more election media frustration...

If got forbid Republicans somehow manage to hold onto congress (I now believe the GOP needs a re-org and what better time than now?) you can count on there being weeks, even months, of MSM amplified outrage over Republicans seemingly magical powers to suppress the vote and steal elections undetectably – now aided with their new sinister ally….the com-pute-err.

Likewise when Democrats likely take at least the house you can count on there continuing to be next to zero reporting on actual democratic voter fraud despite recent convictions in two states and indictments and ongoing investigations that exist in at least 3 more.

I truly do believe that the democrats should come out ahead in this election simply based on merit – or the GOP’s lack there of. However, as with the last 3 elections I find myself extremely frustrated with the brazenness of the national media to not call things with the dispassionate eye they so frequently represent themselves as having.

UPDATE: Thank goodness. Based on current election reporting it appears everyone’s fears of unprecedented voter fraud were unfounded. How do we know this? Well it’s clear the once corrupted natural order of things has been restored by a Democratic sweep of the house and senate silly. No prolonged, result delegitimizing investigations into phantom GOP bullying are needed like in the previous three elections because it’s clear they didn’t. Democrats were finally allowed to fairly win. Everyone should just be satisfied with this result and enjoy all the news reports of people being happy with their new democratic leadership rather than the spiked stories of widespread election fraud we’d surely see if things had worked out differently.

the gaffe

Michael Kinsley once observed that in US politics "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth".

So when I heard of Kerry’s gaffe...I mean botched joke, I really didn’t find it that surprising. No one should be shocked that, like most on the left, he views those in the armed forces as largely unjust victims of our unjust society's unjust degree of socioeconomic injustices.

What I did find surprising was how under whelmed the MSM was by Kerry's statement. It's obvious that the US military is no sacred cow to the MSM, and I don't think it should be, however when viewed in the context of constituencies that very clearly are sacred cows to the MSM the controversial nature the botched joke becomes apparent.

Lets try a thought experiment that may reveal just how lacking in self-awareness the media is of their own biases.

Kerry said:

You know, education, if you make the most of it,
if you study hard and you
do your homework, and
you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can
do well. If you dont, you get stuck in Iraq.

Now imagine the MSM reaction if a Republican said:

You know, education, if you make the most of it,
if you study hard and you
do your homework, and
you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can
do well. If you dont, you _________________.

will be a journalist.
will be a public school teacher.
will be a social worker.
will be a union worker.
will be like a (insert minority name) person.

If a Republican said any of these things the hoodoo would be so deep the RNC would be digging out until next summer but apparently calling the military dummies? Well that’s just some strait shootin. Give him another silver star.....

Sappy Human Interest Story

Usually, when confronted with the "Human Interest" story I tune out. But on Friday I was supremely bored at work and scoured the internet for anything that might be considered entertaining. So, in poking around I came across Boing-Boing, a site I've checked out a handful of times and have always been led in interesting directions. Anyway, there I found a link to a post on Scott (creator of Dilbert) Adams's blog that was human-interest-y but of a cool sort.

Apparently he has a very unusual medical problem, and about 18 months ago he lost his voice after a bout of allergies and with the odd exception of public speaking can't get it back. It's something called Spasmodic Dysphonia and basically has no cure. All treatments seem to be extremely unpleasant and not terribly effective...

Just because no one has ever gotten better from Spasmodic Dysphonia before doesn’t mean I can’t be the first. So every day for months and months I tried new tricks to regain my voice. I visualized speaking correctly and repeatedly told myself I could (affirmations). I used self hypnosis. I used voice therapy exercises. I spoke in higher pitches, or changing pitches. I observed when my voice worked best and when it was worst and looked for patterns. I tried speaking in foreign accents. I tried “singing” some words that were especially hard.

My theory was that the part of my brain responsible for normal speech was still intact, but for some reason had become disconnected from the neural pathways to my vocal cords. (That’s consistent with any expert’s best guess of what’s happening with Spasmodic Dysphonia. It’s somewhat mysterious.) And so I reasoned that there was some way to remap that connection. All I needed to do was find the type of speaking or context most similar – but still different enough – from normal speech that still worked. Once I could speak in that slightly different context, I would continue to close the gap between the different-context speech and normal speech until my neural pathways remapped. Well, that was my theory. But I’m no brain surgeon.

The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadnÂ’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.

I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe itÂ’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.

My brain remapped.

My speech returned.

Pretty cool... Go Dilbert guy.

Oh, and if you check out his post, browse some of the 1300-odd responces this post of his garnered, they're also rather interesting/uplifting.