Another person getting You Tubed. Here is Emmy Award winning news anchor Ernie Anastos from Fox 5 in New York saying, “Keep Fucking that Chicken.” Mr. Anastos says he meant to say, “Keep Plucking that Chicken,” which apparently means to keep trying at an arduous task.
For example:
This story probably wouldn’t have left New York if not for YouTube making it viral. I have seen it on The Daily Show and heard it discussed on the Nick Digilio Show on WGN because it was high on the Yahoo Buzz Search.
I would like to coin a new term, “Getting You Tubed.” I don’t know if someone has already coined a similar term, but I will take credit. When that means is that you do something bad that would have been buried in your regional news 3 to 4 years ago, but now because of You Tube and other web 2.0 technologies, the story goes huge.
The most current example is Congressman Pete Stark from California. The conversation went like this: Senior Citizen to Congressman Stark: “Don’t pee on my leg and then tell me it’s raining.”
Congressman Stark’s Response: “I wouldn’t dignify you by peeing on your leg – I wouldn’t waste the urine”.
Before YouTube, this comment maybe would have made the pages of a paper in California, but now it is a national story I heard about on a NPR’s Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me quiz show, all because of YouTube. I think this is an example that shows that all public figures need to be on notice, that if you say something unprofessional or beneath your level, it will get noticed and it can travel across the globe.
In the interest of fairness I went and watched the videos that were in question on the VMA awards tonight. I wanted to do this to see if Kanye West had a point, even though he was out of line as I mentioned earlier. I watched Beyonce Knowle’s video, and I fail to see how it is “one of the best videos of all time.” At a minimum, Waterfall (Destiny’s Child) was better than this and I could probably name four videos from country that are better, let’s see:
See It in Color
Concrete Angel
Waitin’ on a Woman
You’re Gonna Miss This
It is a catchy song, but “You Belong with Me” is, in my opinion, better video, it actually tells a story and is clever and creative. Beyonce’s video is different and kind of cool, but to me it is just dancing to music and doesn’t add anything to the song like Taylor Swift’s does. And, even if you did think it was better, it is not “one of the best videos of all time.”
On a side not, I think “Put a Ring on It” is a great song for weddings when the bride throws the bouquet and I often wonder if writes think about that when they write songs. I bet they do.
In case anyone hasn’t seen the videos in questions from the VMA awards tonight, here are links to both.
Tonight I was watching the Bears game and went to make a tweet about the game and I occasionally like to scan through the trending topics. Well on Twitter (and on Facebook) there were a lot of posts about Kanye West. So, I followed the link on Twitter to search for the story and it said that Kanye dissed Taylor Swift. I was outraged because, as anyone who knows me knows, I adore Taylor Swift. (Yes I’m a 29 year old man and I’m okay with that.)
So, I read a story about it on Rolling Stone and I couldn’t believe it.
Before I passed judgment, I wanted to see it for myself. So, after several Google and YouTube searches involving people’s personal responses, I finally found the clip, posted below.
So, I watched the clip and it was surreal that anyone, I don’t care how famous you are, would go on stage and do that. It was almost as bad and as when Faith Hill had a tantrum when she lost to Carrie Underwood at the CMAs in 2006.
That maybe wasn’t quite as bad because she was at least off stage, but she had to know the camera was on.
In any event, I am starting to see a disturbing trend of public figures acting out in ways that are clearly inappropriate. Kanye couldn’t have thought that what he did was appropriate. Especially, and maybe this shouldn’t matter, considering that this is a 19 year old girl who has done nothing but be a shining role model in the media. Kanye apparently proceeded to flip the bird to the crowd while Taylor was crying backstage.
Then we have Chris Brown who decided that he could beat his girlfriend Rihana to within an inch of her life.
What these people all have in common is that the apologized about what they did after the fact and that was supposed to make it all better. And it seems like we in a America are all to willing to forgive. Now, this may seem contradictory on my part because I have posted that I think Michael Vick should be allowed to play football again, but that is different. The biggest difference is that Vick not only apologized, but he also spent 18 months in custody. Additionally, I don’t have to forgive Vick for him to keep playing football, no one does.
Here is a picture of Kanye leaving the show. Look at his right hand, maybe we will see what the really cause of the outburst was:
I would almost guarantee that tomorrow Kanye West will apologize to Taylor Swift. I would encourage her not to accept it. It can not be sincere. How can a person walk all the way on to the stage, take the microphone from someone, make that statement, and then walk away and flip off the crowd and actually be sorry. President Obama accepted Congressman Wilson’s, I know that, but that is the problem. We live in a society now where public people can do or say what they want and then apologize and it’s okay.
I am not saying we should never forgive people and I am not saying that we shouldn’t move on when conflict occurs, but we also need to hold people accountable when they act irresponsibly when they should know better. The governor of a state should be allowed to just disappear for a week and then just be embraced back into the fold by his state or by his wife.
So, I say, do not just forgive Mr. West. I say boycott his music and his antics until he can behave like an adult. I was thinking about Jay Leno’s return to TV tomorrow, but I will not watch if Kanye is still going to perform. I have occasionally thought of listening to his music because my good friend Jenny likes his music, but that will never happen now. This act stupid and apologize culture needs to end!
But, of course there are those who do not use Twitter wisely and get themselves in trouble. There is the infamous story of the person who got a job offer from Cisco and tweeted about it and, seemed to lose the job. It went down like this:
Even after this, you still see an amazing number of people post negative comments about their work place and other situations on Twitter. I think part of the problem is that people don’t realize how big Twitter is becoming and they don’t realize how public Twitter can be if their profiles are not set to private.
Well, now we are getting to a point where people are being sued over their tweets. I guess this was inevitable, but we entering into a new dimension of the Web 2.0 world. Here is the summary of the story:
Now, we know that Horizon is a “sue first, ask questions later kind of organization,” so I don’t want to get in trouble with this post. (Although this philosophy makes me think the tenant probably was in the right here.) But rather I’d like to talk about the idea of being sued on the internet.
Since this company filed a suit, I looked up what exactly what libel is to see if this was justified:
So, technically it seems this lawsuit would fall under this category. One aspect I am unsure of is if a company can file a libel suit. The FAQ above mentions when a person is wronged, but maybe it can go either way. In this case, the comment was made about a company. But, in this case the statement was definitely made to more than one person and it was clear who the comment was about. The question I guess would come down to whether or not there was mold in her apartment and if Horizon did anything about it. (Was the statement false or not?)
I think what blows my mind is the mindset of the management company here. Now, this tweet happened on May 12th, and the lawsuit happens two and a half months later. That seems odd. Why bring it up now?
Next, this news story, and their law suit is doing more damage, in my mind, to their company’s name than that tweet, that I never saw, ever did. I got the impression from the story that Horizon doesn’t even really care or want to address if there was mold in the apartment or not. Maybe this tweet was necessary and accurate. Continue Reading…
A while ago I posted about the somewhat unnecessary criticism of everything the President does while in office in regards to the president’s swingset. Now, people are criticizing the Obamas for planting an organic garden at the White House. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart brought this “controvery” to my attention. (Apparently Stephen Colbert did a story on it too.) The Mid America CropLife Association apparently thinks that Michelle Obama planting a garden that won’t use chemicals is going to make people stop buying food that is grown with chemicals. Here is a copy of a letter they sent to “Mrs. Barak Obama” that was leaked out the a blog called La Vida Locavore.
So, this seems reasonable. They are just pointing out that in America we have a good food system. But what is wrong with people growing their own food?
Apparently, not everyone can grow their own food, so no one should. {Shakes head.} In an e-mail the MACA sent out to its constituents sent out to their supporters their true feeling are revealed.
I am not an advocate of organic gardening. I don’t care either way. I believe that food can be grown well with or without chemicals. What just really gets my goat is that the Obamas are not going around saying you have to live organically. They just wanted to plant a garden to promote healthy eating and this group, the MACA, that seems to be supported by plant chemical producing companies goes and makes a big issue out of it and misses the point of the garden, healthy eating.
In case you were wondering who is a member of the MACA, here is a list from their website.
As pointed out on the Food and Water Watch blog, it is especially interesting that they call it “conventional gardening” when people were gardening chemical free for centuries! Now, the organic side is just as biased towards being chemical free as the MACA is towards using chemicals, but the fact that this is an even an issue just makes me feel sorry for the Obamas who are trying to just live a normal life and promote healthy eating.
And, the notion that the White House garden is what is going to lead to people rejecting chemically grown food is ridiculous. I like that the White House grow organically, but the cost of organic food is going to keep me out of that market.
Also, the notion that the White House garden is what will out organic food on the map is also mis-guided. More and more stores, such as Jewel, are constantly increasing their organic sections and this is what putting organic on the map more than the White House is.
Both sides just need to celebrate the idea of growing food and eating healthy rather than focusing on the methodology all of the time.
The two best news shows in the country have covered this issue. Here are the clips.
He starts discussing the garden about half way through.
Top Three show tonight. Going into the night I felt like Kris was the underdog but I feel like he made up some ground. The contestants each sang two songs: a judges choice and their own choice. I found the judges first round commentary fairly useless. I guess that is to be expected at this point in the year, there isn’t a whole lot left to be said. Kara Dioguardi and Simon Cowell’s little feud was kind of stupid because they were both saying the same thing, that they wanted the contestants to make the song their own. Kara felt the need to point out that she has interpreted songs and Simon hasn’t which is kind of a Randy Jackson name drop thing to do, but then Simon came back and said that he personally spoke to Bono of U2 in order to get permission for Adam Lambert’s song, so he returned the name drop.
Round 1
Danny Gokey — Dance Little Sister
Danny came out singing a song I had never heard of which is sometimes helpful and sometimes confusing. I can’t tell if they are just doing a sound alike performance or if they are being original. I liked the energy he brought with the song even the through judges mocked his dancing. I don’t care if they are great dancers, but I like the effort. He did a nice little bee bop thing with the saxophone player in the middle of the song which I thought worked well for him. Again the judges didn’t agree.
Kris Allen — Apologize
I thought this was Kris’s best performance of the year. I liked the hip hop background beat combined with him at the piano. I thought he sang it well. Usually when I hear songs on idol I can’t imagine actually hearing them on the radio (this is especially true with Adam Lambert) but this was a song that I could totally hear on the radio. The judges seemed to disagree, so maybe it sounded too much like the original, which I have not heard. This was another instance where I was a big fan of Kara and her little, this is a song everyone knows. Well, sorry, I didn’t.
Adam Lambert — One
Well, I’m glad Simon called Bono because Adam did a great job with the song. He made it original and he sang it like a song that could actually be on the radio without losing his personal touch. It was Adam, but not so over the top as usual Adam. Not much more to say about him except he is really good and really should win the contest.
I was surfing through my referrers in the data I collect for how people get my blog and I often see that google.ca is a referrer. So, I decided to follow the referring link back, and I found that was again the top search result for Google for a certain topic.
Another great week of American Idol. I agree with Randy’s comments that this one of the best groups ever. I also appreciated that they let all four judges speak and did away with the contestant promo videos instead. I think this was a good choice. Not letting Simon speak is always a mistake. Although I could do without Kara and her poor math skills most of the time. Perhaps I am being a little too harsh with her, I often forget how hard it can be to be scrutinized constantly on live TV and to be part of a new team. I have been critical of Paula since the beginning, and she is finally finding her skin. So, maybe by season 16, Kara will be okay.
Disco night is always a little bit iffy, but this time many contestants made you forget it was disco night. I have believed for a while that since the David’s last season, the show has changed. It is not enough to sing karaoke, you have to me a musician and take songs and make them your own. You don’t necessarily need to play an instrument (Danny and Adam are fine) but you need to understand music and not just be a good singer. I think this is the fundamental difference you see with Lil, Anoop and even Allison. They are good singers, but Adam, Kris, and Matt clearly understand music. I am not sure where Danny falls on that continuum, but the fact that he bought a guitar makes me think that he has some musical interest.
