Water Over The Bridge

I see that the mainstream media-types are still harping on about the non-story of a bridge falling down in Minnesota. I don't think I'm being hard hearted here. The 5 (some reports say 1, some say 7, and I've gotten tired of Googling dead people) that died on the bridge didn't have it coming. They were just going about their day and, bam, they were killed. My heart goes out to them and their families.

Watching the media cover this story for a few days has told me a couple of things. 1) It's a hell of a slow news week around the world. 2) Everything and anything that happens inside or outside the United States is entirely Bush's fault. Bridge falls down? Damn him for spending money in Iraq when he could've put more steel girders on bridges. Troops don't have enough body armour? Damn him for spending too much money on bridges and not enough in Iraq.

It took CNN exactly 12 hours to have a graphic that said, Who's to Blame? written beneath pictures of concrete in water. Jack Cafferty, CNN's most asinine reporter (and that's saying something) went on his usual anti-Fed rant. He blamed the bridge collapse on Bush, Iraq, Bush, Iraq. He hearkened back to the glorious mud slinging days of Katrina and the tsunami (tidal wave, to the rest of us). Then he read some emails from his fans that did the same. Then he tossed it back to Wolf Blitzer and returned to his corner, waiting for Blitzer to call his unqualified ass back onto the tube to read more emails later in the show.

This is what passes for reporting nowadays. Jack Cafferty rolls up his sleeves like some 1950's newspaper editor and pretends to do some investigating. The next time you watch this guy on TV, you'll realize he does nothing of the kind. He's a morning show has-been. He's a hack. He sits on a stool and reads emails sent to him by the unemployed of America. Who else is watching CNN at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and writing political diatribes to Jack Cafferty?

So, who's to blame? How about you, Jackie. Get off your soapbox and do some investigating. Why didn't you tell us about dangerous bridges last week or last year? Why didn't you tell us that FEMA was a joke before Katrina happened?

The mythical investigative reporter of the Watergate era is long gone. The only guy we have left is that dude from NBC Dateline, who busts pedophiles and people that steal iPods. Nobody else is out there pounding the beat and investigating anything.

Here's a couple of stories from the past few days that you might have missed because the US news media have been busy trying to make their politicians look bad.

Scouts Banned From Eating Burgers and Bangers - Because of Religious Beliefs

In case you're worried about the "bangers" bit, don't be. The Scouts haven't been wandering around the in the woods getting laid (to their probable teenage dismay). Bangers is English for "sausages."

100 years after Lord Baden-Powell led the first Boy Scout troupe into the woods to skin rabbits and sing around the fire, the pussification of our youth has taken another leap forward.

The word Boy, by the way, has been dropped from the Scouting lexicon. So today you have Scouts hiking into the woods to learn ...what, exactly?

Here's a quote from the Scouts' (you guessed it) spokeswoman Clare Haines, at the 2007 Scouting Centenary: "We have been very careful to make sure food is provided to everybody's tastes and beliefs, so no one feels left out. They enjoyed their vegetarian meals, especially vegetable chilli, fresh salads and jacket potatoes."

Hmmm. "Everyone's tastes and beliefs." Obviously that doesn't include the people who have a taste for hamburger, or the Christians who believe in eating fish on Friday.

I don't know what's worse: the fact that Clare believes teenagers enjoy fresh salads more than burgers, or that she might be right. From the moment today's children arrive in the world, we teach them to be a wimp. Regulations out the ying yang, boring playground equipment, bicycle helmets, peanut-free cafeterias. Children are not taught to fend for themselves at any time in their lives, and then we wonder why their self-esteem suffers as a thirty-something basket case.

The Scouts should fold up their tents and call it a day. Vegetarian food a mile from the highway, and no fires allowed? Not to mention the internet cafe for homesick Scouts, and the solar powered lights to keep them from tripping over tent pegs. That's not what being a Scout used to mean.

It is doubtful that Lord Baden-Powell thought playing the violin or developing a new yam pie recipe deserved a merit badge on the level of compass reading and sharpshooting. He saw the Scouts as a paramilitary organization, and wanted to teach boys to become self-sufficient men.

Then again, don't pat him on the back too hard, either. As his diary notes, he thought Mein Kampf was "a wonderful book, with good ideas on education, health, propaganda, organization, etc." He even designed early merit badges with swastikas on them.

The poor Scouts. They've become wimps, and their father was a Nazi sympathizer. Had history taken a different route, Baden-Powell could have been an honorary member of the Hitler Youth. But his original Scouts, grown up by WWII, beat the Germans and ensured that wouldn't happen.

Could today's Scouts do the same?

Penn Pal

Speaking of pro-Fascists, it looks like Sean Penn has decided to go a step further in his glorious career as a pro-Fascist actor. I used to think that he was a great actor, and still would, if I saw any more of his films. I wouldn't call it a boycott, so much as a bore-cott. Is there anything more mundane that watching a rich American celebrity punish himself for being just that?

Seeing Penn bootlick the heels of an anti-Semitic dictator is a good reminder that actors are just people and some people are morons.