There are any number of things that I know nothing about. That being said, if I'm going to write something on my blog (that has all of 5 or 6 readers) I will still go to the trouble of looking up at least a few facts on subjects I would like to pursue in front of the entire blogosphere.

The last couple of days have brought us a frenzy of posts about an LA Times column by Joel Stein, wherein he proclaims to the world that he does NOT support our troops.

When I first stumbled across the story, I was going to blog it along with everyone else, but very luckily, I ran across this interview, wherein Hugh Hewitt shows us a pathetically ignorant Joel Stein. It's so bad, I realized that all I can do is laugh at this guy.

[note JS - Joel Stein... HH - Hugh Hewitt... just want to be clear]

HH: All right. Now who is your...this is a column about the troops that begins, "I don't support our troops." We'll get to the specifics in a second. But who is your closest family member or friend who is on active duty?

JS: That's an excellent question. I wouldn't say I have a very close friend. I would say only acquaintances. No family at all.
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HH: All right. Now let me ask you a little bit about...have you ever been to one of the Naval...you know, one of the service academies? Annapolis, West Point, Air Force Academy?

JS: I have never been to any of the academies.

HH: And do you know anyone who went to any of them?

JS: Do I know anyone who...yes. Yeah, I have a cousin at West Point.

HH: You did. Did you think he was crazy?

JS: My cousin who went to West Point?

HH: Yeah.

JS: No, not at all.

HH: What year did he go?

JS: My cousin's like six years younger than me. He has the exact same name as me, so hopefully, he's doing okay today.

HH: Where is he?

JS: He is serving here in the U.S. right now. I'm not sure where.

HH: Has he been deployed abroad?

JS: He has been deployed to Asia.

HH: Did you support him when he was in Asia?

JS: Um, support is an interesting word. Did I support him in Asia? Sure, he wasn't on active military duty. He wasn't fighting.[emph. mine --ed]

Okay, so maybe at the beginning of the interview he simply forgot about his cousin who is a graduate of West Point. I guess I could see how that could happen. After all I have about 50 cousins. I have no idea what any of them do for employment and I seldom think about them.

However, anyone who is so badly informed that he doesn't know the difference between "active duty" and "combat duty"... well, I just can't take him seriously. Why should I care what this guy thinks about the Armed Services when he so obviously knows nothing about it? Why should anyone buy this newspaper to acquire information when the columns they print are written by people who haven't even got enough knowledge of a subject to answer basic questions?

As I noted in Sissy's comments, it's possible that the LA Times hired Stein to show that they don't discriminate against the mentally incompetent in their hiring practices. The problem is that they should have given him a less conspicuous job. After all, if this is the level of knowledge that is standard for LA Times writers, the only reason they can publish a paper is because they can string words together into sentences. They certainly don't understand their subject matter.

We shouldn't be surprised though. In an age where our news people think that "fake but accurate" is just fine, who needs facts about a subject? The only thing that counts is how you "feel" about it. Right?

UPDATE: After reading the Joel Stein ramblings - go read this interview Hugh Hewitt had with Jonathan Alter. Alter has quite clearly done some homework! I have not studied the Federalist Papers - so I don't know who is closer to being right here, but the main point is - you CAN make the effort to educate yourself so you don't sound like a complete imbecile when you are asked questions.

Plus - these are NOT simple questions being thrown at Alter - this is very esoteric stuff. I commend him for looking into the history of the matter and for trying (short of being a law professor) to figure out these things based on the history of our country.

Posted by: Teresa in Idiocies at 07:47 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Great post. Thanks for the link!

Posted by: Sissy Willis at January 26, 2006 09:06 AM (FU1id)

2 i guess all this post shows is the ignorance of the writer of the post rather than the ignorance of joel stein. joel is not writing a military history about the iraq war or a handbook for military academy grads he is writing about this view on the hypocrisy of america's obsession of supporting the troops while sending them away to fight a war which is not worth fighting for. the column is about civilians and their relationship with the troops. but like most of the right wing blog and news community you didn't take the time to actually read and understand the column but rather just picked the points that you wanted to see in it -- in a way just stressing joel's points. next time you read something try to understand it, plus put it in context (like joel stein is a comedian and parodist rather than a news analyst) and then come up with an opinion.

Posted by: carsten at January 26, 2006 10:34 AM (B25Za)

3 Umm - Carsten you obviously didn't actually read what I wrote - did you...

I said - why should I listen to a man's opinion who knows absolutely nothing about the subject he is expounding upon?

If he doesn't have the first clue about the military how do I know he has a clue about why we're fighting a war or not? If he was a little blogger that would be one thing, but being an employee of a newspaper - he should at least have one or two facts to back up his opinion. That he has NONE - not a single one - regardless of the fact that he is a "humorist" - must necessarily make a difference in how much credence we give his opinion.

Also I find it amusing that you talk about cherry picking points in his op-ed - when I don't even LINK to the op-ed, nor do I pull excerpts from the op-ed. I'm linking to an interview he did with Hewitt. Something you would know if you actually read the post I wrote.

Anyhow, thanks for stopping by and showing us how like Joel Stein you are. I'm sure you will find that flattering.

Posted by: Teresa at January 26, 2006 10:47 AM (FZwDL)

4 carsten just cornered the market on the narrow view, with a side order of condescension.

The piece was not labled as humor, but rather OP-ED. How am I to know that he is a "parodist"? Are you inferring that he is kidding in the article?

Joel seemed more bothered by the patriotic car magnets than anything else, I thought. Other than that, it was uninformed pap. And buzzwords. By someone probably too young to remember some of the references he uses.

He offends us. But isn't that what he was after all along?

Posted by: pam at January 26, 2006 04:29 PM (l6NIn)

5 Don't you worry too much about us five or six readers. Keep blogging about what's important to you.

We keep coming back. (I got here this time from Dr. Helen's)

Posted by: MGA at January 27, 2006 02:26 AM (aC7HX)

6 Thank you very much MGA - that's very nice of you!

Posted by: Teresa at January 27, 2006 04:21 AM (FZwDL)

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Well, well, well, looks like the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has been caught in the act... Piracy that is.

That was how it got its hands on a copy of "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" - a documentary about how the MPAA rates films. The director, Kirby Dick, specifically asked the MPAA not to make any copies of his film. Dick was assured by an MPAA representative that "the confidentiality of your film... is our first priority. Please feel assure [sic] that your film is in good hands".

But on Monday the MPAA admitted it had made a copy of the film but claimed, because their staff were the subject of the film, they were not breaking copyright law.

If I do something like trying to copy a DVD or CD, these people get completely bent. Even if my intent is to prolong the life of a movie or music that I have LEGALLY PURCHASED! But, they can... with a straight face... outright LIE to a film maker and pirate a copy of a movie themselves. Then try to justify it with this lame excuse.

What were they going to do with it? Give a freebee copy to everyone who was in the movie? Isn't that like... ILLEGAL? I hope this guy can take them to court and clean them out! Sadly he probably doesn't have the deep pockets needed for the job, but I'd love to see him do it. I also hope this breaks some law that MPAA has lobbied long and hard to get passed - then they can be investigated by the police... thoroughly. The Wankers.

UPDATE: It occurs to me to wonder what else they've pirated over the years.

Posted by: Teresa in Idiocies at 04:50 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Well now that I'm watching 24... I am sitting there when the 10pm News hits. UGH! So, tonight from Iraq... did you realize that... Jill Carroll's parents are pleading with the kidnappers to set her free, a bunch of Iraqis who were supposed to start training to be police men were found dead... and several soldiers were killed...

Now you may be asking yourself where I'm going with this? Well... apparently our soldiers haven't done a SINGLE SOLITARY thing worth reporting. Nothing at all. Apparently there were no insurgents killed, none taken into custody, nothing done for the Iraqi people. I must then assume - from the "complete" news coverage I'm receiving that our Service Men and Women are just sitting over in Iraq waiting for their turn to head out the door to be the next terrorist casualty.

Yes, I've finally figured it out - we've sent our young men and women over there to be targets in a shooting gallery. They have no brains, no ability, no initiative, no nothing - they are paper targets. After all, if they were actually DOING something... the crackerjack news reporters would tell us... wouldn't they?

I knew there was a reason I didn't watch television.

Posted by: Teresa in Idiocies at 05:39 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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