Only in America

February 15, 2021February 15, 2021Michael 3 Comments

This has been the week for Only in America. It’s funny. When I was growing up bright eyed during the days of The Donna Reed Show and Leave It to Beaver, Only in America meant the good things the country provided its citizens. Today, Only in America reflects the bizarre that no other country would expose to its citizens.

The most watched show in the last week might have been the impeachment proceedings. And make no mistake, it was a show. Only in America is news an entertainment venture complete with spiffy graphics and market tested titles. At some news outlets this weekend’s lead graphic proclaimed “Senate Votes to Acquit 57-43.” Actually not true and misleading. Truer were the ones “Senate Acquits Trump 57-43” but still misleading. Truer and not misleading were those who published simply “Senate Acquits” or the least misleading, “Senate Fails to Convict.” Let me explain.

Senate TV via AP

The headlines touting acquittal by a vote of 57-43 imply more Senators voted to acquit that convict and that more of them felt the charges were unsubstantiated. In fact there was no vote to acquit. The vote was not taken to determine innocence but to establish guilt so the vote was to convict. Fifty-three Senators voted to convict, 43 senators to acquit and even though more of those Senators voted to convict the former President, it was not enough. Only in America can less people vote for something and win.

This can explain the whole Trumpian movement. In 2016, Trump garnered fewer votes in the Presidential election yet was declared a winner. That may have led to the expectation that whatever is his desire is the reality, regardless of the actual reality. Thus America entered the Alternate Facts Era. Only in America can the be multiple facts for a given piece of reality. And it started when it didn’t rain on the 2016 inauguration – even if all those photos and videos show watery precipitation falling from the sky. Let’s review.

After the Trump inauguration the White House press secretary declared the “largest crowd to ever witness an inauguration – period” saw the new President sworn in. He even stated the Washington DC area mass transit system carried over 420,000 people that day as part of his proof that the inauguration was the biggest of its kind. When reporters questioned actual crowd size from aerial photos and established that the transit system had in fact carried only 197,000 riders, another top White House figure explained this difference by stating, “Our press secretary gave alternate facts to that [crowd size]” and so now whatever was wished to have happened will have happened and be proven if not with facts then with Alternate Facts.

Although this concept of not telling the complete truth (which many rational people call lying) is not a new idea, for four years Alternate Facts ruled and millions of people chose the alternate version to the factual version. Everything was unfair game: medical pronouncements from windmills causing cancer to the use of mask and social distancing don’t do much to prevent the spread of air borne viruses; environmental related charges from California wildfires spread because the state diverts water from rivers to the Pacific Ocean to it takes 10 to 15 flushes to adequately clear a low-flow toilet; political charges from “Article II [of the Constitution] allows me to do whatever I want” to the election was rigged.

Alternate Facts are embraced by so many because they are easier to understand than real facts. Real facts often require a knowledge of a particular subject or at least a requirement read a full news article or opinion piece, anything beyond a retweeted Twitter post on a topic. Alternate facts, because they have no basis in actual fact require no research because there is nothing to research. Yes Only in America have so many received degrees in medicine law, political science, engineering, or economics from Google University.

Alternate Facts often can boiled down to a simple slogan or phrase, something easy to remember. Again, not a new idea. Marketers have used the sloganeering since marketing began. For example, you may not know anything about American sports but you probably recognize the sobriquet Hammering Hank and know Hank Aaron hit a lot of home runs, or that the Steel Curtain had something to do with football defense. They are a playful nicknames that glean from the truth. Likewise advertisers have made household names out of obscure brands. “When you’re number two you have to try harder” was coined when Avis was actually a distant #3 in car rentals but by the time they were coerced into changing their slogan to a simpler “We Try Harder” they were closing in in the number one spot. Unfortunately some quick to remember tags are far from truthful like sticking the word “herbal” as part of the trademarked name of a skin product or vitamin when in fact there is no herbal ingredient. Or Stop the Steal when there was nothing stolen. Nicknames not at all playful, Crooked Hillary, Cryin’ Chuck, or Mike Pounce for example, to people other than to the bullyesque may live longer than Aaron’s hold on the home run record. Only in America.

Yep, Only in America can the majority vote for something and lose, can hard news be reduced to sound bites, and can political opponents, regardless of party be reduced to nasty nicknames, and can facts be substituted at will, yet some people see nothing wrong with that picture.

And people say Leave It to Beaver was an unrealistic presentation of life.

2020 In a Word, or Three

December 28, 2020Michael Leave a comment

Ah, were getting close to the New Year. The way people have been saying they can’t wait for this year to be over you would think there is an expiration date on “the virus.” I put that in quotes because that seems to be how most people are looking at it. At least that seems to be how American people are looking at it and at most other news of the year. A character, a reference, a headline. It didn’t matter how complex a matter was, all of 2020 was a slogan. Health, welfare, politics, social justice, social injustice – all were condensed into a few words, small enough and simple enough to read as a headline, fit on a protest sign, or look spiffy behind a hashtag. Every cause must have hired a PR rep to ensure its message got across to the people without all the distracting stats, explanations, and sometimes facts.

Would you like proof?

Let’s start with the election, that solemn activity undertaken with thought and due consideration for all issues. If yard signs were any indication of the thought that was taken this year we are in big trouble. We could have chosen between “Keep America Great” or “Build Back Better.” What does either mean! But this is not unusual. Spiffy easy to remember slogans are a staple with elections. “I Like Ike” and “All The way With LBJ” didn’t rate very high on the infometer either. What was unusual this year was the trite sloganeering continued, er continues. It morphed from “Get Out and Vote” to “Your Vote Matters” to “Count Every Vote” to “Count Every Legal Vote” to “Stop The Steal.” Duh. Well, “You Can’t Fix Stupid but You Can Vote it Out.”

Protests lend themselves to spiffy slogans. They have to be short enough to fit on a sign in letters big enough to be legible when captured by the news cameras and catchy enough to be remembered after the cameras leave. “Silence Is Violence” is a great example. The pity is how many people did not know the origin of the phrase or its original context. Then it was confounded when the same movements adopted the “Muted” campaign. Think about that.

Lack of context could not stop a good protest throughout the year. We were intent on ensuring others knew we knew that various things mattered, that many peoples names needed said, that just about every ethic group was strong and that we should make America a variety of things again. We wanted to “Defund the Police” but still “Back the Blue,” and we let the world know our demands included “No Justice No Peace” then telling ourselves “Whatever It Takes.”

Neither could lack of facts stop a good protest. Marchers across America on Columbus Day carried signs to “Make America Native Again” or “Columbus Didn’t Discover America, He Invaded It” oblivious to the fact that Columbus never made it to any part of mainland North America on any of his four voyages.

And that takes us back to “the virus.” For almost the entire year a CoViD story was front and center on your favorite news source. We learned how to “Wash Your Hands” even if we didn’t know why we did it that way. We included “Flatten the Curve” in as many conversations as we could then we switched to “Business on Top, Pajamas on the Bottom” when it became clear that curve was tougher than we expected. If we did find ourselves in an intelligent conversation about CoViD and how to deal with it yet still uncertain of how to deal with it, we could fake our way through by looking thoughtful then declaring, “Corona, It’s Not Just a Beer Anymore!” Any attempt to break quarantine was met with “[Fill in the blank] IS Essential” and if that argument failed we turned to “Quarantine the Virus, Not the Constitution.” Apparently logic was what ended up in quarantine.

I will be glad to see 2020 come to an end but not because I think we will finally have put the issues of 2020 to bed. No, I’ll be happy to see it end because then I can finally stop having to listen to people say “I can’t wait for 2020 to end!”

Boy I can’t wait for 2020 to end!

Memorably Forgettable

November 5, 2018November 5, 2018Michael Leave a comment

Enquiring minds want to know. You know that’s the actual what – quote, slogan, motto? Slogan. I think most people would say “Inquiring minds want to know” and it really doesn’t matter much what those minds want because both mean essentially the same thing. Typically people inquire on this side of the Atlantic and enquire on that, assuming you’re on the same side as I am and you’re not prone to paving your speech with Anglicisms. I’m not sure exactly what they do in Canada even though they would be with me on this side.

fingers I’ve used the inquiring minds line quite often over the years although I couldn’t tell you where it came from. My first thought was E. F. Hutton but at the same time I knew that wasn’t right. If wasn’t E. F. Hutton or the recently resurrected EF Hutton. That was “When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen.” They came up with that slogan about a year before they were forced to admit to an elaborated check chaining scheme (the corporate version of passing bad checks ) right before being bought up and disappearing into the investment miasma and setting the stage for an eventual rebirth without the periods.

But I digress. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. Enquiring minds was the brainchild of the National Enquirer, the American tabloid with the British name. I suppose regular readers of the Enquirer know that but they probably don’t know that tabloid was originally a trademarked layered tablet developed by the Burroughs Welcome drug company who sued for copyright infringement but lost for a reason I was never able to discover.

Often copyrighted names get sucked into the public domain because of a lack of attention to protecting them by their respective owners. Kleenex and Tylenol are two biggies that rarely get seen with their (r) or (c) or whatever it’s supposed to be to project the fact that there are particular brands of facial tissue and acetaminophen. Dumpster, aspirin, and thermos are just three of many that have already lost their letters. Maybe that’s what happened to tabloid although I don’t see the relationship between a gossip rag and a drug delivery system. I guess some things aren’t supposed to be understood.

Like who can understand how or why certain numbers are so memorable. Some things make sense in context – four horsemen, seven seas, twelve days of Christmas. But what about 8003253535. Let me put that another way.
8-0-0 3-2-5 3-5-3-5
Add a catchy little tune and you have the first toll free 800 phone number ever featured in an advertising campaign. And it still gets you the Sheraton reservation system fifty years later even though Sheraton is now part of a more diverse corporate family.

747100 While Sheraton was revealing a new way to reserve a hotel room, Boeing was introducing a new way to get there. It might not have a catchy slogan or memorable phone number (at least I don’t know that it does) but what Boeing revealed that fall in 1968 has a memorable number of its own and quite an unmistakable profile, the 747.

So thanks to Boeing more people can get from here to there without walking. For generations, people have let their fingers do the walking. That famous symbol on the cover of so many yellow pages was never trademarked, nor was the term “yellow pages” so I can print them here with impunity. As far as I’m concerned, yellow pages have it all over enquiring minds even if you don’t need them look up the number to reserve a room at the Sheraton. I wonder why nobody ever got around to protecting it.

I guess they forgot.