First Media Rant of the New Year

I arose this morning to be (mis)informed by the nooz that “Iowans are waking up this morning and heading to the polls for the Iowa Caucuses”. 

Different year; same nooz dweebs.

I expect my nooz writers, even if they don’t live in Iowa, to understand at least a little bit about the uniqueness of the Iowa Caucuses.  There are two principal and critical things wrong with that nooz sentence above – first, the implication that some sort of caucusing activity will take place this morning.  Nope.  Not ‘till tonight.  Second, the assertion that these strange Iwegians “head to the polls” to do this caucusing that they do.  Nope.  Most of the gatherings are in people’s homes.  They sit around, drink coffee and such, and discuss the candidates.  They caucus.  And then they separate into groups supporting their particular candidate.  This is caucusing.  It is not a “primary”.  It is not an “election”.  It does not happen “at the polls”.

This, by the way, from a local TV station which sent its political reporter to Des Moines to do live reports from Iowa regarding the caucuses.  Had she heard that nooz sentence above, she would have immediately grabbed her cell phone and called command central at the TV station to set them straight about “waking up and going to the polls”.

An hour or so later, while sipping coffee and digesting the reports of the Rose Bowl embarrassment in the State Journal, I heard a different noozette tell me about the sad and violent event at “Mount Rainer National Park”.  And she pronounced it “RAIN-er”.  I suppose I can forgive a young nooz writer for misspelling Rainier; dropping the first “i” in the word and spelling it “Ranier” or some such; but for an actual on-air newsette to get so far in the biz as to actually be sitting in front of a camera reading the nooz every morning, I’d expect enough worldliness to know that it’s pronounced “ra-NEER”, not “RAIN-er”.

Don Henley was right about the bubble-headed bleached-blonde in his great tune “Dirty Laundry”.

While I’m at it, it came to my attention Sunday morning that on some New Year’s Eve broadcast from Times Square, Justin Bieber attempted to warble the great Paul McCartney/Beatles song “Let It Be”, with accompaniment from Carlos Santana.  This is wrong on so many levels that I’m not sure where to begin.  First, there should be some sort of rule, since apparently there’s no accounting whatsoever for musical taste, that forbids insects like Justin Bieber from attempting to sing ANY classic rock song.  And for God’s sake – will someone please tell Carlos Santana that no matter HOW much money they offer him, he should not be so desperate as to take the same stage with anyone of Bieber’s ilk.

What’s next: Bieber doing the lead vocal to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, with James Hetfield remaining vocally tacit while strumming along on his Gibson Explorer guitar (or, the axe he first wielded, that Japanese copy of the Flying V)?

Off to never-never land; a New Year has dawned, and everything is the same.