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The banality of outrage.

Ah, the moral rot is clear: someone somewhere to the right of me is claiming the Japanese hostages taken yesterday were peacenik appeasers most likely working with their captors in a sort of Stockholm-on-the-Euphrates, so we don’t have to worry about it. We don’t have to worry about a thing, and I can puff up my chest and pontificate, I suppose, if I want. —What I want to do is watch another episode of Wonderfalls. We’d finally managed to catch an episode last week, and liked it a lot, and figured, hey, maybe we’d better make a point of catching this show before they cancel—

Whoops.

While it was on, though (and hey, you can still snag the theme song from iTunes: recommended), we did manage to catch a jaw-droppingly awful commercial for The Swan, “a new series where fairy tale turns into reality.” See, what they’re doing is—oh, hell, let’s let them damn themselves with their own press release:

THE SWAN offers women the incredible opportunity to undergo physical, mental and emotional transformations with the help of a team of experts. Contestants must go through an intensive “boot camp” of exercise, diet, therapy and inspiration to achieve their goals. Each week feathers will fly as the inevitable pecking order emerges. Those not up to the challenge are sent home. Those who are will go on to compete in a pageant for a chance to become “The Ultimate Swan.”

Each contestant has been assigned a panel of specialists—a coach, therapist, trainer, cosmetic surgeons and a dentist—who together have designed the perfect individually tailored program for her. The contestants’ work ethic, growth and achievement will be monitored. The final reveal at the end of each episode will be especially dramatic because it will be the first time that contestants will be permitted to see themselves in a mirror during the three-month transformation process. Two women will be featured every week and at the episode’s conclusion, one will go home and one will be selected to move on to the 1st Annual Swan Pageant.

The commercial makes a lot about how these “seventeen average girls” are all ugly ducklings being given a chance they never thought they’d ever have: competing in a beauty pageant! —Forget whether Bush manages to eke out (or seize) a victory in November: if there’s a Swan 2, I’m leaving the fucking country. Y’all can have it.

But that’s not the worst of what’s coming our way on “reality” TV:

Child-protection experts and media watchers are alarmed about an effort by a reality-TV producer to create a CBS show that attempts to find and recover abducted children with a team of former military and former law enforcement personnel. [..]

Individuals and organizations that work on behalf of missing children, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, say the show’s premise runs contrary to the commonly held principle of relying on legal authorities to handle recovery cases. They also were scathing in their criticism of using such cases for any entertainment purpose. [...]

Rick Smith, a former longtime FBI agent, said he thought using a private team to recover children was “a terrible idea,” but also he could see it working “if it was in conjunction with law enforcement and law enforcement had the lead role.” [...]

A story in the entertainment trade publication Variety, which included comments from Burnett, said the show has been under development for 18 months, but “kept under wraps so as to not endanger the secret rescue missions conducted for the pilot” episode.

I, um. Yeah. I know ragging on reality TV is something of a pasttime for bored, dilletantish pseuds (hence), but. I mean, I. Um. I’m honestly, I mean—

Hey! Look! Evil lottery!

Play Your Debt!

Part of an online ad for playyourdebt.com. Oh, type it into the URL bar yourself, you want to go take a look at it. I’m not about to juice them.

So I go to Kevin Drum, forgetting he’s not doing the cat blogging anymore now that he’s hit the Big Time, and I discover he thinks it’d be cool to write off the fifth amendment if we get stringent about videotaping all police interviews. Which, minor little thing, hardly even merits a squabble, just a shrieked “You WHAT?” and, you know, we move on, but I’m dispirited. I’m in a Mood, now.

Luckily, the Three-Toed Sloth is there in a pinch.

This brief note describes the discovery of an apparent joint burial of a human being and a cat, c. 7200 to 7500 B.C. (Some of the details that follow come from the on-line supplementary material.) The human being was aged at least thirty, buried facing west. Whoever it was, they rated a lot of Neolithic swag: “a marine shell, a stone pendant, a very uncommon discoid flint scraper, two small polished axes (one of them broken), a pumice stone, a fragment of ochre, a large flint piercing tool, and several non-retouched flint blades and bladelets,” plus, in a near-by pit, twenty-four sea-shells from three species: “One shell of each species had been artificially pierced; the remaining 21 shells had not been worked. All the 24 shells had been arranged around a central raw fragment of a green soft stone used for jewellery [sic] (‘picrolite’)”. “This is the only burial with such a high number of offerings for the whole Preceramic and Aceramic Neolithic in Cyprus.” The cat was aged eight months, apparently buried at the same time, definitely buried in the same orientation as the human, and was definitely not butchered. —The significance here is that this pushes back the period for which we have firm evidence of the taming of cats considerably.

Ah. I feel better. —A bit, anyway.

—Filed 2165 days ago to ; .

  1. Yeah, Wonderfalls was the first show I'd seen in what seems like forever with a spark of originality and a sense of fun. No wonder it was cancelled before it had time to develop a fan base: can't have the masses expecting actual quality content, or they might grow discontent with easy-to-manufacture-in-quantity dreck, and then where would the networks be?

    Meh. Now I'm in a Mood. It's all your fault. Yes, all of it. Iraq too. You're a Librul aren't you? Well then.
    — sennoma    Apr 9, 11:45 AM    #
  2. Nah, I think libruls are vaguely somewhere off my starboard bow, most days. --But! I found another article about Recovery, the Hey! Let's rescue some kids! TV show described above. This article is more, shall we say, "objective":

    The one-hour pilot episode, 18 months in the making, was kept strictly confidential to protect the secret nature of the rescue missions filmed for the show, it said.


    Burnett told the publication that as a onetime British commando, he was able to develop the project through his association with former U.S. Marine and CIA officer Bazzel Baz, who leads a team of specialists in law enforcement, espionage and the military on voluntary missions to search for and rescue missing children.


    "The show is like 'Without a Trace,' but it's with a kid who really has been taken," Burnett told Variety, referring to the CBS drama series about the FBI's missing persons unit. "There's nothing bigger than this. It's more than just television."


    I suppose my—disgust? appalled mien? churning sense of alienation? (When did I wake up in a place that thought this idea was not to be instantly hooted into the outer darkness?) —I suppose it means I hate America, and children, and puppy dogs.
    — --k.    Apr 9, 12:01 PM    #
  3. Ye gods and little kittens. I remember, years ago, reading a science fiction story about organised rape and murder becoming prime-time television fare. I am sorry now that I called the author a disgusting pervert; it seems I berated Cassandra.
    — sennoma    Apr 9, 01:52 PM    #
  4. Hey, now. Plenty of people do catblogging. I do a little squidblogging now and then. Then there's Mrs Tilton's arachnid blogging. Screw Kevin Drum.

    Uh-oh. Am I going to lose all my advertisers now?
    — PZ Myers    Apr 9, 04:28 PM    #
  5. cry so what? and let loose the dogs of war
    xposted Kip has a few of our local heroes' reactions to the issues of the day (certified politician safe by the people whose job it is to tell us what is acceptable discourse in time of war) The Agonist links...

    — the american street    Apr 9, 06:42 PM    #
  6. I am shocked -- shocked! -- at PZ Myers' callous disregard for Californian bloggers. I call for an immediate abject apology, and if same is not forthcoming I hereby direct my minions to DOS his unfeeling ass, spam his comments and send death threats to his favourite squid.

    Oh wait, I don't have any minions. But I do have my outrage! Outrage I tell you!
    — sennoma    Apr 12, 11:30 AM    #
  7. Folks, if you don't immediately try to foment a more controversial blogfight with better audience hooks, I'm going to be forced to cancel your thread. Our research suggests the Iraq thing is played out; people don't think it's "fun" anymore. Possibilities include insults over condemning war efforts in Afghanistan, or proposing a second front in Iran; North Korea is always good for a wildcard; heck, one of you could snip some quotes out of the correspondence of the other and compare them with Stalin's diaries or something. Make a quiz. You could even think outside the box: let's not get locked in. That's not the way to build the next Big Flap. But whatever you do, for God's sake, remember the Iron Law of internet posting:

    Kittens trump squids.

    — --k.    Apr 12, 11:56 AM    #
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