THE AMERICAN BOY'S PENIS IS SHRINKING AND THE AMERICAN GIRL LIKES IT UP THE ASS
The phrase Are you fucking kidding me? is uttered every day, all over the world. And yet I fear I threaten to use up all its meaning whenever I read the New York Times...
Never ever doubt that the Times panders to middle and upper class anxieties. This weekend, they ran this story about teenagers and young people who -- oh no! -- can't drive anymore because of gas prices! There are even priceless quotes from sample teens like douchebag Kevin Ballschmiede (16) who can't ride his "pride and joy” anymore (translation: my penis is too small to be my pride and joy); cry-baby wanker Tim Chou (19) whose parents had to -- oh the horror! -- give his car away to charity and now some homeless person might get a meal at his backseat action expense (translation: my folks bought me a lame car, so I wasn't getting any backseat action anyway); and another 19 year old asshat, Elliot Lee complained about not being able to hang with his friends anymore (translation: they were only friends with me so I could drive them around). Oh these poor kids! Oh how they've suffered!
Again: Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?
Yet another example of the American Leisure Class flaunting its privileged position on the world stage and doing it oh so crassly. But it's one thing that teenagers think this is a big deal -- they are arguably too young to have the benefit of perspective (although only in America do we excuse nineteen year olds for juvenile behavior and global apathy) -- but it's quite another thing for the nation's leading newspaper to give this kind of classist concern any major attention. Rising gas prices and our dependency on foreign oil is indeed a major concern, but how about delving into the global politics and environmental matters at hand instead of devoting an entire article to Timmy and Tiffany and the fact that they might have to walk to the Mall in their Nike's or -- GASP! -- take the bus! (To be fair, the newspaper did feature ten Op-Ed contributers writing their thoughts on rising gas prices and its more relevant efficacy in terms of economics, the environment, and the country as a whole. But these were snippets, and the question remains: why have one of your reporters devote an entire article to teenage driving woes?) And let's face it, parents of these kids only give a crap because they might have to drive the little monsters around and/or spend more time with them. One can only hope that these negligent parents will buy that problem-solving miracle desk that Obama told poor black families to buy so they could spend more time with their children. At least we know these families can afford to buy it!
Seriously, the article focused on this "problem" of Receding Rugrat Roving without any irony. There was no sub-textual analysis on the over consumption of cars and how this plays into our capitalist culture and environmental problems, no criticism on how spoiled-rotten kids are in the U.S., no insightful peering into the Cult of the Child that we live in. Nope. The emphasis really was primarily on the fact that -- and I must quote this directly -- "teen cruising is way down" and that this pesky gas price problem was "cramping [kids'] style."
Is the Times that desperate to be cool? Must they be such whores to privileged Americans? Wouldn't you feel like the world's lousiest reporter if you were Karen Ann Cullotta and found yourself driving around (because Times reporters can afford gas) to ask teenagers about their cars and gas prices?? Is this really why you became a journalist? Can we really be that self-absorbed, myopic and ridiculous as a culture? Are you fucking kidding me?
Ah, but kidding is exactly what they're doing. Not kidding as in "joking around" but kidding as in "obsessed with children." Or -- more pointedly -- privileged children. Parents kowtow to these brats, the mainstream media exploits that concern for revenue and cultural capital, and then before you know it, the country as a whole is brainwashed into the Cult of the Child. It's the same obsession with teen stars and with youth and beauty. It's the reason adults become violent at soccer and baseball games involving their kids. It's the reason we have the ridiculous drug wars and the subsequent incarceration of many poor and lower income Black and Latino men. It's the reason Miley fucking Cyrus has a career. It's the reason for censorship, and sexual repression, and the restriction of adult pleasures, and every other heinous thing we do to adults in the name of children. Except of course the things we should be doing for them (universal education, universal heathcare etc.) And this is the difference between protecting children, and caring about them in a meaningful way versus just kidding around.
Meanwhile, other REAL journalists were doing more important work while the Times was scooping this story.
Like Leonard Pitts Jr. at The Miami Herald who wrote a more urgent article regarding young people in America -- this story on rising teen pregnancies and STD's after the Bush cartel implemented their abstinence only program. Because any idiot knows that telling kids "Don't fuck" only results in them fucking unsafely. (Don't even get me started on all those teenage Christian suburban princesses who wanted to save intercourse for their wedding night, so they decided blowjobs and anal sex was the way to go till then. There just isn't a loud enough laugh track for that one.) Ah, the Bush Abstinence plan! (A delicious oxymoron if your appetite whets -- like mine does -- at euphemisms for vag.) Next move: stop kids from meeting other kids to fuck by raising gas prices so they can't drive around!
Or Noelle Robbins at The Alameda Sun writing about the global food crisis and how we can help. Imagine being a child starving in another country while American teens grouse about gas and cars. The rest of the world must really wanna kick our asses. (Memo to America from the rest of the world: we're not interested in your first-world problems, and we're even less interested in your spawn. Except Roman Polanski. He might like spending time with a few of them.)
Or Kai Wright in this wonderful article for The Nation about the insidious subprime crisis and how it's robbing poor African American families. Hopefully Obama will read this article before he promises more of his soul to corporate America, or before he makes another speech about black people. He really should get to know black people better since he kinda looks like them.
Thank god then for journalists like these who continue to do important work about issues that really matter, instead of just kidding around.
19 comments:
i don't know what you're talking about, i don't think obama looks anything like black people ;)
seriously though, this is my favorite of your blog posts. well done.
Jon! I was about to say the same!
Mr. Blogger, this has to be the BEST response to any article that I have ever read. Especially to one about American greed and apathy. This is disgusting disregard and insensitivity towards the rest of the world's problem. What a curse it must be to not be able to drive to the mall for a healthy and hearty McDonald's meal. I guess it's another night in, eating Consuelo's food, who has served as nanny, cook, house cleaner, dog-walker, laundry lady, lunch lady and ass wiper. You know Consuelo, the one who's been working for the last 20 years, was finally able to buy herself a little house for her and her kids, and who is now in danger of losing that house due to the mortgage crisis. But I digress from the important: I NEED THE NEW A&F SHORTS AND CAN'T DRIVE TO THE MALL!!!
You obviously have a valid point, and your exclamation-riddled-indignation is a style you're developing so that's okay, but to be fair to the young'uns: in most of the U.S. not driving means not going anywhere. Parents working multiple jobs leave them unable to get their kids from place to place and kids don't live in walking distance to each other or to their jobs or, yes, to their lesiure activities in many places in the U.S. It's not like they can just get on the subway...
I don't think it's tragic, obviously, but it is part of what will become a major shift in American lifestyle. And not just over-priveleged Americans. I grew up among po' white trash and everyone drove everywhere... there was (and is) no other alternative.
But...why is this making the news of the unofficial Paper of Record in the U.S.? It's still a petty first world problem.
Besides, um, they have two legs.
some kids don't have legs akash. haven't you ever seen the special olympics?
No, but you're right, because I HAVE seen Extreme Makeover. You know, that show on ABC where they give you a house and/or a car if you don't have any arms or legs or whatever.
I think Akash is exactly right. Here in Italy in many places, it is not so easy for young people to get around without a car either, and still it is not something that one would expect to be important news. I am sorry to say this but only in America, in a society so based on money, could one confuse the distinction between a right and a privilege so easily. Having a car is a privilege, not a right. And not being able to drive as much, while contributing to your country's already gluttonous way of living and destroying the environment in the process, should be cause for relief, not an urgent news story.
I think anyone who lives in American society and is willing to look at America's impact on the rest of the world (for yes America, there is a wide, wide world beyond your shores!) and is willing to do so critically and without sentiment, I think such a person should be commended.
Akash, as always, you are more than welcome to visit Milan anytime.
Love,
Marco
It could be that I'm the only person in this section who's lived in a rural area. We do fetishize objects here, and that's a problem, but I still do feel for a kid who saved up for years to buy a piece-of-shit car he lovingly restored in the garage or in the school's shop only to find that his minimum-wage after-school job, which got him the money to buy the car in the first place, can't buy him gas money. Thus: no dates, no trips to the mall (you can't walk to major shopping malls without risking life and limb, even if you're willing to talk for two hours to get there), etc. Yes, it's a superficial "first-world" problem, but it is also something taken for granted as a part of "American identity." It's what adolescence in this country is. It's news because it represents a cultural shift to the paper's readership.
Of course, a more detailed analysis of the class dynamics, constructions of masculinity, training of young capitalists and materialists, etc. is in order, but mainstream papers have never been the place for that. That's why we have academics (a Masters in journalism is not an academic degree, though I do wish they were training these reporters to be more rigorous and ethical in their methodologies.)
Regardless, the Times is a "first-world" paper, and this was in the National News section, right?
It wasn't much of an article, I agree, but if you're really going to take on what they don't print, the more intellectually honest way to do it is not to contract their stupidest story of the day with another paper's best story, it's to point out things they don't cover at all, or their alarming tendency towards sloppy fact-checking and idiosyncratic analysis.
Frank, I totally agree that there are important stories that the Times "don't cover at all" and that they are guilty of an "alarming tendency towards sloppy fact-checking and idiosyncratic analysis." But also, the title of this blog is "Crap the NY Times Prints Instead Of Real News." I think it's clear I intended it to be humorous and a way to poke fun at the Times. I do want to spend more time developing the blog and delineating the lacking areas in their journalism that you brought up, but I'm currently applying to grad schools, working on some other stuff for professors, and trying to secure that job you and Jon keep teasing me about. So you'll forgive me if I don't have as much time to devote to it, and for now, the only way to keep it alive and active is to post whenever I read something I think should not be covered in the Paper of Record.
The fact is, the NY Times has a global reputation and therefore -- I think -- a global responsibility, not just to Americans. Marco seemed to understand what I was getting at. You'll notice in my blog post I mentioned the "American Leisure Class" and flaunting it "so crassly on the world stage." Of course there are kids in America who can't get around without cars and obviously there are socio-economic issues at hand, but the class wars within the U.S. are nothing compared to the global economic disparities between our lower classes and well...those of the rest of the world. I'm sorry but the story is an unimportant one for a major internationally read newspaper because -- to me -- it makes America's leisure woes seem more important than say the food crisis (which they don't cover enough) or the suicidal farmers in India (which they barely covered, if at all) and so on and so forth.
Also if you actually read the article, you'll see that it mostly and myopically focuses on the problem of "teen cruising." Not teens trying to get to work etc. Marco's reaction is the kind I usually get when I travel or interact with people outside the U.S. who are horrified by the way our mainstream (and even "credible") media panders to middle class anxiety, and fixates on errant nonsense and the problems of the globally privileged. The article itself is clearly written a certain way to highlight not the plight of the lower income kids you mentioned, but to elevate a leisurely activity (cruising/hanging out) and you'll never convince me that this warranted coverage (and such insipid and unimaginative coverage at that) in the most prestigious paper.
Finally, do you always have time on your blog to delve into EVERY blog post the way you'd like? Always with in-depth analysis, insightful observation and astute acumen? (This is not rhetorical and I'll answer it for you: you don't)
No, but I fully expect, and even hope for, people to call me on it when a post is problematic. Otherwise I would disable comments.
In the future, I'll try to remember that you would prefer to think of the "comments" section as the "praise" section ;-)
Consider this my last less-than-glowing response; in the future I'll either wholeheartedly agree with you or bite my tongue.
Oh god. That's not what I meant at all Frank. But feel free to continue misinterpreting me.
Look, you can say anything you want about anything I post -- positive or negative. I don't believe in censorship at all and obviously if kissing my own ass was my objective, I'd have disabled the comments section. I just thought you were wrong and I'm allowed to respond to you in turn if I think you are. You basically did what you always do (and you should look back on all your recent private messages/posts/emails to me and you'll see that this is true) which is that you present an agreement in the form of a caveat (In this case: "You obviously have a valid point"/"I don't think it's tragic") and then you proceed to disagree in a way that betrays the caveat entirely.
I didn't mean to dismiss the plight of lower income kids in rural America. In fact, I even said rising gas prices IS a problem, and I even gave the Times credit (with links!) for their separate section featuring ten Oped pieces that dealt with the problem in a more mature way. My original point was that the article on teen driving approached the problem as one of American leisure (which it DID: read it again) and that globally, the impairment of such leisure was something only a privileged country could spend time reporting in their most prestigious newspaper. Part of my disgust with the Times (which I have not been secretive about) is what I think is their way of pandering to (and prioritizing of) the incredibly privileged position of America's middle class. And I intend to point it out whenever I can.
Having grown up in rural Michigan (okay I was 15 minutes from Ann Arbor by car but there is a farm...with cows and chickens no less...across from my house, so I think this still counts as rural), I can safely say that I know how important automobiles are to middle America. Hell--I was born in Detroit; I'm surprised I didn't have Ford or GM stamped on my ass when I left the hospital.
Nevertheless, I still object to the publication of this article in the national news section of the NYT. If it were in the style section or even the magazine, I would say fine. But this is not national news.
Where has the Times been for the past oh...I don't know...thirty years about the effect of the high price of autos and the lack of public transportation in places like Detroit, where the inner city has crumbled as jobs have moved to the suburbs. People here haven't been able to drive for years not because of the high cost of gas but because the cost of a car and the requisite insurance is unmanageable. But these people are black; these people are poor; these people will not pose for photos with their long hair flapping in the wind. The NYT panders to its bourgie readers because this helps them sell ad space. That is the reason they printed this--and many other--articles.
"But these people are black; these people are poor; these people will not pose for photos with their long hair flapping in the wind."
Hee Hee! Careful Anna, your country might accuse you of being an angry black woman. Or they might do to you the same thing they did to that poor minister (I forget his name) who was connected to Obama, and whose only sin was telling the truth. A concept much too difficult for so many Americans to bear, I am sorry to say. Even apparently your presidents and presidential candidates.
You tell the truth well though. Good response.
i don't know what's going on between akash and frank in the comments, but it's highly entertaining for the rest of us. lol. carry on.
I find the taste for polemics over dialectics, exclamation points over semicolons, bluster over nuance, the single most frustrating thing about American political discourse(s). Hence my frustration with the broad strokes of some of your arguments.
I tend to agree with the impulses behind what you write, hence the caveats, but get frustrated that someone so smart tends to be just another screaming voice in a public forum that badly needs some people who speak a little more softly, and who make some attempt to understand those with whom they disagree rather than shouting them into a resentful silence.
Frank, even though you and I mostly agree politically, I think approach is where the river divides us.
I totally understand where you're coming from, but I guess there are some issues where I don't think there is a gray area -- or where I think the gripes on one side is nothing compared to the suffering on the other. For example, I think America's wealth and privilege at the expense of other nations is so odious and so immoral that I cannot stop for one minute to feel sorry for globally privileged kids who can't "cruise" as much as they'd like to. I'm sorry...I just can't.
I think there are some issues where it's obvious where our sympathies should lie. And while discourse and nuance is very important and I prize them as well, not being able to call obvious injustices and inequalities what they are is even more problematic than not being able to find common ground.
Anyway, you and I should probably take this to a private forum.
And when are we getting together again? It's so much more fun doing this with you in person.
Hey, my name is Kevin Ballschmiede, the kid from that NY Times article. I wanna clear some shit up here.
1st. We were at streets of woodfeild to watch a car show. When we were approced by the NY Times reporter, we were like fuck it. They twisted our words around completely. I never once said that my truck was my pride and joy, or anything close to that.
2nd. I don't know if you guys think that like talking about how "ohhh I can't drive to get to the mall to get my A&F jeans" is how it really is. I bought my own car, I pay my own insurance, buy my own clothing, and pay for my own gas. So don't think because you read the NY Times mean you know any of our stories.
And finally:
I don't like NY Times, I don't read it. I think after I read the article, I was like, I didn't say half the shit they printed.
BUT
What it comes down too is you posting shit on here like douche-bag blah blah blah. You the fucking douchebag, quit fucking crying, and instead of bitching about the Times, do what I do, don't read it.
Fuck you and have a nice day
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