This Post May Dissappear Soon...

...so enjoy it while you have the chance!

This morning I was pleasuring myself with some perfectly banal content on MSNBC, when word comes through that Ted Kennedy has been airlifted to Mass General with symptoms of a stroke.

Immediately Alex Witt (who looks much younger than she is to my tired eyes) drops this segue:

"Right now we're gonna get some perspective on the enormous weight, the massive weight Senator Kennedy has carried over the years...as the last surviving representative of the Golden age of the Kennedys. With us is MSNBC political consultant (who apparently lives somewhere in the GE building) Pat Buchanan."

Decoded: the fat guy had a stroke because he's fat.

Cut to Pat who looks exactly the same as he did last night, though his tie has a different pattern. Minutes earlier he was on (on Saturday morning? Does this guy ever not work?) saying something like this: "Obama has a real problem. He's black! God damnit, doesn't anyone see this? He's black! He can't win!" To which Alex was like "Oh Pat, your so irrepressible."

Buchanan, clearly happy to be talking about a subject he understands again (ie a white person), deftly situated Kennedy's place in history for about ten minutes. As the noon time hour came up, MSNBC had the option of preempting the prerecorded Tim Russert Show to follow the story as it developed...

But no. So I of course switched immediately to CNN. Even stranger, the Russert show was an interview with Ted Sorensen and Doris Kearns Goodwin on what JFK might have become had he lived... Great call, MSNBC, as ever. That is way more relevant, and sure to get way higher ratings than breaking news coverage.

What was that sound? Oh, right. It was Pat Buchanan ducking because someone pointed a pie at him...

Modern Sages

Like many of the rest of you, I am addicted to watching cable news. The main reason for this is simple: the smartest, most important thinkers in the world can be found there, twenty-four hours a day. My professors in school are always saying things like "Plato was an important philosopher" or "Nietzsche was a bold, revolutionary thinker." I nod my head in mock approval, but really, I know better. I am studying the true masters every day for an average of fourteen hours. Take for example this so called genius everyone is always talking about, this guy Martin Heidegger.Rather dignified looking, I guess. Very Germanic in a way that's a little scary (people tell me he was a Nazi. Who knew?). I guess he wrote some important works based on a synthesis of Nietzsche and a re-evaluation of the pre-Socratics, or at least that's what I hear.

Okay, I think we get what this chump is all about. Now take a serious thinker:Rachel Maddow is such a baller she not only hosts her own show on Air America, but she is like the go-to-gal on MSNBC's nightly rotation. Seriously, she'll be a guest on Chris Matthews at five and seven, be one of the four main panelists on Race for the White House (with David Gregory), have a couple of lattes and sign autographs for an hour, and then be the featured interlocutor for the second segment of Verdict with Dan Abrams. This woman is incredible, plus, she even guest hosted for Olbermann once (I watched every minute of it, spellbound).

So let's get down to Brass Tax. Number of Cable News appearances by Heidegger=0. Number of appearances by Maddow=58,693. It should be pretty clear from this who the real genius is.

But the trend runs even deeper! My philosophy profs in particular seem really fixated on this guy Aristotle:
I guess he invented these abstract systems called "logic" and "metaphysics", as well as Biology and literary criticism. But once again, a shocking gap appears in his resume: interviews by Sean Hannity? None. Appearances on Morning Joe? Zero. For goodness sake the guy has never even been on Larry King! No, I'm afraid Aristotle is not all he is cracked up to be.

Take Marty Beckerman, for example. Already he has like five more cable-news appearances than the Big A, and he's barely twenty five. Get out your note papyrus, Aristotle, here is a real genius at work on our beloved MSNBC:Wendy's as the official restaurant of 9/11? Egad! Huckabee's "Highway to Hell"? Genius! I love this guy. Even though he's only been through one media cycle, I predict a big future for this sage. Aristotle, you have really let me down. You've never even been mentioned, much less appeared, on any of these networks! Isn't it time you, maybe, you know, thought about finding a new career?

Another Classic

No commentary this time. Just enjoy:
Kangaroo - Tail scratching

Video and a Few Questions

So I found this on MySpace today, and I loved it:

Raccoons Want Ice Cream


After watching it, however, I have a few questions: are the raccoons tame? Are they pets, or are they street raccoons, denuded of their fear of man by the hard-scrabble life of the concrete jungle? Are the raccoons babies, and more importantly, are they orphans, or is there a loving mama raccoon who still looks out for them back in the dumpster? Is the larger raccoon the mama raccoon? Lastly, while as I said I love everything about this video, if it were me, I'm not sure I would taunt a savage, potentially rabid beast with delicious ice-cream, particularly if I were wearing shorts.

This post is dedicated to Dan's fear of animals.