Talk is cheap, but profitable

John McCain seems to just about have the Republican nomination wrapped up, but Mike Huckabee, who by his own admission favors miracles over mathematics, is staying in the race, for reasons only he could really speak to. Perhaps he’s encouraged by Rush Limbaugh’s assertion that he (along with several other members of the conservative punditocracy) just won’t support McCain.

Whenever ol’ Rush manages to claw his way back into the mindspace of the mainstream public, I always start wondering how to look at him. Is his rhetoric prescriptive or descriptive? Does he actually influence the segment of the public that constitutes his audience, or does he just reflect their views? “Dittoheads”, the sometime self-applied appellation of his listeners, suggests that they see themselves as echoing his views, but I think that it’s a little more complex than that.

There’s a certain sort of entertainment that consists mostly of repeating people’s views back to them, giving them a cheap feeling of validation out of hearing themselves echoed by someone with a microphone. Performers in Boston will sometimes make jabs at New York sports teams, which always produces raucous cheers. For a moment, it’s like we’re on the stage, because someone’s up there saying just what we’d say. It’s especially effective if the views being echoed are ones that we feel we’re a bit persecuted for. After a while, it becomes a bit symbiotic, and you can’t really tell who’s echoing whose views anymore.

I’m encouraged in this view of Limbaugh by the way that he talks out of both sides of his mouth about his own role. To his listeners, he’s a political oracle. To his critics, he presents himself as an entertainer, almost as if he’s just playing the part of a rabid conservative, while actually going home at night, drinking merlot, and voting for Dennis Kucinich (in fairness, I consider this scenario unlikely). It reminds me a bit of Jerry Springer. While obviously exploiting some of the worst and most extreme in human nature under the thing guise of helping people resolve their problems, Springer says it’s just a job. I had the intriguing experience of listening to him speak once (at my alma mater), and he said that given the choice, he’d host a show on his main interests, sports and politics, but that his show is what he’s paid to do. Just a job. Only following orders. Nolo contendere?

Be it as it may, there’s something uniquely American about pursuing entertainment and money no matter how destructive it might be, and oddly, I don’t say that in a wholly condemnatory manner. In the immortal words of Red Green, “It’s not smart, or correct, but it’s one of the things that makes us what we are.”

More Favorites

Work is dull at the moment. Dullness leads to Internet browsing, which leads to the desire for Internet content creation. And since the easiest way to generate content is recycling, you’re getting treated to another episode of “The S Post Facto Mid-Oughts Top Fives”.

Yeah, yeah. Two posts in two days. The world must be ending.

Top 5 Favorite TV Shows

5) Mystery Like so much on public television, an American-made portal for British content, and for a long time a comforting ritual to keep away the looming anxieties that Sunday night brings. I’m a particular fan of Inspector Lynley and Foyle’s War, but I don’t watch as much anymore.

4) Doctor Who Like you didn’t know I was a huge geek already. I grew up mostly on the Tom Baker and Peter Davison doctors, and I’m really enjoying the new series. I’m just hoping that they can get their act together and get Series 4 on the air in the US sooner rather than later.

3) The Simpsons For a long time, the smartest show on TV. For some reason, I don’t really watch anymore, although the occasional rerun still makes me happy. I’d probably peg “22 Short Films About Springfield” as my favorite episode.

2) Monty Python’s Flying Circus If I have to explain why I like this, you’ve learned nothing. Unless you haven’t seen it, in which case, I don’t want to talk to you until you have. People who know the Pythons only through the movies are missing out. A lot.

1) Northern Exposure I remember watching this on TV with my parents when it was first on, and being extremely confused about whether it was supposed to be drama or comedy (come to think of it, I had the same problem with Dragnet), but I really fell in love with it in college, when watching it in reruns on A&E would frequently make me late for class. A full analysis of why it appeals to me would probably read more like a psychological profile, but it’s painted for me about the only really appealing picture I’ve seen of small-town life.

Closing note: This isn’t a current list, obviously, but writing it up has reminded me that I don’t really watch that much TV these days. I’m reluctant to get involved in watching new shows (even shows I enjoy, like the new Battlestar Galactica). Even with the immense convenience of timeshifting via DVR, following too many shows starts to feel like an imposition. An unfortunate consequence of this may be that when I do watch TV, it ends up being semi-mindless flipping, which is an inefficient use of my leisure time.

Super Bowl et alia

Well, it’s over. The quest for perfection has ended at 18-1. Quite simply, the Giants outplayed the Patriots tonight, on offense and defense, and the Pats just couldn’t make the clutch plays they needed to hold them off. Oh well. It was still an incredible season, with a plethora of records broken, and the only 16-0 regular season ever. Besides, it’s less than two weeks until spring training starts.

A few miscellaneous items that I’ve been meaning to get up:

It’s old news by now that Scrabulous might be going away, but it’s still an alarming thought that lives at the back of my mind. At this point, I have no idea how I’ll get through the workday without it. I picture myself huddled under my desk in the fetal position, shaking as the withdrawal runs its course. What will really be interesting to me is whether Facebook will lose some momentum if Scrabulous goes away. I know a number of people (including myself) for whom it was a primary motivator for joining in the first place.

I’ve been working on a personal project lately, and it’s been a fun change of pace to turn the apparatus on a problem and really get into working on it. When work requires that depth of involvement, it’s usually because I’m staring down the barrel of a deadline, which tempers the exhilaration somewhat. Working on something that’s just for my own personal use takes that stress away and leaves only the pursuit of the High.

Sheryl remarks on a phenomenon that I’ve been experiencing as well: people I haven’t talked to in years suddenly cropping up again. Has this been happening to anyone else? It’s a little eerie.