Trying to Contemplate the Birther Issue Without Laughing

Conspiracy Theorists, I guess, make the world go 'round.

I remember them growing up. I had an uncle who swore the moon landing never happened. He also thought that actors and thespians were doing nothing but "glorified lying." The kid next door had a dad who thought that "we aren't getting the whole story" about JFK, Area 51, or where magnets come from.

But they were always marked with other overt eccentricities that pretty much fit the statements they had made. Now comes this laughable bit of forehead-slappery called "The Birther Issue," proponents of which contend that our President Barack Obama was not born in America and therefore is an invalid candidate to be President.

Smiling politely as people ramble incoherently about this ridiculous accusation is now not enough it seems. Lou Dobbs is giving it some legs, and today on Politico they discuss the headaches this conspiracy theory is giving elected officials of the GOP who want to maintain the semblance of rationality and credibility among everyone else but would like to avoid marginalizing these very vocal insane people voters.

If you can't feel the restraint in my writing, please understand it now.

It is ludicrous to suggest that the President is not an American citizen and can't be president. The Hawaiian government has gone on the record — unequivocally, irrefutably, and unambiguously on the record — to say that he was born in Hawaii, which I'm pretty sure is an American state. But they don't look American! bellows a Birther from his trailer bathroom, door conveniently left open for just such an occasion. Upon further research, Hawaii became the 50th state on August 21, 1959. It's a state in America, like Arkansas, Texas, Delaware, Vermont, California...even Idaho! Being born there makes someone a citizen, and therefore able to be President. If there's more digging that needs to be done, then by all means, dig away with all of the powers granted by the FOIA, but I don't guess that the flights from Delaware to Hawaii are going to be in any higher demand.

Fie!, cries another Birther after swallowing his Copenhagen in shock and dismay that I would suggest that the documents in Hawaii are in fact the real documents, not lookalikes swapped out by them danged ole Democrats. He done switched em up! he proclaims, grinning like Encyclopedia Brown after cracking a case.

Yes, those Democrats and their crafty ways. Having a man born in Kenya, trained in the dark arts of community development, being unleashed in to Ivy League law schools and on to Chicago, the Senate, and the Presidency, all over the course of 40 years. It's almost too easy.

Uh. Sure. Maybe. That's a blanket statement that can be applied to a whole lot of things, but until evidence is produced it's just noise, not to mention so crazy that it doesn't warrant rebuttal. My problem with such statements, other than the fact that they're hopeless thrashings of people who really can't stand that a guy with a middle name like 'Hussein' is president, is this: If there were any indication that there might be a speck of truth, a hint of validity, an iota of credibility to this potentially-derailing claim, don't you think that a political party with the vested interest in that derailment — the GOP — would have done something to do just that, and derail this charismatic, confident, and composed man who made a bee line to the Oval Office?

If there were any truth to the matter, people who are paid to find the deepest dirt in the world for big, big bucks would have been happy to deliver these goods and then never have to work a day in their life again. It'd be that important.

Sadly, such reason will never reach the brains of people who really think that Barack Obama shouldn't be President right now. He should. He was vetted. He was elected. He's in. But the last ditch effort of sore losers who have uncomfortable undertones that reek of good-ole-fashioned racism is really getting, quite frankly, embarrassing. As more and more people line up into this fold, it's going to not only damage the already-punch drunk GOP, but I fear politics in general. I don't think the public forum can sustain such an aberration and dearth of common sense.

And there's the objectivity of it all. I'm not decrying Republicans or hoisting Democrats — These people are just bad for business all around. Unless you can show me a detailed research proposal that can state otherwise, please drop this.

Michael Jackson's death may be ruled a manslaughter or maybe even a homicide. Have fun with that one.

Hankins v. Rutherford: Too Civil/Lacking of Bloodshed To Be Entertaining

The minor tremors about the Arkansas blogotwitterspheres today were regarding a column published by Arkansas Business publisher Jeff Hankins on the omnipresence of new media and the subsequent rebuttal by blogger Blake Rutherford of Blake's Sentient Bull Dozer.

Hankins says that media is now everywhere thanks to these meddling kids and their blogs and their twitters and their pop music. Rutherford retorts, "Yeah, so?"

In short, they seem to agree with one another about the viability and actuality of new media being on the prowl, but disagree on whether or not this is necessarily a causal "pitfall." Rutherchevy says that people have been spreading rumors and traditional news outlets have been getting it wrong for quite sometime, and to blame new media for those conventions is downright erroneous.

He also points out that it's a vast generalization to say that bloggers wouldn't correct themselves if they admittedly got a scoop wrong, which is true. But come to think of it, I don't see a lot of corrections made, unless it's regarding a source, quoted statement, or something else supplementary, rarely affecting the entire body of the post. But maybe the blogs I frequent are rarely wrong (ARKANSAS BLOGOSPHERE ELITISM! FIST PUMP!).

There's more agreeing going on here than not to really say this is a debate. As I say this, I'm hoping that a shirtless Hankins is storming down to the Bowen Law School, kicking open the door to Rutherford's law class to open a can in front of his students, ya know, to spice this narrative up a bit, but in case that doesn't pan out, it seems that both made good points about the whole state of affairs, without stomping each others' toes. Cue to the cheesy Full House electric guitar, denoting a valuable lesson to be learned.

Hankins is right: The media in its new form is now everywhere, unfettered by the old media's rules and governance. Rutherford is right: That doesn't mean that old media is infallible, not that Hankins was claiming it to be.

I actually spoke on an SPJ panel about the rift or symbiosis of old and new media. I really believe that the cream will rise to the top, meaning credible bloggers are more likely to be carried on and be successful than those that are known to spew bias and misinformation to prove its own point or attain a cheap, non-informative goal.

I think that credible blogs do indeed hold themselves to standards. We all know the credible blogs around town. While I certainly see bias in the analysis, very rarely are they flat out wrong about the events. In fact, I don't recall any. In double fact, I recall one such blog — Max Brantley's not-very-originally titled "Arkansas Blog" — getting information regarding the no-smiling law on our driver's licenses that turned out to be bogus and through investigation — huh? fact checking? on a blog?! — and then corrected it, shedding light on the subject through good ole fashioned journalistic checking of sources.

But "citizen journalism" is here to stay, anyway. It ought to. At it's very core, all journalism, conventional and otherwise, ought to at the very least be geared toward the citizenry.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Tip of my comedic-oversized-foam-cowboy hat (a Monday Morning ritual here at the Bureau) to Jason Tolbert for shooting me an email about retaliation from the Family Council toward the organization Know They Neighbor, which by publishing a directory of names to a petition, attempted to out those in Arkansas who needed no outing.

Tolbert has now published a list of contributors to the organization Arkansas Families First, which was a driving force of opposition against Act 1. They were unsuccessful, and alongside KTN are trying to force those petition-scrawlers to "stand behind their signatures and be responsible for this dehumanizing attack on the gay community," so says one KTN leader.

Okay, says everyone who signed such a petition. Again, this Massachusetts organization is not outing anyone. They are loud and proud. I wouldn't be surprised if all of these names were written in all capital letters, with an enormous sharpie marker. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these John Hancock's took up an entire page.

That'll show em. Accuse us of being cold-hearted bigots? We'll give you a taste of your own medicine, with a smile on our face. Signatures? Weak sauce, says Tolbert, I've got names of contributors who gave real, live money. Booyah.

God, I feel like I've heard this somewhere before. Somewhere, out there along the internet or Hoover blanket or somewhere...

Fie! It was that wily Johnnie Ray Brummett!

The ever-conservative, 'Print is Dead' blogger Tolbert has opened a Pandora's box of unintended consequences. His ideological opposite in both medium and political leaning has already foreseen this occurring.

Brummett prognosticated the beating of the chests that the Tolbert Report now...reports. While Tolbert's post in this instance is reasonably void of slight, and Brummett's makes no bones about the fact that he believes those on the list to be the bigots KTN would want to out, Tolbert is making Brummett's point for him.

We bloggers are supposed to be ahead of the curve of traditional news outlets, like the one for which I work. Aren't we? Or can't we all just work together and get along?

Doubtful. This will likely mean (verbal) war.

The Essence of Twitter (slaps forehead)

Let me first and foremost make a technological confession: I don't much care for Twitter.

It's nothing personal, to Twitter itself or to those who tweet religiously. To each their own. Me and some of my friends are just of the persuasion that at any moment, given the right amount of infuriating circumstance, we could happily liquidate all of our assets and invest in fishing lures and go live on a mountain somewhere. It's really nothing personal.

I've never had news broken to me on Twitter. A colleague and I were discussing the value of Twitter when it broke the story that a plane landed in the Hudson River. We both agreed that the popularity of the social networking device was a bit shameful; It's not like somebody wasn't going to report on a plane crash until — oh crap! — Twitter was on the scene!

But I think Twitter is useful, outside of its best use, that is, of transmitting hilarious headlines from the Onion, or the Ghost of Roy Hobbs.

Twitter is the new blog.

I referenced this briefly in my discussion about the Central Arkansas Champions of New Media. Huzah. Consider what blogs were meant to be when blogs were first created; Simple, quick ways to document a weblog of events or journals on the internet with little to no actual tech expertise.

Now look at what blogs have become. Blogging technology is snazzier. It looks more professional. And it's just as easy. If the news source that feeds the blog is credible, be it the person or business that runs the blog, then boom — It's become a new website and new media outlet. People can use these templates as platforms to get their voices heard and make themselves viable public entities, and spend a lot of time making sure it's well-done and thoughtful.

While wonderful in some respects, it kind of distorts the essence of what it used to be to have a blog.

Now comes Twitter, which limits its phraseology to 140 characters. Barely enough for a headline. Hardly enough for a headline and link to whatever the subsequent story may be. It is, in its most base and analytical sense, necessarily easy. The only thought that must be mustered is to confine one's thought to a mere 140 characters.

But it moves news. The Arkansas News Bureau uses it. The Arkansas Project uses it. Blake's Think Tank uses it. I use it. Lance Turner uses it splendidly. Jessica Dean and Choose Your News uses it. CNN. The Onion. The Ghost. All of these credible news sources are using twitter.

It moves news and it generates conversation and puts people's thoughts out there like the regular blogosphere was supposed to, and still does.

Now if they could just get rid of that danged over-tweeted whale. I've never been so infuriated at an aquatic mammal.