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Friday, August 10, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Why the Sikh temple shooting got less coverage than the Aurora massacre
Two mass murders happen two weeks apart, but they get very different treatment by the media. Were the Dark Knight killings that much more important?
When James Holmes allegedly walked into a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colo., and opened fire, killing 12, there was a "flood of media coverage" for days afterward, says Dylan Byers at Politico. Now, just two days after Wade Michael Page allegedly walked into a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., and opened fire, killing six, "the story has become just one item among many in the national news cycle." More than that, after Oak Creek there's been "none of the sense of outrage that followed the Aurora massacre, none of the national heartbreak and grief that seemed so pervasive only two weeks ago," says Riddhi Shah at The Huffington Post. The obvious question is: "Why is it that the American people, and the American media in particular, care less about this attack?" Here, four theories:
1. Sikhs are being treated as second-class victims
If the media gave the Aurora shootings "round the clock coverage because they thought [the American public] would and should care," what does the relative paucity of Oak Creek coverage say about the media, and about us? says Jeneba Ghatt at Politic365. Sadly, it suggests "there may be tiers of Americans," where "those who are foreign-born, of foreign parentage, and practicing a religion foreign to many" are deemed too foreign for our sympathies and attention. If that seems too harsh, consider what would have happened if "instead of a white supremacist, the [Wisconsin] attacker had been a Muslim fundamentalist, and the place of worship a synagogue or a church," says The Huffington Post's Shah.
SEE MORE: The Sikh temple shooting: Mistaken anti-Muslim terrorism?
2. The relative randomness of the Aurora shooting is scarier
By most measures, the racially motivated Oak Creek killings are at least as newsworthy and frightening as the Aurora shootings, says Robert Wright at The Atlantic. But "what freaks people out about Aurora is the 'randomness' of it," the sense that it could happen to any of us. The media focused more on the Colorado murders because like most of us, "the people who shape discourse in this country by and large aren't Sikhs and don't know many, if any, Sikhs." They "can't imagine being in a Sikh temple," but they can picture themselves and their loved ones watching Batman in a movie theater. It's unfortunate, but natural that we "get freaked out by threats in proportion to how threatening they seem to you personally."
3. The Oak Creek shooting wasn't as dramatic
For all the similarities between the Wisconsin and Colorado shootings, there are also some pretty dramatic differences, says Politico's Byers. Twice as many people were killed in Aurora and many more were wounded. While Page was gunned down by police, Holmes is still alive, "adding the promise of a dramatic court appearance." On top of that, Holmes rigged his apartment with explosives and "provided the added flair of claiming to be 'The Joker.'" In other words, the "theatricality of the Batman murders" added to their media appeal, says The Atlantic's Wright.
When James Holmes allegedly walked into a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colo., and opened fire, killing 12, there was a "flood of media coverage" for days afterward, says Dylan Byers at Politico. Now, just two days after Wade Michael Page allegedly walked into a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., and opened fire, killing six, "the story has become just one item among many in the national news cycle." More than that, after Oak Creek there's been "none of the sense of outrage that followed the Aurora massacre, none of the national heartbreak and grief that seemed so pervasive only two weeks ago," says Riddhi Shah at The Huffington Post. The obvious question is: "Why is it that the American people, and the American media in particular, care less about this attack?" Here, four theories:
1. Sikhs are being treated as second-class victims
If the media gave the Aurora shootings "round the clock coverage because they thought [the American public] would and should care," what does the relative paucity of Oak Creek coverage say about the media, and about us? says Jeneba Ghatt at Politic365. Sadly, it suggests "there may be tiers of Americans," where "those who are foreign-born, of foreign parentage, and practicing a religion foreign to many" are deemed too foreign for our sympathies and attention. If that seems too harsh, consider what would have happened if "instead of a white supremacist, the [Wisconsin] attacker had been a Muslim fundamentalist, and the place of worship a synagogue or a church," says The Huffington Post's Shah.
SEE MORE: The Sikh temple shooting: Mistaken anti-Muslim terrorism?
2. The relative randomness of the Aurora shooting is scarier
By most measures, the racially motivated Oak Creek killings are at least as newsworthy and frightening as the Aurora shootings, says Robert Wright at The Atlantic. But "what freaks people out about Aurora is the 'randomness' of it," the sense that it could happen to any of us. The media focused more on the Colorado murders because like most of us, "the people who shape discourse in this country by and large aren't Sikhs and don't know many, if any, Sikhs." They "can't imagine being in a Sikh temple," but they can picture themselves and their loved ones watching Batman in a movie theater. It's unfortunate, but natural that we "get freaked out by threats in proportion to how threatening they seem to you personally."
3. The Oak Creek shooting wasn't as dramatic
For all the similarities between the Wisconsin and Colorado shootings, there are also some pretty dramatic differences, says Politico's Byers. Twice as many people were killed in Aurora and many more were wounded. While Page was gunned down by police, Holmes is still alive, "adding the promise of a dramatic court appearance." On top of that, Holmes rigged his apartment with explosives and "provided the added flair of claiming to be 'The Joker.'" In other words, the "theatricality of the Batman murders" added to their media appeal, says The Atlantic's Wright.
Gore Vidal: Analog troll
The kitchen-sink correction that ran with the obituary for Gore Vidal in The New York Times may be the best commentary yet on the life of Vidal, the larger-than-life writer and TV personality who died on July 31 at 86.
In 1968, Gore Vidal, it seems, had savaged a prominent right-winger as a “crypto-Nazi”—not, as his obituarist had erroneously reported, a “crypto-fascist.”
Vidal was not a cousin to Al Gore, though he often liked to dilate on their kinship. And although Vidal publicly credited the longevity of his relationship with his companion Howard Austen to their practice of never having sex, the couple did copulate, at least once, on the night they met. That encounter was robustly described in Vidal’s memoir, “Palimpsest.”
Taken together, these earnest Times-style corrections suggest that Gore Vidal led a rich, florid and glorious life being Gore Vidal—advertising himself and dismantling others and then fleeing into umbrage, smugness, pedantry, fake innocence or actual exile when his audience went bananas. He also—as the wonderful correction demonstrates—got the last laugh.
He got to take a last posthumous jab at William F. Buckley, the formidable intellectual he must have deeply envied. He got to raise again the pet subject of his in-bedness with prominent American political families. And, from beyond the grave, he got to crow about his sex life in the pages of the Times. To say “well-played” would sell the achievement short!
Fortunately, the 21st century has bestowed on us a name for figures like Vidal, the garrulous tricksters who are as necessary to politics and culture as buffoons, beetle-browed commenters and tender-hearted artists.
It’s plain: Vidal was a virtuoso troll. A 20th-century, pre-Internet troll. An analog troll of the first rank.
Trollism has only come into its own with the Internet, though it’s a time-honored set of intellectual stratagems. Now, of course, it’s far easier to do than ever. Success in the massive multiplayer game of social media requires skill spotting trolls in our midst—thus, more trolls seem to exist because more are caught. With Google, emotional sweet spots—sensitive subjects like abortion or Israel on which freaking people out is easiest—are a cinch to find. Anyone with a smartphone can post “James Eagan Holmes is hot” on a site for mourners and savor the lulz from a smug, safe distance as the outrage rolls in.
But imagine in Vidal’s time! Take just one famous example from Vidal’s trolling life. To splendidly troll, he had to get booked on “The Dick Cavett Show.” He had to bait pugnacious, crypto-homicidal Norman Mailer with a snippy review in a prominent publication, get Mailer fired up and booked on the same show. And then Vidal would have to get Mailer to go nuclear as he nastily but elegantly goaded him.
No wonder Vidal is most famous for having said, "I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television." On TV was where one trolled in those far-off pre-Internet days.
And saying Vidal never missed a chance to have sex—well, that was perhaps his way of trolling that chaste live-in boyfriend. On second thought, Howard Austen probably was untrollable. Another type that was before his time. Maybe, living so close to Vidal, Austen was the original practitioner of “DNFTT”—“do not feed the troll”—the idea that trolls like Vidal live on the emotional spasms of other people, and the way to fight them is to deny them our spasms.
No worry. Vidal found spasms aplenty on which to feed himself for decades on decades. And that cycle—trolling and spasms and trolling and spasms—was intellectually fruitful in that it engendered memorable quips, mad showdowns and a cultural pose that’s now deeply embedded in our intellectual dialogue. A YouTube commenter on the Cavett show video recently described Vidal as both a “troll” and the nation’s “asshole laureate.” Maybe so. But he was awfully fun to watch and will be missed.
In 1968, Gore Vidal, it seems, had savaged a prominent right-winger as a “crypto-Nazi”—not, as his obituarist had erroneously reported, a “crypto-fascist.”
Vidal was not a cousin to Al Gore, though he often liked to dilate on their kinship. And although Vidal publicly credited the longevity of his relationship with his companion Howard Austen to their practice of never having sex, the couple did copulate, at least once, on the night they met. That encounter was robustly described in Vidal’s memoir, “Palimpsest.”
Taken together, these earnest Times-style corrections suggest that Gore Vidal led a rich, florid and glorious life being Gore Vidal—advertising himself and dismantling others and then fleeing into umbrage, smugness, pedantry, fake innocence or actual exile when his audience went bananas. He also—as the wonderful correction demonstrates—got the last laugh.
He got to take a last posthumous jab at William F. Buckley, the formidable intellectual he must have deeply envied. He got to raise again the pet subject of his in-bedness with prominent American political families. And, from beyond the grave, he got to crow about his sex life in the pages of the Times. To say “well-played” would sell the achievement short!
Fortunately, the 21st century has bestowed on us a name for figures like Vidal, the garrulous tricksters who are as necessary to politics and culture as buffoons, beetle-browed commenters and tender-hearted artists.
It’s plain: Vidal was a virtuoso troll. A 20th-century, pre-Internet troll. An analog troll of the first rank.
Trollism has only come into its own with the Internet, though it’s a time-honored set of intellectual stratagems. Now, of course, it’s far easier to do than ever. Success in the massive multiplayer game of social media requires skill spotting trolls in our midst—thus, more trolls seem to exist because more are caught. With Google, emotional sweet spots—sensitive subjects like abortion or Israel on which freaking people out is easiest—are a cinch to find. Anyone with a smartphone can post “James Eagan Holmes is hot” on a site for mourners and savor the lulz from a smug, safe distance as the outrage rolls in.
But imagine in Vidal’s time! Take just one famous example from Vidal’s trolling life. To splendidly troll, he had to get booked on “The Dick Cavett Show.” He had to bait pugnacious, crypto-homicidal Norman Mailer with a snippy review in a prominent publication, get Mailer fired up and booked on the same show. And then Vidal would have to get Mailer to go nuclear as he nastily but elegantly goaded him.
No wonder Vidal is most famous for having said, "I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television." On TV was where one trolled in those far-off pre-Internet days.
And saying Vidal never missed a chance to have sex—well, that was perhaps his way of trolling that chaste live-in boyfriend. On second thought, Howard Austen probably was untrollable. Another type that was before his time. Maybe, living so close to Vidal, Austen was the original practitioner of “DNFTT”—“do not feed the troll”—the idea that trolls like Vidal live on the emotional spasms of other people, and the way to fight them is to deny them our spasms.
No worry. Vidal found spasms aplenty on which to feed himself for decades on decades. And that cycle—trolling and spasms and trolling and spasms—was intellectually fruitful in that it engendered memorable quips, mad showdowns and a cultural pose that’s now deeply embedded in our intellectual dialogue. A YouTube commenter on the Cavett show video recently described Vidal as both a “troll” and the nation’s “asshole laureate.” Maybe so. But he was awfully fun to watch and will be missed.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Arnold Schwarzenegger says his bodybuilding zeal put him in Austrian army brig
Arnold Schwarzenegger says he was so eager to pursue bodybuilding success that he briefly ended up in an Austrian military jail.
The Austrian-born actor said Friday he was 18 and serving a mandated year with the army when he snuck out of camp for the Junior Mr. Europe contest in Germany.
Schwarzenegger says he won the contest but also earned two or three days in the brig. But he says military officials felt "uncomfortable" and released him.
The 65-year-old Schwarzenegger is the subject of a new ESPN Films documentary, "Arnold's Blueprint," which will debut Sept. 26 on the ESPN website Grantland.com. The film is the first of a series of short documentaries that will be available online.
The Austrian-born actor said Friday he was 18 and serving a mandated year with the army when he snuck out of camp for the Junior Mr. Europe contest in Germany.
Schwarzenegger says he won the contest but also earned two or three days in the brig. But he says military officials felt "uncomfortable" and released him.
The 65-year-old Schwarzenegger is the subject of a new ESPN Films documentary, "Arnold's Blueprint," which will debut Sept. 26 on the ESPN website Grantland.com. The film is the first of a series of short documentaries that will be available online.
More than gay marriage driving Chick-fil-A flap
When President Barack Obama said same-sex couples should have the right to marry, it was national news for a few days before the presidential campaign and the country went back to business as usual.
Yet weeks after a fast-food executive doubled down on his opposition to gay marriage, debate rages on about equality, religious values and free speech. "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" on Wednesday, with supporters flooding the chain's franchises around the country, was countered with "kiss-ins" by same-sex couples at assorted locations Friday, long after Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy's initial comments to a religious publication touched off the clash.
That's an unusual amount of staying power for what initially looked like just another skirmish over a hot-button question.
Coursing throughout the conversations on social media, in letters to the editor and in long lines to buy chicken sandwiches is the sense among proud Southerners that the outcry over Cathy's comments smacks of regional stereotyping. When public officials in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago tell a Southern icon such as Chick-fil-A that it's no longer welcome, and that Cathy should keep his opinions to himself, many in the Atlanta-based chain's home region hear more than a little northern condescension.
"Maybe the reaction is just because we're Southerners," said Rose Mason, who was lunching Friday at a Chick-fil-A in suburban Atlanta.
Mason, who described herself as Christian, said she grew up in New York City. Now, she said, "I deal with my sister telling me we're a little backward. People have this idea that we're just behind on everything. So they view anything we say through that (perception)."
Cathy, a devout Southern Baptist whose family has always been outspoken about its faith, sparked the controversy by telling the Baptist Press that he and his family-owned restaurant chain are "guilty as charged" for openly — and financially — supporting groups that advocate for "the biblical definition of a family unit." He later added that the United States is "inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage."
For Marci Alt, organizer of a protest Friday at a Chick-fil-A in the relatively liberal Atlanta suburb of Decatur, it's Cathy's financial backing of conservative groups such as the Family Research Council that takes the conversation beyond merely what he said.
"Dan Cathy has the same First Amendment rights that I do. If he doesn't want to agree with same-sex marriage, I understand that," she said.
"But when he puts a pen to paper and writes a check to an organization that is about to squash my equal rights, I have a problem with that."
Cathy's comments were in keeping with the tradition established by his father, Truett Cathy, who started the chain in 1967 and never allowed franchises to open on Sundays.
Beyond Friday's organized displays of affection, there were other signs that the furor still had legs. Police were investigating graffiti on the side of a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Torrance, Calif., that read "Tastes like hate" and had a painting of a cow, in reference to the chain's ubiquitous ads featuring cows encouraging people to eat poultry.
In Tucson, Ariz., an executive at a medical manufacturing company lost his job after filming himself verbally attacking a Chick-fil-A employee and posting the video online.
For William Klaus, a 26-year-old X-ray technician with traditional views on marriage, the debate starts at ends with Cathy's liberty to voice his beliefs.
"He said what he said. Freedom of speech. Bottom line," Klaus said at a Chick-fil-A in Jackson, Miss.
However, that goes for Cathy's critics, too, said Klaus, adding that he stopped by the Jackson store simply to pick up some good food.
Yet weeks after a fast-food executive doubled down on his opposition to gay marriage, debate rages on about equality, religious values and free speech. "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" on Wednesday, with supporters flooding the chain's franchises around the country, was countered with "kiss-ins" by same-sex couples at assorted locations Friday, long after Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy's initial comments to a religious publication touched off the clash.
That's an unusual amount of staying power for what initially looked like just another skirmish over a hot-button question.
Coursing throughout the conversations on social media, in letters to the editor and in long lines to buy chicken sandwiches is the sense among proud Southerners that the outcry over Cathy's comments smacks of regional stereotyping. When public officials in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago tell a Southern icon such as Chick-fil-A that it's no longer welcome, and that Cathy should keep his opinions to himself, many in the Atlanta-based chain's home region hear more than a little northern condescension.
"Maybe the reaction is just because we're Southerners," said Rose Mason, who was lunching Friday at a Chick-fil-A in suburban Atlanta.
Mason, who described herself as Christian, said she grew up in New York City. Now, she said, "I deal with my sister telling me we're a little backward. People have this idea that we're just behind on everything. So they view anything we say through that (perception)."
Cathy, a devout Southern Baptist whose family has always been outspoken about its faith, sparked the controversy by telling the Baptist Press that he and his family-owned restaurant chain are "guilty as charged" for openly — and financially — supporting groups that advocate for "the biblical definition of a family unit." He later added that the United States is "inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage."
For Marci Alt, organizer of a protest Friday at a Chick-fil-A in the relatively liberal Atlanta suburb of Decatur, it's Cathy's financial backing of conservative groups such as the Family Research Council that takes the conversation beyond merely what he said.
"Dan Cathy has the same First Amendment rights that I do. If he doesn't want to agree with same-sex marriage, I understand that," she said.
"But when he puts a pen to paper and writes a check to an organization that is about to squash my equal rights, I have a problem with that."
Cathy's comments were in keeping with the tradition established by his father, Truett Cathy, who started the chain in 1967 and never allowed franchises to open on Sundays.
Beyond Friday's organized displays of affection, there were other signs that the furor still had legs. Police were investigating graffiti on the side of a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Torrance, Calif., that read "Tastes like hate" and had a painting of a cow, in reference to the chain's ubiquitous ads featuring cows encouraging people to eat poultry.
In Tucson, Ariz., an executive at a medical manufacturing company lost his job after filming himself verbally attacking a Chick-fil-A employee and posting the video online.
For William Klaus, a 26-year-old X-ray technician with traditional views on marriage, the debate starts at ends with Cathy's liberty to voice his beliefs.
"He said what he said. Freedom of speech. Bottom line," Klaus said at a Chick-fil-A in Jackson, Miss.
However, that goes for Cathy's critics, too, said Klaus, adding that he stopped by the Jackson store simply to pick up some good food.
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