Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

"Happy" Anniversary to Mencken's famous quote. Are we there yet? Of course we are! We've even been there before, but we always seem to decide that we can do worse. Exponentially worse! Congratulations!

Shark Watch: This year, according to Discovery Channel, some of its "Shark Week" programming may actually have been TRUE!

npr.org caption: "This photo from Discovery Channel shows a great hammerhead, one of the largest sharks in the world, during an episode of Shark Week."

"Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives was the highest-rated program in 'Shark Week' history. Even though the network ran a disclaimer saying it was fake, experts like [the University of Miami's David] Shiffman were unimpressed.

" 'It was presented in such a way that you could very easily watch it and not know it was fictional,' he says."

-- from Neda Ulaby's NPR report on Discovery Channel's "Shark Week"

"No one in this world, so far as I know -- and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me -- has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby."

-- H. L. Mencken, in a column, "Notes on Journalism,"
in the Chicago Daily Tribune, Sept. 19, 1926

"This year we're focusing quite a bit on research and science, more so probably than we have in the past."

-- Howard Swartz, Discovery's new head of development and production

by Ken

Extra, extra, read all about it: "The Discovery Channel has promised no more fake documentaries." So we learned in Neda Ulaby's Monday report on NPR's Morning Edition, "After Sketchy Science, Shark Week Promises To Turn Over A New Fin."

While fake documentaries turn out to be almost the least of the factuality problems with "Shark Week," Discovery Channel has indeed gone the fake-documentary route, as Neda was reminded by all the shark experts she talked to for her report. It was two years ago, and "Shark Week" fans rewarded the network with the highest ratings in "Shark Week" history -- for an extravaganza about the spine-tingling terror of the Megalodon, a creature that has been extinct for more than a million years.

I see that "Shark Week" ends tonight. I confess that I pay as little attention as possible to it, but alas, each year it becomes harder to evade the promotional bombardement. What I didn't know until I heard Neda Ubaly's report Monday is that in the 28-year history of "Shark Week," factuality doesn't seem to have been much of a consideration. It has been more like a "Shark Horror" theme park, the programmers have learned that what aficionados crave is to be driven wild with spine-tingling shark-themed terror. The assumption has been that they don't much care whether what they see is true. Especially if they don't know that much of it isn't.

If you haven't already listened to Neda's report above, here's her written account:

It has been called the "Super Bowl of the ocean."

Shark Week is a ratings bonanza for the Discovery Channel with more than 40 million people tuning in last year. Shark Week kicked off this weekend with the most hours of programming ever in its 28-year history But many scientists think the huge audiences — and the hype — have come at the expense of real science.

A generation of shark scientists cut their teeth on Shark Week.

"I've loved sharks since I was a little kid," says 29-year-old marine biologist Jonathan Davis.

"I've always dreamed of being on Shark Week," he says. "It was my ultimate goal when I was a kid. I always watched it, and it was extremely informative when I was younger."

So imagine Davis' joy when Shark Week producers called him two years ago to make a documentary, which they said would be about his research on bull sharks in Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain. As a graduate student at the University of New Orleans, Davis was thrilled when they paid for a day of tracking and tagging sharks.

The producers interviewed Davis about his work and at the end, he says, they casually asked if he ever heard of a legendary shark of the bayous called the Rooken.

"And I said, 'No, of course not. That sounds like a ridiculous fisherman story,' " Davis says.

You can guess what happened next. To his horror, Davis found himself featured on a "documentary" that had little to do with his research. Voodoo Shark strongly suggested that Davis believed in the Rooken.

"There's no way I could've known they were going to portray it like that," he says.

Voodoo Shark shows Davis and his team doing real research, pulling sharks out of the water and tagging them on the deck. Davis says he did not see any unusual sharks. What was unusual was a producer's reaction when they hooked a big one.

"One of the guys was like, "Oh, maybe you should just let it bite you, that would be so exciting.' And I was just thinking to myself, 'Are you kidding me? You really think I wanna let the shark bite me just for ratings? Are you serious?' "

Ellen Prager, a marine scientist who has taught at the University of Miami and writes books for children about sharks, says she and her colleagues have a list of things that drive them crazy about Shark Week, such as the emphasis on sharks attacking people and feeding frenzies.

"That's not what you typically see in nature," Prager says. "And in fact, some of the shark researchers I know have hardly ever even seen sharks feeding in the wild."

Then there's the frenzy of factual errors. David Shiffman, who studies sharks at the University of Miami, has spent the past few years calling out Shark Week in public.

"Shark Week two years ago did not appreciate it when I recommended an 8-year-old neighbor to fact check the scripts for them," he says. "Because that 8-year-old knew more about sharks than whoever was writing those scripts did."

All these scientists agree that Shark Week hit bottom two years ago with an infamous, fictionalized "documentary" about a 100-foot, 80-ton shark they called "the serial killer of the seas."

It was presented in such a way that you could very easily watch it and not know it was fictional.

That shark, named Megalodon, also happens to be extinct — and has been for more than a million years. But Discovery resurrected Megalodon, with made-up stories of sightings and attacks. The narrator even threw in some exciting Nazi connections.

"If the shark that's in the Nazi U-boat photo is in fact the same shark that's in the shark iPhoto that was taken just after the boat attack, then that means there's been a 50-ton monster in these waters for over 70 years," said one character in the movie.

Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives was the highest-rated program in Shark Week history. Even though the network ran a disclaimer saying it was fake, experts like Shiffman were unimpressed.

"It was presented in such a way that you could very easily watch it and not know it was fictional," he says.

But Discovery says it's turning over a new leaf — or a new fin — when it comes to Shark week, says Howard Swartz, who recently took over as head of development and production.

"This year we're focusing quite a bit on research and science, more so probably than we have in the past," Swartz says.

The Discovery Channel has promised it will produce no more fake documentaries.

"We've toyed with a lot of different types of storytelling over the years," Swartz says. "And I just think now in a forward-looking direction, I think we wanna focus more on the research angle."

But how do you make anything as sexy as a 50-ton Nazi-affiliated shark? Swartz says you go to Cuba, where there are stories about a monster great white roaming the coasts.

"Allegedly, a 21-foot, 7,000-pound great white," Swartz says. "So the question was, you know was that the biggest great white ever caught? And if it was, was there something unique to these Cuban waters that these animals are growing so big or attracting animals so big?"

This year, Shark Week sent some of its shows in advance to some critics, including Shiffman. He says sharks need the Discovery Channel to not demonize them.

"When I say one out of every four species of sharks, skates and rays are threatened with extinction, there are some people that say, 'Good it should be more of them going extinct. Sharks are bad! Sharks are scary!' But they're not!"

Shiffman says sharks are beautiful and wild. He hopes this year Shark Week will make them reality stars.

ABOUT THE FAMOUS MENCKEN QUOTE

Yes, I know it's normally given as "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." But Robert Deis (aka "SubtropicBob"), a writer with a passion for righting wrong quotes, has already set the record straight, in a This Day in Quotes post for Sept. 19, 2012. He went so far as to reproduce the first and last paragraphs of the actual Chicago Daily Tribune column.

[Click to enlarge.]

Robert not only sets the quote right but sets it in context -- and concludes, "Looking around at the media and political landscape today, Mencken’s opinion might be deemed more prescient than ever."

#

The GOP Establishment Disdain Her As a Gadfly But Their Base Of Unevolved Bigoted Voters See Their Own Miserable Existence In Her Cheap Soap Opera

I don't watch TV reality shows. Truth be told, I don't watch much TV at all. I can usually find some useful things to do with my mind and my time. And I'm sure you can guess that I''ve never seen an episode of Sarah Palin's TV shows-- nor any of her appearances on Fox News. And you've probably noticed that DWT doesn't help her propagate her gossip-and-small-town-bigotry-driven politics by writing about her routinely manufactured ridiculous controversies. I do passively watch her tweets though, unless I'm busy. Yesterday morning she released a torrent of them, smacking of desperation of someone whose TV ratings are sinking.


This tweet, by social commentator Andy Borowitz was far more to the point when it comes to Palinmania though:


Unless she's cooking up her self-promoting dribble, Palin isn't really about news and analysis any more than Paris Hilton or any hollow media-created celebrities are. However, the service of displaying the new photograph by the DWT art department (above), we decided to mention that Palin has drummed up a battle-of-resentment with the Republican countryclub set. We all know how much she hates the Murkowski family-- on a quasi Hatfields vs McCoys level-- but now that's spilling over in her sick and twisted version of right-wing populism to hating the pillars of Republicanism. It blew up a couple weeks ago when she and Barbara Bush got into a public catfight, something we noted at Streams Of Consciousness late one evening when normal people were in bed.

The Palin Family Freak Show

The Queen of America's White Trash Nation struck back at Barbara Bush today for the remark she made on Larry King's show about how Palin was pretty but should stay up in Alaska. Palin "denounced the Bush family as 'blue bloods' in an interview posted Wednesday and remarked that a mentality like theirs helped to cause the economic downturn." She also mentioned she loves the Bushes.

And then, presumably because she was upset about Bristol's DWTS loss and how crudely she handled it, Palin declared some kind of an alliance between Alaska and North Korea, on the Glenn Beck Show. To his credit and without a script, Beck actually knew the North were the bad guys and the South were the good guys. Palin can take out her frustrations clubbing halibut until her ratings failing reality show is eased off the air.

There, night time gossip worthy of Palin's role in American politics. Thanks for all you do, John McCain. We were better off as a nation when you were just crashing every plane you ever stepped into. And does the fact that McCain got all his millions from his mobster father-in-law booze distributor protect him from Palin's latest anti-blue blood jihad?

Yesterday the Christian Science Monitor, which has apparently been monitoring the latest Palin vs whomever mud wrestling matches, assessed the score this was: "In the ongoing drama that is Palin’s political reality show, score this past week 'Blue bloods 3, Palin zip'." Palin, of course, keeps trying to remind everyone that Reagan was also an empty celebrity who became an icon without ever having learned much more than the lines to regurgitate on cue. That seems to make the Republican Establishment uncomfortable.

Joining the growing number of conservatives critical of Palin were former Republican congressman (now MSNBC host) Joe Scarborough, Republican campaign consultant Ed Rollins, and columnist George Will.

...“Wasn't Ronald Reagan an actor?” she asked on Fox News. “Wasn't he in Bedtime for Bonzo, Bozo, something?”

That was too much for Rollins, as it had been for Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan a week earlier.

“To paraphrase the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen's comments to Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice presidential debate: I knew Ronald Reagan, and you're no Ronald Reagan,” Rollins wrote on CNN’s website. “You might as well compare yourself to Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt.”

“If you want to be a player, go to school and learn the issues,” he continued. “Put smart people around you and listen to them. If you want to be taken seriously, be serious... If you want to be a serious presidential candidate, get to work. If you want to be an imitator of Ronald Reagan, go learn something about him and respect his legacy. If you want to be a gadfly, just keep doing what you're doing.”

Columnist George Will says if Palin truly wanted to be on the national political stage, she should have taken a different course when she and John McCain lost the election two years ago.

“After the 2008 campaign, she had two things she had to do,” Will said on ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour. “She had to go home to Alaska and study, and she had to govern Alaska well. Instead, she quit halfway through her first term and shows up in the audience of Dancing with the Stars and other distinctly non-presidential venues.”

Will acknowledged that Palin’s cheering on her daughter Bristol was good for “stirring family values.”

“But it's not good training to be president,” he added.

Using a phrase favored by Palin and two of her (unsuccessful) endorsees in the recent midterm elections-- Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell-- former Rep. Joe Scarborough (R) of Florida says it’s time for the GOP to “man up” in the face of Palin’s White House aspirational tease.

“What man or mouse with a fully functioning human brain and a résumé as thin as Palin’s would flirt with a presidential run? It makes the political biography of Barack Obama look more like Winston Churchill’s,” Scarborough writes on Politico.com. “Adding audacity to this dopey dream is that Palin can’t stop herself from taking swings at Republican giants. In the past month alone, she has mocked Ronald Reagan’s credentials, dismissed George H.W. and Barbara Bush as arrogant ‘blue bloods’ and blamed George W. Bush for wrecking the economy. Wow. That’ll win ’em over in Iowa.”

...“If Palin runs, I think the entire Republican primary process will be hijacked. With ardent fans and a rabid media, it will become Palin-palooza,” [Mark McKinnon] writes.

“Palin will suck the oxygen out of every room, everywhere she goes,” McKinnon continues. “And one of two things will happen. Discerning conservative voters in early primary states will be offended by the circus-like atmosphere and the presumption that they could so easily fall for a ‘cult of personality.’ And they will vote against her. And she will lose. Or, Republican voters will be completely swept up in the mania and nominate her as the GOP standard bearer to go up against President Obama. And she will lose-- perhaps the only Republican nominee who could lose in 2012.”

Saturday the Washington Post looked at the same Establishment disdain for Palin and pronounced it elitism, which, of course, is exactly what she's counting on from what she disdains as the lame stream media.

Palin, on the cusp of a possible presidential run, now finds herself facing a solid wall of conservatives who believe that, by virtue of their intellect, experience and such distinctive attributes as cultural tastes and social standing, they are her superiors.

They refuse to take her seriously and believe she shouldn't take herself seriously, either.

That opposition, by the way, is insulting, not only to Palin but to her supporters as well.

Palin is no accidental celebrity. Her star power didn't flame out after 2008. She has since earned her place in the sun. In the past two years, she has developed a following that far outnumbers the supporters of those conservative elites who now shun her.

Her 2010 campaigning helped strengthen the Republican Party's grip on Capitol Hill. Sure, some of her midterm endorsements flopped. But Palin-supported candidates won more contests than they lost. And don't forget, many of the 59 million Americans voting for the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008 did so because of her.

Ah, but let's "hope she'll stay there" in Alaska, as former first lady Barbara Bush suggested recently. Or make Palin a talk-show host or "the new Oprah," as the National Review's Mona Charen wrote
.
Anything but a bid for the presidency.

I wouldn't want to see Sarah Palin anywhere near the White House, let alone in the Oval Office with a nuclear arsenal at her disposal. That's not a likely scenario anyway, given her low standing among independents and Democrats.

But the notion of a phalanx of conservative elites - Palin called them "blue bloods" - standing between her and the GOP nomination because they perceive her as inferior in intellect and social and political standing is pure snobbery.

At bottom, their real slander is against Palin and her slice of the American electorate, captured in H.L. Mencken's caustic observation: "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

So mean.

She may be bloodthirsty but Artemis the huntress she's not: