Digital Brainwaves

Once upon a time, I had started a tumblelog here alongside the main blog, for posting random pictures, quotes, videos and links I’d found online. I’d decided to make it go away for a time, but it’s now been back for many weeks, and while Twitter and Facebook users have already seen me posting to it, I’m taking the wraps off it here. Check out my tumblelog, Memory Dump, and keep an eye on it for frequent updates. It uses the same comment system used here, Disqus, so commenters should be right at home. Plus, the Disqus systems on both blogs allow you to log in with your Facebook login.

The main blog will, I hope, get more frequent updates than it has, lately, but usually in longer form, and sharing my thoughts rather than random things I’ve found online.

The internet and social media are constantly evolving, and it’s taking some effort to decide what systems I want to use for what purposes. Things are starting to gel together, though, and I hope you’ll join me for the ride.

David Letterman put forth an apology on last night’s show for last week’s joke regarding Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter, giving, in part, a similar explanation to one I posited last week: he didn’t know either daughter was actually at the game.

“All right, here - I’ve been thinking about this situation with Governor Palin and her family now for about a week - it was a week ago tonight, and maybe you know about it, maybe you don’t know about it. But there was a joke that I told, and I thought I was telling it about the older daughter being at Yankee Stadium. And it was kind of a coarse joke. There’s no getting around it, but I never thought it was anybody other than the older daughter, and before the show, I checked to make sure in fact that she is of legal age, 18. Yeah. But the joke really, in and of itself, can’t be defended. The next day, people are outraged. They’re angry at me because they said, ‘How could you make a lousy joke like that about the 14-year-old girl who was at the ball game?’ And I had, honestly, no idea that the 14-year-old girl, I had no idea that anybody was at the ball game except the Governor and I was told at the time she was there with Rudy Giuliani…And I really should have made the joke about Rudy…” (audience applauds) “But I didn’t, and now people are getting angry and they’re saying, ‘Well, how can you say something like that about a 14-year-old girl, and does that make you feel good to make those horrible jokes about a kid who’s completely innocent, minding her own business,’ and, turns out, she was at the ball game. I had no idea she was there. So she’s now at the ball game and people think that I made the joke about her. And, but still, I’m wondering, ‘Well, what can I do to help people understand that I would never make a joke like this?’ I’ve never made jokes like this as long as we’ve been on the air, 30 long years, and you can’t really be doing jokes like that. And I understand, of course, why people are upset. I would be upset myself.

“And then I was watching the Jim Lehrer ‘Newshour’ - this commentator, the columnist Mark Shields, was talking about how I had made this indefensible joke about the 14-year-old girl, and I thought, ‘Oh, boy, now I’m beginning to understand what the problem is here. It’s the perception rather than the intent.’ It doesn’t make any difference what my intent was, it’s the perception. And, as they say about jokes, if you have to explain the joke, it’s not a very good joke. And I’m certainly - ” (audience applause) “- thank you. Well, my responsibility - I take full blame for that. I told a bad joke. I told a joke that was beyond flawed, and my intent is completely meaningless compared to the perception. And since it was a joke I told, I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke. It’s not your fault that it was misunderstood, it’s my fault. That it was misunderstood.” (audience applauds) “Thank you. So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the Governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke. I’m sorry about it and I’ll try to do better in the future. Thank you very much.” (audience applause)

That this is coming nearly a week after the original joke is a little concerning; I’d have liked to hear this sooner, rather than give the appearance that the statement was anything other than genuine. Nonetheless, I’m going to take Dave at his word and consider this a settled deal. (EDIT: So has Gov. Palin.)

Right, moving on, then.

(Hat tip: Allahpundit at Hot Air)

One of the big dust-ups in the news lately has been between David Letterman and Sarah Palin regarding a joke he made about her daughter. I think it can be chalked up to an innocent mistake, if he’s willing to make the admission.

If you’ve been hiding under a rock this week, a line during his June 9 monologue referenced Governor Palin’s recent trip to New York City with her daughter. While in New York, they took in a New York Yankees game, about which Letterman joked, “an awkward moment occurred for Palin when during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”

Dave’s defense has been that he was just making a joke about her 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, who made headlines last fall becoming an unwed teen mom, and since making jokes about people in the news is his job, he hasn’t done anything wrong.

The problem is that Bristol wasn’t in New York with her mom; Gov. Palin was accompanied by her 14-year-old daughter Willow. The outrage, therefore, isn’t the pregnancy, but at the implication of statutory rape.

Accusations and rebuttals are flying all over the blogosphere, some relevant, some not. Depending who you’re listening to, either Gov. Palin’s a bad mother who’s asking for it by having her kids out in public life with her, or Dave’s a perverted old man who gets his jollies making fun of abusing young girls.

A popular adage states, “never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” My own humble opinion (which could easily be flat out wrong) is that Letterman never intended the joke to be about Willow, and he and his writing staff just assumed that it was Bristol in New York without doing the appropriate research. Since that’s not the defense Dave’s using, we can’t be certain of that, but it seems to make more sense to me.

What’s your take? Comments are open as always, as long as you’re nice.

Here we go, one last run. Who pulled off the victory?
Continue reading ‘American Idol 8 - And the winner is…’ »

Last chance to earn votes before the finale. Who wants it more?
Continue reading ‘American Idol 8 - Finals’ »

The final two are revealed…
Continue reading ‘American Idol 8 - Top 3 results’ »

The “three amigos”… who goes to the finals?
Continue reading ‘American Idol 8 - Top 3’ »

Who survives rock week?
Continue reading ‘American Idol 8 - Top 4 results’ »

And then there were four. How will they do this week?
Continue reading ‘American Idol 8 - Top 4: Rock ‘n’ Roll (Liveblogged!)’ »

I haven’t done this in a while, and the blog has been completely American Idol for the last few months. So this weekend, we’re opening it up.

Leave a comment here with a question or topic you want me to write a post about this weekend. I can’t promise (as has been evidenced by previous weekends) that I’ll have the post up by the end of the weekend, but I’ll get it put together as soon as I can. Any question is fair game, subject to my personal judgement on privacy, vulgarity and/or bad taste.

Ask away!

EDIT: Well, that met with a resounding thud. Maybe we’ll try again next weekend.