Turn off the TV and read

"If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed."
-Mark Twain

"Television is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation… Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information – misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information – information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing."
-Neil Postman

Yellow Journalism: sensationalist news reporting; a style of journalism that makes unscrupulous use of scandalous, lurid, or sensationalized stories to attract readers.
-Encarta World English Dictionary

"We come with a strong point of view and people like point of view journalism… We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket. I'm glad we found it actually."
-Matt Labash, Senior Writer for the Weekly Standard

I'm hearing it regularly. Every day. People are burned out by the constant barrage of the media's flimsy political and economic coverage. They are tired of seeing the same political theatre and hearing the same political libel that has been fed to the American public for over a year. Yet the media keeps pumping it through corporate television and corporate newsprint. Why is that?

Corporate media continues to print and televise irrelevant and fragmented information because we, the public, demand it. It is clear we wouldn’t have it any other way. We live in a society of entertainment. What does not entertain us is not worthy of our time. Everything, including the news, must entertain us. You can see this mentality on any corporate news network. CNN, MSNBC, Fox News. None of these networks provide unbiased, informative coverage. They provide entertainment and theatre; they cover only that which the public wants to hear. Look at their top commentators: Glenn Beck, Keith Olberman, Bill O'Reilly. (Their estimated annual salaries, respectively: $10,000,000; $4,000,000; $9,000,000). They get the ratings they want; they make the money they want. They don't report anything substantial. The American public is "disinformed." And it continues.

Never have I seen a more transparent example of this fragmented media theatre than two weeks ago. I was reading a few articles online after work on The Local (a Swedish media outlet printed in English) and the BBC. I came across a blurb regarding lipstick on a pig and an old fish wrapped in paper and I had a quick laugh. A generations-old phrase used to describe something old pretending to be something new. A phrase uttered by Obama describing the McCain/Palin campaign of "reform." The verbatim phrase McCain used to describe a proposed Clinton healthcare plan last year. I then read an article about a televised McCain-approved advertisement in response to the lipstick on a pig line, in which Barack Obama was criticized as being a "smear" candidate and a sexist. If you don't know the definition of irony, now would be a great time to look it up.

What dumbfounded me was the intense media coverage that followed. For three straight days, the top story on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News was lipstick-related. Two months before the US Presidential election. Argued by some to be "the most powerful position in the world." Certainly one of the most powerful positions in the world. Yet two months before this election, the best thing corporate media could cover was lipstick on a pig. For three days.

Apart from lipstick lines, what else could have been covered throughout those three days? Here's a brief list:

US Embassy bombings in Azerbaijan and Yemen and their regional stability impacts
Georgian-Russian relations
Turkish influence on regional stability
Kosovo and Serbia
The Missile Defense Shield in Eastern Europe
Faltering Russian-West relations
Lebanon and Syria
Israel and the Palestine Territories
Iraq
Iran
The PKK
Saudi Arabia
Libya
Algeria
Somalia
The Sudan
Chad
Kenya
Zimbabwe
South Africa
Afghanistan
Pakistan-Afghan border
Pakistani-US clashes
The Marriot Hotel bombing in Islamabad
Kashmir
Sri Lanka
Burma
Thailand
Nepal
Tibet
Chinese human rights
Chinese support for Burmese and Sudanese governments
Cuba and its future government
North Korea and its future government
Ousted US ambassadors in Bolivia and Venezuela
Colombia and the FARC
Climate change
The energy crisis
The Kyoto Protocol
Conservation efforts
Natural disasters in the Gulf Coast and in Haiti
Flooding in the Midwest
Deteriorating domestic education standards
The stumbling economy
JP Morgan's history of capitalizing on economic recessions
The Congressional banking bailout
The private banking components of the Federal Reserve
Domestic unemployment
Proposed healthcare plans and their pro's and con's
Domestic oil
Offshore drilling
The connection between the domestic economy and foreign policy
And on
And on

And of these issues that actually have been addressed at some point, which of them are understood by the public at large? Does the corporate media really help the American public to understand the longstanding tension between Georgia and Russia and its direct North American implications? Or the fact that the Federal Reserve is primarily composed of private bankers and is loosely regulated by the federal government, or JP Morgan's 100 year history of buying up faltering banks in times of economic crisis? Does the American public honestly have an understanding of how much or how little oil is underneath the ANWR? But the public certainly knows half a dozen opinionated responses to the phrase "lipstick on a pig."

The point is not to list two hundred topics that need to be addressed tonight. The point is to expose corporate media's apparent inability to provide relevant information to the American public—the main source from which a vast majority of American voters receive their information.

Instead of tolerating televised news, we should demand something better. Something informative and scholastic. Something enlightening and journalistic. If corporate media can't provide it, we need to seek it out independently. Competent journalism is out there, on the bookshelf.

As Neil Postman mentioned, corporate media has created in the American public "the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact [has led us] away from knowing."

If you truly want to have a better understanding of what the candidates are saying, distance yourself from yellow journalism and pick up a few books. You'll be amazed at how different your perception of current events will become.

A Little of This, A Little of That

I’m not sure where I left off… what was my last blog about? Let me go check…

Ah, yes way back when I wasn’t sure if Playa del Carmen was for me. Well, Playa didn’t seem to care if I was unsure and it swept me up in a whirlwind of kindergarten, contracts, productions, shows, and yoga. Alright, focus, where to begin?

Denya, my daughter, began kindergarten a week ago. My goodness, I have been literally beaten into a rigid routine of making lunches, cleaning out school bags, writing down homework and morning hairdos. All that and she’s in kinder 1 for three and four-year-olds. Here in Mexico it’s a law that children begin school at three. I thought it would be this casual coloring and playing atmosphere where she brings home pictures with ‘mommy I love you’ written on the bottom, reminiscing back to her daycare days. Oh no, this is serious stuff. The kids have homework every night and although it’s coloring and connect-the-dots it seems if I turn away for one moment she’s coloring the heart shape grey and the dolphin blue… And that would be okay with me except that the teachers ask me why she hasn’t followed the directions. I can imagine in their talks, “Do you think the mom is color blind? Doesn’t she know the sun is always yellow?” Yesterday we actually were given parent homework. I was told to put a protective, clear plastic sheet on the front of all five of Denya’s textbooks. The plastic comes in a roll so first I had to measure and cut it to fit the books, then it was a matter of sticking it onto the cover of the book. Seems easy enough but when air bubbles and creases come into play a simple task can become a work of extreme diligence and patience. Long after Denya had finished her homework I was still there slogging away at the book covers, seeking perfection.

Speaking of perfection, I had been so proud of how Denya had made it the whole week to school bathed, with clean uniform and even with her hair tied back. The wind was taken out of my sails today when the principal asked me into her office to explain that Denya’s hair needed to be tied back tighter and with more frills and clips. She also suggested that I bathe Denya in the morning so that she can be fresher. Fresher meaning cooler (it is pretty hot), or fresher meaning cleaner (it means both in Spanish)? I stared at her blankly and she continued to explain that the girls imagine they are little princesses and that Denya is having trouble adapting to her princess role. Perfume was even mentioned. I could only nod, unable to wrap myself around what was being said. I thought about it all day today. What do I have against princesses? Why shouldn’t Denya wear a pound of frills and bobbles in her hair? Why can’t their imaginary role be frogs or donkeys or something a little less pretentious? Why are three-year-olds being taught to look beautiful? I decided to just keep doing what I’m doing. If Denya wants to imagine she’s a princess she’ll just have to stretch her imagination past bobbles and perfume.

So while Denya and I are adapting to the school life, mama is also adapting to the freelance world of relative unemployment. Because it is low season here I was given a couple of months leave at my hotel yoga job until things pick up again. At first I was nervous I wouldn’t be able to make any money and since Pancho, my partner, has gone up to Canada for some more Circus training I am in charge of this household income. I was even considering applying for a real job!!! Possibly in an office!!! Just joking, the thought of working in an office in the Caribbean is enough to make me move. Office jobs are for chilly places where you can wear long, trendy overcoats in the snow and rain and high boots and fitted dress shirts during the short summers. This is the Caribbean, only suckers have office jobs here. Mind you, not that I’ve been living a very Caribbean lifestyle. I haven’t been to the beach in over a month. I guess the bonus about being in the Caribbean is that everything you do, you do it in a tank top. It’s that knowledge that the beach is right there, even if I don’t use it today.

Okay, I’m straying, back to the job, so I’m thinking about doing this and that and maybe the other thing and then I get in with some friends putting together some huge productions for Day of the Dead (Halloween performances) with some thirty Catrina costumes (see photo) and a full-fledged skeleton costume for a horse, an ecological turtle show with a giant, egg-laying, lit-up turtle mama that comes out of the Sea, and a New Years extravaganza with floating projections, synchronized swimming, boats with Venetian style chauffeurs, and aerial performers hanging from bridges. Yeah, wow, bring it on!

So I’m starting to help with these productions, which, after having built it up so grandly, I must admit that at the moment all I’m doing is making about 800 orange crepe paper flowers. Not exactly the excitement I laid out in the previous paragraph, but that’s what behind the scenes production is about - details baby, details.

Then I get a call to come and practice singing in a little band; then another call to help rent and take care of an apartment; then another call for a casting in a commercial; then another call for a light show on Fifth Avenue (Playa’s Fifth); then another call for a show in Sinaloa; before I know it I’m running around like a maniac and those days I remember not so long ago when I played solitaire on my iPod are long gone. Gratefully so I might add.

It’s beautiful. I make my own schedule and even though I’m busy, at any time I can take the afternoon off or go for breakfast with a friend. I’m a freelance everything, which is fine by me. I’m feeling like everything is going to work out and even though it’s low season, it doesn’t have to be low for me.

Oh yeah, and my yoga? There it is, constantly pulling me to the front of my mat. Okay, I lied earlier when I said I hadn’t been to the beach in over a month. I was on the beach in Tulum for a week taking an awesome yoga teacher training course with Sean and Karen Conley (Amazing Yoga, Pittsburg), but it wasn’t like I was swimming and sun tanning, I was sweating like a maniac doing ten hours a day of yoga training including two practices a day in a closed room to maintain heat. It was the greatest yoga experience of my life so far. I’ve heard that if you do something consistently for six months you can make it a lifelong habit. Well, my yoga has been with me now, although not always consistent, for at least 6 years. What does that make it? My healthiest habit. I would close with Namaste, but it just seems too out of place in a blog so instead I’ll just say – breathe and let it happen. See you next time.

Back in the Saddle Again

The Yellowstone park concession company involved in this tale of woe shall remain blameless. So, certainly, shall its employees. But it was a taste of hell.

We recently made one of our long trips to Greater Yellowstone. In order that I should not seem like a complete crank, I agreed to go with the rest of the family on the Roosevelt cookout. Roosevelt is a small village in the north part of the park, a place of open sagebrush valleys and, often, burning sun. For many years, whatever company runs the hotel concession has hauled big groups of tourists out into the near backcountry at Roosevelt, by horseback and horse-drawn wagon, for a dinner of steaks and other Western fare. It is one of the most popular and well-loved activities in the park.

We arrived at dusty Roosevelt just in time; I had spent a good portion of my park career working here, so I knew the place well. Jen signed us in and paid. The paperwork in a place like this is normally an odd mixture of cowboy lingo and deadly serious legalese: "Howdy, recreational client!" I watched as a string of tourists on horseback sauntered in, the wranglers riding ahead with some panache. The sight of those wranglers, perfectly at ease on a galloping horse, made me feel, briefly, as if I had missed something all my life--but they were born to this stuff, by and large. The wranglers were the same as ever, especially the female wranglers, attractive in a countrified way, sometimes a scary countrified way: Texas countrified, not Vermont countrified.

We of the tourist mass were not born to this stuff. We sat down in the amphitheater dedicated to this purpose (how many of us? a hundred fifty, maybe?), and listened to an hour of instructions and warnings obviously required by the company attorneys. I had been through it before, and this lecture has always been the greatest hurdle for me. As happens to me sometimes in the park, I had not eaten in about twenty-four hours. Imagine a restaurant that requires an hour-long lecture on etiquette before dinner, then spends an hour escorting you to your table. Imagine enduring this while hungry, in the pounding sun. Our lecturer was the cowboy singer who would sing to us when we arrived at the cookout, a Texan of retirement age who, as usually happens, made us like him in spite of the circumstances. He also told stories about grizzly bears "sixty yards away" from the cookout, a measurement he had confidence in because he was able to visualize a football field. I dismissed the possibility out of hand, still used to a 1990s Yellowstone in which the grizzlies were not as plentiful as they are today.

At last, the lecture ended ("Yee haw and saddle up, minors and consenting adults!"). We clambered into the wagons and rolled in a deliberate manner to the far end of the valley. We were in the hands of a driver and a tour guide, and the driver helped out with the lecture on the park that accompanies a ride like this. The driver did a good job, especially since he had to deliver his part of the lecture in between yelling "Gee!" and "Haw!" at the horses, a pair of monstrous Belgians. "Gee" means "Turn right," and "Haw" means "Turn left." Honestly, I never knew those had anything to do with direction. I thought that was just something you yelled.

The valley is a lovely place, a narrow sagebrush flat surrounded by low, forested ridges that gave an oddly homey feel. It was once a lake; one can easily see the benches around the valley that mark the former lake levels. Up and down our route, the bison and the antelope played. We reached the outdoor kitchen and tables, and the cooks, who had preceded us, were soon serving. The singer, released from his duties as a safety and liability officer, took his guitar, stood on some logs, and sang ancient, inoffensive country favorites like "Happy Trails" in a mellow voice that grew on you.

The dinner is all-you-can-eat, and I took them at their word, consuming about three full meals. While I labored over my second steak, there was a great commotion. I looked up to see, from my seat, a grizzly approaching. I did not bother to get up, mostly because I could not quite believe it. He was perhaps not full grown--a subadult, the biologists would say, and he did seem oddly adolescent, uncertain whether he belonged here. Still, his sides rippled formidably with the silver that gave the species its name. He approached within, yes, sixty yards, then made a long circle around the cookout area, finally leaving to the west on one of the riding trails. All those cooking smells pooling in that valley must drive the bears to the edge of dementia.

Lewis and Dustin were happy. Jen was happy too. Lewis was playing in the little creek that flowed between the outdoor kitchen and the tables. A girl approached me, maybe seven years old. "Excuse me," she said to me in the most earnest tone, "but I believe you are not supposed to come in contact with the water. It has diseases in it."

"Oh, thank you," I said. "What kind of diseases?"

"Something to do with the kidneys." She reminded me of Holly Hunter in the old movie Broadcast News. I was charmed.

Then everything went to hell. As we buckaroos mounted up for the long return trip (a mile it is, maybe--one could walk it in a third of the time), Lewis, who was then three and a half, decided he did not like where he was sitting. He went into a tantrum. He screamed without pause, thrashing on the floor like a boated shark, for the entire return trip. I thought of picking him up, stepping off the wagon, and strolling back to the corral--we would have beat them--but who knows how many regulations I would be violating? And so we sat, stuck.

I was stuck in more ways than one. Because I spent so much time working in parks, I cannot stand causing trouble. It's not just Yellowstone; I feel this way during every service-sector transaction I ever undergo. I find it impossible to mess up a hotel room, even when the management has done something to irritate me. Except for the linen and towels, I sometimes leave the room cleaner than I found it. I also bus my own dishes in a restaurant, making a little pyramid of tableware on my dish. It is painful. Worse, I hate being regarded by the insiders as a tourist, which is what we looked like at that moment. Here was precisely the kind of annoyance park employees tell stories about ("You won't believe what happened today").

But it was more than that. This whole affair was what we can call a "packaged experience." I have been avoiding this sort of thing all my adult life. Why? Is it just because I was an English major, and so can be expected to shun anything that is corporate or bourgeois or has the air of Disney about it? I had forced myself to get over that sort of youthful rebelliousness, although I will never be able to wear Mickey Mouse ears with a straight face. Now, I saw that there were a few good reasons left to rebel. The packaged experience is also one in which you are trapped. No matter what happens, you are stuck with the plan you have paid for.

Lewis screamed and screamed and screamed. At the end of the trip, we were required to wait for the wranglers to emplace footstools--the work again of the attorneys--and help us down like arthritics. I hissed at them and carried the still-screaming Lewis to the car like a sack of potatoes.

Lewis screamed on the way home. The plentiful snow on distant peaks lit up red, like a corny motel painting. He screamed at home. He went to bed, and he screamed in his sleep, then got up, screamed, and finally passed out close to midnight. He had never done anything quite like this. It was as if he was saving it up until the perfect moment to strike.