That had not occurred to us, dude

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media
But first, an evening you'll never forget

But first, an evening you’ll never forget

In answer to Willy’s question in the Friday Comments section: no, I was not aware that Rick Ross lost his Reebok sponsorship over his very rapey verse on the original UOENO. Fortunately, a quick Google search turned up this article from Billboard.com. Besides important information about what Rick Ross will do to your drink if you hang out with him, the article also contains a valuable lesson about misplaced modifiers. From the very first sentence:

After stirring up controversy for lyrics deemed pro-rape, Reebok has decided to end their partnership with Rick Ross.

Kombat! Kids take note: an initial dependent clause modifies the first noun after the comma. In the sentence above, Reebok has stirred up controversy for pro-rape lyrics. In reality, or at least in the portion of actuality covered by hip-hop, Rick Ross was the one who stirred up c for lyrics deemed p-r. Don’t go to the club with him, even though he is rich, because he will put MDMA in your champagne and then, when you become impaired, encourage you to engage in sexual intercourse that (yo)u (w)o(n’t) e(ve)n (kn)o(w) about. Also his head is essentially Lionel Richie’s head upside-down. This has been the news.

 

41% of Republicans say Benghazi is “biggest political scandal in American history”

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 1 Comment
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK,) who called Benghazi more "egregious" than Watergate

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK,) who called Benghazi more “egregious” than Watergate

I tried to link to a news article about this week’s Congressional hearings regarding the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, but I had a hard time finding an unbiased source. Benghazi appears to be the most important story in the world for the Daily Caller, Fox News and the Washington Times (official motto: Not the Good Washington Paper) and invisible to everyone else. My theory is supported by this poll in which a mere 44% of Americans say they are following the hearings and, in a more complicated way, by this one, in which 41% of Republicans say they consider Benghazi “the biggest scandal in American history.” So suck it, Peggy Eaton Affair.

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Joyce Carol Oates’s Twitter feed is insane

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media, Uncategorized 3 Comments
J-Coates

J-Coates

First of all, I stand by the addition of apostrophe-s to make possessive names ending in s, and so should you. If typing like EB White is wrong, I don’t want to be right. Second, and possibly even more important, Ben al-Fowlkes alerted me to this tweet from Joyce Carol Oates:

Screen Shot 2013-04-03 at 10.25.35 AM

I admit that I was skeptical. I suspected that this Oates tweet might be parody. And that is how I discovered the treasure trove of insanity that is Joyce Carol Oates’s Twitter feed.

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NY Times on the tyranny of low expectations, inadvertantly

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 4 Comments
The US Senate, briefly not beating one another with sticks

The US Senate, commendably not beating one another with sticks

Until there is a Pulitzer for Most Depressing Paragraph In a News Story, we will have to collect nominees ourselves. From this morning’s report on the regular order on the federal budget:

The so-called regular order on the federal budget still holds little promise of resolving the long-term federal debt or partisan divide. But it will look more like a typical bit of Congressional business and less like a deadline-driven manufactured crisis. With the automatic cuts in the “sequestration” having begun to take effect—and the two parties unable to find an alternative that each can accept—no new immediate conflict looms.

No immediate conflict looms! Let freedom ring, you guys.

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Scientists measure awesome power of internet comments

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 20 Comments
Nerds

Nerds

I’m going to present two claims, and you can decide for yourself which is more compelling:

  1. Differentiation of species occurred over millions of years through natural selection of hereditary traits.
  2. Differentiation of species occurred over millions of years through natural selection of hereditary traits, you prick.

The second one just sounds truer, doesn’t it? That is the odd finding of this study, helpfully summarized by one of the authors in last weekend’s New York Times. First of all, I think we’re all glad that there is a Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and it is printed. Second, the study focused specifically on online comments sections, finding that comments which contained epithets, profanity and ad hominem attacks affected readers’ viewpoints more powerfully than equivalent comments without those attacks. Civilization is doomed.

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