The 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign gets hotter by the day. MSNBC's David Shuster was doing an interview, and he asked,"But doesn't it seem like Chelsea's sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?" Shuster was referring to Hillary Clinton's daughter's very public involvement in presidential campaigning. Shuster promptly got raked over the coals for his remark.
This is a culture thing. I hear the words 'pimped out' all the time from my daughters and their friends, though not related to the Clinton daughter. My husband bought a Chrysler 300C (with the hemi) and the first thing my older daughter said was, "Look at Daddy's pimp-mobile!"
Shuster of course should've chosen his words more carefully. But if that's the worst thing we hear as this race cooks up, we might consider ourselves lucky. And just to be completely honest, this situation offers Sen. Clinton additional free publicity for her campaign.
Judging by the charisma and success Sen. Barack Obama has demonstrated, I'd say Sen. Clinton could use all the publicity she can get.
At any rate, words count more than ever before, courtesy of the Web's capability. What we say not only reverberates globally, it remains on the Web in perpetuity.
Showing posts with label us politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label us politics. Show all posts
Friday, February 8, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Message boards useful to writers if you hit ‘delete’ on politics
Message boards are a great resource for writers—you do a story about kumquats you look for a hobby group. Need to know about the effects of a disease or medical treatment? People are inexplicably eager to share. Amazing what grass roots research, a simple search in cyberspace, can do for you.
But I also come across messages that I suspect are placed by political plants. If an individual touts a candidate brazenly, especially if the board isn’t on a political site, I’d say that makes the person’s messages suspect. I came across an example of this at mediabistro.com today. An individual has plastered Mitt Romney all over the board, and all this does is alienate conservatives and of course liberals get all excited and next thing you know you are wading through the political sewer, getting an education in how many creative ways a person can use the ‘F’ bomb or insult someone’s mother. There's no way a politician would encourage this type of posting, but his opponent might.
Do people get paid to write these messages, I wonder? Maybe. Some of the grammar and/or spelling gets too funny to be accidental—spellings like Gullani are par for the course.
Political wags haven’t overlooked Oprah. After Oprah endorsed Barack Obama, the community at oprah.com has been having a chew fest. The title of one discussion: OPRAH IS A TRAITOR! Several threads take the talk show host to task. What’s mind-bending is the attitude of many that Oprah shouldn’t endorse anybody because she’s a journalist. I believe Oprah would agree that journalism isn’t her calling. For those dull of mind, write this down: Oprah is in the entertainment industry. She expresses her preferences on everything from cooking to sex to pop culture literature. So why shouldn’t she tell you who she’s voting for if she feels like it? Sean Penn doesn’t hold anything back. No difference.
The good thing about message boards, at least from a writer’s standpoint, is they present a wide range of opinions and sometimes, a great deal of expert information. Contact information is often included with a post. It's even possible to find sources for interviews.
When it comes to the politics, however, message boards present something really close to what my hound dog deposits in our back yard every morning. (Kay B. Day, 1-21-08)
But I also come across messages that I suspect are placed by political plants. If an individual touts a candidate brazenly, especially if the board isn’t on a political site, I’d say that makes the person’s messages suspect. I came across an example of this at mediabistro.com today. An individual has plastered Mitt Romney all over the board, and all this does is alienate conservatives and of course liberals get all excited and next thing you know you are wading through the political sewer, getting an education in how many creative ways a person can use the ‘F’ bomb or insult someone’s mother. There's no way a politician would encourage this type of posting, but his opponent might.
Do people get paid to write these messages, I wonder? Maybe. Some of the grammar and/or spelling gets too funny to be accidental—spellings like Gullani are par for the course.
Political wags haven’t overlooked Oprah. After Oprah endorsed Barack Obama, the community at oprah.com has been having a chew fest. The title of one discussion: OPRAH IS A TRAITOR! Several threads take the talk show host to task. What’s mind-bending is the attitude of many that Oprah shouldn’t endorse anybody because she’s a journalist. I believe Oprah would agree that journalism isn’t her calling. For those dull of mind, write this down: Oprah is in the entertainment industry. She expresses her preferences on everything from cooking to sex to pop culture literature. So why shouldn’t she tell you who she’s voting for if she feels like it? Sean Penn doesn’t hold anything back. No difference.
The good thing about message boards, at least from a writer’s standpoint, is they present a wide range of opinions and sometimes, a great deal of expert information. Contact information is often included with a post. It's even possible to find sources for interviews.
When it comes to the politics, however, message boards present something really close to what my hound dog deposits in our back yard every morning. (Kay B. Day, 1-21-08)
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