What do you want to hear?

Good morning, dear readers!  I have a nine-hour work day ahead of me, so alas, I must be brief.  But what I found while ambling along my normal news outlets (yes, even someone like me writing about current affairs gets stuck in a rut... stuck in a rut... stuck in a rut) made me pretty darn upset, and I must share with you before typing the day away.

U.S. figure skating Olympian Johnny Weir was mocked by some French-Canadian announcers during his short routine in Vancouver, saying that he might have "lost points due to his costume and body language," suggesting he should take a gender test, and also suggesting he should compete in the women's competition.  They go so far to suggest that his demeanor sets a bad example to other male skaters and that they'll "end up like him."  They later issued an apology.

These comments are bad enough from a pair of national announcers broadcasting to the entire world, but what enraged me were the quotes from Johnny's response that CNN and People.com decided to publish.

I first read about the controversy at Celebitchy, which is one of my favorite gossip blogs - they write smart, they're witty, and they're not nasty and defacing pictures with grade-school MSPaint like Perez Hilton does.  The comments that Celebitchy published were taken from Entertainment Weekly, and Johnny was quite gracious in his response to the "jokes."  He didn't even ask for an apology or for their firings and says he believes in free speech.  The quotes used on the gossip blog showed him to be a well-spoken man.

However.  I opened CNN.com today and saw the headline:  "Skater responds to mockery."  Hey, CNN picked it up a day later!  I opened it up and started reading, and was sorely disappointed in the quotes that CNN chose to take from People.com's article.  In addition, the hyperlink provided to the original article was broken, and that just ticks me off - a lack of attention to detail on a national news outlet.  It's just as bad as misspelling something on the front page, which CNN does quite often, I might add.  But here's the quote that finishes off the article:

"It wasn't these two men criticizing my skating, it was them criticizing me as a person, and that was something that really, frankly, pissed me off," Weir told reporters. "Nobody knows me. ... I think masculinity is what you believe it to be."

Doesn't he sound like a whiny kid now?  What gives?  Sure, we've all heard the nickname "Johnny Weird" for his flamboyant style and Lady Gaga gestures, but he's also a fine skater and a decent human being, and what was quoted might lead you to believe that he's calling for those broadcasters' careers on a shiny, fabulous silver platter.  All I know is, the man handled himself just fine, and taking two quotes from the press conference shed two very different lights on him.

In my job as a medical transcription, one of the best pieces of advice was to question.  Question what you are hearing.  Listen to it again and again and be sure you are typing what the doctor is saying.  If he's saying something that doesn't make sense, research the heck out of it and alert medical records if there is an inconsistency.  If a doctor puts in an order for a surgical note but starts dictating a consultation, I don't format it as a surgical note - I would format it as a consultation.

This is probably the best advice I could give the general public about approaching what they read and see in the media.  Question.  Question it from all angles before passing judgment - or even if you pass judgment at all.  Don't assume you know something just because they wore a pink tassel on a skating costume and assume they're hermaphrodites (which, incidentally, Lady Gaga was also accused of "tucking," to which she wouldn't even deign a response to that rumor. Good for her.)  It's these little jokes that start as a drop in the pond, but grow to bigger waves as they pass through the general population in so many ways... what if a kid listened to those announcers and thought it was funny to question someone's gender every time they didn't fit society's definition of a male or female?  Even though they thought it was funny, they should have saved it for the comedy club open-mic night, if at all.

One-dimensional musings

On the cusp of another snowstorm (that's four inches of snow down here in Canonsburg - I know you Erie folks are giggling about it, as do I, but there really is a lot of snow here that they don't know where to put because of the mountainous hills), I've realized that it's been a month since I last blogged.  That's breaking the cardinal rule of blogging:  Blog on a regular basis.  Keeping it up.  Keeping it fresh.

Yet every time I think about it, I think the media has burned me out.  I've been constantly listening to family, friends and the media complain about the state of this country, why Republicans are crazy, why Democrats are socialist nutjobs, and quite frankly, I've become tired of it.  Maybe not tired:  It's a word that my younger readers would appreciate, and that is "meh."  I like me a good drama in the news, but ever since Obama was elected, the shouting on both sides of the American political spectrum is louder than ever, and no one seems interested in getting anything done except firmly planting the blame of the state of the American economy on the shoulders of either political party.

With full disclosure, both my husband and I are independents.  We made that decision after moving back from the West Coast, with me doubting every potential Presidential candidate who stepped up to a podium in front of the media.  We are finding that both left and right "ideals" are often contradictory, selfish, and downright unhealthy for a decent political debate.  We often had the best debates about politics with a dear friend of ours, who is Canadian and knows truly what socialism is, after he'd been traveling the globe.  Disenchanted with Cheney and Big Oil, angry with manipulative unions, watching the debt ceiling raised higher than ever, and pretty faces (Palin) blurring partisan shortcomings, I threw my hands up in the air and suggested to Spence that we leave both parties and let them figure out how to get our votes.  It was the only way I could think of to demonstrate my displeasure with the Left and Right political discourses.

As it is, American politics are sorely one-dimensional:  Do you swing left or right?  Blue or red?  Conservative or liberal?  To which I started asking back:  Are politics only meant for swinging between two points, one single line?  I really don't care that the Independents don't have many promising candidates:  Running on an Independent platform is what I like to call slippery dipping:  You can pick and choose your values, and yet in putting together your political agenda, leaving yourself to the mercy of a media who likes to paint you "more conservative" or "more liberal," perhaps to translate your oddities to an American public who only know the way forward is to go left or right.

Does it seem like a political dead end?  Does it seem too much for a person who wants to step outside The Line, to explain to others that it's okay to be pro-life and demand equal pay for women in similar job positions?  Is it okay to be a member of the NRA and endorse affordable health care?  Can rich people endorse welfare?  Can poor people endorse lower taxes for the businesses?

If rich people understood that there are people in society who truly need the help of the village, as it were, to survive, then they'd be more amenable to paying more taxes into a welfare system that helps the elderly, disabled and hungry, while at the same time finds the freeloaders and stops supporting them.

If poor people understood that businesses create jobs, they would understand that lower taxes for businesses will help their businesses grow and keep more jobs in the United States.

If women and men understood that fertility is an equal responsibility between them, then it would be easier for men and women to support equal pay for equal work.

If understanding that the reason we are not physically invaded by a country is because, on average, every man and woman in this country has at least one firearm in their home, then we understand that basic health care is a right, not a privilege:  Basic rights of self-defense of our country should include basic rights of self-defense of our bodies, whether we have chronic or acute conditions.  (Whether you endorse a public option or shopping across state lines for health insurance is a completely different conversation, however.)

And that, dear readers, is only a few of the many reasons why I can't read a newspaper, online or otherwise, without my eyes crossing and my soul delving into a deep state of indifference.  Politicians are afraid of "reaching across the aisle" without thinking about their competitors accusing them of waffling in the next election, so they hold fast to a single line between two points.  The dominant parties are in a state of turmoil, what with Obama's favorable ratings plummeting to Earth and the loss of Mr. Kennedy's Lion Seat to a Republican, and with Palin a Presidential hopeful in 2012 while endorsing a Tea Party with no clear agenda and fractured factions.  Less voters are asking important questions about how the government as a whole will help them, and instead asking for their piece of the pie, and perhaps it is in this way we are led to a government stuffed and obese with pork and special interests.

Perhaps - and this is a theory - it is not so much the politicians' fault for trying to grab federal funds, but our own.  Perhaps our indifference to letting the same people try to steer this country is the reason why no one can agree on Capitol Hill.  Perhaps it is us, the People, the voters, who need to find their voices again and appoint better people to find that middle ground that could make this country even greater.  Politics don't have to be complicated, you know.  Don't let anyone tell you that you're committing heresy by changing your party affiliation as much as you like.  In fact, the idea that anyone would accuse me of a grave religious sin based on my party affiliation is insulting:  I should be able to move freely between political parties, because my God doesn't swing left or right.  Voicing your political distaste doesn't have to start and end with your vote, as I have so aptly learned:  the Independent vote is just starting to become a bigger slice of the pie, and I'm willing to let the politicians figure out just how to earn that vote.

Edited at 10:08 p.m.: CNN is reporting that yet "another" centrist Democrat will not seek re-election due to his disgruntlement with Congress, left bloggers and partisanship. There are five open seats for Dems and six open seats for Republicans for the upcoming November elections.

Edited at 10:15 p.m.:  Just noticed the homepage title of the above-quoted article reads thusly:  "Too tough for a centrist?  Bayh retiring".  You betcha.  Instead of being favorably described as bipartisan or compromising, centrists are frequently viewed as weak, waffling and/or floaters in the unforgiving political arena.  The most liberal and conservative wings of each party should tread lightly - if this kind of walk-out continues, what will the fractioning of the two dominant parties do to American politics?