Taking Up the Gauntlet for the Cause of Shit Mountain's Delicate Ecosystem

Seriously, this Michael Vick shit has got to stop. Cnn.com actually had it taking precedence over the resignation of Alberto Gonzales yesterday.

This story is out of control and I blame all parties. For one, Michael Vick fucked up. Training dogs to fight is cruel and he should be punished for it. Have you ever tried to even be near a dog that has been trained to fight? They're not friendly dogs, and they become worthless as pets, because they'll bite your kibbles and bits off when you're just trying to get out their way. So that part of the story should be put to rest. Anyone thinking that dogfighting is acceptable is living in the past.

As for the attention the story is receiving: The NAACP and others have charged there are racist motivations involved and that the story does not warrant this much attention. They're right about it not warranting attention, especially headline-level attention. But he's not being singled out because he's a black athlete; he's being singled out because he's a rich athlete. Again, this is a matter of celebrity and class, not race.

Until we realize that, we will not address our fucked up obsession with celebrity and how anything that some celebrity does is news. Why can't we just have news? Why does the media have to reduce all information to the same level of importance? By providing an "entertainment" portion to the news, and then giving it near-equal time and imbibing it with the same amount of journalistic effort (given, not much) as they do the resignation of an attorney general, it lowers the value of both. It's kind of like mixing religion and politics.

The NFL is also fucked up for being more concerned with Vick's gambling than his butchering of man's best friends. I guess dog fighting doesn't conflict with their image though, so only the gambling is bad for business.


But there I go, just filling the Internet with more shit by talking about it, creating ever more layers to the nonsense, kinda like this sedimentary rock formation seen here:



See, layer upon layer of shit is added, and with the ever-decreasing timespan it takes for media stories to flourish and take on lives of their own, what we create, essentially, is a Shit Mountain.

The question becomes, "Who is King Fuck of Shit Mountain?"

Actually, no, that's not the question. I just like that phrase. To be honest, it's not really like sedimentary rock formations. Not at all. It's more of a really lazy, self-sustaining loop. But in the spirit of lazy journalism, I'm just going to let that idea drop.


And finish with some bullet points.

1. Lubbock and Texas Tech are so much better, bearable even, when all the students are gone. Walking on campus today reminds me why I support nuclear armament. (And yeah, you CAN hug with nuclear arms, it's just not very cuddly, not something you'd want to spoon with perhaps)

2. Man of the Year starring Robin Williams was not what I expected, and it also was not terrible, something I also didn't expect. What a glowing review huh? Not terrible.

3. Dane Cook also needs to stop. As does the absurd level of whoring out of the main myspace page after you sign in. I realize the News Corp. juggernaut now owns this little site, but can't it be a little less gaudy?

random...
We are now voluntarily doing the work of marketers - see, social networking sites are datamining opportunities. By willingly listing our favorite books, movies, tv shows, etc., we are offering ourselves and our interests up for easy cataloguing. I'm not here to suggest paranoid delusions of marketers targetting people individually, but rather we are eliminating the need for any sort of market research. Consider facebook's hyperlinking of information in those categories of personal interest...(and we should be making these assholes' jobs harder, not easier)

As much positive talk there is in regard to people being empowered through the Internet, user-generated content making dents in traditional corporate media, and new ways to express ourselves via things like social networking profiles, there doesn't seem to be much critical analysis of what's going on. Sure, we're expressing ourselves, but isn't it typically more mundane bullshit? Aren't we just spending time delicately crafting advertisements of ourselves? We're essentially crafting ourselves into a socially-networked brand. We are reducing ourselves to advertisements I fear.

And lastly, on a personal note...

I've been kind of quiet about this, as I wasn't sure until recently, but yeah, I'll be leaving Lubbock in a week. I was going to write a long thing about shit I'll miss, shit I won't miss and make a whole open letter to Lubbock, and maybe i still will, but for now I'll just say that I'm moving back to Alpine to get in touch with my inner beard. More news to come on that. I'm sure you will wait patiently by your computer for updates...