Terra Incognita

Brett Farve was the star quarterback for the Packers and led them to two superbowl victories.  Then last year he left and this year joined the arch-rivals the Vikings.  And tomorrow, they play at Lambeau field, the Packers’ home turf with Farve for the first time.

They’ve already played at the Metrodome, home of the Vikings, and the Vikings won.  So this will be interesting.

From Media Matters for America

Not me personally, but people of my age or slightly younger.

I won’t go through the whole thing, just some highlights.

I’ve said this before — and I know I’ll get heat for this — but I’m convinced we are raising a generation of would-be killers: the “me generation.”

A generation that only cares about “me-me-me.” A generation that never made anything on merit. A generation that doesn’t understand what it means “to earn” something, because they’ve been handed everything.

Would-be killers?  You mean like when you fantasized on-air about killing Michael Moore?

Also, you grew up in the 1970′s, which Tom Wolfe called the “Me Decade.”  Project much?

A generation that was brought up by parents who wouldn’t spank them because it was too barbaric and were graded in purple pen because red is too frightening.

Ah, never mind, I guess he’s not talking about me.

A generation who got trophies no matter what place they finished. A generation too busy trying to get noticed on YouTube or Facebook or Twitter to accomplish anything of real lasting value.

I don’t have trophies.  And gimmie a break, I’m just out of college!

We never expected it of them. We promised them a land of sunshine rainbows and lollipops. So it should come as no surprise that the “me generation” enters the workforce demanding high salaries, corner offices and promotions in the first few months — all while wanting to dress down and work less than 40 hours a week.

I would LOVE to go to work for 40 hours a week, but because of this lousy economy and because the subject I studied is upending itself, my options are much more limited.  Also I would wager that the economy is such that Monday-Friday 9-5 jobs are the exception rather than the rule.

They feel entitled and are more concerned about “what’s in it for me?” than anything else. Because that’s what we taught them. Especially not what stupid grandma thinks about health care.

You’ve confessed you’re a selfish pig from time to time, Glenn, so don’t lecture me about selfishness.

Our schools encourage kids to take the Pill without parental consent and not to worry if you do get pregnant, because Planned Parenthood will help you…

They do?  Mine didn’t.  Mine taught that we should save sex until we’re ready to have a baby, but if we did have sex we should use things like condoms.  And this was a public school!

Don’t you see because we have tried to make life easier for our kids, we have bought into the lie that there is a free lunch; that you can have it all; that there is no right and wrong. We have destroyed ourselves and we are about to destroy our kids’ future by teaching them that losers get a trophy just like winners do. We have taught them that no matter if you win or lose or if you play the game, all outcomes are equal.

I’m not sure who Glenn means by “we.”  I wasn’t taught any of those things and Glenn home school’s his children (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

It’s a lie, but mark my words, all of society has reinforced this lie and when we yank that reality away, those who think they deserve the corner office, the prettiest girl, the biggest house and the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing, will not accept no for an answer — even if that means taking it from others

Uh, Glenn, Barack Obama is part of your generation.  He’s not part of my generation which you’re blowing your nose at right now.

When we as parents went into their schools and said: “not my child, it is somebody else,” when we accepted their cheating or stealing or lying and gave them a reward instead of a punishment we taught them they are above everything, even the rules — they will have no compassion on those that they will perceive destroyed what they had coming.

I wasn’t rewarded for doing those things.

And didn’t you say you hated the families of the 9/11 victims and that the victims of Hurricaine Katrina were “scumbags?” What makes you think you have anything valuable to say on “compassion?”

This whole thing came about because polling throughout the Health Care debate has shown a general trend that younger people support health care reform while older people oppose it.  Rather than examining why this is, Glenn decides to scare people about young people and how this split is part of a larger problem that only he can see.

Oh, and one more thing to add to your list of things that should shame you as a parent, Glenn.  I hope you show this to you’re kids when they grow up as an example of how awful you really are:

The animosity between Beck and [Bruce] Kelly continued to deepen. When Beck and Hattrick produced a local version of Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” for Halloween — a recurring motif in Beck’s life and career — Kelly told a local reporter that the bit was a stupid rip-off of a syndicated gag. The slight outraged Beck, who got his revenge with what may rank as one of the cruelest bits in the history of morning radio. “A couple days after Kelly’s wife, Terry, had a miscarriage, Beck called her live on the air and says, ‘We hear you had a miscarriage,’ ” remembers Brad Miller, a former Y95 DJ and Clear Channel programmer. “When Terry said, ‘Yes,’ Beck proceeded to joke about how Bruce [Kelly] apparently can’t do anything right — about he can’t even have a baby.”

Those two pilots who missed the Minneapolis airport has been the big news story here over the weekend.  There’s speculation that they fell asleep.  At least they didn’t do this:

The Indian state of Orissa has changed its name to Odisha as part of the BJP’s long campaign to indianize place names to change names that have colonial implications such as Bombay or Calcutta (now Mumbai and Kolkata).

Most people, including me, have gotten used to Mumbai, or calling Madras “Chennai,”  but almost nobody calls Bangalore “Bengaluru,”  so I don’t know how well “Odisha” will stick.

Boston University is honoring alumnus Bill O’Reilly.  Okay fine.

But they’re letting him give a talk on the future of news that has me tear my hair out.

“I would argue that Bill O’Reilly is a role model for our students,” [College of Communication Dean Tom] Fiedler told me recently. “I grant that his is a controversial path, and it may not be the path that all would choose.”

In These Times mentions two incidents that should bar O’Reilly from being considered a role model for journalists.  The first, obviously, is his dispute with Andrea Mackris (the complaint is still bizzare five years later).  The second is the assasination of Dr. George Tiller, who O’Reilly called “Tiller the Baby Killer” and compared to Hitler.

Good reasons to not invite him to talk about journalism, to be sure.  But others include his producers stalking people, his perverse and callous comments about victims of rape like Shawn Hornbeck and Jennifer Moore and, most importantly, his yelling at guests and not interviewing guests, rather lecturing (he admitted as much to Mike Wallace).

If Bill O’Reilly’s the future of journalism, I’ll go all sentimental on y’all about how good journalism used to be – and I don’t even think it was good even back then!

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have joined forces to write a book.

In a quick pre-Frankfurt six-figure sale, Mitchell Ivers at Simon & Schuster/Threshold acquired world English-language rights to The Post-American Presidency by Pamela Geller, the popular Atlas Shrugged blogger, and four-time New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer (The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam [and the Crusades]). Scott Mendel at the Mendel Media group did the deal and says the book will appeal far beyond Threshold’s conservative base. Publication is expected in July 2010.

(Geller’s name is red in the original thing for some reason)

Geller is the writer of the conservative blog “Atlas Shrugged” that claims that Barack Obama is a muslim, foreign-born and the anti-christ and that western civilization is facing impending doom unless something is done to save it.

Spencer has written several books that try to prove Islam is the evil that western civilization is up against.

I’m sure the book will be a good read if you like books filled with conservative onematopoeia (DEATH! CHAOS! END-TIMES!).  Scott Mendel says it will reach far beyond the conservative publishing base when it’s published next year (I wonder how, since they haven’t done a very good job of bringing people into the fold so far).

Maybe they think everyone has as many brain cells as this person.  Or this person.  Or this person.  Good luck convincing more sentient beings, folks!

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi’s got a TV channel whose news networks are now stalking his opponents – namely a judge who ruled against Berlusconi’s holding company Finivest in a bribery lawsuit:

…the prime minister’s flagship Canale 5 channel began secretly filming the magistrate in the streets of Milan as he went about his business.The results were beamed to millions on the Mattino 5 programme, accompanied by a voiceover that ridiculed Mesiano for his “extravagant” and “eccentric behaviour”, his “impatience”, and, most bizarrely, the fact that he wore turquoise socks. Mesiano appeared to have done nothing stranger than go for a shave, and smoke cigarettes outside the barber shop while awaiting his turn.

…

At the weekend, the national magistrates association, CSM, expressed outrage that the judge had been secretly shadowed during his free time. “We don’t think there are precedents in Italy for denigrating a person and seeking to cast aspersions about ordinary everyday activities,” the association said. It has reported the incident to the privacy watchdog, which is said to be investigating.

“The worst thing – the thing that really gives you the shivers – is the shadowing, the spying, the violation of privacy, the public ridicule, with the implied warning: look out, we’re watching you,” one journalist wrote in La Stampa on Saturday. He added that the harassment of a judge in this way was something that so far “we’ve seen only in the movies”.

So far the US has seen this kind of behavior from cable channels pretending to be news stations.  Although with American TV its less about ridiculing the person (although that is part of it) than it is about pushing them up against the wall (metaphorically) and forcing them to answer outlandish accusations that are hurled at them.

Bill O’Reilly’s the most infamous practitioner of this (although his colleagues on Fox “News” have done this as well).  The most well known of these was when a producer of his ambushed ThinkProgress blogger Amanda Terkel over a factually accurate post she wrote that was critical of O’Reilly.  The circumstances surrounding that encounter were creepy enough that UPS pulled their advertising from O’Reilly’s show.

This tactic has been criticized as unethical and dangerous, but unfortunately other news organizations are starting to pick it up.  Push back!

When you’re not a force for good, you’re a force for pointlessness.  All day, the big topic on it was “balloon boy” (Wikipedia hasn’t given him a page yet, so the world is still safe).  When he was found alive and hiding in the attic, the big topic on twitter is “Anne Frank.”

Why?  Here’s a typical post:

Yo Balloon Boy, I’m a let you finish, but Anne Frank had the best attic hideout spot of all time

Rachel Maddow and Boing Boing should join forces more often.