Under normal circumstances, this recap would be Kerry’s. Currently, however, she’s laying on the couch, watching “Gilmore Girls,” and completely hopped up on cold medicine. Lest her recap become “Fear and Loathing in Public Media,” I’ve taken it from her shoulders and left her to try to clear her sinuses.
Which is fine, because I’m left with the one holiday episode of “On the Media” in recent memory that hasn’t been stitched together entirely from OTM re-runs. It’s nice to hear Brooke and Bob throwing something new together in what’s normally a shorter week than usual.
Maybe they had been listening to us all along, and during election coverage, were working on other stories that they were saving up for this week’s episode. I’d be surprised if that’s the case, but regardless, this Thanksgiving weekend, I’m thankful for the fact that the only re-run bit (that I recognized) in this episode is a completely re-done and expanded “atheists in foxholes” segment.
I’d grown accustomed to Brooke and Bob raiding the vaults every time they had a short week ahead, and it’s good to see Brooke at least freshening up her leftovers. Making turkey sandwiches, as it were, out of her leftover turkey. It’s cool. And she did a good job.
Good points are made, the best being that the “new atheists” – Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, et al – while doing good to bring atheism into the national spotlight and open up the public dialogue about religion, use tactics to do so that are every bit as offensive and condescending as those of the religious fundamentalists whom they so vocally distance themselves from.
And though I do agree that religion has brought much ill upon the world, it’s mostly the religious blowhards and douchebags that have caused the ill. Almost every religion that I’ve ever come across includes a large number of people who don’t hate people who disagree, who wish well upon everybody, and who would far rather discuss openly than dismiss outright.
The “new atheist’s” tendency to automatically dismiss religious belief as a sure sign of a weak mind makes them every bit as shortsighted and intolerant as the bigots they espouse themselves as the antidote for.
Just because Keith Olbermann is a liberal blowhard doesn’t make him any less fatuous than conservative blowhards like Bill O’Reilly or Anne Coulter.
Ultimately, the real problem the New Atheist movement has is in making itself into a real alternative to religious extremism, not by being irreligious extremism, but by being anti-extremism of any sort. Hold to what you believe, but don’t be a douche.
That said, one interview in this episode deals with what might be my new dream job: Writing term papers on commission. Bob rails on Nick Mamatas for doing just that, but it doesn’t make me want to do it any less – but I have to admit, the weird noise he makes at the start of the story doesn’t exactly win me over at all.
I know this seems a little sick to some people, but honestly, researching and writing papers every couple weeks is something that I completely miss about college. I was good at turning in papers that would earn (at my worst) a “B” grade, even though I had done all the research and writing within no more than 48 hours.
What sounds really awesome, however, about Nick Mamatas’ job was when, occasionally, when a client would make himself a pain in Mamatas’ ass, he’d send the professor proof of the client’s academic dishonesty. Just desserts, all that. I love it. Where do I sign up?
There’s also kind of a train wreck of a piece about whether “Media” should be treated as a singular or plural noun. Hearing this caused Kerry, even though she’s passed out in the other room, to poke her head around the corner, and just ask, “Really?! Are they talking about whether Media is singular or possessive?”
Honestly, “Media” is so colloquially understood right now, and the show’s use is, by nature, a metonymy – in this case, the whole representing the parts – that, I could really care less which you use. I know it seems important, Brooke, when creating a show about “the Media,” to discuss whether your show is about one large entity or several different bits.
It’s not important, I’m sorry. When you’re treating an individual medium, then use “Media are.” When you’re talking about “The Media” as a generalization, use “is.” Common sense, but nobody but the biggest sticklers – who, most likely, will be listening to public radio – is going to notice. Also notice, there, my correct subject/verb agreement in that last sentence. I’m proud, but no one cares.
This week’s recap was written by Matthew who has had far too much espresso considering how late in the day he started making it, and was edited by Kerry, who really should have just been sleeping off her cold.
Post a Comment