Ralph Nader - The Liberal Vote Sponge

That sucking sound you hear is Ralph Nader's candidacy absorbing much-needed liberal votes. While Nader is preparing to wring those votes out into the sink drain of plurality on election day, I can't help but think we need a solution to this ongoing problem.

Despite a very popular grass-roots campaign that aggregated so many "don't run" comments and drove them directly to Nader's exploratory website, he's decided to run again. Despite nearly irrefutable evidence that Al Gore would be our president if Nader hadn't ran the last time around, and that the Bush presidency was more damaging to Nader's causes than a Gore presidency would have been, Nader is running anyway. I can't help but agree with the suggestion that Nader's simply doing it to provide a publicity platform.

Okay, so the guy wants to showboat again. The question remains...What should we do about it if we want to avoid a similar election dynamic this time around?

Maybe we could fight fire with fire. If Nader will once again attract the disaffected liberal vote, maybe we need a vote sponge for the disaffected Republicans. Even without the benefit of the Green Party line on the ballot, I still think Nader will still siphon off enough votes to cause concern for the Democrats. So what's Ross Perot doing these days?

Perot has the potential to erode votes from two traditionally Republican strongholds:

• Militia kooks who think Bush is too centrist - Of the four people who still fall into this category, 75% of them will probably not turn out to the polls without wearing tinfoil hats to avoid being picked up by Illuminati spy satellites.
• Rich, conservative retirees who want to preserve their personal wealth at any cost - In short, the AARP. The AARP will likely throw their support behind Bush anyway, and since retired folk have the spare time to read all the direct mail that comes their way, including AARP election day reminders to vote Republican, Perot won't likely make a dent here.

Hmmm...Maybe Ross Perot won't be able to match the awesome sucking power of the Nader campaign. So who might be able to give us a hand here?

Bob Dole? I can't help but think that this guy has sponge potential, especially if we give him a broadsword, a Viking helmet with horns on it, and a strong motivational speech about unfulfilled destiny. Get him on the ballot in enough states and he'll soak up enough votes on name recognition alone. At least he'll confuse the hell out of the AARP, which will probably once again get at least 97% of its membership to the polls.

Ralph Reed? He could represent the Sarlacc Pit into which disaffected Republicans could cast their votes, never to be seen again. Goodbye Republican fundamentalist Christian power base.

Steve Dallas? This Bloom County right-wing institution could wrap up the aging frat boy vote, while simultaneously crafting a funny post-election story. Heck, I'd go to the election night campaign party just for the grain alcohol alone.

Hmmm... Perhaps this requires additional thought.

Distractions, distractions

In one of my early journalism classes at Washington & Lee, I learned about the obligations news media have to the public in the U.S. Among these was the obligation to maintain financial health and independence, such that the media remain free from the influences of people, groups or governments that would seek to effect editorial change with money. What effect does media fragmentation have on this critical obligation of the press? Could it be one of the reasons why distractions like Boobgate, the Martha Stewart trial, the Lacie Peterson case and the like have been out of control lately?

While our political system needs a free and responsible press to operate at its best, I wouldn't be so naive as to believe that our economic system shouldn't also play a significant role. The founding fathers realized that the invisible hand of capitalism would lead the press toward a balance of what the public needs to hear (public affairs) vs. what they want to hear (human interest). But could the founding fathers have envisioned the proliferation of media and a huge increase in the number of media options open to the average citizen?

Sustaining a television network was easy when there were only three of them. Now that there are more media channels than ever before, the networks have seen their audiences defect to cable, the Internet and other channels. In order to preserve the current model, individual media outlets have to either cut costs significantly or do what they can to stave off declining viewership. If you are, say, CBS, you'll probably opt to emphasize the latter, as would most broadcasters. This means more distractions - the types of things people want to see - as opposed to the "boring" stuff that people need to see.

American Journalism Review editor Jill Rosen wrote an article about the balance of hard news and celebrity worship recently. The article presented a balanced view of opinions on the subject, but it failed to deal effectively with the media theory behind the whole concept, IMHO. Broadcast outlets have only a limited amount of bandwidth. That is, in a typical news broadcast, the news team has only a half hour to devote to the most important stories of the day. If you happen to be a citizen who has time for only one news broadcast that day, your perceptions of the national agenda might be distorted if that news broadcast opts to run with the Michael Jackson case as a lead story instead of news about Iraq.

This effect is exacerbated when broadcasters are under ratings pressure. The invisible hand of our economic system moves broadcasters with decreased audience share toward doing whatever it takes to increase ratings. That means more shots of Janet's boob, more celebrity weddings and divorces, and more crap that no one needs to know. While we have more news outlets open to us, the natural diversity of opinion that would result from fragmentation is stifled because the viewing public is more apt to tune in to the celebrity junk and less so to sit through public affairs reporting they might think is boring. In short, there's more places for alternative points of view to come across, but increased pressure for each of them to appeal to the mainstream due to economic pressures.

What can be done about this? Part of me thinks that interactive channels can help. What if, instead of clinging to the broadcast model, American chose their news themselves? What if they used tools like advanced web browsers, e-mail, RSS feed aggregators and others to pull together the news that most interests them? We could experience a renaissance of the marketplace of ideas.

However, it's not as simple as that. Interactivity is required - not just between news channel and consumer, but inter-consumer as well. If I, as a news consumer, miss something important, I need the input of my friends and fellow cyber-citizens. If citizens can become aggregators and disseminators of news, we might be in good shape. Dissemination can happen through e-mail (e.g. - "Your friend James sent you this article you might be interested in...[link]"

We can see this principle in action already. Audiences have flocked from TV to the Internet, with a desire to self-select interesting content and avoid the mainstream at the core of this movement. Blogs and other tools that allow for easy aggregation of news are helping to increase diversity of opinion and agenda, while simultaneously making it easier to find news.

We can only hope that the system is self-correcting. If the broadcast model continues its dominance, I fear that we'll be prompted to think we have more choice when the exact opposite is true.

When Spam is outlawed, only outlaws will send spam

I keep tallies on the amount of spam I get in a weekend, just for shits and giggles. This weekend resulted in a new record - 611 pieces - which is a testament to the effectiveness of CAN-SPAM. I know people tend to get tired of seeing redneck bumper stickers that say "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" but that's exactly what happened with CAN-SPAM. Lots of people called it. They knew the law would have more impact on legit e-mail marketers than on spammers. But once again, the government failed to learn from history.

Of the 611 pieces that reached my desktop over the weekend, not one fully complied with CAN-SPAM. Postal addresses were left out, headers were forged, subject lines were deceptive. And almost all of these pieces came from spammers, not legit marketers. The spammers' approaches aren't changing, but legit e-mail marketers are struggling to ensure compliance.

A prediction here...The first nightmare stories we're going to read about in the mainstream press are going to pertain to legitimate marketers. You'll hear about this stuff before you here of major spam operations being taken down. What totally sucks is that most of this is politically motivated, and politicians seeking election want to take credit for helping "solve" the spam problem - to the point where the politicians don't care if they actually solve the problem. As long as there's a perception that they're doing something about it, the actual impact matters little.

The Last Word on Janet's Boobies

Two groups of people should be ashamed of themselves. MTV is one of them. The American public is the other. Let's start with the American public. An attractive pop star "accidentally" reveals part of her breast on television and three things happen:

1. The holier-than-thous start filing lawsuits, pleading "Won't somebody think of the children?!?!" and generally acting like the image of a partially nude female breast is going to be permanently burned into their retinas.
2. Hundreds of millions of American Internet and TiVo users slobber over Janet's boob like it's the first one they've ever seen.
3. The rest of the world goes "huh?"

You wanna know what the most shameful aspect of all this is? It's the American public's general attitude toward sexuality in general. We've become so puritanical that we feel ashamed and embarrassed at the mere sight of our own naked bodies. We continue to be taught by our parents, and in turn teach our own kids, that nudity is morally repugnant, that sex is dirty and that sexuality is something we all need to be protected from. On its face, doesn't that seem silly to you? It does to the most of the rest of the world.

Maybe if we stopped treating sex like a morally tainted mystery in this country, we wouldn't have as much of a problem with things like teen pregnancy. Maybe we wouldn't have every company with something to sell constantly barraging us with sexual imagery in order to sell their products. Maybe we'll get to the point where we can watch Basic Instinct with our parents and not get all red-faced and embarrassed when Sharon Stone uncrosses her legs.

Speaking of being barraged with sexual imagery, MTV needs to quit treating us all like sex-starved animals (even if we are). And it needs to get its act together. MTV is feeling shame after the Super Bowl debacle, but for all the wrong reasons. Wanna know why MTV should be ashamed?

1. MTV treats us like means to an end. Sex sells, so MTV piles it on to the point of forgetting what the hell the content was supposed to be about in the first place. When was the last time you saw a music video on MTV?
2. For MTV, it's all about publicity stunts and not about compelling content. It pats itself on the back when America goes apeshit over Britney and Madonna making out, or when America goes bonkers over Diana Ross fondling Lil' Kim. It's sad that MTV has to pull off stunts instead of delivering consistently good content.

Maybe we'll get past all of this unimportant crap when Americans learn to be honest with themselves about their bodies and their sexuality. Know of any other inhabitants of the wild kingdom that are embarrassed and ashamed of their own reproductive processes? It's amazing we've come so far as a species.