I think someone wrote today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial, "Gud 4 u: Time got it right," after the office Christmas (Oops! I meant HOLIDAY) party.
The writer seems to have imbibed with reckless abandon.
There has been a bit of unseemly grousing about Time's Person of the Year.
That person would, according to the magazine, be you. As in you if you blog, chat, surf or otherwise kind of, like, live on the Internet and view it as an indispensable part of your life and persona.
As in folks on YouTube and MySpace. You know, really hip, cool people.
About this grousing. Shhhhh. You know who you are. You're revealing your lack of coolness.
It's just so predictable. Just as hipsters wear their coolness on their sleeves, type it out on their keyboards or share it in streaming video, those of the uncool persuasion like to wear their uncoolness as badges of honor. They disdain the rabble who autobiographisize to the world daily and those who text message to converse.
But these grousers actually use the Internet all the time. For work, they say. And this, too, becomes a badge of honor, worn by the same folks who try to convince us that all they watch on television are the National Geographic and Discovery channels.
Right. Is that a cell phone in your pocket, and what's that sticking out of your ear?
Welcome to the future. Time magazine got it right. The way the Internet - and technology generally - is being used as the world's new community is revolutionary. It is changing the world as it shrinks it, and we've not seen anything yet.
No need for a breathalyzer. Definitely drunk.
Yes, it can seem scary. We know. You are, after all, likely reading this on a newspaper page. Predicting the demise of newspapers is all the rage these days. The assessments are overblown. In case you didn't notice, even we old newspaper fogies have staked out a huge presence on the Web.
Not me. I read it on the Internet for FREE.
It's simple. Time could recognize how the world is changing and focus some attention on who, in the true spirit of egalitarianism, is doing the changing - regular folks - or it could have given us yet another elder statesperson/rock star/do-gooder/do-badder/genius inventor as its Person of the Year.
Maybe we don't have our snoots in the air like a lot of people because some of us are actual repeats for the magazine's top honor. The middle class was named in 1969 and U.S. women in 1975. And young people were the honorees in 1966. (Yes, members of the Editorial Board were once young.)
So we'll pass on this grousing stuff. It's not that we're, like, all that cool. It just doesn't strike us as particularly wise to tell the folks who will be funding Social Security and driving us around when we can't that they're wrong.
Blog on.
And the Editorial Board will blather on.
The Board is right on this count -- "It's not that we're, like, all that cool."
I agree.
Not cool. Not funny. Not right.
7 comments:
President Bush warned Americans on Wednesday that the war in Iraq would require “difficult choices and additional sacrifices” - meaning additional cuts to the already diminishing budgets for Medicaid, social services, education and health, to feed his more-than $1-billion-a-day “terror” habit.
He vowed that the United States would not be “run out of the Middle East” by extremists – to conjure up a Cowboy movie image. A mere three years ago, he also vowed to track down Osama bin Laden “dead-or-alive”, but subsequently said that that was “just not important” anymore.
Indeed, with the more important day-to-day gutting of the Constitution with the Patriot Act, and the leech-like financial opportunities the Terror War creates, Bush and his corpulent business associates have been more than a little busy:
• The patriotic US bankers have already succeeded in preventing off-shore tax loopholes from being closed, even though maintaining them allows terrorist finances to escape US Government control.
• Profits for Oil and Military-related industries have exploded, while tax-reductions for these industries have also been increased.
• Constant-dollars salaries for blue-collar and salaried employees have steadily decreased; corporate officers, on the other hand, have seen record growth of their incomes.
• Corporate responsibility for pollution of air and water has been further erased from Federal regulations by “Clean Water” and “Clean Skies” legislation.
• Federal mandates to increase pressure on Detroit for fuel-economic automobiles and trucks have been watered down as being “too demanding”, yet Japan seems to have no problems leapfrogging Detroit.
…but, I digress….
Mr. Bush appeared somber and at times reflective during his traditional year-end news conference – a first in this New England cowboy’s six years of presidential “decidings”. Previous presidential banter has been about the “great job” his staff is doing, watch my golf putt, and “mission accomplished”.
He cited “unspeakable sectarian violence” but he did not refer to the unspeakable violence against men, women and children when US “smart”-bombs explode off-target.
“Victory in Iraq is achievable,” Mr. Bush said, underscoring the depth of his grasp of his Administration’s inept strategies and incompetent tactics.
After giving due thought to the Baker proposal for Iraq, Mr. Bush confirmed his plans to increase the size of the Armed Forces. The military is already having a difficult time of getting new enlistees without prison records, problem behaviors, or even graduates of high school. But the President, with his own proud history of military volunteerism, is confident that by privatizing the whole US Military, successful contractors like Halliburton, KBR, Boeing and Erinys will be more than capable of increasing the size of the military expenditures.
He called the global campaign against terrorism “the calling of our generation”, but what he really meant was “your generation”, because he and his are not at risk.
But the president gave little hint of what he would do in Iraq. Actually, this is not too surprising, considering he doesn’t have a clue, and repeats only what scraps of information are fed to him by his handlers.
And he clings to those scraps like a starving dog -- he will not quit Iraq even “if Laura and Barney are the only ones who support me.”
The president has dropped his previous assertion that “we are winning” and has replaced it with “neither winning nor losing”.
In his own inimitable style of clarifuscation he said “I believe that we’re going to win,” but since “we’re not succeeding nearly as fast as I wanted, when I said it at the time, and that the conditions are tough in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad.” This is more-or-less akin the racer in second position who asserts he is winning the race, just not as fast as he had expected.
Mr. Bush is not one for introspection, even if he could spell it.
“Look, everybody’s trying to write the history of this administration even before it’s over,” Mr. Bush said. “I’m reading about George Washington still. My attitude is, if they’re still analyzing No. 1, 43 ought not to worry about it, and just do what he thinks is right, make the tough choices necessary.”
Right. Here’s a guy who majored in baseball and cheerleading, lost two popular elections, and gets the presidency handed to him by the Supreme Court, placing himself on equal footing with George Washington.
Wake Up! And demand an Accounting.
Where did you copy and paste all that from, garcol?
Why bother with the respect, Mary? I would have deleted this crap.......Not because of his thoughts, but for the wast of space for those wanting to look at the comments.
Way, WAY, WAY off topic, garcol.
My post is about The JS's editorial on TIME's Person of the Year.
You are SO wrong on so many different fronts.
And with all due respect, what a long-winded load of crap!
Oh my gosh! Are you John Kerry?
You're right, Pero. It should be deleted, but sometimes I enjoy having the libs' lunacy on display.
Hipster? We're hipsters? Good grief...from what decade is this clown's doobie?
Time Magazine Man of the Year on Daily Show
I am so happy to learn that I am "Person Of Year." Now I can look in the mirror and see me, how exiting. I can take the magazine to the Indio city jail show it to the inmates, Hey, look at this magazine - You're Man Of Year! So what if you're awaiting trial for murdering your neighbor or so what if your a pedophile - Look in the mirror - You're Person Of The Year.
I can Photo Shop The Time Magazine Cover insert my picture picture and send it to my x-wife and say you were wrong I'm person of the year.
HAHAHA
It's a stupid editorial, which is fitting for TIME's stupid Person of the Year choice.
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