Howard and I wrote about the Baby Einstein recall in this week’s Perpetual Post.
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When did television become ‘educational’? When I was a child in the 80s, it was pretty much understood that TV was a free babysitter. It was not how you taught your kids how to read. It was how you taught them how to stay out of your damn way while you made dinner.
These days, programs like Baby Einstein encourage parents to teach their infants about the world through the magic of passively watching television. After all, is there a better way to learn about shapes and colors than by watching shapes and colors on a TV screen? Why explore the world around you when you can watch a DVD in which someone else shows it to you? The ‘Baby’s First Impressions Head to Toe’ video, found on brainybaby.com, even claims that “your child will enjoy watching other children on screen demonstrate how a hand can do many things, like hold, touch or clap.” Now, why didn’t I have a video to teach me how to do things with my hands when I was a baby? How did I even make it this far in life? (Also, since when can a hand clap by itself? Maybe these DVDs are a little philosophically advanced for the zero to three month age group).
It gets better. There’s another program called “Your Baby Can Read”, which teaches frighteningly tiny infants to memorize flashcards. Flashcards! They’re not just for older students with motor skills anymore! Somehow the idea that you should be forced to memorize a flashcard when your first instinct is still to put it directly in your mouth is unsettling. A video on the website, YourBabyCanRead.com, shows 9 month old Andy raising his arms in the air after being shown a flashcard that says ‘ARMS UP’. This is exactly the sort of young overachiever they look for at Yale. (As long as Andy doesn’t burn himself out by the time he is eighteen months old.)
Baby Einstein videos are now receiving negative publicity because studies have shown that infants who watch television early in life end up with a shorter attention span than those who have limited or no screen time before the age of two. They also have smaller vocabularies and are less verbal — although this fits nicely with the irony that as a baby, Einstein himself was a little slow on the uptake. Perhaps this was intentional on the part of the creators of Baby Einstein.
Across the board, baby DVD websites also tout the idea that watching a video fosters ‘interactions’ between parent and child, and encourages them to spend quality time together. Somehow I doubt this. Let’s face it, television is not ‘interactive’. Watching television together does not encourage socializing and intimacy. If it did, my boyfriend and I would know each other a lot better than we do. Television encourages staring, mouth-breathing, and drooling—all of which babies instinctively know how to do. No $15.99 DVD necessary.
Even though I hate the idea of a baby watching television (after all, she’s got her whole life ahead of her to spend staring a screen, especially if she ends up with a desk job!), if they’re going to have educational DVDs, they may as well encourage our children to develop useful skills. Instead of teaching your baby about shapes and animals, teach them how to play Scrabulous, or help them create a profile on Facebook. You’ll be building skills they’ll be improving upon for their entire lives. They’re not really social skills, but by the time those kids are in grade school, they’ll be the only skills anybody has.
Howard and I discussed Sarah Palin’s Facebook page in this week’s Perpetual Post!
When Sarah Palin resigned from her post as Governor of Alaska, there were many who claimed that she was making a huge mistake. They pointed out that it would be difficult for her to accomplish much of anything now that she was no longer an elected official. Sarah Palin went on to amass nearly 100,000 friends on Facebook. Who’s laughing now?
What Palin’s critics didn’t realize is that by joining the ranks of Facebook, she has discovered a revolutionary new way to communicate directly with her former constituents. Never mind those big government laws and regulations separating politicians from the people—with Facebook, Palin’s base can interface directly with her to note that they ‘Like’ things she has said. Not since the press conferences of former President Bush has a politician been so clearly surrounded by individuals who are free to express their feelings of ‘Like’.
You think your average Joe the Plumber is going to call, write a letter or send an email to his local representatives to enact change in the world? He doesn’t have time for anything like that! But were he on Facebook, which he isn’t, he could instead leave a simple comment on Palin’s wall (or send her a beer!) and know he’s made a real difference.
While the vast majority of Palin’s Facebook friends are her children, many others are not. Her eldest son Track, in particular, is heavily involved in her Facebook campaign, and has even founded his own group entitled ‘People Named Track’. While the group has only one member so far, it is assumed to be the beginning of a growing movement.
Palin takes her new role as Facebook member seriously, and is an active participant in the online social networking community, playing the game ‘Farmville’ and joining causes to ‘Raise Salmon Awareness” and support ‘Polar Fleece Appreciation’. Palin is also exploring the option of drilling in her Little Green Patch in an effort reduce our country’s dependence on foreign oil. Her Facebook profile offers the average Joe Sixpack rare insight into her inner life, just by checking out her ‘Where I’ve Been – And Places I Can See from My House’ application and viewing her results on the ‘What Kind of Gun are You Most Like’ quiz.
Palin’s tenure as Governor may have come to its natural end, but if the internet has anything to say about it, she’s not going anywhere! Anyone who can inspire over 5,000 strangers to click a little thumbs-up button which indicates their approval after reading a short missive entitled ‘Birthday Wishes to Margaret Thatcher’, is clearly an unstoppable political force! Sarah Palin, your journey has just begun.
I’m all over this week’s Perpetual Post! Catch this week’s discourse about the David Letterman scandal! Jillian and Howard’s sides can be found here.
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I go to bed pretty early these days, and thus I lead an existence that is fairly sheltered from prime time and late night. But I’ve always had a soft spot for David Letterman, so when I heard that he had revealed the scandalous details of a plot to blackmail him during a broadcast of the Late Show, I was chagrined. My first response was, “Letterman! What the hell were you thinking?! ”
However, as my initial shock wore off and it became clear that Letterman’s televised confession was a brilliant, ballsy move that diffused the entire situation, my concern for his career turned to confusion. “Wait,” I thought. “Who the hell would try to blackmail David Letterman?!”
You see, even though I have a fondness for David Letterman, it’s not because he gives me the warm fuzzies. He’s a curmudgeon! He keeps his studio freezing cold and tells nasty jokes about celebrities and politicians and glares around a lot! He reminds me of my hometown of New York City. He’s brutal, he’s hilarious, you’re kind of scared of him, and he won’t be ignored.
In hindsight, it’s not much of a surprise that the blackmail attempt was a spectacular failure. Anyone who has watched more than ten minutes of the Late Show could have predicted as much—and it’s because Letterman doesn’t actually have that much to lose. He’s a celebrity, and as such, he wants to avoid scandal and negative attention as much as anyone else—but he’s not a politician. He doesn’t set himself up as a role model or a leader or an exemplary citizen. We don’t turn to him for guidance, and his career doesn’t hinge on holding the moral high ground—it hinges on being entertaining. And what’s more entertaining than a good old fashioned extortion scandal—especially one in which the audience gets to feel like they’ve got an insider perspective because the blackmail victim is confiding in them on national television?
The line between the politician and the celebrity has never been more blurred—and Letterman’s would-be extortionist miscalculated when he assumed that Letterman, like your average politician, would do anything to keep his reputation intact. If anything, Letterman’s reputation has improved thanks to this whole situation. Because he now comes across as the kind of grouch who will f— you UP if you come after him. Go Dave!
Matthew David Brozik and I took on real and surreal crime-fighting in this week’s Perpetual Post. Read his much more informed side here.
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Last week someone broke into my car and ripped out my stereo. Since I fancy myself to be a bit of a forensics buff, I took some clear tape and lifted a partial fingerprint off the car door handle and brought it to my local precinct so they could ID it and catch the criminal. Well, they laughed in my face! Told me to stick the tape over my mouth and buy a car alarm. I was shocked and offended! While these guys were out writing speeding tickets and answering domestic disturbance calls, some crazed junkie was making off with my car stereo!
I just knew that if David Caruso from CSI Miami had been there, he would have slowly removed his sunglasses, squinted at me, tossed off a one-liner about catching the guy ‘in stereo’, and used my partial fingerprint to pull up a copy of the perpetrator’s criminal record, including a glamour shot of him looking like a threatening lowlife. Then he would have pinpointed the thief’s exact location by tracking his cell-phone signal or figuring out what he ate for lunch that day or where he bought his shoes or something. Finally, he would trick the guy into confessing, exposing a giant car-stereo-theft crime ring in the process. A hot girl would try to seduce him for some reason, someone else would get pushed down an open elevator shaft, and after an hour everything would be neatly wrapped up with a parting shot featuring David Caruso slowly removing his sunglasses and squinting.
So what the hell were those lazy boring police officers thinking? They were doing it all wrong! When will law enforcement catch up with television law enforcement? Those guys on TV—now THEY know how you get things done! They don’t second-guess themselves! There’s no whining about how blood spatter analysis is an inexact science. The title character on Dexter can tell what kind of weapon was used, at what speed, and whether the attacker was left or right handed just by looking at a few errant drops. On CSI Las Vegas, the team used lasers to convert the grooves in some clay on a pottery wheel into sound so that they could hear what the victim had been saying as he threw a pot. And you’re telling me that real law enforcement can’t even tell for sure if fingerprints are a definite match or not? Batman pulled a fingerprint off a shattered bullet in The Dark Knight. He’s putting non-televised criminal investigators to shame.
So what if lie detector tests are inadmissible in court! From what TV has led me to believe, if you’re a hard-bitten FBI agent who’s passionate about your job, you can make someone confess to a crime they committed just by yelling at them, because you can just tell that they did it!
The next time I visit the local police station to ask if one of their trained dogs can tell if my coworker is a drug addict by licking his coffee cup, and they give me the cold shoulder, I’m going to suggest that they watch more CSI and do less boring paperwork and beat-patrolling. There are apparently a few things in life you have to learn the hard way, from television—not from experience.
Akie, Dave Tomar and I took on the remastered Beatles albums in the Perpetual Post.
I have to say I’m a little underwhelmed with the concept of remastering all of the Beatles’ albums. This doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that is done with the fans in mind, as much as with the private island which the producer wants to buy in mind. If the remastering is really done for the sake of bringing the works of the Beatles to a higher and more digitally delicious plane, then I would imagine that not every single song would need to be remastered. Maybe just do the ones that are scratchy. But no—this has to be an overhaul of the entire Beatles library, so that compulsive fans will feel obliged to once again collect ‘em all.
I understand that technology is improving every day, but really, how much can they do to improve the sound quality of these songs? It seems to me that the technology that existed back when many of the Beatles’ albums were first recorded had its limits, and thus that any sort of digital cleanup of that original sound is only going to be able to go so far. Besides fixing minor imbalances and background noise, how exactly are they improving these songs? Is the sound now…soundier? Did they fix it so that it feels like the Beatles are standing around you in a circle singing Yellow Submarine in your ear? Can you hear George Harrison blow his nose during the chorus of Eleanor Rigby? Do you care?
I think there’s also an argument that the way the songs sound is the way that generations have listened to them, and is in effect part of the Beatles musical experience. Similar to how turntables have experienced a resurgence in the last several decades; because they impart a certain quality to the sound that is lost with modern musical media. Digital is all fine and good, but does it have to be the ultimate way to hear things? I like a little variety sometimes. You can shove Blu-Ray in my face and I’ll still seek out black and white movies because they’re still great. Is it wrong to feel some nostalgia and love for the sound of a scratchy record? To feel that it has a place in modern life? Plus, what if they’re not just remastering these songs, whatever that even means? What if they’re adding in sneaky little subliminal advertising messages? I wouldn’t put it past them, would you? Is that the Windows chime you heard as the last strains of Rocky Raccoon faded into silence? Did Paul McCartney just sing “Come together” or did he sing “switch to Geico”?
Maybe I’m just being cynical. Or unenlightened. Maybe I have relatively bad hearing so everything sounds all the same to me. But I don’t really understand the fanfare surrounding the release of the digitally remastered Beatles canon. That is, unless some sort of crucial discovery was made in the process. If while remastering Rubber Soul they realized that you can hear Ringo hitting a bong during the instrumentals of ‘Norwegian Wood’, let me know. I might just buy that on iTunes. Otherwise, I’ll take my fab four Original Style.
Howard and I took on the following ridiculous statement from CBS news in this week’s Perpetual Post:
“A majority of those who watched the speech, 58 percent, said the president had explained his plans, up from 40 percent before the speech. But among those who didn’t watch, only one in four now say he has explained his plans — the same percentage as before the speech.” CBS News poll following President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress.
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I did not watch President Obama’s speech on healthcare last week, and I have to say, I found it particularly lacking. The address would have been a great opportunity for our beleaguered president to set the record straight on his healthcare agenda, had he actually done that and had I watched it. Though there was a great deal of anticipation surrounding this speech, the president’s remarks, from what I gather from myself, fell flat.
I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt in my assumptions about your address, Obama, but your message was garbled and unintelligible, like the pirated football game I watched instead of your speech. You’ve let this country down, and wasted our time to boot. You think I have all day to sit around remembering to watch you speak to a joint session of Congress? I’m in the middle of planning another trip to Canada to buy prescription drugs since my insurance won’t pay for the pills I take for my high blood pressure.
Even though I didn’t give you a chance, President Obama, you still managed to let me down. At this point, you’re 0 for 0. That’s a pretty disappointing record. Not only that, but you’ve been discussing the subject of healthcare reform for months now, and I still have a very cloudy sense of what your plan is for revamping the healthcare system—if you even have one at all! You could be winging it for all I know! And if Americans can’t trust you to explain a serious subject like healthcare to us without forcing us to turn on the television, listen to the radio or read a newspaper, then how can we be expected to trust you? How will we know for sure that you’re not planning to load sick people into Death Stars like I read about on a cocktail napkin somewhere?! How, indeed.
Howard and I took on Texting vs. Drinking while driving in the Perpetual Post.
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In the brief history of cell phones, has there ever been a critical text message? One which actually helped to avert a crisis? Not a ‘your ex is at the party!!’ crisis. I’m talking a genuine disaster, prevented by a buzzing cell phone with a postage-stamp-sized message of 160 characters or less? No. I’m pretty sure not. They don’t even use that shit on 24. If Jack Bauer needs to let someone know that a building is about to explode unless they cut the blue wire, he calls.
This is why I am unsympathetic toward texting while driving: because it’s never urgent. At the very least, it’s never more urgent than not crashing your car. Is there anything you might need to say via text message that can’t wait until you are no longer responsible for keeping a moving vehicle from hitting anything?
Or maybe you text in the car because you’re bored. Is just plain driving not interesting enough anymore? Watching the scenery hurtle past you at 60mph while other cars weave in and out of your way doesn’t hold your attention the way it used to? Then pull over. Maybe you’ll like walking better. Because you’ll be doing a more lot of that when you flip your car over a median because you were texting to let your friend know that you’ve been thinking of trying out for The Amazing Race. Actually, scratch that. At that point, you’ll be thrilled if you’re walking.
Before I continue to get my crabby geezer on, I would like to note that I am a huge fan of texting. I don’t really know what I like about it so much; but since I manage to send about nine million texts a month, there must be something about the format that appeals to me. Still, even when a blinding flash of brilliance strikes while I’m in traffic and I feel the overwhelming urge to express it to someone via text, I hold my thumbs.
I’m not saying it’s easy. We as a society are accustomed to multitasking to the point of utter uselessness, and we have conditioned ourselves to expect instant gratification. We want same day delivery and 24 hour customer service. We put pizza on a bagel so we can eat pizza anytime. Nobody listens to voicemails anymore; even text messaging is apparently beginning to fall by the wayside as people begin to IM each other through their phones.
But there are still some things you have to wait for, and texting, if you’re driving, is one of them. Just like you have to wait until you get out of the tub to use your hair dryer. Some things are just so dangerous that they’re not worth doing in the instant they occur to you. Unless it’s worth risking life and limb to let your old roommate know that it’s Shark Week, wait until you get where you’re going.
Zoe and I took on Google’s new search suggestions in this week’s Perpetual Post.
The ever-helpful folks at Google are at it again. Now when you go to Google.com and begin to search for a word or phase, a list of related suggestions automatically pops up to guide you in your search, or destroy your faith in humanity. Either way, it saves valuable time.
The concept makes sense in theory. As Google’s website explains, “Suggestions come in real-time, so typing [ great w ] and clicking ‘great wall of china’ is faster and easier than typing it out.” You’re right, Google. That probably does save me a few seconds. But you lose me when, while searching for a recommended local dentist, I begin to type in “good dentist in the Raleigh area” and before I’m halfway finished, I receive the suggestion “good death knight names”. I understand that you’re trying to help here, Google, but this seems like a shot in the dark. Aside from the distraction of being shown searches I don’t want, there’s the simple disappointment of being misunderstood. That is not what I meant at all, Google. That is not it, at all. I search for a certain playwright or a song lyric, and Google is ready with suggestions. Are you looking for Shakespeare, or maybe Shakira? Are you searching for information on “christ the king sausage fest” or wondering “why does poop float?” Why indeed, Google. I’m glad you asked! It’s about time I wondered that.
Which brings me to another alarming aspect of this search mechanism: the fact that the suggested searches are apparently based on other searches that are done, as Google says, “by users all over the world”. Now, I don’t have a whole lot of faith left in the anonymity of anything I do on the internet. I understand that the web is not my personal playground, where I can come and go as I please, secure in my privacy, researching the mating habits of burros and reading “Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman” fan-fiction. I’m aware that it is possible for someone to be tracking my web surfing habits at all times. I don’t like it, but I try not to think about it, because without the internet I am a husk of a human being. However, when Google starts throwing the searches of others back in my face, even though they’re couched as ‘suggestions’, it is an uncomfortable reminder that virtually everything on the internet is being collected, catalogued and stored somewhere—mostly by Google! I don’t like being reminded of this. Can’t we conduct our deepest, darkest Google searches in private?
Not only that, but Google saves your own past searches and helpfully provides them when they might be relevant to (that is, use some of the same letters as) later searches—and it helpfully distinguishes searches you’ve personally done from others by placing the word ‘remove’ next to those searches. So the next time I go on the home computer and begin to search for “scattergories online” and I see the search “scabies symptoms” with that little tell-tale ‘remove’ next to it, I know that it’s time to have a talk with my live-in boyfriend.
The search suggestions I’ve been coming across have also been a little disconcerting. I do my fair share of googling, but it’s usually to find pictures of muffins or determine David Caruso’s age (sadly, too old for me). Nothing too earth-shattering, rarely very deep or meaningful. Judging by the suggested search terms of users all over the world, I am in the minority here. Type in “why does my” and you come up with a veritable catalogue of maudlin questions. “Why does my husband not love me?” “Why does my wife lie to me?” “Why does my boyfriend not want to marry me?” Google has apparently set up shop as the Miss Lonelyhearts of the twenty-first century. The questions and problems that you would expect people to bring to their therapists, their parole officers—possibly even their friends; they are laying them upon the altar of Google instead. No wonder everyone feels more isolated than ever these days. We can’t even turn to one another and ask basic questions of each other—like, “why do men have nipples?” and “why aren’t dinosaurs in the bible?” Maybe before we ask Google one more thing, we should ask ourselves a profound and increasingly important question: “Who else uses this computer?”
Howard and I took on technology and relationships in this week’s Perpetual Post. Read his side too, it’s fantastic.
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As I type this, my boyfriend is on the couch, napping blissfully, his Blackberry nestled to his chest. I remember the distant days when I was the one who nestled there, my head resting lovingly against his shoulder, but apparently because I don’t vibrate like a buzz saw every ten minutes to let him know that he’s gotten an email from Sears.com with great deals for Fall savings, he’s traded up.
I remember when it was my shrill, piercing voice that delighted him, but no more. I’ve lost my favored status, displaced by a small, rectangular device that beeps incessantly at the most inopportune times—most of which are apparently no longer inopportune! God help me if I should turn to him while he’s engrossed in an episode of Two and a Half Men and say, “I forgot to tell you about this lady I saw in the Food Lion today who was wearing hilarious pants”—I would be judiciously shushed! But Blackberry gets to say whatever it’s thinking any time it wants! Blackberry can do no wrong! No matter what he’s in the middle of, no moment is too important to be interrupted by a text message from his Blackberry letting him know that 90% of American currency has tested positive for trace amounts of cocaine, according to CNN.com.
Should I be providing better content? Were I to turn to him while he’s watching TV and say, “MEEEP Thursday’s forecast calls for morning clouds with a chance of afternoon thundershowers,” would he smile receptively, or nod with interest? I doubt it. I also don’t see what’s so useful about the real-time updates his Blackberry provides on sports games and breaking news, when the information I provide is also in real-time—and personalized! Does his precious Blackberry nag him when he forgets to give the dog his heartworm medicine? Does it remind him that it’s unattractive to drink soda straight from the bottle and then just put it back in the fridge? Does his Blackberry’s angry rattle encourage him to start dinner right away because I’m going to be hungry when I get home?
All right, I know when I’m beat. It’s time for me to take this to the next level, before he realizes that when his Blackberry never has morning breath, steals the covers, or mocks his love of Entourage. So what do I have to do to win him back? Offer my services for a better monthly rate? Remind him of the convenience of his no-initial-fee, no-obligation contract with me? Ok, maybe there was an initial fee to join me, but I’m sure he’d say it was worth it. Or would he? After all, I can’t think of any new features I’ve added in the last few years, aside from a new haircut, or any upgrades to speak of—unless you count going up a pants size. Which I do. Possibly it’s time to fight fire with fire…or water. My boyfriend’s Blackberry does seem to be getting a little smudged, due to his constant, loving caresses and attention. Perhaps it needs a bath.
Howard and I debated Health Care in the Perpetual Post this week. See his side here!
Remember the good old days, when you didn’t need a ‘referral’ to pick up a ‘prescription’ at the local CVS? When the cure for myriad ills was no further than a trip to the root cellar or the apothecary for some tooth powder or a jar of leeches? Trust me; those were the best of times. If anyone from that era were still alive today, we might learn a thing or two from them.
I’m telling you, the Doctorization of America has been our downfall. Seeking the advice of a trained medical professional for every minor illness and injury is the knee-jerk response of weak, liberal America, and it’s made us all soft. Sustain a head injury during football practice? Throat closing up? Shin bone poking through your jeans? All anyone can ever say is, “Go see a doctor.” How about “Be a man”? When I was eleven, I got a two-foot splinter in my thigh while climbing a tree. Did my parents take me in to see a pediatric specialist or a plastic surgeon? Hell no. They took me in to see a pair of fireplace tongs and a mug of Jack Daniels. Most kids today are allergic to wheat gluten and peanut butter. Back then if your kid was allergic to something, you made him eat a whole plate of it at dinner just for having a smart mouth and an oversensitive immune system. Now, we bake them special cakes and have “Nut-Free” school zones. I wish they’d make this country a nut-free zone. All you sissy whiners would have to leave town. Then the rest of us could pave the streets with peanut brittle and amber waves of wheat gluten.
Now your latest liberal wheeze is that “the healthcare system is broken” and “we need to find a way to ensure adequate medical coverage for more Americans at a reasonable price”. Hogwash. The healthcare system is broken because it exists! Our first mistake was when doctors stopped treating both horses AND people. Back in my day the surgeon would come around the farm once a year or so. (Imagine, a doctor making house calls!) He would treat your knock-kneed mule, deliver your baby, castrate your pig and charge you two dollars. There would be no mention of ‘co-payments’ or ‘pain management’. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
I long for the day when Americans wake up and realize that the power to cure themselves used to be in their own hands—and it can be again. Feeling depressed? Try a rest cure! Move to the countryside and take in the bracing sea air. Suffering from dropsy, the grippe, gout or leprosy? Walk it off. Or let some blood. Or try a travelling salesman’s tonic. Good for what ails you! If you’re lucky, it might have a little cocaine in it, for pep!
Just the simple fact that we’re arguing over things like ‘end of life care’ shows how far we’ve fallen. ‘End of life care’ used to mean closing a man’s eyes after his horse threw him off a bridge at the ripe old age of thirty-nine, or pulling a blanket up over a young woman who died in childbirth. Now we’re dealing with doddering seniors who are well into their nineties. In my day they would have died long ago—falling off a ladder while re-thatching their roofs or choking on a chicken bone they were too senile to strain out of the soup—and good riddance! It’s the end of your life—who cares? THAT should be the name of that policy.
Well, I’m sick of it. But unlike most of you, I’m treating my sickness myself—with a dose of cod liver oil washed down with a tall glass of Buck Up. Take two pills and shut the hell up in the morning, America.
I Heard Tell 