Cowboy Confessional

If there is anything tastier than irony or redheads, I haven’t licked it.

Take the Chinese government. Perennially apoplectic about controlling the masses, the People’s Republic of China central government routinely censors content of all forms – books, television, movies, speech, idle chatter, romantic whispers (”Your eyes are like fluttering posters of Mao”). It would shock nobody to discover that they regulate what a person can say in their sleep.

They heavily censor the web. No doubt this page will never appear behind the Great Firewall of China. If you have doubts of their voracity for information sterilization, search the phrase “Tiananmen Square massacre” on any Chinese controlled search engine and see how few mention the June 4th body count (upwards of 2,600 according to the Chinese Red Cross).

Being short on redheads the Chinese government had to rely on irony for my entertainment. Seems that the Communist Cadre are cackling about Google temporarily blocking access to the Chinese web site People.com.cn, which is managed by the People’s Daily, which is owned by the Chinese government, which makes this all completely absurd.

In short, the Chinese government is complaining that somebody censored them.

Ironic barely begins to describe both the Chinese government’s attitude and the power over it held by the wide open Internet. Sure, it is fairly easy to raise the ire of the collected pointed heads within Great Hall of the People. After all, tiny brains are easily manipulated. But to provoke in such a way as to cause them to utter openly and obviously self-contradictory concepts takes talent and smarts, which describes Google.

And it appears Google did absolutely nothing, which double the irony index.

As a service to all people, Google masks results to sites that have been infected with malware. This policing action keeps less sophisticated web riders from harming themselves and their computer by inadvertently downloading malicious code. Since China is second only to Russia as sources for malware distribution (mainly used to create spam generating zombie computers), it is natural that servers inside of China are routinely infected.

Including many owned by the government.

Odds are The People’s computers were infected, at least for a time, and Google’s robotic systems did what they did for any infected source – they automagically blocked it. Yet the People’s Retards assumed someone had censored them. I wish Google had done it on purpose as the alleged leaders in the PRC need to know they are not really in control any more.

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The fortune cookie that came with dinner tonight says “someone will share your warmth.” Great. Another woman with cold toes.

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Will someone give the Obama White House a break? I mean besides ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, MSNBC, and the Communist News Network.

Starting two weeks ago, Obama administration minions made mock of Fox News. On the Sunday talk show circuit, senior and senile Obamatrons implied or outright stated that Fox News was not a news network, lacked journalist credibility and that Rupert Murdoch was a child eating space alien. The White House had decided not to allow their staff to appear on Fox and suggested to other news outlets not to pick-up stories that Fox broke – stories like the Acorn hooker scandal or that Obama’s White House Communications Director, Anita Dunn, praising mass murderer Mao before a group of high school students.

This, of course, backfired. Telling the media not to report a news story is like telling a teenager to not drink, smoke or have sex – it tends to promote what you proscribe.

I’m giving Obama a bye on this one, assuming his staff simple ran amuck in unison. I have to, because if Barack was bonkers enough to pick a fight with antagonists who own a transmission tower, then he is about as bright as a Britney. Back when newspapers were relevant, politicians routinely said “never pick a fight with a guy who buys ink by the barrel.” The bromide applies to broadcasters to boot.

But even broadcasters are second tier influencers in the age of the Internet.

Where Obama’s brain trust erred is in not knowing that the media doesn’t control the message anymore. News organizations can seed a story and start a conversation, but they lose control the moment electrons escape their web site and influence readers, who pass along the salient bits to other addicts and activists. These kernels of news are then researched more, refuted, edited, distilled, re-researched and occasionally made more lucid (though not necessarily more accurate).

In short, the people now control the conversation. No wonder they sound ticked off.

The White House intellectual short circuit was most evident in the words of Communications Director Anita Dunn. In discussing their election mechanics, Dunn deigned “Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control.” This awkward admission that they manipulated the media amplifies their distaste for Fox and their inability to handle policy without spin.

The problem is that the people have grow tired of spin and have alternatives.

Which brings us back to the Fox News ban. Since Obama believes Fox News will not treat them with (take your pick) kid gloves, deference or divine reverence, they sought to banish them from information flow. This strategy had two primary flaws. First, as noted above, the media isn’t in control of the conversation, they only seed it. So when Obama’s handy henchmen went on every other Sunday talk show (except Fox’s) and spoke derisively of Fox, they attracted the attention of people who then started Internet conversations.

This included Fox News’ large audience. In other words, Obama did not have “absolute control” over the story because nobody can.

More important though are Fox’s 14%. This fraction of their viewers self-identify as ‘independent’ voters, neither aligning with Republicans or Democrats. Notoriously savvy and well researched, the indies tend to get their news from multiple sources … including Fox. They may sense Fox spin, but they also sense CNN crud, MSNBC chicanery and CBS B.S. Indie reaction to isolating one of their news outlets – the only one actively questioning administration policy and action – caused these loan wolves to howl.

Which is why the White House relented and is putting Fox back in the rotation.

Note to Barack: If the media is not in control of the message, don’t bother trying to control the media … or the people.

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Over time, capitalism provides for most of the needs of most of the people.

Government provides for the needs of a select group of constituents (typically key voting blocks or those with lobbyist).

A wise person will choose the former and use private charity to help the few disenfranchised.

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Old bigotries never die, they just metamorph into more nuanced prejudice.

The problem is that old bigots fade about as slowly.

I am assuming that Keith Bardwell is an older man. Bardwell notes that he has been a justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana for 34 years. Assuming that Bardwell was not elected at birth (and given Louisiana politics and corruption, this is not out of the question) he is likely approaching or has achieved dotage. Thus some of the peculiar notions onto which old folks cling are understandable.

Until those notions are inflicted upon the citizenry.

Down south where Bardwell dwells as I once did, race relations are a messy affair. When Dixiecrats and other dinosaurs roamed the swamps, racial hatred was institutionalized in many pockets of prejudice. These districts, which thanks to George Wallace included the better part of Alabama, were the functional minority. Most southerners had worked together for centuries and were largely unaffected by race. Some of our ugly minded cousins occasionally obtained office – either public, in their local Klan chapter, or both simultaneously. These Crackers with Credentials were the unfortunate face of The South and ones which modern media amplified into an unrealistic caricature of southerners in general.

That’s the media’s job – the amplification their own prejudices.

Over the eons, as air conditioning permitted Yankees to relocate in the lowest of the 48, the myth of wall-to-wall racists faded. When one of the few and rapidly dwindling dimwits sounded, the majority of honorable southerners would wince in embarrassment while reaching for a shotgun. Yes, bigots are stupid, but they are bright enough to understand the downside of buckshot.

With the possible exception of Keith Bardwell. I fear intelligence has stealthfully bypassed him, which explains why the only work he can find is in elected office.

Being a justice of the peace is lowest rung on the judicial ladder and mainly involves paperwork and petty crime adjudication. One of Bardwell’s burdens is to pass out marriage licenses, a nominal task as the only criteria for obtaining one is that both parties are adults and that neither is already married to someone else (the latter being negotiable in parts of Utah). Ancillary issues are not criteria for denial of a license to surrender your freedom and happiness via wedlock.

Except in Tangipahoa Parish.

Seems a 30+ couple came to Bardwell seeking the requisite paperwork to legally bind them together … and were refused. Bardwell, scraping together what only in his alleged mind could pass for logic, said that that his concern was for any children the interracial couple might spawn (which shows Bardwell is completely unaware of out-of-wedlock birth rate in his state – a lack of marriage being no obvious barrier to bayou babies). His assertion is that mixed race progeny are problematic, saying “I think those children suffer and I won’t help put them through it.”

Then in a fit of oxymoronic muttering Bardwell claimed “I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way.”

Ignoring for a moment that justices of the peace are not empowered to make such judgments nor deny a license outside of legislative criteria, we must wonder foremost if the allegedly good people of Tangipahoa Parish had any inkling of Bardwell’s mental illness. The parish is not minor backwater after all. There are over 100,000 people residing there and household incomes indicate that Tangipahoa tenants are at least properly educated, a benefit forsaken by Bardwell.

“I didn’t tell this couple they couldn’t get married. I just told them I wouldn’t do it.”

What makes Bardwell’s buffoonery amusing is that the sitting governor of Louisiana is an East Indian, and several shades darker than the man Bardwell refused to license. Since Jindal is a Republican, Bardwell’s Dixiecrat buddies will no doubt find a way to blame this situation on the Governor.

The problem with prejudice is generational. Old men harboring ancient ideologies linger longer than we like. We must tolerate their company since beating old people is in bad form. Removing them from positions of power is not, and Bobby Jindal needs to make a public example of Bardwell … before the Dixiecrats find a way to pin this episode on the Republican Governor.

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