Bloggers and Barkeeps

Someone left a copy of the Wall Street Journal on a stool down at the Bar and Grille yesterday and as I had arrived before the regulars and Manny the bartender was busy with something or other in the back, I scanned through the paper in hopes of gaining some insight into where my money had gone to.

There were articles about this company lowering its expectations for the next quarter and that one doing a little better in the last one than it had any reason to. There was a story about how all that money the government gave to the banks was either still there, at the banks, or had vanished without a trace into whatever void money goes when you take your eyes off it. And there was an analysis of the previous day's stock exchange decline, which attributed the loss to an announcement that a big company was making more money than people had expected it would. Somehow, that was bad for stocks in general. The day before I'd heard that stock values had gone up for a similar excuse.

Economics and finance are too complicated. That's what got us into the pickle we're in right now, and I said so to Manny when he came back to the bar to pour my drink. "I don't get this when they say one day some piece of good news made the market go up and the next day they say the same kind of news made it go down. What do you make of that, Manny?"

"Well, now, Bob," he said, "Maybe there's subtleties to it that us normal folks just don't comprehend. More likely, it seems to me, these newspaper writers don't have a clue themselves so they just latch onto some bit of news to blame for whatever happened in the market. The less sense it makes to you and me, the smarter they look for figuring it out. Me, I can't relate to any of it."

I turned to the next page of the paper and saw an article I thought Manny might relate to pretty well. Seems somebody figured out that almost a whole percent of Americans are getting paid as bloggers and their number now exceeds the total of professional bartenders.

Now I thought bloggers were mostly people who have the writing bug but, being unable to think up anything worthwhile to write about, tell their few readers what somebody else wrote about somewhere, adding a little, "this is cool," or "so-and-so had an interesting remark about such-and-such." And the rest of them are just self-absorbed people who think somebody else might be interested in what they had for breakfast, and none of them is paid a dime for their contributions to the American conversation. Seems I was wrong once again.

According to "The Journal" (which is how people who want you to know they read The Wall Street Journal refer to that periodical), more people make their actual living sticking their opinions on the Internet than do so by programming computers, or fighting fires, or practicing law.

"So, Manny," I said, "says here you bartenders are out-numbered by professional bloggers."

Manny observed that spouting off opinions is a growth industry while reporting actual news is on the way out, and he wondered what the world is going to be like when there isn't any news to complain about. "I guess those bloggers will be talking about themselves and sniping at each other even more than they are already. But you know, Bob, that's how it's going anyway. Why, even the regular news these days is mostly all about the news business itself and how it's going to hell in a hand basket."

I tapped my glass and Manny reached down to the well for the scotch bottle. As he poured, I suggested maybe he ought to think about taking up blogging himself. "Why, you are one of the most opinionated people I know, Manny. Seems like you could do pretty well at that. Don't take more than a few bucks to get started; eighty dollars, it says here, and you could make a hundred thou' or more if the breaks go your way."

"Well, Bob, there's something to be said for working at home, unshaved and in your jammies, but I kind of like to put a tie on and come down here to the bar. I get to talk to people. I hear things. Some of the things I hear are even true. Sitting by myself in front of a darned computer all day? Trying to stir up some hullabaloo to entertain other people who are doing the same thing? That doesn't appeal to me, and there's something almost unethical about it."

Manny took a load of glassware out of the dishwasher and stood back as steam rose into the air. "I don't mean any offense, Bob, because I know you write one of those blogs yourself. I read it once, and it was ... entertaining."

I thanked him for the compliment and said I'd often wondered who it was that read my blog that one time. "I guess it's a good thing you don't want to be a blogger, Manny. I'd rather come down here and trade insults with you in person than read your opinions on a computer screen."

"Aw, Bob. You know you just come down here because I pour you one on the house now and then."

"Well, there's some truth to that, Manny."

"Not today," he said, "but now and then."

"Better be good to me, Manny," I said, "This article says that 'If journalists were the Fourth Estate, bloggers are becoming the Fifth Estate.'" I showed him my empty glass. "So don't be so stingy with a jigger of that cheap booze, or the full weight of the Fifth Estate might bring you down. We bloggers are getting to be a powerful force in American culture. It says so right here in The Wall Street Journal."

"And would that be the same Wall Street Journal that says the stock market went down because some company made a lot of money?"

Manny isn't cut out to be a blogger; too much common sense.

To Be: A Noun

Over on LinkedIn the other day, leadership trainer and founder of Leaders and Thinkers, Benjamin Anyacho, asked, "What do you want to be remembered for as a leader?" He referred to Methuselah, Noah's granddaddy, who lived for nearly a thousand years, yet his legacy was written in two sentences. "In fact," Benjamin noted, "there was nothing to be remembered about Methuselah except that he was the oldest person that ever lived, and he had sons and daughters," and he added, "it's not how long we lived but how well."

I replied that I would not be so quick to disparage Methuselah. His achievement was so profound, so unique, and so well known, that the old fellow has become a noun.

There is something to be said for becoming a noun. James Watt became a noun, representing power even to this day. Adolf Hitler became a noun, it is true, but his name is a pejorative. We honor Napoleon with a couple of nouns, one a pejorative, the other a pastry.

Few people in history are sufficiently notable or notorious to even reach the lesser status of adjective. A candy retailer named Morris Michtom honored Teddy Roosevelt by naming a stuffed animal after him. Michtom founded the Ideal Toy Company on the strength of public response to the Teddy Bear, but the toy's association with Roosevelt's name was so tenuous that it is now all but forgotten; few writers these days even bother to capitalize the "teddy" part.

The adjective taken from Charles Ponzi's family name is much in the news these days, but his unfortunate survivors may have difficulty passing checks imprinted with their names. Franz Kafka became the root of an adjective – although his name requires an added "-esque" to serve that purpose. Almost anybody can be an –esque. Even the pop bubblegum music supergroup ABBA, whose name is an acronym for its members, has lent its moniker to an adjective of the -esque form – though not one that is entirely complimentary.

One's legacy may also become a verb. Folks caution White House interns these days not to Lewinsky. Good advice, but in another generation it won't be understood – and probably won't be followed anyway.

Victor Hugo said, "The word is the Verb, and the Verb is God." Buckminster Fuller expressed that line as "God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper." Some say that Fuller declared that he, himself, was a verb – which with some logical manipulation might be taken to equate himself with God. I'm not so sure he actually ever claimed to be a verb and I'm pretty sure he never claimed divinity. I am fairly certain, though, that Ulysses S. Grant, shortly before he died, believed himself to be a verb instead of a personal pronoun. Possibly just wishful thinking on the General's part.

I could accept a legacy as a verb, so long as it is an energetic one.

I would also be satisfied were my legacy an adjective, but more delighted to survive as a noun. What, exactly, would a Kalsey be? That remains to see. Something admired, or respected, or striven for, I hope. Any good thing will do.

One thing I do not look forward to being is a past participle, mostly because few people know what those are.

Of Mice and Heirs

I read of bloggers and hear about conservative yakshow bloviators proclaiming that they are sick and tired of hearing President Obama say, "I inherited this, and I inherited that," as though Obama takes every opportunity to deflect responsibility.

The criticism of Obama's language is unwarranted. It is a fact that his administration inherited an enormous debt and the most serious economic crisis of our lives. The very vocal minority of people who still hold George W. Bush in high regard – or who oppose Obama for whatever reasons -- bristle to hear the new President remind the nation of that fact. But they seem to have propagated the "I inherited" phrase in their own minds and (dis)credited the President for saying it more than he actually has done.

Near as I can tell, Obama has used the phrase "I inherited" on only one public occasion: his press conference of February 9th. In his prepared remarks, he said, "My administration inherited a deficit of over $1 trillion, but because we also inherited the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression...." Note, please, that he did not say "I," but "My administration" and "we."

He said "I inherited" only once at the press conference, responding to a question. He replied in part that some opponents of his economic stimulus package complained about wasteful spending but had presided over a doubling of the national debt themselves. He asked that those who would engage in some revisionist history remember that, "I inherited the deficit that we have right now, and the economic crisis that we have right now."

In his speech to Congress, Obama used "inherited" three times:

1) ...not because I believe in bigger government -- I don't -- not because I'm not mindful of the massive debt we've inherited -- I am.

2) It reflects the stark reality of what we've inherited: a trillion-dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession.

3) With the deficit we inherited, the cost...the cost of the crisis we face...

Note that once again, Obama reminded us that "we" inherited the debt, the deficit, the crisis, and the recession. Not him, not his administration, but the current government: executive and legislative branches included.

In his inaugural speech, Obama spoke about the crisis but never uttered "inherited." On other occasions when he has used the word he has employed the collective pronoun "we." In a speech in Elkhart, Indiana, for example, he used the same language as he did the same day at the press conference: "We inherited a deficit of over $1 trillion, but because we also inherited the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression..."

It seems to me that Obama is trying to avoid blaming the current Congress for our woes and focus instead on the fact that the collective "we" now have the responsibility to do something about the crisis. He is trying to shift the discussion from who's to blame to who's responsible for getting it fixed – and how to go about it.

We are paying today for the errors and apathy of the past, but Obama does not lay blame; he does not proclaim that the failed policies of the Bush administration – and the misguided ideologies behind them -- have brought us to our economic knees, though they surely have. He only says that the government, as now constituted, has been stuck with this mess and needs to deal with it. Perhaps absolving the current Congress and the new executive branch of blame will help all of government to think less about history and more about the future and to work together more constructively. (I'm not holding my breath.)

Some opponents of the stimulus package repeat ad nauseum the claim that the thing includes $33 Million to save the salt marsh harvest mouse in San Francisco. Well that's simply not true. First off, the mouse in question does not reside in the City by the bay, there being no salt marshes in the County. Calling it "Pelosi's San Francisco mouse," though, presses at least three conservative hot-buttons, so the truth be damned.

Second, the package contains no earmarks for mouse habitat protection in San Francisco, in California, or any place else. It simply provides funds to Federal agencies to restore wetlands – anywhere they decide to undertake that activity. Now it happens that the California Coastal Conservancy has requested 30 million bucks to pay for a 4,000 acre restoration project in the Bay Area, which would benefit salmon, steelhead, trout, ducks, egrets and any other thing that lives in the marshes here.

It will also improve flood protection of homes and businesses in the area, and provide about a hundred jobs, so count humans among the beneficiaries. It might be one of the many projects that ultimately receives Federal funds. But there's nothing about it in the bill.

The Frisco Rodent story is a complete fabrication, designed only to stir up opposition to the stimulus package and throw some mud at the Democratic Speaker of the House. Yet it has been repeated on Fox "news," the Washington Times, and in blog-after-conservative-blog as though it were a true and horrifying example of political maneuvering and government waste.

Once these stories of mice and men-who-inherit-stuff get started, there's no stopping them. Believers believe what they want to believe.

We ought to get over our partisan bickering. It surely doesn't help matters to pick at -- and disingenuously misquote and misinterpret -- the President's words and intent. To misconstrue the good works that are included in the stimulus package is downright dishonest. We ought to stop looking for faults in others and making them up if they don't exist. (I'm not holding my breath about that, either.)

***
By the way, if you can find a transcript of President Obama saying "I inherited..." any other time than during his February 9th press conference, do let me know.

This Just In...

A headline today, from the Associated Press:

"Study of fossils shows prehistoric fish had sex"

No, I did not participate in the study.

Rhymes and Reasons

The poet Elizabeth Alexander met Barack Obama when both taught at the University of Chicago. Her family has a political history, her father having been Chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission and her brother, Mark, an Obama advisor during the presidential campaign and transition. Though not widely known (what poets are, these days?), Alexander is highly respected in poetry circles and has received numerous awards for her work. Not surprising, then, that Obama invited her to write and deliver a poem at his inauguration.

Alexander is a scholar of African American culture and literature, currently a professor of African American Studies at Yale University. Her inauguration poem -- which can be found here -- takes its title "Praise Song for the Day" from an ancient African tradition, the praise song -- a lively form by which the lives of individuals are celebrated. She chose in this instance, though, to celebrate not Mr. Obama but the everyday American.

There's been much talk about "Praise Song" and its delivery, with The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, and most critics panning the work as too prose-like and the delivery not up to snuff.

Writing for The Guardian, Carol Rumens – a poet herself – declares "Even when writing for a public occasion and a vast audience, the poet should be able to renew language by being precise, surprising, unhackneyed. Otherwise, what is the point of such a commission? Alexander is a true people's poet, but she has written better poems for the people than this one."

A little kinder was Eli Lehrer, a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who wrote for The Weekly Standard that it "doesn't qualify as a great poem, but it might emerge as an important one. As a celebration of the commonplace and an exaltation of the personal over the political, the poem offers a distinctly American take on the concept of occasional poetry." He decides that, "Yes, it's self-centered. Yes, the poem doesn't really have much logic. But it works."

"Praise Song" was not helped by Ms. Alexander's recitation of it at the inauguration, but it seems to me her words themselves were, while clumsy in part, appropriate for the day.

It was an occasion of plain speaking and common language. Mr. Obama's widely anticipated speech was itself not one of rhetorical delights and poetic flourishes; no lines he spoke are destined to be carved in granite on a monument or cast in bronze for the ages. But if they were to be, they would be set in bland Helvetica, the font chosen by those of whom it has been said, "they want to fit in and look normal. They use Helvetica because they want to be a member of the efficiency club."

What Obama said, beyond the words he spoke, was "See? I'm no elitist after all." That was something that needed saying to move the conversation from personality and ideological rhetoric to the hard work that needs doing and the hard choices we collectively face.

Also straight-talking at the ceremony was preacher and civil rights leader, Joseph Lowery, who brought some of his customary plain and common touch to the benediction. Dr. Lowery closed with his own bit of poetry derived from a refrain used by African American performers including the Almanac Singers of the 1940s and bluesman Big Bill Broonzy. One version of the much-borrowed rhyme goes like this:

If you're white, you're right.
If you're yellow, you're mellow.
If you're brown, stick around
But if you're black, stay back.

Dr. Lowery's take was a lot more hopeful: "help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right." After all the solemn talk of hard times behind us and ahead, Lowery's gentle and effervescent humor was much appreciated. He made the occasion no less serious, but a lot more human.

Perhaps by prearrangement, Alexander's poem seemed designed to keep with the tone of the moment. Its most telling phrase was "Say it plain." And that she did. And that may be part of the reason for disappointment among those of us who found "Praise Song" wanting as a work of poetry -- why Carol Rumens felt it failed to "renew language."

More at issue for me, though, was her delivery which, owing to its pomposity and self-importance, undermined her message of respect, esteem, and appreciation for the everyday experiences of common folk. She placed an artificial emphasis on words and phrases, making cumbersome what might have been elegant. She imposed white space around those words, seemingly to give them exaggerated weight. She made precious the little things she meant to declare only noteworthy. Perhaps she felt too much the historic significance of the day or worried that her words might seem, were they left unadorned by affectation, trivial.

I don't think she listened well to what her words had to say. Her expressions hadn't the brawn and sinew of Sandberg, yet she tried to stretch them tight and bulk them up with muscle they were far too frail to carry. They were as simple, though not as effortless, as the American colloquialism of Frost, but her plodding reading gave their realism a resonance of insincerity.

Poets ought never read aloud their own work – they've too much invested in it.

I nearly fell out of my chair on hearing Alexander orate so solemnly: "Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself, / Others by first, do no harm or take no more / than you need." All I could think of was the cheesy sign at the King's Table Smorgasbord all-you-can-eat joint I frequented in college: "Take all you want, but eat all you take." That level, the ham-fisted inelegance of a cheap eatery's admonition against wasting its money, was unfortunately the low plane of much of "Praise Song for the Day."

I recall Robert Frost's reading at JFK's 1961 inauguration. Blinded by the glare of the sun and TelePrompTers not available, he could not read the poem ("Dedication") that he had written for the event, but recited his "The Gift Outright" from memory instead. It is a short poem, less than a third the length of Alexander's. It speaks about surrendering ourselves to the country, "Such as she was, such as she would become." It was a moving moment: an elderly, world-renowned and well-loved literary figure honoring a young man of "a new generation" who offered the nation new hope and vigor. Frost honored the nation, too, with humility and humanness and honesty.

Frost's "Dedication" has been called "dreadful" as poetry. But nonetheless it, or something like it, might have been a good choice for Obama's inauguration. In it, he speaks of "A turning point in modern history," and concludes declaring the start of "A golden age of poetry and power/Of which this noonday's the beginning hour."

Yeah; it even rhymed.

Avast, ye swabs!

Piracy is a terrific little business. Not the stealing music kind of piracy, but the hijacking of ships on the high seas kind. According to an AP article today:

"Somalia's increasingly brazen pirates are building sprawling stone houses, cruising in luxury cars, marrying beautiful women - even hiring caterers to prepare Western-style food for their hostages."

The pirates even use money-counting machines to verify their ransoms. Just like they do in the casinos -- another bastion of piracy.

The article goes on to report how this business has benefited the local economy. Lots of fans of piracy in little impoverished villages such as Harardhere.

Makes you think about joining up, eh? Maybe hanging around in Mogadishu and hoping to get shanghaied. Or is that "Mogadishu-hied?"

Elsewhere in the world there are pirates who are a lot less refined than those from Somalia; they tend to kill people as a standard operating procedure. It's in their business plans and employee handbooks.

So I guess the Somali pirates are "nicer" than others, even if they're not as cute as Johnny Depp. Still, they present a problem. Actually, they REpresent a problem: poverty, desperation, non-existent government. At minimum, Somalia ought to regulate these guys -- or tax their profits. But neither of those is going to happen.

This situation is rather like a war, it seems to me. And there ought to be some organization (the United Nations?) mounting protective measures and going on the offense against the pirates.

The British Parliament passed "The Piracy Act 1698" in, well, 1698 -- declaring that piracy was a crime against their nation and punishable by death. The Brits changed the law several times, eventually deciding that death was too harsh unless the crime involved violence.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), defines piracy. All nations are required to prosecute piracy according to their internal laws. The Royal Navy, though was notified by the Foreign Office not to capture pirates from Somalia because to do so would "breach their human rights." That's because the penalty for piracy under sharia law in Somalia is beheading and whacking off of arms and legs and such. And if the pirates are captured and brought to Old Bailey they would be able to apply for asylum in Britain. And then you'd have even more pirates in Canary Wharf than work there now for various financial institutions. Not good.

I think it's kind of chicken of the Royal Navy and the U.S. Navy not to go after these guys and put them in jail. But that would require some revisions to the civil rights and asylum laws of those nations. So first, let's get that done. Then let's get some war ships to patrol those waters. Then let's send a couple cruise missiles or those fancy drones they use in Iraq to take out the fancy new houses of the pirates there in Harardhere; they should be easy to identify among the mud huts.

Or we could do something about the roots of the problem: extreme poverty and no functioning government in Somalia.

Beam Me Up, Wolf

November 4th, 2008. On a night that sizzled with genuine dramatic imagery, from scenes of hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Chicago's Grant Park to feeds of election-watch parties around the world, CNN premiered one of the silliest and most gratuitous uses of artificial computer generated graphics ever to spring from the minds of geek-dom.

Wolf Blitzer is a remarkably talented journalist. He has a B.A. in history, received an M.A. in international relations from Johns Hopkins, worked for Reuters and the Jerusalem Post, has written two books, and looks good on TV. He's been with CNN since 1990 and won an Emmy Award for his coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing. These days, though, he hosts a pathetic show with the authoritative name "The Situation Room," which views like an "Entertainment Tonight" for pop-news/celebrity-scandal/breaking-tragedy junkies. For three hours every weeknight, Blitzer delivers the news with a bit too much energy and a lot too much volume as he stands before a huge video wall that's covered with graphics and bigger-than-life talking heads and live or taped "You Are There" scenes of the disasters and human interest stories that the network offers up for its viewers' titillation.

CNN is not content to deliver news unadorned, to let the story speak with its own inherent drama and energy. Everything is goosed up, scored with dramatic music, wrapped in slick 3D graphics, set in busy screens filled with scrolling text bars and titles with moving decorations. Talking heads and continuously looping B-Roll are framed in PhotoShop-ped virtual borders that are animated with dizzying movement -- as though the images themselves are inadequate to engage a viewer's brain.

Little wonder then that on election night Wolf roamed the stage at CNN's studio in the Time Warner Center in New York and used its outsized billboard video wall and slick graphics to dramatize what was, already, a pretty dramatic story. And then it went from gratuitous to excessive, from silly to preposterous.

Following some scenes of the enormous crowd that was gathering strength at Grant Park, including an appearance by reporter Jessica Yellin on location, Blitzer spoke to the television audience. "I want you to watch what we're about to do," he said, "because you've never seen anything like this on television."

Then CNN "beamed" Ms. Yellin into Election Center as a snatch of pretentious martial music played in the background. It was the global premiere of what CNN dubbed, erroneously, its "hologram" technology. And it was pretty lame.

The reporter appeared to be standing in a spotlight a dozen feet or so away from Blitzer, looking as though she'd just been teleported by the "matter-energy transport" that always beamed Captain Kirk back to the Starship Enterprise just in time to avoid some alien menace. CNN's engineers are not as adept as Star Trek's Scotty, though, for Ms. Yellin was outlined in the purple fringe that's typical of a bad chromakey effect. Still, as the studio cameras moved--ever so slightly--on the stage (apparently CNN does not believe in stationary cameras), Ms. Blitzer's "hologram" remained in proper position and perspective.

Ms. Yellin spoke: "Hi, Wolf."

And Blitzer, beside himself with awe at the magic wrought by CNN's engineers, continued. "All right, a big round of applause. We did it. There she is, Jessica Yellin. I know you're in Chicago, but we've done something, a hologram. We beamed you in. We beamed you in here into the CNN Election Center. I want to talk to you as I would normally be talking to you if you were really face to face with me. I know you're a few -- at least a thousand miles away, but it looks like you're right here."

What most thrilled Wolf, it seems, was that the television audience could now see Jessica without distracting stuff behind her on the screen; stuff like the enthusiastic crowd in Chicago; stuff like the story she was covering; stuff like real life.

"You know," he said, "what I like about this hologram and you're a hologram now, Jessica. Instead of having thousands of people behind you screaming and shouting, you know what, we can have a little bit more of an intimate conversation and our viewers can enjoy that as well. How excited are you, Jessica, that this is -- you're the first one that we've beamed into the CNN Election Center?"

Yellin could not resist the comparison to Star Wars. "I know," she remarked, "It's like I follow in the tradition of Princess Leah. It's something else. It's the first time it's been live on television and it's a remarkable setup, if I could tell you about it for a moment. I'm inside a tent in Chicago that's been built -- engineers spent about three weeks doing it."

THREE WEEKS! they spent, setting up 35 high definition cameras in a circle in the bluescreen tent, getting them to communicate with the cameras in New York, and testing and tweaking. All so Jessica Yellin could spend a minute or so "in the studio" with Wolf Blitzer. It is interesting that they did not set up a matching rig in Arizona, where the supporters of John McCain had gathered. Seems like fairness would have called for that. But I digress.

Blitzer closed out the virtual reality segment saying, "All right, Jessica. You were a terrific hologram. Thanks very much. Jessica Yellin is in Chicago. She's not here in New York with us at the CNN Election Center, but you know what. It looked like she was right here. It's pretty amazing technology."

Later, introducing contributor Roland Martin, Blitzer noted, "OK, the real Roland is here, not a hologram." And then he issued what seemed a threat, "All right, but maybe one of these days, Roland, we'll bring you in. We'll beam you in to the CNN Election Center."

Oh, please. Let's hope not.

The amazing television first did not go unnoticed by the press. Here is what a few people had to say about it:

"That is the creepiest thing I have ever seen," wrote Brooke Cain on The Raleigh News & Observer's blog.

"Not only does this technology seem completely creepy, but it's without a doubt one of the most useless and unnecessary pieces of phantasmagoric TV ever enacted," said engadget.com blogger Joshua Topolsky.


"I thought the whole thing was a bit silly and sort of annoying," CNet's Marguerite Reardon observed.


Anna Pickard reported on the "gimmick" for The Guardian: "Why? Because we can. We COULD have a correspondent that could say what she says perfectly well in 2D on a normal screen. But why should we, when we can have a hologram?"

On his Washington Post blog, Style columnist Tom Shales wrote: "It was a cute trick, but how did it substantially contribute to the coverage? No one seemed to know."

CNN was not the only network to embellish the story with over-the-top graphics. MSNBC made a 3D virtual U.S. Capitol Building appear atop a table on its set, surmounted by an equally 3D rainbow representation of the Senate seating chart. This was to illustrate the Democrat's progress in picking up seats in the real institution up there in Washington DC, and it, too, was introduced with a bit of verbal fanfare and oohs and ahhs from the network's reporters. But at least the MSNBC graphic served a purpose.

To my mind the real story of this momentous evening was told in the telephoto close-ups of a teary Oprah Winfrey standing in the crowd at Grant's Park and the likewise teary face of Jesse Jackson, also there, whose generation of angry confrontational politics may finally be at an end, and in the chorus of boos that followed Senator McCain's heartfelt congratulations to his opponent, and in the respectful silence of the awestruck crowd in Chicago as the President-Elect put the election and the challenges ahead in an historical perspective.

Perhaps the XBox generation has a new and different visual aesthetic--some kind of post-modern reality-is-manufactured sensibility--and television producers are smart to cater to it. Or maybe those producers underestimate the powerful effect that genuine raw images can have, even on young people raised on video games. But I'm with The Guardian's Anna Pickard on this one; CNN did it because they could. It's the same misguided enthusiasm for technology that's brought us cell phones with features we can't figure out how to use and never will and never wanted in the first place.

Seems like "Yes we can" is the mantra of the day -- in more ways than one.

###

OH, YES:
You can see the CNN hologram incident on their website.

(You might have to watch a soap commercial before you see the video.)