When history isn't history

I'm fed up with the History Channel (now just called History, like they are the sole repository of such knowledge) putting on shows that have exactly as much to do with history as incontinence has to do with hamburgers. What the fuck is Monster Quest? A show about made up critters like Bigfoot and Yeti. Why not just make a show about the Boogey Man and the Tooth Fairy? Then there's the 50 shows about future animals. What the hell kind of rampant speculation is this? Let's make a show that has no basis in reality and allows us to show off our super expensive digital art studio. How is a show about the future even related to history? If you want to try to extrapolate the current political or economic climate out a few years, then sure, I'll bite. But making pretend animals that could possibly maybe conceivably exist in millions of years? Give me a fucking break. I don't have time for this. There's too much internet porn and YouTube videos of people getting hit in the nuts for me to spend time watching shows about people that spend their lives chasing mythical creatures. Next thing you know I'm going to have to watch a show about people taking infra-red cameras and searching for Hogwarts.

Speaking of thermal cameras, stop putting on shows about fucking ghosts. We get it...weird shit happens in your house. But every time something happens in some old sanitorium, I don't want to be subjected to some jack-ass setting up a thermal recorder and a tape recorder and trying to capture proof of a haunting. Every time there's a blip on the camera, we have to have a lengthy discussion about whether it's a cat, a rat, or a ghost. Every hot spot that shows up is possible fodder. The last time I checked, the presence of a ghost made people feel cold. So we should be looking for cold spots. And every skip on the tape recorder has to be analyzed in super slow playback. Since we've been doing this for decades and never caught so much as an OOOHHH or a clinking chain, let's stop putting this crap on the air.

The History Channel should stick to things with a connection to history. If they keep this crap up, I may have to start reading more and staring numbly at the tv less.

When did blogging become a career?

I'm back from Oregon and am busily trying to clean the dog pee smell out of the carpet pad. At least the cat had the good graces to piss all over a blanket so we can just drop it in the washer. I also submitted some of my writing to the literary journal at UW Bothell. Sure, it's only a college publication, but at least I got off my duff and submitted something. Plus, if anything is accepted, I'll have some small sense of vindication. This campus prides itself on churning out good English and literature students and having faculty members with long publishing records. So it'd be nice to get my own work in there alongside theirs. We'll see. Like OSU, they'll probably pick the worst thing I sent for consideration.

I would like to say this though- just because I wrote some poems and have had some of them published doesn't make me a writer. I enjoy writing and have a fascination with words. I do it for myself. I don't get paid for my work. I haven't spent any time trying to get better at the craft of writing. And the odds of anything being posthumously recognized is about nil. So I'm not going to go around and call myself a writer. I think this goes for everyone else as well. Just because you took some pictures doesn't mean you're a photographer (except Marco, but that's because he's awesome). Just because you painted a picture doesn't make you an artist. And just because you have a sex tape doesn't make you a celebrity (at least it shouldn't...but it does make you a lot more popular). People get to be writers, photographers, artists, and porn stars for a reason...they believe in what they do, they are good at what they do, and they spend their lives dedicating themselves to their form of expression. It's not just a hobby. They work tirelessly at it. And they make it look easy, even though it isn't. Art is hard. So artists have to be harder. And my lazy poems and half-assed editing don't make the cut. But I like doing it anyway, so I'll keep it on my hobby list. It's a great way to beat the stress of real life.

Oh...and everyone should watch Human Footprint on the Science Channel. It's fairly impressive. It leaves some things to be desired, but is a pretty good picture of how the average American affects the planet.

The consequences of too much free time

Hello from Bend. I'm in Oregon for four days to do "science" while hanging out at the ski resort. Life is rough. I had a question that came to me on the car ride down that I'd like to share with cyberspace: was it the advent of 24-hour news coverage that necessitated the word "analysis" being appended to every news item?

I have a major problem with most news "analysis". For starters, analysis implies that you had data, whether qualitative or quantitative, and that you spent time and effort looking at for trends, patterns, and possible links between different things. But "analysis" implies something more. Once you find a pattern or a possible cause-effect relationship, you then have to find some type of corroborating evidence to back up your interpretation and conclusions. Just saying "A causes B" doesn't mean anything. For example: unprotected dicks cause unwanted pregnancies. Sure, it makes sense and feels intuitive. But there's more to it. You have to have two people, both of them are involved in the act, there have to be no other contraceptives, etc. The point is, analysis implies that you went beyond your initial finding and can provide evidence to back up your claim.

Too much of the shit that shows up on tv as "analysis" is nothing more than unsubstantiated opinion. It may be presented with an analytic veneer and may even be spoken by someone with a fancy title. But that doesn't make it true. To be fair, much of the internet, including this site, is mostly opinion mixed with small amounts of qualitative analysis. But opinion should not be confused with analysis. Too often it is. Everyone has an opinion. They're cheap, plentiful, and often based on misconceptions, stereotypes, willful ignorance, and blatant disregard of competing evidence. Schools aren't teaching people HOW to think or critically analyze information. So even as the amount of information available expands exponentially, people are not equipped to separate the diamonds from the chaff.

Maybe just reporting the facts wasn't enough for news organizations. After all, that would mean people would have information and would be able to form their own opinions and characterizations of a situation. So now every story has to have some "analysis" to make it more "understandable" to the public. And in-depth story is one thing. A two minute news-bite is not enough time for both facts and analysis. One must suffer. Guess which one it is.

All of these 24 hour news channels need to shut the fuck up and knock it off. There aren't 24 hours worth of things to cover during the day. That's why CNN is on a 30 minute loop and Fox News spends more time having people yell at each other about topics nominally related to U.S. politics than telling us what is going on in the world. Stop degrading the word analysis. You're ruining it for people that actually analyze data.