Swing Battuh Battuh Battuh, Swing

 

This sort of slop isn't the product of partisan thinking. It's a product of not being able to think at all.  When news outlets assign sports reporters who see everything through the lens of elite corporate sports to cover serious news, this is what you get.

I'd already heard NPR's Scott Simon and Franco Ordoñez do a more restrained version of the same thing on Weekend Edition today:

ORDOÑEZ: ... And again, as you noted, it comes as American and Iranian teams are meeting in Pakistan for peace talks led by the vice president, Vance. You know, they kicked off this morning between the U.S., Iran and Pakistan, which of course is serving as host and intermediary for the talks.

SIMON: To state the obvious, I suppose, this seems like a huge test for Vice President Vance.

ORDOÑEZ: Yeah, very much so. I mean, perhaps the most significant of his political career. I mean, it'll be a defining factor as he looks ahead to a, you know, possible run for the White House himself. 

But there is no joy in Mudville, mighty JD has struck out.  Does this mean he'll be sent back to the minors, or will he just be benched for awhile?

 

Down the Memory Hole

Ah, NPR's Scott Simon.  What a guy.

On Saturday morning, Simon interviewed Cardinal Blase Cupich to find out why three American cardinals, Cupich among them, had criticized Donald Trump's foreign policy in Venezuela, Greenland, and elsewhere.  

The interview was of little interest, but at one point Cupich sneezed, and Simon said "Gesundheit!" He then chortled at the crazy idea of him, a layman and a non-Catholic, saying "God bless you" to a Prince of the Catholic Church. Cupich accepted it graciously.

The trouble is, Gesundheit is German for "health," not "God bless you." I know, I know, it's the thought that counts, but NPR is supposed to be high-quality, fact-based journalism.  Not that Simon's smarmy combination of coziness and obsequiousness is either one.  But it jolted me awake, and I figured I had an easy blog post in hand, so I waited for the transcript to be posted.

A few hours later, I read the transcript, and the exchange wasn't there.  I listened to the sound file; it too had been edited.  I don't know why.  If Simon was embarrassed by his tiny error -- no, he seems incapable of embarrassment. This isn't a big thing, but it's emblematic of NPR.

Elsewhere in the interview, Simon asked:

What about the argument, for example, that 8 million Venezuelans have voted with their feet and left their own country. It's a quarter of the population. Hasn't removing Nicolás Maduro to stand trial for drug trafficking in the U.S. opened the door to change?

It's true that extensive emigration from Venezuela has taken place, but it predates Maduro's regime.  First, when Hugo Chavez became president, wealthy Venezuelans moved to Miami, which has long been a haven for right-wing Latin Americans. Then as the US moved to strangle the Venezuelan economy with sanctions and other forms of economic warfare, plus support for multiple military coups,.poorer Venezuelans joined the exodus.  Most stayed in the region; certainly the US didn't intend for them to come here. How much of this flight was due to political opposition to either Chavez or Maduro and how much was driven by economic need probably can't be distinguished.  But I don't think, in years of waking up to NPR's morning news programs, I've ever heard more than token acknowledgment of destructive US policy, and never of its role in driving emigration. Nor did Cupich say anything about it, for what that's worth.

In other faith-based news, CNN reported on Saturday that our new American Pope had issued a warning that

“As we scroll through our information feeds, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand whether we are interacting with other human beings, bots, or virtual influencers,” Pope Leo wrote on Saturday.

“Because chatbots that are made overly ‘affectionate,’ in addition to always present and available, can become hidden architects of our emotional states, and in this way invade and occupy people’s intimate spheres,” he added.

So true! That's the clergy's role.

(I'm also worried about many people's turning to AI constructs for emotional support, but there are good as well as bad reasons why they do it. Clergy in all sects have not distinguished themselves by their respect for boundaries with vulnerable believers, and their superiors (and even parents) have protected the abusive ones. I'm still concerned by people who turn to AI for interaction that is designed never to cross them, just as I'm concerned by people who turn to pets for it. The trouble isn't just that it's difficult to understand whether one is interacting with other human beings or with computer software, it's that many people prefer the software to actual human beings.  That chatbots can become abusive is worrisome too.  But this is too serious for what I meant to be a lighthearted post.)

Raised by Americans

Ah, Scott Simon, he's such a model of how NPR helps me wake up each day.

This morning he interviewed the author of an epic new biography of the early Hollywood moguls Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg.  Little details jumped out at me. First I thought he referred to the hero of Ben-Hur, a recurring Hollywood blockbuster, as "Ben."  But when I checked the transcript I found he'd said "Ben-Hur" after all, though his voice dropped almost to inaudibility on the "Hur."  

Then he referred to Tarzan of the Apes as a "British novel," though its author, Edgar Rice Burroughs, was an all-American writer.  A little later he said that Irving Thalberg died young, "... At the age of 67."  Well, he was only thirty years off.

Overall, Simon was at his smug, smarmy worst this morning, chuckling over private jokes that I doubt would be funny even to his inner circle and which he carefully explained for those unfortunate enough to be outside it: "Tarzan the ape man, played by Johnny Weissmuller, who will forever be the best-known graduate of Senn High School in Chicago ... I say that as a Senn grad myself."  He's mastered the art of sounding insincere even when he may really be sincere, as in his references to young Judy Garland being molested by Louis B. Mayer.

But like the rest of the NPR personalities, he drives me out of bed in the morning, if only to turn off the radio.