I said I wasn’t going to blog any political reasoning (for now), but there is one quasi-political subject that I want to address – the media. Not to steal Bill Maher’s shtick, but we need a new rule: Members of the media can’t talk about the media as if they aren’t a part of it. I occasonally listen to as much talk radio as I can without throwing up (usually about five minutes). But beyond the obvious partisanship, the spewing hatred and the outright lying that goes on, there’s this thin veil of bullshit that somehow these radio shows are telling you “truth” that “the media” won’t. When Rush Limbaugh says something along the lines of “Here’s something the media won’t tell you” he is outright lying because he’s part of the media:

Media: A means of mass communication, such as newpapers, magazines, radio, or television.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

Note the use of the word “radio” in the definition? Radio is, in fact, part of the media – go figure.

There’s this myth in this country that the media is liberal. Maybe it was back before consolidation, national syndication and 24-hour cable news networks, but it sure ain’t now. Rush and his cronies distance themselves from the concept of “the media” in order to keep that myth alive. The reality is that most of what passes for news and opinion in the media these days is more like carefully scripted partisan theatre intended to further their host’s own agenda rather than tell any of the actual truth.

Major kudos to Jon Stewart for pointing this out to the staff of CNN’s Crossfire.

Update: In the second to last paragraph above, I changed “host’s own conservative agenda” to simply “host’s own agenda”. I was momentarily guilty of the same type of partisan manipulation that I am accusing others of. It isn’t only conservatives that have an agenda. For example, Michael Moore has a pretty obvious liberal agenda and, as a filmmaker, is also a part of the media. Of course, Michael’s media efforts aren’t masquerading as the supposedly unbiased evening news.

My father recommended I not blog politics, under the mistaken assumption that this is a “technical blog”. For the record, this isn’t a technical blog, it’s my personal blog and I blog about what I’m interested in. Usually, it’s technology, development and/or architecture. Sometimes it’s hockey. Sometimes it’s movies. Right now, I’m abnormally interested in politics – go figure. I’m a week behind on tech blog reading, but I’m currently reading over a dozen political blogs every day.

This political “season” has had a significant effect on me. Call me a slow learner, but I’m beginning to figure out that politics isn’t just something to think about once a year at election time – or worse, once every four years when at presidential election time. I’m sure regular readers can guess who I support for president, but I haven’t quite figured out how my new-found-interest in politics will effect my day-to-day life after Election Day. I won’t bother you with any political reasoning (yet) since you’ve either made up your mind, in which case nothing I say will make a difference either way, or you haven’t, in which case you’re getting bombarded on all sides to make a decision and anything I say will be lost in the cacophony. But I do want to share one quote with you, which I found doing a little research:

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”

• George Washington

Regardless of who wins in November, I will never turn my back on this troublesome servant and fearful master again.

I was excited about Al Franken’s new show – “The O’Franken Factor” – which launched Air America Radio today. I got to the office a bit early so I could listen online (they don’t have a Seattle station yet). Apparently, even though Al was on the cover of the NYTimes magazine a few weeks ago, they were surprised by the volume of listeners and the experience has been pretty bad. I couldn’t even connect for the first 45 minutes. Now, either they’ve added more servers or enought people have given up that I can at least listen. However, I can only listen for about a few minutes at a time before the connection drops and I have to manually press play to (hopefully) reconnect. I hope Air America Radio and their hosting partner get this fixed so I can enjoy the shows until it comes to Seattle.

Update: I was able to listen to most of the last hour without constant interuption, though I’m guessing that was primarily due to people dropping off more than anything Air America or their hosting partner did. Also, Franken’s show replays from 8pm-11pm pacific time so I have it on as I type this and apparently they had a ton of technical issues to start the show – basically the first fifteen minutes has been background noise, concurrent playback of multiple audio streams and multiple news casts. I’m not even sure if what I’m listening to now is previously recorded or live – I just heard someone tell someone else to “have a good night”. Hopefully, they’ll get these issues worked out shortly.

Scoble and Chris have blogged their support for homosexual marriage, so here’s my +1. Unlike Chris, I’ve known quite a few homosexuals in my life. Several of my best friends (as in, would seriously consider donating a kidney to kind of friends) are gay. I grew up hanging around the theater world where homosexuality is much more pervasive (and accepted) than “mainstream” society. I used to have a bunch of friends on a gay hockey team (it sounds cliché, but they were called the Gay Blades). And this past summer, my wife, our then-six-month-old son and I went to Victoria, Canada to see my two uncles get married after a lifetime of commitment to each other.

As part of the ceremony, my uncle told me how much my involvement in his life has meant to him and husband. I wasn’t told that he was gay until I was going to college at USC, which was about an hour drive from my uncle’s home. For reasons they would have to explain, my parents didn’t tell me until then. When my mother finally told me my uncle was gay, she was in tears, so I naturally assumed he had AIDS and was dying. I mean, why else would she be crying? He wasn’t dying, she was just worried how I would react. As far as I was and still am concerned, being gay doesn’t change anything. Since I couldn’t fly back to the east coast for long weekends, I got to spend them with my uncles instead. I don’t get to see them as often as I did back then, though they have come up to see us twice since my son was born. But they will always be a major part of my life and I will be forever honored that they asked me and my family to be a part of their wedding.

I’m a huge Bill Maher fan and I only just recently discovered Real Time. He talked about gay marriage in the Valentine’s Day edition of his New Rules. As a Democrat, it really struck a cord with me.

Republicans used to be the party that opposed social engineering. But now they push programs to outlaw marriage for some people and encourage it for others. If you’re straight, there’s a billion-five in the budget to promote marriage, but gay marriage is opposed because it threatens or mocks or does something to the “sanctity” of marriage, as if anything you can do in Vegas, drunk off your ass in front of an Elvis impersonator, could be considered sacred.

But at least the right wing aren’t hypocrites on this issue. They really believe that homosexuality is an abomination and a dysfunction that’s curable…But I have to tell you, the greater shame in this story goes to the Democrats, because they don’t believe homosexuality is an abomination. And therefore, their refusal to endorse gay marriage is hypocrisy. Their position doesn’t come from the Bible. It’s ripped right from the latest poll, which says most Americans are against gay marriage.

Well, you know what? Sometimes most Americans are just wrong. And where is the Democrat who will stand up and go beyond the half measures of “civil union” and “hate the sin, love the sinner” and say loud and clear, “There is no sin; it’s not an abomination and no one can control how cupid aims his arrows.”

I’m not running for office, but I’ll say it: Homosexuality isn’t a sin, an abomination or wrong. Letting homosexuals get married isn’t going to weaken society, change the most fundamental institution of civilization, cause the sky to fall or any of the other things that Bush claims it will cause. Legislating discrimination however, which is what Bush’s proposed amendment to the Constitution amounts to, actually will weaken society and change what is really the most fundamental institution of civilization: freedom.

Bush certainly talks a lot about freedom when he’s trying to justify the invasion liberation of Iraq. However, in calling for a amendment to outlaw gay marriage, the only reference to freedom was when he said that “commitment of freedom…does not require the redefinition of one of our most basic social institutions.” Actually, when these “basic social institutions” are inherently discriminatory – take slavery and women’s lack of right to vote as examples – it is absolutely required that we redefine them to eliminate the discrimination. Otherwise, we become the kind of a fascist society that our founding fathers were trying to avoid when they wrote the Constitution in the first place. That’s what establishing Justice, insuring domestic Tranquility and securing the Blessings of Liberty is all about.

Rumsfeld said “We will win this war” on Meet the Press today. Funny, I thought we already had.

I’ve been reading “LIES: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them—A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right” by Al Franken. Very funny, except when you think about what the current administration has done to this country. Then, it’s depressing.