Why I love Fox News

I was watching Fox News this morning… I guess I should explain that, first. I'm a news junkie, so it's normal for me to flip between four or so networks, and yes, I include Fox in that. But I also watch Fox as more than a network to flip and see headlines. It is something I can sit and watch. It's also, often, how I start my morning. They're biased, they're stupid, half their "news" is about topless cheerleaders. (I wish I were making this up.) They're also a great way to start the morning, because they're either amusing or infuriating me (often both) and I can't stay tired when I am shouting at Steve Doocy. Fox and Friends, the morning show, just wakes me up. I know there must be people out there who watch Fox and Friends as a place to get their morning news, but there's also me. Fox and Friends wakes me up.

So anyway, I was watching Fox and Friends this morning. After spending all year telling my fellow fox-viewers and me why we shouldn't vote for now President-Elect Obama, (that went well for them, obviously) you might wonder what they would devote all their time to now. Well, if you've watched Fox News as much as I have, you'd know that Mid-November on is time to talk about the War on Christmas. I love when they talk about the War on Christmas.

(A few years ago, all of that was devoted to a lawsuit against a school district that had banned religious music from their holiday concert. Fox loved this family for standing up for "our" Christian faith, and hated the school district for attacking it. Then it turned out that the person suing? Was the parent of a kid who had been my best friend from toddlerhood until he moved when we were 6 and we lost touch. Which is why I'm not linking to any of that, and also why the War on Christmas holds a very special place in my heart.)

This morning, they were talking about atheists challenging nativity scenes in state capitols. The chyron read something like "Anti-Religion or Free Speech?" So I of course shout at Steve Doocy. "Both! It can actually be both!" I was just so angry and amused that they couldn't see it as the freedom of speech to protest religion. Fox News is constantly presenting issues as "this or that," it wasn't just this morning. "Both!" is something I scream at Doocy and the chyrons often. Then I remember that's actually a developmental stage. Fox News has not progressed past the age of 7 in thought. Or that's who they appeal to. Fox knows its audience, and caters to it, I guess.

This is why I love fox news. Anything that can get me thinking about developmental psychology and give me something to blog about for this class before 7am is definitely worth that love. Everyone else has coffee, but I have Fox, starting my brain and getting me to think. So maybe I'm not the target audience. Does it matter? I've left pre-operational thought: I'm a liberal and a Fox viewer. It can actually be both.

More Fashion in Politics

I read this post in the Caucus a few days ago, and it got me thinking that fashion has a role in politics and protest. It's something I've already thought about a bit, but the knotted white ribbon felt different from an Obama button, I kept thinking about a stupid piece of ribbon, and I wondered why that was.

So. The knotted ribbon. I kinda like it. It's simple. "tie the knot! Oh, I see what you did there." And it's white, because… marriage is all about purity and white? I take it back, I'm starting to think the ribbon is… either brilliant or awful.

The whiteknot.org site tells us that "The White Knot is the symbol for marriage equality. It takes two traditional symbols of marriage—white and tying the knot—and combines them in a simple way to show support for the right of gays and lesbians to marry"

Which is great, I guess, but, uh, how exactly does it "combine them to show support for the right of gays and lesbians to marry?"

When I first started writing this, I was so gung-ho on this white knotted ribbon. I had this whole thing about visibility and its importance all thought out. Then I realized there is nothing gay about a white ribbon with a knot in it. So how visible is it?

The white ribbon ignores the cause. It's full of marriage symbolism (the knot, the color white) and devoid of anything queer. It'd be so easy to take a rainbow ribbon and knot it. You'd have marriage symbolism and gay symbolism. I wonder if that could symbolize gay marriage?

But it can't, because the last thing you'd want to do is remind people that the issue is about two people of the same sex getting married. The causes of "Marriage Equality" and white ribbons erase that: it's not about same-Sex or Gay Marriage, It's about equality. And whenever it gets framed so clinically, knots and white and equality under the law, I start wondering why we don't just settle for every democratic politician's favorite phrase, "civilunionswiththefullprotectionandrightsgrantedtoheterosexualcouples." Because if we're talking equality, tax laws are tax laws, hospital visits are hospital visits, and civil unions are marriages. So why not? It's just about equality, isn't it?

It's obviously not, despite what the white knot people seem to think. So why not civil unions? Because Civil Unions are presented as this palatable alternative: Equality, not Same-sex, white, not rainbow, civil unions, not marriages, and I'm sick of feeling so damn unpalatable. I don't need a ribbon from my own movement to reinforce that.

As much as the Gay Marriage movement might need a symbol, it definitely doesn't need one that bleaches it of what it is.

Selling Service

When the bus finally came this morning, the first thing I noticed was the ad on the side. It said something like "Real life isn't video games," over an image of military life.

It made me think; this wasn't the first time I'd seen a military recruitment ad targeted to parents. In fact, I think I see those more often then I see ads targeted to young people. Most of the time, they get us with four words: "We'll pay for college." The thought of free college is enough to get us to consider military service. It's our parents they need to convince. Military service is dangerous. There are two wars. Their children could die. And so the government spends money convincing their parents that joining the military is safe, devoting sections of their sites to it. Goarmy.com even translates this site into Spanish. The military is recruiting your parents as much as they are you. But why? Ultimately, with the exception of a few 17 year olds, you don't need parental permission to join the armed forces. Why bother convincing them of the merits?

This is just a thought, but maybe I'm not the only young adult noticing the parent ads. These ads, claiming to reassure parents, are actually reassuring the doubt after the "We will pay for college" ads leave. This is a warm, cuddly armed forces, one that reassures your parents.

Or maybe I'm wrong. I'm clearly not a target for recruitment. Since turning 18, I've listened to my friends' stories of trying to get off the phone with military recruiters but never gotten a call of my own. I'm almost disappointed; I don't want to join the military (as appealing as the free college is) but I don't want them not to want me. The ads are getting to me; they make military service almost look fun. I don't want to join, but I want them to want me to join. It doesn't make much sense, but then, the happy, peacetime soldiers in the ads don't, either.

My other favorite way I've seen the military try to recruit is through a National Guard program called "Active First." You sign up with the National Guard and immediately after basic training, you ship out for active duty. "You'll make hazard pay! You won't have to worry about when you'll be called for active duty! You can make $60,000! (if you remain active duty for 4 years)" And, of course, after you get home, most likely from Iraq, Uncle Sam will pay for college.

I almost wish we'd go back to the simple Uncle Sam ads. "I want YOU for U.S. Army." It's simple. It's upfront. There are no promises of college, no sugar coating the work. He just wants YOU for the army. He's kind of imposing, with the stern look and pointed finger. He almost makes you feel guilty that you haven't joined yet.

But he's not tripping over himself to offer to pay my tuition.

Electioneering or Fashion?

So, after being invited to at least 5 different groups on facebook, warning me not to wear any Obama buttons or shirts to the polls on November 4^th, I wasn't at all surprised to read this article in Politico. And at the very least, I'm glad to see that some people are making an effort to clear up whether campaign items can or cannot be worn. And I'm sure that campaign shirts and buttons are a violation of electioneering rules. I'm not sure I agree with the electioneering law, though.

I'd like to believe that people are not so easily convinced of who to vote for just because someone is campaigning within a certain number of feet of the polling place. I really want to believe that everyone spends as much time as I do, thinking about the issues and choosing which candidate to vote for. I know that if there is someone on line in front of me wearing a McCain shirt, my vote won't be changed. And as it is, I've seen people campaigning right outside of the bounds. It's really just an arbitrary line.

On the other hand, being able to wear a shirt supporting my candidate on Election Day is just not that important to me. Maybe I should feel like my freedom of expression is being abridged, but it's just not all that much of a hardship to take a button off a bag or put a jacket over a shirt. This year is my first election, and I'm thrilled that it's looking like it's going to be such a historic one. What I wear when I go to place my vote doesn't matter.

Maybe I'm just saying that be a New Yorker. Because when you look at me, it's pretty obvious who I'm going to vote for; I'm young and live in a liberal city. Most of the people around me who care about politics are Barack Obama supporters. If I lived somewhere where I was the only one, I'm pretty sure I'd want everyone to see that I was voting for Obama.

Maybe in places like that, someone oughta hand out "I just voted for Obama!" buttons just outside the boundaries. The visibility couldn't hurt, and you wouldn't have to worry about whether or not you'll be allowed to vote.

Sexism: "I don't know what that is"

I know this is a week old, but no matter how many times I watch Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, I keep laughing.

But the more and more I watch, the more I notice, too. Both women have been on the receiving end of sexist attacks, and these attacks sound an awful lot like the the discussion between the fictional Palin and Clinton. The SNL skit plays this up. On the one hand, you have Sarah Palin, the attractive and kind of dumb governor of a small state of hicks who fell into being John McCain's running mate, and on the other hand, there's Hillary Clinton, an unattractive and overly ambitious "boner-shrinker."

Sexism really does work in one extreme or another: these women, who, regardless of what you think of their politics, have become governor and senator. But that's not what the media focuses on when attacking them, and SNL humorously draws attention to this. I would much rather the media focus on real issues, as Poehler-as-Clinton put it: "It's never sexist to question female candidates credentials." Pointing out that Sarah Palin has a bachelor's in communications and two years as governor of a sparsely populated state (though it is, of course, close to Russia), while Joe Biden has a law degree and substantial foreign policy is not sexist. It is, however, true.

And of course Hillary Clinton is ambitious. So are all the other people who ran for the democratic party nomination this year, or are running for president. It takes ambition to get to that point, you do need to want it. But somehow, the label "ambitious" has only been applied to two people: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. For whatever reason, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, John Edwards, and the other candidates managed to avoid being called ambitious. Maybe it has something to do with being the white guys?