfully, he'll be gone by January '09. But how much more damage can he do, jokes and all, before then?

Sign of the Apocalypse #32: Katie Couric heads to CBS

According to The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, long-time Today Show co-host Katie Couric is set to take over the CBS Evening News from Bob Schieffer. An announcement is expected this week. (Update: It's official.)

Why is this a SOTA? Not because of Couric herself, although I don't think she's the right person to take over a nightly network news broadcast (although, in terms of ratings, her popularity may help her lead the show out of the basement). No, it's that this isn't about the news, nor about broadcasting integrity or excellence. It's about entertainment. It's Network. We've known this all along, of course, but now it's just so transparent. And so grotesque. Consider this: "Couric's pending departure has been the focus of intense media speculation, both because of her celebrity and the historic nature of the move."

Can Couric report the news with the appropriate gravitas? Perhaps, but she's a morning-show host, not an anchor (in the more traditional sense of that term). Does that even matter anymore? Maybe not. The era of Cronkite and Chancellor -- even the era of Brokaw, Rather, and Jennings -- is over. Is she enough of a journalist? Maybe not. But, again, it's not at all clear that an anchor even needs that sort of experience anymore. Besides, even Brokaw hosted Today.

Other than her celebrity, which is what this is all about, is this "historic"? Well, it's different. No woman has ever hosted a nightly network news broadcast by herself. Fair enough. But then why not hire Couric's possible replacement at Today, Meredith Vieira, currently co-host of The View? She's a former 60 Minutes correspondent "with deep roots in network news". Well, because she's not enough of a celebrity, because she's not a celebrity of Couric's caliber.

Remember: This isn't about the news and the reporting thereof. And it's certainly not about journalism. It's about ratings. It's about the show. It's about money. CBS has lagged in third place for a long time. Couric -- who is expected to make even more than the $15-16 million she makes at NBC (there's another SOTA for another time) -- may change that.

Good for Katie Couric, but still a Sign of the Apocalypse.

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Update: For an alternative view, see Slate's Troy Patterson, who says that he is "disinclined to regard this as a sign of the apocalypse". I wonder if he's read The Reaction.

Also, this post was quoted (but not linked to) at The Philadelphia Inquirer's Blinq blog -- see here. The author of that blog, Daniel Rubin, considers this SOTA "a little heavy handed". But at least he correctly identifies me as a "liberal blogger".

Sign of the Renaissance #1: The end of reality TV?

As many of you know, my Signs of the Apocalypse (SOTA) series is well underway, now up to #17 -- see right sidebar for all the links.

Well, let me introduce to you... the opposite: Signs of the Renaissance (SOTR). If a SOTA heralds the coming of the end of civilization, a SOTR heralds something in the way of genesis, a new beginning, hope, which is to say, rebirth, renewal, revival, resurgence -- a sign that the Apocalypse isn't imminent, that collapse isn't just around the corner, that perhaps our civilization is coming back from the brink of self-destruction. Or not. I don't know. Suffice it to say that in this context, here at The Reaction, our civilization is at the center of a tug of war between the forces of Apocalypse and the forces of Renaissance, pulled in both directions to the point of breaking apart entirely. It seems that the forces of Apocalypse are winning, but this post provides at least some ammunition for the other side, some proof that all is not lost.

It's 17-1, but, hopefully, there's still a lot of the game left to play.

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SOTA #17 involved reality TV, specifically the returns of the Donald and the Martha to the airwaves in complementary editions of The Apprentice (the most vile show on TV). SOTR #1 similarly involves reality TV, but -- yes, you guessed it -- in a good way:

The popularity of reality TV in the US appears to be on the wane, with four out of five people surveyed saying there are now too many reality shows.

Some 82% of those in the AP-TV Guide poll said reality shows were either "totally made up" or "distorted".

Only 4% of the 1,002 questioned said there were not enough reality shows.

Yes, there's hope yet.

Sign of the Apocalypse #5: Will that be saline or silicone with your existential crisis?

This one was suggested to me by friend, colleague, and fellow blogger Vivek Krishnamurthy (see link, right). It's my first non-celebrity Sign, but like celebrity-worship and media sensationalism it's a symptom of the degradation of our civilization, with its obsessive focus on the body (and the material) as the defining quality of the human being. They're all different sides of the same phenomenon. This one's much more serious than the other four, however.

Here are the key passages from an article in today's Times:

Such is life for shoppers who have faced the double-edge scalpel of plastic surgery, which has allowed hundreds of thousands of American women to have the cleavage they deem ideal, though they no longer fit the svelte silhouette dictated by many fashion houses.

In regions where breast augmentation is most popular, like Southern California, Texas and Florida, the wave of implants is skewing the selection of designer clothes sold at some stores, favoring sizes and styles more ample on top and creating a new market for alterations...

Surgery for breast enlargement (including breast lifts) has grown by 257 percent since 1997, reaching 432,403 patients last year, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Saline implants, filled with salt water, have largely replaced silicone in the United States. Last month a committee of medical experts advised the Food and Drug Administration to allow the return of silicone, which was never conclusively linked to health problems. The federal agency has not yet decided whether to follow that advice.

In total surgeons have performed about of 1.3 million augmentations in the last decade (including repeat customers), not enough to have a broad impact on the American clothing market in a population of 149 million women. But the implant trend has affected the styles sold in designer boutiques in certain cities and regions where surgeries are most popular. For example a woman who was a standard Size 6 before surgery - a 34.5-inch bust, 26-inch waist and 36.5-inch hips - and whose implants increase her bust by two cup sizes, would need a Size 10 dress. But because she remains slim through the waist and hips, the dress would have to be altered.

So. It boils down to this: More and more women are getting breast implants, but many of those implants so distort the body that designer clothes no longer fit properly. So those same women often need to send their designer clothes for alteration. One woman quoted in the story, a 30-year old Houston marketing executive who shops at Prada, had a a breast augmentation that increased her cup size to 34F, and now she needs to have her clothes tailored accordingly. "I'm bigger around the top, but I'm small everywhere else," she says.

Where to begin with this madness? Breast implants? Well, it's unfortunate that so many women feel that they need to have implants. That itself is sad, but it says something about our society. No, not just that men look for women with big breasts (some do, some don't) and that women must respond accordingly if they hope to attract attention. As much as women feel pressure to look a certain way, and as much as there is more pressure on women than on men to look that way, I would argue that many men are similarly obsessive about their bodies and that this obsession is increasing. Anyone who's been to a gym lately knows what I'm talking about.

What it says to me is more existential: Pardon the gross generalization, but many men and women have nothing but their bodies to provide them with any sort of meaning. It all comes down to the death of God (as Nietzsche understood it), to which I would add the pursuit of perfection. Human beings seem to desire perfection. Some seek perfection in a god (God), and the continuing power of religion, especially in the United States, the most materialistic of all societies, seems to reflect some sort of response to rampant materialism. But religion has lost its hold in the modern (and postmodern) world, with the result that many people have been left without any alternative source of meaning. And when perfection can no longer be found in the divine, given its absence, it can only be found in either the social or the individual. Which is why the two most powerful political forces of modernity have been liberalism (the primacy of the individual) and nationalism (the primacy of the nation). One is liberal, the other collectivist, but both are this-worldly pursuits of perfection: the perfection of the individual self or the perfection of the nation (which is why nationalism often assumes the form of racism/ethnocentrism, with its division between perfect "us" and imperfect "them"). Where the latter may lead to war and genocide in the name of perfecting the nation (Nazi Germany, Serbia, etc.), the former, far less noxious, may lead to the pursuit of bodily perfection through obsessive dieting, exercising, plastic surgery, and the like. The modern world may have been a battleground upon which the forces of liberty and the forces of collectivism clashed (and continue to clash), but both liberal individualism and national collectivism are responses to the absence of God.

Those 432,403 patients are just looking for a way out of their existential crisis. It's just a shame some of them think they have to look like porn stars.

(34F?????!!!!!)

Fromage, Juno-style

Did anyone actually watch the Junos last night? (To our American readers, that's our equivalent -- to be generous -- of the Grammys.) Well, I need some Ed the Sock to put that pretentious parade of crapola into some kind of cultural perspective, or at least to make fun of it with the stunning precision he brings to all of his cultural criticism. Indeed, his annual "Fromage" retrospectives on the absolute worst in music videos (a medium that deserves to be deconstructed into oblivion) is must-see TV, and I would make the case that he may be one of our most perceptive cultural critics. (To our American readers, Ed the Sock is a hand-puppet that appears as host and interviewer on MuchMusic (our MTV) and CityTV, a local Toronto station.) Sure, it's all a bit too close to the gutter, but there's an honesty to Ed's commentary that seems to elude the bright lights of the Canadian intelligentsia.

Anyway, without mincing words, what is this shit? Avril Lavigne wins Artist of the Year? That's like Keanu Reeves winning a Best Actor Oscar. Okay, okay. So maybe "Artist of the Year" doesn't have anything to do with talent and is really given to the most obnoxious celebrity or the "artist" who makes the most money without actually having any talent. But it must be about "talent". After all, the pride of Napanee, Ontario, as she is commonly known (poor, poor Napanee), was also nominated for... wait for it... Best Album! For that astounding piece of crap, Under My Skin. Now, she lost -- phew! -- but to Billy Talent, a bland, Nickelbackesque rock band that, well, sucks. (Oh, and she was nominated for Best Songwriter!) Other nominees for Best Album: Miracle, by Celine Dion. Now, I hate Celine Dion as much as the next guy... no, more so. She's the worst thing this country has ever produced, and that includes Keanu Reeves. Still Not Getting Any, by Simple Plan. Juvenilia never sounded so bad. I could go on... and on... and on. Under My Skin did win Best Pop Album, yet another sign of impending apocalypse. And Sum 41's Chuck won Rock Album of the Year. Yet more awful Canadian juvenilia at the forefront of Canadian rock. Fan-bleeping-tastic. At least Sarah Harmer won Adult Alternative Album of the Year, whatever that means, for All of Our Names. Now there's some good stuff, buried deep beneath the steaming pile of horse manure that is mainstream Canadian music these days.

Other signs of impending apocalypse: The other Best Pop Album nominees included Celine Dion's Miracle, Fefe Dobson's eponymous debut, and talent-less/soul-less Canadian Idol Ryan Malcolm's Home -- a trio of stinky fromage that speaks for itself. It's enough to make the glory days of Duran Duran and Culture Club seem really, really deep by comparison. (Remember when there was actually some good music out there? See the great Almost Famous, and you'll see what I mean.)

One final sign of impending apocalypse: Shania Twain's "Party For Two" was nominated (but didn't win, thank whatever god is responsible) for Single of the Year. "Party For Two" may be the worst song ever recorded, and that includes anything by Celine bleeping Dion.

At least we can all go out and buy the back catalogues of Rush and the Hip. For now, though, mind your heads. Frogs are about to fall from the sky.

ROVE may be FITZGERALD's target (and how Democrats should respond)

Rumors are rampant and speculation runs wild. See last night's round-up of the pre-indictment scene here.

Today brought more of the same (if no indictments or anything else of much substance).

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First, the MSM:

Here's what The New York Times had to say:

Lawyers in the C.I.A. leak case said Thursday that they expected I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, to be indicted on Friday, charged with making false statements to the grand jury.

Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, will not be charged on Friday, but will remain under investigation, people briefed officially about the case said. As a result, they said, the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, was likely to extend the term of the federal grand jury beyond its scheduled expiration on Friday.

As rumors coursed through the capital, Mr. Fitzgerald gave no public signal of how he intended to proceed, further intensifying the anxiety that has gripped the White House and left partisans on both sides of the political aisle holding their breath.

Mr. Fitzgerald's preparations for a Friday announcement were shrouded in secrecy, but advanced amid a flurry of behind-the-scenes discussions that left open the possibility of last-minute surprises. As the clock ticked down on the grand jury, people involved in the investigation did not rule out the disclosure of previously unknown aspects of the case.

See also The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN. (The Anonymous Liberal comments on the Times vs. the Post.)

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Second, the blogosphere:

The Moderate Voice, as usual, is all over the story -- with links to posts by Joe, me, and my fellow co-bloggers. See also here.

AMERICAblog is making the best of it and remains optimistic: "I won't lie to you, I'd rather have a Rove indictment (and we still may get one -- let's face it, it ain't over till the Irish prosecutor sings). But having this be a non-conclusion, having the Veeps chief of staff indicted, and having Rove REMAIN under investigation is pretty damn good. It will keep the White House in chaos for years to come. I still say it's 50-50 that Rove resigns tomorrow so that the president can move on."

I'd like a Rove indictment, too -- if it's warranted. But it's certainly true that a continuation of the investigation would keep the White House off-balance.

Hunter at Daily Kos: "The 'will remain under investigation' part seems to pretty clearly paint him as a continued target, though, so I don't see much joy in Roveland for the time being."

No, but there's some joy in Reactionland. It's fun to watch the Bushies squirm.

The Heretik rejects the Clinton comparison tossed around by conservatives without a clue: "A lie is a lie is a lie, as those who attacked Clinton would say and this has come back to haunt them. But whereas Clinton’s lies were in a private sphere made all too public, what we have here are lies made in private that have done great public damage."

In an excellent post, Needlenose looks at some of the key players in this story.

See also The Mahablog. And TalkLeft has some thoughts.

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On the right, which hasn't had much to say about Plamegate recently, John Hinderaker at Power Line is more positive (from the right's perspective) than most: "So, if the Times is right, it's good news for the administration and a disappointment for the Democrats, who have staked so much on Fitzgerald's investigation."

But Jonah Goldberg at NRO's The Corner is worried about what will happen if Rove is neither indicted nor cleared but left in a state of purgatory: "This situation (if it is the situation) brings no closure of any kind. The media is obviously going to take a glass-is-half-full perspective on this and keep up Rove-indictment-watch. That means Rove remains distracted, no fresh start."

Goldberg and AMERICAblog essentially agree (which may be a Sign of the Apocalypse... or a Sign of the Renaissance... I'm just not sure). And I generally agree with them. For now (given that we still don't know what's going to happen).

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Generally, liberals are waiting with heightened anticipation, but Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly, whom I admire as much as anyone in the blogosphere, remains characteristically cautious (and sensible): "I hope this isn't turning into a Ken Starr-style fishing expedition. As much as I'd like to see Karl Rove frog marched out of the West Wing, I have to say that if Fitzgerald hasn't been able to make a case against him in two years, it might be time to call it a day. This investigation shouldn't last forever." Andrew Sullivan makes much the same point.

I tend to agree -- to a point. What concerns me is that many of Bush's opponents (Democrats, liberals, etc.) are still looking for the smoking gun that will bring him down. Back in June, it was the Downing Street Memo, but that really didn't go anywhere. Now it's the outing of Valerie Plame (and, beyond her, the Bush Administration's manipulation of pre-war intelligence and its dirty campaign against its own opponents), but what if there just isn't a smoking gun? Aren't Bush's opponents -- aren't we -- placing too much emphasis on Fitzgerald's investigation? Aren't we hoping for too much?

No, don't get me wrong. I'm no Richard Cohen. I'm not saying that no one did anything wrong or that the investigation should stop -- nor are Drum and Sullivan. But let's let the indictments come down and go from there. If further investigation is required, so be it. I wish Fitzgerald all the best and hope he turns up the truth. But if not, or if it's just Libby and not Rove, or if there's no evidence that Cheney was involved, or if the story ends on awhimperr and evaporates into oblivion, then shouldn't we just move on?

We seem to be stuck here, waiting, waiting, waiting, hoping, hoping, hoping, fingers crossed that Fitzmas is right around the corner, that we'll come down early in the morning, open up our stockings, and find Rove's mugshot and video of a disgraced Cheney departing Washington for Halliburton-funded retirement in Wyoming. And then... oh, what then?! Bush's approval ratings tanking back into the 30s, then into the 20s, a cannibalistic GOP descending further into self-destruction, the Plame Game become the Blame Game, and a triumphant Democratic Party sweeping through 2006 with possession of both houses of Congress, then kicking the bastards out of the White House two years later.

(Sorry, was I dreaming?)

Look, let's just remain sober about this. It looks like Libby will be indicted, but Rove may get off (so to speak). Can we live with that?

Either way, if that's what happens, if there's no Fitzmas, let's not get too down. We need to think about what we stand for, what our core ideas are, and how, more practically, we can win in 2006 and 2008 -- see here for my post on how Democrats can win again. But also, we need to focus less on what Bush's officials have been up to and more on what Bush himself has been up to. That is, if I may be so partisan, let's focus on Iraq, the war on terrorism, Katrina, the Miers debacle, social security, tax cuts and the bloated deficit, health care, and all the other issues on which we're right and they're wrong, on which Bush has been an abject failure and on which the Republicans have taken America down a path to weakness and insecurity.

I also hope for the best -- the more indictments the merrier, the more disgrace the better -- but I'm also prepared for a less-than-best outcome. Let's not get stuck here. Fitzmas or no Fitzmas, there's still a lot for us to do.

Sign of the Apocalypse #2: Britney on TV

Who's the guy in the back?

Here's a new feature at The Reaction: Signs of the Apocalypse.

Which is to say, signs that the Apocalypse, however understood, is right around the corner, or at least signs that our civilization is crumbling into oblivion. Now, there are many obvious signs, real or imagined, such as frogs falling from the sky or devil sightings or the Red Sox winning the World Series -- the Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup would truly be an apocalpytic event, not just a sign (let's not go there). From time to time, I will point out more subtle, or at least less obvious, signs. A few weeks ago, I mentioned, for example, Avril Lavigne's win for Best Artist at the Junos (Canada's Grammys), a good #1. Now let me offer Sign #2, a three-part sign involving no less a cultural giant than Britney Spears:

1) Britney's new "reality" show -- called Britney and Kevin: Chaotic, perhaps the worst TV show title ever. The good news is that, as of now, it's just slated to be a six-episode series, starting May 17 on UPN (can anyone name another show on UPN? I didn't think so). The bad news is that -- cue the Apocalypse -- it will feature "exclusive, never-before-seen private home videos they shot themselves during their courtship, engagement and wedding". Ouch. To steal a joke from Jon Stewart, that's gotta give you brain damage. Otherwise, it's obviously just a Jessica & Nick rip-off. But how low are you on the cultural scale when you're just a rip-off of something that sucked? The only reason to watch will be to determine who's stupider, Jessica or Britney. My guess: a toss-up, but those who watch Chaotic will be the stupidest of all.

2) Britney's website. Yes, it's that bad.

3) Britney's pregnancy test. This is bizarre. According to reports, an online casino, Golden Palace, has bought one of Britney's used pregnancy tests (I'm not sure if it's the positive one) from a radio station, which allegedly found it in the trash outside Britney's Los Angeles hotel room a few months ago, for US$5,001. Said a Golden Palace spokesman: "It's hard to put a price on Britney Spears's urine." (Indeed.) To be fair, this isn't Britney's fault, and she deserves no further blame here for summoning the Apocalypse. Online gaming (and casino gambling in general) is a huge, flashing Sign of the Apocalypse, and this story only provides further confirmation.

Truly, we have much to fear.

Sign of the Apocalypse #52: The world of LARPing

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We all have our fantasies, even our fantasy worlds, worlds that allow us to be true to ourselves, for good or bad, or neither. Put another way, we all have dreams, dreams about ourselves, ideal images of ourselves, self-constructs. Society requires one to be many things, to wear many masks, to play many roles, some fulfilling, some not, or not so much, but even the happiest person, even the most self-aware, finding happiness in genuine self-awareness, in knowing oneself, cannot but fall short of the ideal. (Even Socrates must have had his doubts and disappointments, and, yes, his fantasies.) And this is especially true, I think, in our age of the deification of the self, an age in which the self is celebrated, in which freedom reigns, in which individuals, in our more progressive societies, are able to "find" themselves in so many different ways, an age in which choice is supreme, an age in which choices can be made, and are made, for the greater glorification of the self.

Okay, enough of that.

My point is that freedom and choice do not necessarily make for happiness, and many people today are living lives that seem, in one way or another, meaningless, which is to say, devoid of meaning, even pointless. You get up, you commute, you sit in a cubicle, your boss yells at you, you play office politics, you count the seconds, you drink, you narcotize yourself. You're stuck in a crappy job, a dead-end career, a broken family. You're in debt, massive debt, and you worry about retirement, if you sober up enough to think about anything at all.

Yup, it's pretty bleak out there, and wherever you are right now.

Quite probably, it's pretty bleak in your soul, too.

So go ahead and fantasize. Go find yourself.

Just don't hurt anyone.

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Which brings me to this: LARPing.

Do you know what that stands for? I didn't, and I'd never even heard about it before I read this review of a documentary on LARPing by Grady Hendrix at Slate.

So what does it stand for? Well, here you go:

Darkon is a LARP (live-action role-playing game) where normal people dress up in homemade armor and pretend to be inhabitants of a fantasy realm. They fight battles in parks and on soccer fields over pretend land in a pretend country that has its own pretend religions and pretend economy. It's meatspace Dungeons & Dragons, with people brandishing swords wrapped in foam and slamming each other around with padded shields. Founded in 1985, Darkon is one of America's oldest and largest LARPs, and the showdown between two kingdoms within it, Mordom and Laconia, was captured in the documentary Darkon, a movie so mighty it needed two directors (Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer). The film... joins the ranks of movies like Hoop Dreams and Murderball as one of the great documentary dissections of how Americans play.

Got that? It's live-action fantasy. And it's pretty serious:

There are tens of thousands of LARPers around the world, and in the United States, a national LARPing event like the massive Ragnarok meet held in Ohio can draw several thousand attendees. Darkon has 700 members, fielding up to 150 people at any given battle.

For more... well, just read the article. The whole thing -- the whole phenomenon of LARPing -- is odd. It's hard to believe people actually do this, and get so into it. (Check out the entry at Wikipedia, too.)

But is it odd? Look, I have my fantasies, too. I won't get into them here, sorry, but I am an avid fantasy sports enthusiast. Every Sunday during the NFL season I'm not just obsessing about the Steelers but also following closely how the real life players on my fantasy team(s) are doing. Brees and Hasselbeck, LT and Marshawn, Holt and Gonzales -- my mood rises and falls based on how well they do, or how poorly. And all this in front of the computer screen, and on TV, flipping around from game to game to see "my" players. At least the LARPers do their thing outside. At least their thing is physical. At least they're connecting with each other -- well, connecting as characters who may or may not be their true selves, or, rather, shadows of their true selves, of their personal ideals. (Okay, fantasy sports isn't my only thing, but you get my point -- I hope.)

Still.

There's no way I can give LARPing a free ride here. It is -- both in itself and its stunning popularity -- a Sign of the Apocalypse, a sign that all is not well with the world today.

I understand its appeal and I understand the motivations that lead people to it -- at least I think I do. Other fantasy worlds make sense, why not this one?

But the role-playing component of this... hobby, if I may call it that... the gravitas with which the participants throw themselves into it... It's an outlet, and maybe a relatively healthy one, I don't know... but it's awfully bizarre.

Sign of the Apocalypse #7: Welcome to Brangelina

A brilliant dissection of America's celebrity culture (and those of us who live vicariously through it), via the Sawyer-Pitt interview on ABC a couple of days ago, by Slate TV critic Dana Stevens. A must-read. Key passages:

In its particularly stark association between gossip and guilt -- watch these dying kids for a while, and we'll throw you a Pitt/Aniston tidbit for your trouble -- the Prime Time encounter exemplified the kind of sadomasochistic push-pull that's constantly at work between the celebrity media and its consumers. For weeks, ABC has been dangling snippets of the upcoming interview that promise some kind of revelation or intimacy; when, as instructed, we tune in to watch, we're upbraided for having been interested, then offered a drop of Jolie juice, then scolded again. How can we even think about such things when children are starving in Africa? But look: Brad and Angelina are so hot together! The dialectic carousel goes round and round, all the way to the bank: Brad Pitt is above all of this media frenzy. Brad Pitt has his priorities in order. Therefore, go see Brad Pitt's new movie...

The inner lives of celebrities have become our Torah, our Quran, our Book of Revelations (or maybe our Dianetics), to be scrutinized and deciphered as if performing exegesis on some cryptic sacred text. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes leap on talk-show sofas, snog openly in front of hordes of paparazzi and hysterically declaim their passion to the press ("I miss him right now," Katie told one reporter, "And it's been like an hour!") -- but we know, we just know, they are lying -- their fake affair must conceal some far more perverse reality. Conversely, Brad Pitt wearily denies the existence of the mutant couple-creature that Access Hollywood has already dubbed "Brangelina" (that 60-page photo spread in the July issue of W, featuring Pitt and Jolie as a fictional suburban married couple, should be a big help in quelling the rumors), but we know he's lying too. Is our suspicion a healthy sign of resistance to celebrity bullshit, or just another trick to keep us buying magazines?

Memo to the celebrity-industrial complex, for whenever you hold your next top-secret cabal in a secure bunker beneath the "Hollywood" sign: It isn't fair. You can't brainwash us with the culture of celebrity, only to scold us for wanting the myth. You can't have your publicity-machine cake -- a tasty confection made entirely of money -- and eat your moral righteousness too. If the studio wants to use every means necessary to hawk tickets to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, so be it. But I'll take mine without the guilt, and worry about Africa on my own time.

Exceptional stuff from one of our finest cultural observers. (So good that I'll avoid my usual commentary, which in this case would be just a bit too obvious.)

This "celebrity-industrial complex" is truly the mother of all Signs of the Apocalypse, perhaps even the Apocalypse itself. I think I need to lie down.

(Anyone wanna see Mr. and Mrs. Smith with me? I can't resist!)

Sign of the Apocalypse #54: Heath Ledger > 5 million Congolese

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It is hardly original of me to make the argument that our news media -- and especially America's news media -- lack (for lack of a better word) perspective. As we have seen in recent weeks, for example, the media are grossly misrepresenting the Democratic race for the White House, focusing not on the issues or the policy positions of the leading candidates but on the theatricality of the race -- or, rather, on the manufactured theatricality of the race, manufactured by the media themselves, which is to say, on the media's own manufactured narratives. Basically, the media want theater, drama, not a serious discussion of the issues, not a vibrant, intelligent campaign. Or, rather, they would, if vibrant, intelligent political campaigns drew in enough consumers, which is what this is all about: ratings. As much as I want to blame the major news media outlets for doing this, those outlets, are, to a great extent, merely satisfying the desires of their consumers, and appealing to ever more consumers as their ratings go up. No, there is no excuse for grossly misrepresenting what is really going on and for failing to provide what the citizenry requires if it is to be knowledgeable enough to participate in democratic processes and to support democratic institutions, but, on this, there is more than enough blame to go around.

And it isn't just the Democratic race, of course. The media spend far more time on celebrity news than on, say, Darfur, or Burma, or whatever else might be going on both at home and abroad that is far more important than the latest celebrity trial. But Britney Spears and her pathetic problems, to take but one notable example, seem to be more newsworthy than genocide in some foreign land, more newsworthy even than the respective health care plans of America's would-be presidents. The media ought to report what is genuinely newsworthy, that is, what is truly important, but they are, such irresponsibility aside, merely trying to draw in more consumers. In the end, the O.J. Simpson trial did far more for CNN as a profit-driven organization than, say, the civil war in Yugoslavia and the genocide in Bosnia. Entertainment sells, and so the media serve to entertain, even when reporting the news, even when deciding what news to report.

Allow me to quote an expert on this subject, the late Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death:

I do not mean to imply that television news deliberately aims to deprive Americans of a coherent, contextual understanding of their world. I mean to say that when news is packaged as entertainment, that is the inevitable result. And in saying that the television news show entertains but does not inform, I am saying something far more serious than that we are being deprived of authentic information. I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed. Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge? (pp. 106-107)

The book was first published in 1985. Things have only gotten worse, much worse, and not just on television. The news media seek to entertain on the Internet, too, and, of course, there is Fox News, which, it seems to me, does deliberately aim "to deprive Americans of a coherent, contextual understanding of their world".

**********

Last Wednesday, I saved two screenshots of CNN.com that, it seemed to me, captured this phenomenon perfectly. It was clear that the top news story that day was Heath Ledger's death. In #1, the lead item has to do with Ledger's autopsy. In #2, with the media (and CNN shall be deemed representative of the media) looking to flesh out the story, that is, to milk the story, to turn it into a human-interest story that would broaden the appeal of the celebrity-death story, or at least to keep consumers coming back for more, the lead item has to do with Ledger's so-called "kindness to strangers," that is, with the media's heroization (the best word for it, I think) of Ledger. This is what often happens: A celebrity dies. The media report on the death, but then delve into the deceased celebrity's life, magnifying those aspects that seem more appealing to consumers.

So what's so wrong here? Look at the top "Latest News" item:

• #1: "Report: 5 million have died in Congo conflict"
• #2: "Report: 45,000 a month dying in Congo conflict"

Good for CNN for reporting on the report. The conflict in the Congo deserves far more attention than it is receiving in the media. As usual, though, the implication is this: The story of a single American celebrity is more newsworthy (and hence, according to the media doing the reporting, more important) than the deaths of 5 million (and 45,000 per month) anonymous non-Americans. And not just any non-Americans. Surely the deaths of 5 million Europeans would receive ample coverage. No, what makes this what it is is that those 5 million were African, 5 million dead Africans in a part of the world most people can't locate on a map, let alone care about or feel any connection to.

Now, there is some sense to this. What is immediate to us is essentially more important to us. A crime committed close to us, for example, is more important to us, more newsworthy to us, than a crime committed somewhere else, generally speaking. However global we may now be, our closest attachments are still to what is our own: our own families, our own communities, etc. -- this is not going to change anytime soon, if ever. Here in Canada, the death of a Canadian solider in Afghanistan -- and there have been many of them -- receives far more coverage than the deaths of anonymous Afghanis, if those deaths are reported at all. It's not just that the media are myopic and that consumers are ignorant, it's that we all crave to know about what is more immediate to us, that is, about what affects us more immediately. And so a crime committed close to us is, or at least seems to be, far more important than crimes committed in some foreign land, even massive crimes. And with the cult of celebrity that has taken hold of our society, it makes sense that the death of a celebrity would be, or at least seem to be, more immediate to us than much of what is going on around the world. In some way, some truly unhealthy way, Heath Ledger was one of us -- like all celebrities a member of our extended family. Hence all the attention his death received.

And yet there are the questions of magnitude and media responsibility. At what point does what is going on around the world overcome what is happening at home, close to us? At what point can we no longer ignore, say, the deaths of 5 million Africans? To me, to many of us, what has happened in Congo, what is happening to the Congolese, is far more important and newsworthy than the death of Heath Ledger. Nothing against Ledger, but the answer to the question of magnitude is clear, or at least should be. The problem is that our irresponsible media would rather milk his story to boost ratings than report on the Congo or on any of the other truly important and genuinely newsworthy events happening around the world. And the implication is that Ledger is simply worth more than 5 million Congolese. I understand how we often perceive the immediate to be of greater importance to us than the remote, and I suspect that many people out there would like to know more about the Congo and less about Ledger, but, to the news media, entertainment -- and, yes, the death of a celebrity qualifies as entertainment -- rules.

For more on that point, just look through the other "Latest News" items. Yes, CNN reports on the Congo and Gaza and the U.S. economy, but here are a few of the other stories being covered:

• "Ticker: Edwards' hair under siege on Letterman"
• "Wife's angry voicemail becomes Internet hit"
• "Texas town wants to be UFO landing spot"

Further down, under "Popular News," which is all about entertainment, there's this pressing story:

• "Ringo Starr walks off 'Regis and Kelly'"

The media reporting on the media. How postmodern. How appalling. How perfect. And all with 45,000 Congolese dying every month.

The Reaction in review (July 31, 2009)

A week's Reactions that deserve a second look:

Friday

By J. Thomas Duffy: "Must Read! ... 'A Beer with Obama'" -- Duffy highlights a funny piece by John Kenney at The New Yorker.

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "Life on the Island" -- As regular readers know, MJWS is a great writer, of things political and of things personal, making his delightful Prince Edward Island vacation piece a must read.


Thursday

By Edward Copeland: "Obama, taking off the gloves - against your own party" -- Copeland's wonderfully written post, about why Congress needs strong presidential leadership, points out that there are "very few lawmakers on Capitol Hill [who] have any principles beyond their own re-elections and goodies."

By Creature: "Progressives get loud over conservative compromise on healthcare reform" -- Creature speaks passionately for all committed Progressives who demand a robust public plan vs. the Blue Dog Democratic deal in the Senate Finance Committee, with no public plan.

By J. Thomas Duffy: "Are the Brewster Sisters running the GOP?" -- Duffy is reminded of "Arsenic and Old Lace" as he hears the current Republican insanity (of Reps Louie Gomert and Virginia Foxx) about the Democrats' health care plan being a threat to the lives of the nation's entire elderly population. Great bonus links.


Wednesday

By Carl: "World's dumbest op-ed" -- Carl effectively and point by point debunks a Wall Street Journal piece on the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates as misguided and ignorant of the facts of the case.

By Capt. Fogg: "Regulation is bad for business" -- Fogg's argument regarding the FDA is well put: "Perhaps there's some truth to that, but the store window where the idea is sold doesn't contain a display of all the poisoned, sickened and fleeced consumers waiting to be redeemed or resurrected while the market forces grind on in the darkness of unregulated capitalism."

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "Sign of the Apocalypse #66: The one and only Kim Kardashian, celebutante" -- Michael's insightful lament: ". . . we're getting ever closer to the Apocalypse, of which her being a star, for nothing at all really, is a bright, blinking neon sign made brighter, and blinkier, by the vapid culture that put her on the pedestal in the first place and that keeps her there for the rest of us apparently to drool over."


Tuesday

By Creature: "The best healthcare a lobbyist can buy" -- This is Creature's take on the health care bill coming out of Senator Max Baucus' Finance Committee.


Monday

By Carl: "Bad news, worse news" -- Carl is once again helpful to his readers by explaining a complex and confusing issue, this time a recently released study of CO2 and its effect on global warming.

By Capt. Fogg: "Angertainment" -- Fogg finally defines what is so insidious about the likes of Britt Hume and Fox News: "Their sole purpose is to select, modify, slant and sometimes create stories to make you angry at people or things selected by their owners and sponsors."


Sunday

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "Dead fish: Sarah Palin, the future of the Republican Party, leaves office without an iota of credibility" -- Michael would be perfectly happy if Sarah Palin eventually became the GOP's next nominee for President, as there is "no way Republicans will win with Palin at the helm."

By Michael J.W. Stickings: "(Misleading) Headline of the Day (Obama-Gates-Crowley-Congress edition)" -- Michael insightfully discusses an anti-Obama resolution introduced by Rep. Thadeus McCotter, "who is obviously hoping to use the whole Gates-Crowley incident to score political points against Obama."


Saturday

By Creature: "A dying screed" -- Creature correctly and optimistically observes that those on the Right who feel unduly burdened by race, are a dying breed.

By (O)CT(O)PUS: "Join the call to oust Lou Dobbs" -- Spurred by the "Birther" movement, the author reports on an effort to remove commentator Lou Dobbs from CNN, that includes the Southern Poverty Law Center, along with a specific name and address where you can mail a letter calling for Dobbs' dismissal.

Sign of the Apocalypse #35: (Crazy) talk of the coming Apocalypse

Until now, most of our Signs of the Apocalypse have centered on the absurdity of our popular culture, from the phenomenon of Brangelina (admittedly, an attractive SOTA) to Britney's motherhood to the scientological madness of Tom Cruise and his new family to such icons of degradation as Paris Hilton, Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Diddy or Puffy or whatever the hell he's calling himself these days, the Donald and the Martha and their apprenticeship programs, Ashton and Demi, Anna Nicole, and Ryan Seacrest, not to mention such mind-boggling trends as designer vaginas and Holocaust performance art.

Check out the complete list over on the right sidebar.

But what if a glaring Sign of the Apocalypse is all the current talk of the Apocalypse? As Echidne sees it, we may very well be witnessing a return to the Middle Ages. Here's her response:

We have television news talking about this stuff SERIOUSLY!!!!

What happened to the Enlightenment? Did we ever even have it? And how do you live in a medieval society without going totally crazy?

Let me try to answer those three questions:

1) The Enlightenment? What Enlightenment?

2) I'm not sure. I've read about it and I've studied it, and I think it happened, but evidently it was just a passing phase.

3) I have no idea. Maybe just give in and go crazy like everyone else? Or maybe move to Canada.

Losing your mind yet?

Sign of the Apocalypse #57: Joe the Plumber's book deal

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's been quite some time since we did one of these -- the last was in August, on Britney's hot new body (click here for more of them, or see the list over on the right sidebar) -- but it's not like there haven't been many signs that the Apocalypse is drawing ever closer. Obama's victory was a major counterforce, to be sure, but I doubt even he can hold back apocalyptic inevitability.

Anyway, with the election now behind us, it's time to broaden our attention once more, even as politics remains our focus, and to get back to informing you, our readers, of some of the various SOTAs that dot our landscape. And here -- election-related, wouldn't you know? -- is a doozy.

**********

Remember Joe the Plumber? Well, he ain't goin' away quite yet. The NYT has the disturbing, if sadly predictable, news (in its "Arts" section, no less, which only adds to the disturbance):

Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, the presidential campaign fixture and John McCain advocate better known as Joe the Plumber, won't have to open his own plumbing business just yet: he has signed a deal to write "Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream." PearlGate Publishing, a small publisher in Austin, Tex., announced the book on its Web site, pearlgatepublishing.com. The book, which will be written with Thomas N. Tabback (whose novel, "Things Forgotten," was also published by PearlGate), will address Mr. Wurzelbacher's ideas about American values, and is scheduled for release on Dec. 1. In an interview with Fox News Mr. Wurzelbacher said he could have signed a deal with a larger publisher. "But they don't need the help," Mr. Wurzelbacher said. "They are already rich. So that's spreading the wealth to me."

Uh-huh. Sure. He really close to go with a small publisher? He was really just being generous? (And taking the opportunity in the interview to slam Obama with that tired socialism refrain?) I have my doubts. I suspect the big publishing houses -- like many of the rest of us -- have had enough of him and realize that his time in the spotlight, which has, alas, far exceeded a mere 15 minutes, is over. At the very least, they must realize that he is simply not a profitable commodity, or at least not enough of one, even with the Coulter-loving mob that all-too-often propels right-wing wackos and extremists onto the bestseller lists.

I have no desire to spend any more time on the civilizational abomination that is "Joe the Plumber." We can hope that his book goes nowhere, not even to the remainder bins, but it is nonetheless troubling that he has managed to parlay his McCain-Palin-promoted mini-celebrity status into post-election prominence, however fleeting.

A Sign of the Apocalypse this surely is.

Sign of the Economic Apocalypse #1: Toyota in the red

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, it's time to kick off a new series here at The Reaction. As you may know, we already do Signs of the Apocalypse, (we're up to #61) mostly cultural indicators of imminent doom, but with the economy where it is, and worsening, it seems appropriate to turn our attention to the coming Economic Apocalypse. And not just in the U.S. This series will have a global reach. (Carl, our resident economics guru, been doing SOTEAs for some time, though he hasn't been calling them that.)

So... here we go...

**********

It ain't just the Big Three that are in trouble. According to The New York Times, Toyota, a far more successful automaker, is sinking into the red for the first time in seven decades:

TOKYO — Toyota Motor, the Japanese auto giant, said Monday that it expected its first operating loss in 70 years, underscoring how the economic crisis was spreading across the global auto industry.

On Monday, Toyota said it expected an operating loss in its auto operations of 150 billion yen, or $1.7 billion, for the fiscal year ending March 31. That would be the company’s first annual operating loss since 1938, a year after the company was founded, and a huge reversal from the 2.3 trillion yen, or $28 billion, in operating profit earned last year.

Analysts said Toyota’s downward revision, its second in two months, showed that the worst financial crisis since the Depression was threatening not just the Big Three but also even relatively healthy automakers in Japan, South Korea and Europe. Many other companies will also soon be reporting losses.

A friend and I were recently discussing whether, if looking for a new car, we'd consider buying an American one. (He drives a Japanese one, I drive a German one.) We both said no -- even though the quality of Big Three cars seems to be better now than in quite some time.

I drove a Chevy in high school and college, then had a Ford later on -- our family GM cars were great, while the Ford was mediocre -- so it's not like I have any sort of antipathy to American cars. But with all the other choices available, from VWs and Hondas to Volvos and Infinitis and Lexi and beyond, why go American? My friend and I may be behind the curve, assuming that American cars have in fact improved in quality, but our first instinct is to look elsewhere. And not just because of quality, but because of the Big Three's current, er, problems.

And yet here's Toyota, arguably one of the world's finest car companies -- I've never had one, but I have friends who do, and they love them -- losing money. Now, Toyota is clearly in a much stronger position than most of its rivals, including the Big Three:

Toyota said it still expected to report a small net profit, helped by interest and dividend income as well as tax-related savings of 50 billion yen, or $560 million.

With some $18.5 billion in cash, and relatively little debt, Toyota is still in far better shape to weather the downturn than General Motors and Chrysler, which on Friday received $17.4 billion in emergency loans from Washington.

Still, its loss signals a much deeper problem not just in the auto industry but, more broadly, throughout the global economy. If Toyota is struggling, after all, so must all the other car companies, and so must other manufacturers in other industries, and so must all of us consumers, who evidently aren't buying enough Toyotas. (And when you're having trouble paying your bills and putting food on the table, or when you've been laid off, or when you fear you may just be let go, your priority likely isn't a new car.)

Maybe we never should have been buying that many Toyotas in the first place, or maybe we shouldn't have been racking up massive amounts of debt, or maybe all these manufacturers, as undeniably successful as some of them have been, need to rethink their products and how they do business, and maybe we all need to adjust to the new reality, the new paradigm, whatever it may be, whatever it may entail, that lies ahead at the end of this meltdown, but, right now, the Economic Apocalypse seems to be at hand.

Sign of the Apocalypse #41: Over-the-counter hard-ons

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Once upon a time, and for thousands and thousands of years, men had erections. And did things with them. There was erectile dysfunction, no doubt, but humanity survived. Generations and generations of copulation, for procreation or for pleasure -- or for less admirable purposes.

Enter Pfizer. Enter Viagra. Enter Cialis and all the rest for all the others. The little blue pills were meant for a medical condition, or so it seemed, and that was a good thing. Why should men condemned to flaccidity, not to mention their partners, not enjoy the benefits of the erect penis? Modern medicine triumphed. Progress ruled.

But as with all other medication, it was not long before it was abused. After all, why should men not want to enjoy the benefits of the 72-hour erect penis? Or whatever. Think of the pleasure to be had. Think of the partners to be pleasured. Flaccidity -- be damned! The little blue pills could be taken by any and all, medical condition or not.

But where does it end?

For we have now arrived at this:

British pharmacy chain Boots will begin a trial program on Valentine's Day to offer men the anti-impotence drug Viagra without a prescription.

The initial pilot program is expected to last six months, and Boots will then consider whether to expand it to other pharmacies. The chain has about 1,500 stores across Britain.

The pilot will be offered in three of the chain's stores in the English city of Manchester, 300 kilometres northwest of London.

Would-be customers between the ages of 30-65 will be required to see a pharmacist, provide a medical history and have their blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels tested.

The cost? £50 for four little blue pills. Over here that means about $97 American, $115 Canadian. Pricey, no? Better make sure your partner's Viagra-worthy.

Think of the room for abuse here. Will the little blue pills end up with the dysfunctionally non-erectile? Or with the functionally erectile who just can't get enough? The pills were meant for a medical condition, but now, OTC, they may pose a health risk to a new generation of men who desire a pharmaceutical aid to fuel what normally comes naturally to them.

Behold the raging hard-on, a symbol of our pleasure-seeking time, surely a sign of impending civilizational apocalypse.

Government shutdown 2.0: The debt ceiling

By Nicholas Wilbur 

It's getting down to the wire. The eleventh hour. Crunch time.

If Democrats and Republicans don't make a deal on the debt ceiling by August 2, the Earth will explode. The U.S. will default on its debts. Interest rates will rise. Rep. Eric Cantor will make a killing on his stock investments against the U.S. economy. And who knows, Ann Coulter might not look like a barfly in her next book-jacket photo, Jon Stewart might sign a contract with Fox News, Rep. Barney Frank might go back into the closet, and Marcus Bachmann might come out.

Golfing Buddies: Obama & Boehner
Source: Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

Nobody knows for sure how bad it would be if America defaulted, but everyone who's trained in the economic arts to have an educated opinion about such things seems pretty well convinced it wouldn't rank very far behind "vicious shark attack" on the summer fun scale. And isn't that odd? Doesn't President Obama have an apocalypse czar for this sort of thing?

The fact that nobody knows the exact consequences of a default says something about the likelihood of Congress not increasing the debt ceiling. Maybe it's just me, but this seems oddly reminiscent of the media frenzy surrounding the government shutdown threats in March and April of this year, when Republicans demanded a "historic" $100 billion in spending cuts to the 2011 budget.

Remember that? All the hype about the effects a shutdown would have on society – the unsettling mental images of senior citizens rotting in their own filth because they didn't get their Social Security checks on time to pay the nurse, little kids burning American flags in protest of Yellowstone campground closures, foreigners rioting in the streets (of their home countries?) because their VISA applications weren't processed? It was going to be chaotic. And then, suddenly, it wasn't.

It didn't happen. The Republicans who'd threatened to shut down the government if Obama and Co. didn't defund Planned Parenthood and NPR and the health-care reform law and the EPA, they eventually compromised, threw in the towel on the Tea Party's demands for radical policy riders, and settled on a budget deal that satisfied everyone, more or less.

Leaders from both parties boasted about the agreement, the shared sacrifice, "the biggest annual spending cut in history."

Facing threats of a primary election challenge from the Tea Party, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had to confute his right-wing critics who claimed he was a spineless "Republican in Name Only" (RINO). And he did. He secured "historic" budget cuts and proved himself a socialism slayer, a fiscal hawk, and a trusted advocate of the small government ideal that is foundational to the Republican Party.

"This has been a long discussion and a long fight," he said, "but we fought to keep government spending down because it really will, in fact, help create a better environment for job creators in our country." The "fact" about a better job creating environment didn't pan out exactly as planned, but he heralded the deal as a victory for the GOP, because it was, and he promised to continue fighting for even more spending cuts in the future, which he has.

President Obama got what he needed from the deal as well. He was the lead negotiator of a compromise bill that was both fiscally and socially responsible. "Reducing spending while still investing in the future is just common sense," he said. He demonstrated his leadership skills by negotiating what amounted to a short-term stimulus bill, and he upheld his promise to govern from the middle – an appeal to both independent voters and the moderates who comprise the majority of the Democratic establishment. Once again, he looked like the adult sitting at the kids table. 

They avoided a government shutdown, and something tells me Congress won't let the country fall into default, either, if only because nothing has changed since the April budget deal.

Raising the debt ceiling isn't uncommon, not since Reagan anyway.
Source: TheAtlantic.com

The same Tea Party leaders continue to threaten RINOs with primary-election challenges. The same Democratic president continues his pursuit to convince the nation that he's not the radical left-wing socialist Fox & Friends accuse him of being. And the same anti-Washington blowback is at stake if the two parties fail to reach an agreement.

Will there be significant spending cuts? Probably, at least compared to what Republicans managed to finagle from Obama last time around. (The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported after the budget agreement was approved that the $78 billion in alleged spending cuts actually resulted in a net increase in government spending – to the tune of about $3.2 billion.)

Will the country crumble under the pressure of such austerity measures? Probably not, as Obama and the leaders of the Democratic Party understand much better than I do that appearing as the sane and level-headed party of political moderates means nothing in the eyes of the electorate if the spending cuts they so pragmatically negotiated end up causing a double-dip recession.

As Andrew Leonard predicted, the final product will likely involve "loophole closing, public-sector-employee squeezing, inflation-index finagling, and tax code juggling that allows Democrats to claim revenue increases while Republicans can pledge allegiance to the god of zero tax hikes."

But at the end of the day, the details of an agreement matter less than the politics of it. Boehner and the GOP need only look like hawks in the eyes of the extremists and the 67 percent of Republicans who identify as "conservatives." Obama and the Democrats need only appear as moderate and responsible peacekeepers who saved America from an economic apocalypse without giving away the farm in the process.

When each side agrees to the talking points, they will emerge from the negotiations and begin a joint press conference announcing in broad strokes the "historic" agreement to increase the debt ceiling before the August 2 deadline.

Because that's politics.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Sign of the Apocalypse #8: Michael Jackson, "human being"

Need I say more?

Okay, fine. He got off. I was watching CNN late this afternoon, and, though I didn't really follow the case, I couldn't turn away. Such is the power of... what? Celebrity? Well, I don't much care for Jacko one bit, and his "celebrity" means very little to me. So, the media? Maybe. They build stories into must-sees, and, well, if you're not somehow taking in the story, if you're not somehow participating in the story even as a distant viewer, then you're just not living in reality as it is now understood. For "reality" -- the reality that we collectively share, that somehow seems to transcend us and guide us -- is what's out there in the media, the world as presented through the media. Indeed, that "reality" often seems more real than the "reality" of our everyday lives. The media connect us to one another, especially through stories like the Michael Jackson case. Without it -- without the fantasy of that reality -- we're left with nothing but, well, life. And we all know how hard that is. Thus the "reality" of the media provides us with an escape, and most of us are happy to take it from time to time, some of us even all the time. Is there any way out? Courage, friends, courage. Just don't pay any attention. Or do so, but realize that you're being manipulated, drawn into the web of an alternative reality, where, in this case, the trial of Michael Jackson takes on a meaning that lifts it above the humdrum ordinariness of the rest of us, that compels us to live vicariously through it, that turns us into media-consuming automatons. Surely that's what Wolf Blitzer wants, whether he knows it or not. Or is he not some similar creature of media consumption?

Let's us be media critics then, not media consumers. I was mediated this afternoon, drawn into that web, where every little movement seemed like it bore the weight of history. Surely not, though. Surely it was all just madness...

(So Michael Jackson got off. Fine. What do I care? Maybe the American justice system worked, maybe it didn't. I hope it did, but I'm not so sure. He may or may not be guilty of those crimes, but I suspect that something untoward happened behind the circus gates of Neverland, deep in the recesses of a grown-up child's living fantasy. Come on, does anyone really believe that nothing happened?

Either way, Michael Jackson, his life, his story, and his now-concluded trial is one huge Sign of the Apocalypse. And I, for one, want no more of it.)