Vernacular Hero is a new series targeting the worst offenders in the English vernacular - words, phrases, slang - anything overused, abused, outdated, or just plain stupid that should be completely stricken from the language altogether. I am very excited to launch this new series because it lets me exercise my editorial muscle while doing some serious venting. Boom.
First act of vernacular heroism is:
blogosphere n. The social network made up of the blogging community. Example: "It caused quite a stir in the blogosphere."
I hate this term despite the fact that I technically exist in it. It sounds amateurish and gives off this pretentious vibe as if the blogging community has somehow reached a level of atmospheric importance.
It also sounds like a quote from Apollo 13: "Houston, we have cleared the blogosphere."
The word is essentially creating an organic entity out of bloggers, which is redundant, except it is a lot easier for pundits to say than "it caused a lot of controversy in the blogging community." If "blogosphere", than why not "webosphere," or "pornosphere," or "newsosphere?"
It is time to retire this snobby term and call the "blogosphere" what it is - a bunch of people that write blogs. I'm cool with that. I don't need some fancy title to feel self assured of what I do here. I just throw some words and images together and post it on the internet. It really is not that glamorous.
I don't like vodka - at all. I never drink it, except when it is heavily veiled in a chocolate or lychee martini. But I do love good branding.
Effen Vodka is good branding. Imported from Holland, the name "Effen" is actually Dutch slang for "smooth." It is distilled, designed, and marketed specifically for the club scene - the original 120 year-old recipe was given to a panel of bartenders to refine into a blend that young people would find most appealing and the bottle has a rubber non-slip sleeve around it for when the bartender's hands are wet, which also acts as an insulator, keeping the bottle colder longer.
And let's face it, the name is brilliant. It is the kind of brand name that is so universally-appealing, you can just hear anyone ordering it. Frat boys: "Bro, let's do another Effen shot!" Snobs: "Oh my God, I totally need an Effen cosmo right now!" Or even our favorite vodka connoisseur, James Bond: "I'll have an Effen martini - shaken, not stirred." I think we can all hear ourselves waking up the next morning: "Oh man, I had way too many Effen drinks last night."
"I found that Mr. Dziekanski had been compliant and was not defiant or resistant, did not brandish the stapler, did not move towards any of the officers. I concluded that the constable was not justified in deploying the weapon and that neither the constable nor the corporal honestly perceived that Mr. Dziekanski was intending to attack any of the officers."
- Thomas Braidwood, B.C. Court of Appeal justice, ret. Today, upon releasing his report on the Taser death of Robert Dziekanski by RCMP officers at Vancouver International Airport on October 14, 2007.
Apparently trying to score a coup for the new network, Quebecor Vice-President of Development Kory Tenycke offered Rick Mercer, the wildly-popular host of CBC's Rick Mercer Report, a job at Sun TV News, Mercer confirmed today.
Mercer seems like an unlikely personality for an openly-conservative news network, which will launch in January, but considering he hosts the highest-rated Canadian show in prime time, it is not so surprising that Tenycke would try to get him to jump ship. Mercer says that after considering the offer, he decided that he had no desire to part ways with CBC, a network he has been a fixture of for 15 years.
Of Tenycke, who he describes as a "smart fellow", Mercer said, "I never thought Kory had such good taste until he offered me a job."
Kobe Bryant celebrates after the final buzzer as the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics 83-79 last night at the Staples Centre to win their second consecutive NBA Championship and 16th in franchise history.
After trailing for most of the game and a weak performance by Bryant through three quarters, the Lakers came from behind in the 4th Quarter to edge out Paul Pierce and the Celtics in a surprising victory.
“I’m not stonewalling. I simply wasn’t involved in the decision-making. I had no prior knowledge of the drilling of this well, none whatsoever. With respect, sir, we drill hundreds of wells a year around the world."
- Tony Hayward, Chief Executive Officer of BP Today, testifying in front of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations about his involvement in the construction and drilling operations of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded and caused the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Though I publish a blog, I am a self-diagnosed anal retentive when it comes to journalistic integrity. Tonight, I was listening to CBC Radio's The World at Six, as I often do over dinner. CBC News is generally my preferred news source. I find them fair, balanced, and most important, possessing high standards of journalistic integrity.
But in tonight's program, I felt I heard CBC Radio's federal funding shining through for the first time ever. And it shocked me.
The top story of the newscast was the discovery of an illegal drug lab at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in eastern Alberta and the subsequent arrest of twelve current and former soldiers charged with drug trafficking offenses. It's a bad story. Soldiers using drugs is not good. Soldiers making drugs is especially not good. Obviously. The World at Six felt the same way too and seemed to go out of their way to make that point.
As the report began, host Alison Smith introduced the story saying, "We expect the best of them. Canada's soldiers are held to the highest of standards. That's one reason why tonight's news is so jarring. There has been a significant drug bust on a Canadian military base." She then went into the report. Instantly, I thought, "Hm, I think she might have just gotten away with a bit of editorializing in that introduction." The story included several soundbites from Maj. Daniel Dandurand, the commanding officer at CFB Wainwright, describing the circumstances of the discovery, but more conspicuously, why soldiers doing drugs is very bad. The story's reporter then seemed to dwell on the facts that all those charged were members of a single isolated platoon and that most of them were privates - new members of the Canadian Armed Forces, which is an extremely important detail if you want to convey a sense that this could not be happening anywhere else and that these were new, un-indoctrinated soldiers, or black sheep perhaps.
The entire story sounded more like a Government press statement than a news story. At no point where there any statements from any of the accused, their lawyers, or other soldiers who knew them. There were few details about how the lab was discovered, except that military police were involved. It was simply a bad discovery of a bad drug lab by some very bad soldiers who broke our sacred military rules. It was one-sided, to say the least.
What bothered me most about the story was Smith's opening editorializing of a top news story. Yes, soldiers doing drugs is bad. But she should not be expressing that. Using the pronoun "we" with the verb "expect" instantly implies an opinion. She might as well have said, "We at CBC News expect the best of them." It was not reporting. It was editorial.
The number one rule of journalism is to state the facts, not offer opinion on the facts. It is then my prerogative to hear the facts and form an opinion on my own. But that is up to me, not Alison Smith, and never should a reporter ever open a story with an introduction that implies anything about how she or "we" feel about the subject being reported about. In the court room, we would call that "leading the witness" - it is to put an opinion or state of mind into the listener that is not impartial or unbiased or rooted in fact before the facts have been shared. Editorial is something completely different from reporting and has no place at the top of a world newscast on the CBC. It is simply bad journalism, and Alison Smith, the host of the highest-rated news program on CBC Radio should know better.
But then I thought, it kind of makes sense. The CBC is funded by the federal government, which also funds the military. And if the government wanted to express its displeasure with these soldiers while maintaining some neutrality, what better way to do it than a Fox News style opinion piece veiled as a news story.
But again, I am anal retentive about journalistic integrity.
Listen to today's World at Six broadcast here and decide for yourself.
I have been scouring the web looking for a suitably-engaging image for today, but have come up empty. So here are Gossip Girl stars Blake Lively and Leighton Meester sharing an ice cream cone. You're welcome.
The other night at dinner, I was discussing the BP oil spill with my family and the arguably passive stance the US Government had taken towards seeing the spill cleaned up in a timely fashion. My father argued that, thanks to Reaganomics and lax regulatory standards in the US, it was very difficult to hold a corporation accountable for its actions in modern America.
I disagreed. I argued that the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, should be able to call in the Chairman of a company like BP, a company that is responsible for the largest oil spill in US history, and say "you're going to fix this, and you're going to pay for it all, and you're going to do it now!" and the CEO should have to do it. The President should be able to get things done. The man has the nuclear codes! He should surely be able to hasten the recovery of a natural disaster with little more than a few stern words.
Well, today, President Barack Obama did exactly that. He marched the Chairman of BP, Carl-Henric Svanberg, into the White House at 10AM, not through the private underground entrance, but through the public, front row West Wing entrance (where all the cameras are) and sat him and other BP executives down for a little talk. When they emerged four hours later, the President announced, in place of BP's $10 BILLION shareholder dividend payout, the establishment of a new $20 BILLION fund for victims of the oil spill (to be managed by a third party) to help recover economic losses sustained as a result. He also ordered BP to "mobilize additional technology and equipment" to clean up the spill.
Svanberg even went so far as to offer what many had been waiting for, an apology. He said "I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the America people. Through our actions and commitments, we hope that over the long term we will regain the trust that you have in us. We made it clear to the president that words are not enough. We understand that we will, and we should, be judged by our actions."
So here's to you, President Obama, for showing some teeth, for getting results, and for putting that flashy title of yours to use.
I am okay with Katy Perry, but I don't consider myself a fan. She strikes me as a 50's pinup incarnation of Pink - the rare breed that is the female rocker/indie songbird trying to exist in an electropop world. I loved "I Kissed a Girl" and hold it in high esteem, particularly for ushering in the Second Sexual Revolution, or the "kiss a girl" phenomenon, which brought drunken girl-on-girl make outs to the mainstream. Bless you, Katy Perry. Ironically, the song was also nominated for Favorite Song at the 2009 Kid's Choice Awards. But every revolution has its own special ironies.
Since her 2008 breakout single, however, I have not felt a similar partiality to anything else Perry has produced. Her sound, generally, is only so-so and when she speaks, it is not to me. Sadly, she is one of those artists that I appreciate more for her "assets" then for her audio. I was even mildly offended by "Ur so Gay". It suspiciously summed-up too many elements of my existence - with extreme prejudice. She could have (too) easily been singing to me.
And then came "California Gurls", the first single off Perry's upcoming album Teenage Dream. I should not have been surprised that I would love this song when I found out who had produced it - Max Martin, the legendary Swedish producer responsible for defining the sound of an entire generation of pop artists, from the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, Britney Spears and Ace of Base, to Pink and Kelley Clarkson. For Perry's track, Martin has crafted a four-chord signature riff that is obnoxiously-catchy. Coupled with an Armin Van Buuren-style lead-in with an envelope filter and a classic Europop 1-2 beat, this song has you hooked in the first eight seconds.
Martin's production has a bit of everything, old and new: hot synth hook, electronic beat, rhythm guitar, slap bass, but it stays a minimalist composition. You are never overwhelmed by a "wall of sound" production style, but rather he layers the various melodic variants seamlessly at opportune times.
The song is definitely catchy. After all, who among us does not like California girls? They're the hottest girls on the planet, at least that is what GQ and Maxim have taught me to believe.
Then there's the video, which premiered yesterday on MTV and VH1 and was widely-released today...
Well, hm...
It is like she deliberately side-stepped Playboy to do this video, but shouldn't have because it is entirely likely the Playboy shoot would have been better designed. This video looks like what a porno directed by Willy Wonka would look like, hardly something I'd ever want to appear on my screen in a pop-up window. The pornographic element is fitting considering Snoop Dogg makes a cameo appearance which, however, is pimpish and boring.
Don't get me wrong, Katy Perry is sexy. And when her sex tape drops, I'll be sure to accidentally Google it. But this is a music video, not a Vivid video. Naked Katy Perry lying on a cotton candy cloud batting her legs and eyes is fine in my dreams, but the song is called "California Gurls"! Where the hell are we? Where is the beach, and palm trees, and CALIFORNIA GIRLS? All I see are sexy Oompa Loompas and aerosol whipped cream-shooting lingerie. It is like that "something in the water" acid-tripped California into a Nutty Chocolatier. It's just...weird, Katy.
It is not that the video is too sexy - it's just too much Katy Perry "being" sexy. Lots of pouting, and smiling, and seducing the camera, and sexy sugar. Not enough context, or substance, or anything other than this sexy sugary Katy thing. Remember the video for "I Kissed a Girl"? If you watched it on mute, you would have no idea what the hell the song is about. And let's be honest, the title is pretty self-explanatory. This video is absolutely no different.
So I suppose Katy Perry is good at making singles, but clearly not so good at making videos. Perhaps that is why I remain an admirer, an occasional listener, but so far, no where near a fan.
blogosphere
