Grassley calls President “stupid” via Twitter

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 5 Comments

Pictures into which harmonicas must be Photoshopped immediately

The last time we checked in with Senator Chuck Grassley’s (R–IA) Twitter account, his message to his followers was “Barb made oatmeal.” That was in 2009, on the morning his Senate committee abandoned its attempt to reach bipartisan consensus on health care reform. Grassley operates in the Iowa tradition of laconic hicks who are secretly genius assholes, and he uses Twitter accordingly. Like Basho, his poetry is in what he does not say. It was therefore surprising to see him issue this long-winded rebus on Saturday:

Am they? Oh, wait—that’s “American people” who r not stupid.

Continue reading

Smug News: Racist Hunger Games fans

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 4 Comments

Amandla Stenberg as Rue in The Hunger Games

I have not seen The Hunger Games, because it has too many children in it. Granted, my understanding of the film is that those children are killing and possibly eating one another, which is nice, but narrative convention dictates that they will still be alive and talking for several minutes of screen time. That’s no good. But I can still enjoy the many, many internet articles produced in conjunction with the film, not the least of which is the news that racist Hunger Games fans were disappointed to find black actors playing several of the main characters. Never mind that those characters are described as having “dark skin” in the books; they’re characters in books, for Pete’s sake, and books are where you find white people the same way the library is where you find bums. Obviously, the fans foolish enough to tweet their disappointment at such faithful casting are stone-cold racists. The question of why their racism is a news story—and an incredibly popular one, at that—is less clear.

Continue reading

Another horrible aspect of the Trayvon Martin shooting

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 1 Comment

Yesterday, the New York Times ran this article about the description George Zimmerman gave to police of what happened just before he shot Trayvon Martin. Not surprisingly, Zimmerman’s version is a desperate act of self-defense. He claims that he returned to his SUV after he lost Martin and was struck from behind, after which Martin “began slamming his head into the sidewalk.” My response to this news was I’ll bet he said that. I have already decided that George Zimmerman is not a reliable witness in the case of his own shooting of an unarmed black kid, which is A) understandable and B) a huge problem, given that I have no way of knowing what actually happened.

Continue reading

12 idiotic statements about Iowa by Stephen G. Bloom

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 38 Comments

Last week, University of Iowa professor and former New Jersey resident Stephen G. Bloom published this essay in The Atlantic, in which he argues that Iowa maybe should not be the political bellwether it is. At least, that’s what he promises to argue. The impending Republican caucuses are the occasion for Bloom’s remarks, but the execution is a series of anecdotes indicting his adopted state and the grim hicks who populate it. An example:

Rural America has always been homogenous, as white as the milk the millions of Holstein cows here produce. Many towns are so insular that farmers from another county are strangers.

Can you imagine living in a town so insular that the people who don’t live in the town are strangers to you? It’s inconceivable, but that’s the kind of uniquely absurd place Iowa is. I should know. Like Bloom, I lived in Iowa for about 20 years, starting around age zero. Those who know me know that I am no booster, and Iowa remains the only place I have ever lived that I didn’t like. I like honesty and clear thinking, though, which is where Mr. Bloom and I diverge. His observations about the state where I grew up paint a startling picture of resentment, provincialism and proud ignorance. Unfortunately, it is a portrait of Stephen G. Bloom. It’s useless as a landscape, since Bloom’s rendering of Iowa oscillates between nonsensical and untrue. First of many after the jump.

Continue reading

Coulter: “Our blacks are so much better than their blacks”

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 5 Comments

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter, at birth

Presumably, public debate over current issues is still a vital part of our democracy. Somewhere, maybe in Paul Krugman’s basement, smart people are saying what they actually mean about important aspects of United States culture and governance. On TV, they’re doing something else. Cable news programs are about American politics the way The Program is about football. No one makes this principle more evident than Ann Coulter, who at one time probably believed what she said on television and hoped people would take her seriously. Now she wants us to look at her. Jesus, won’t you please look at Ann Coulter?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYDGMt68K6o

You probably already heard about this by now: Coulter went on Hannity and argued, apropos of Herman Cain, that “our blacks are so much better than their blacks.” Props to Schmen for the link.

Continue reading