I spent approximately 300 hours in AP US History. I'm pretty sure they were the best 300 hours of my life, and they started with a lesson on propaganda. It's served me well, both as a reader and a writer, and my favorite part of it -- the part I always remember -- is "glittering generalities." Which is why I can't believe I didn't think of this myself:

I still can't quite get over how creepy the w.ill.i.am* (or however you "spell" it) video for Barack Obama is. (I've embedded it below after the jump.) Aside from utilizing a lot of empty-headed celebrities, it also does a stellar job of using the techniques of propaganda, including: the bandwagon call, the use of beautiful people, euphoria, glittering generalities, intentional vagueness, repetition, slogans, virtue words and gratuitous use of Scarlett Johansson. In other words, it's almost the perfect ad.

That's what it is. I haven't been able to put my finger on what, exactly, makes me so angry about the Obama campaign, but that's what it is. Glittering generalities. I have heard more words -- more undeniably beautiful words -- from Barack Obama than from any other candidate. And yet, until I went and read his plan, I had no idea what he wants to do. The fact that I can spend so much time listening to him and hear absolutely nothing is problematic; the fact that so many people don't find this problematic is distressing.

Of course, the writer goes on to undercut himself by getting all "Kids today! They can't spell!" a full three times about will.i.am (thereby establishing Hillary as the candidate for geezers and Obama as the candidate for change) and floating some doofus idea about Scientology (because when you have a good point, the best thing to do is totally bury it).

A headline from Reuters news: "And wait'll you see all the closet space!"

I'm not sure yet what bothers me so much about this piece on Amy Winehouse from the New York Times. Perhaps it's the assertion that, were he alive today, bloggers would have branded Kurt Cobain "krazy Kurt." Oh. No. Give 'em some credit, come on. They could do better than that. But I see what you did there! Oh, those krazy kids on the Internet, with their snarky nicknames and wacky spellings! Lollerskates!11!!

Or maybe it's the utter retardedness of this: "Addiction might start with experiments by performers so young they feel invulnerable; it might seem to be, at first, a way to ease the stress of a peculiar job. It might be a way to act out the old Romantic image of the artist as daredevil." Thanks for the insight.

It's at least a little bit the stupid idea that if you are concerned about a celebrity having her problems splashed across the mass media, the best thing to do is write about her problems in the mass media -- which, admittedly, is not unique to the Times, but combined with the house style of addressing subjects by a title and last name, it seems doubly condescending and hypocritical, like she's getting scolded by a particularly obnoxious headmistress: "In the era of total exposure Ms. Winehouse would serve herself and her listeners best by working behind closed doors."

It's partially the name-checking of Facebook to suggest that ours is becoming a surveillance culture -- a suggestion which is promptly not followed up at all.

But it is definitely, definitiely the fact that we a get a full five paragraphs re-stating the same fact: back then, celebrities did their dying in private; now, because of the Internet, we see it in real time. Five paragraphs! Of the same thing! That's space you could have used to talk about surveillance culture! How we are rejecting, or at least re-defining, the notion of privacy! How maybe the reason we are so obsessed with posting our lives on the Internet is because we have seen celebrities' lives posted on the Internet, and the boundaries between celebrity and civilian are blurred, and like nine million things more interesting than five paragraphs of the same goddamn sentence! Did somebody drop an ad or something? Why were you so desperate to fill this white space? What is fucking wrong with you? What is fucking wrong with me, that you have to write this way?

Remember the '90s, when everybody cared about the environment in a non-political way, and children in Keds and brightly colored sweatshirts would go to the UN and make-guilt trip speeches asking why adults were ruining the planet for us? Stop polluting journalism! Fuck! Jesus!

At some point I will post something other than random links, but right now Salon is being intentionally fucking dense about Britney:

Then there is the atrocious, patently ridiculous "Hot as Ice." Not only does any 3-year-old know that ice is not hot, any 23-year-old knows that declaring yourself cold, even indirectly, even accidentally, isn't the least bit arousing.

You're right, that doesn't make sense...unless you think about it for one fucking second. I get that there's something you want to say about Britney and her responsibility (or lack thereof) for this album, but pretending to be illiterate is not the way to do it. This is such lazy, lazy writing. Why would you do this? Why would you choose not to use the material at your disposal? Isn't it more interesting to talk about something new than to push it aside and rehash old discussions -- Britney is a brand! Britney isn't responsible for her own music! -- instead?

The best part is how he spends the first two paragraphs recounting Britney's tabloid adventures -- and takes a swipe at her for not writing her own songs, for old time's sake, I guess -- then bitches about "Piece of Me" doing the very same thing: We're left with the sensation that, yes, Spears is aware she has been in the news.

I'm left with the sensation that, yes, the reviewer is aware Britney has been in the news -- but unfortunately, no, he hasn't actually thought about the album.

The North Denver News published a bit of "social satire" as a news article, except it wasn't particularly clever, or incisive, and so nobody got that it was "social satire."

The graceful thing to do here would be to publish an editor's note stating that the piece was meant to be satirical, but the joke, alas, did not work as well as they had hoped.

Instead, the editors of the News spewed forth this bunch of sour grapes, in which they stomp around pointing out that it was supposed to be funny, of course, duh, and maybe you would have noticed that it was a joke if you hadn't been so busy pointing out how the joke didn't make sense, whatever, and furthermore they are a big publication, in case you haven't noticed, and maybe you were just too stupid to get the joke, because it was full of references to Paris Hilton, and American media consumption, and Fox News, or "Faux News" as they call it in the newsroom (inside joke! high five!), and by the way, they know the Latin word for thumb--do you???--even if they still haven't noticed that their headline is kind of grammatically nonsensical, and you know who would have found this joke totally funny? Franz Kafka. They are just like Franz Kafka. Except not dead. You probably don't even know who Franz Kafka is. So there.

I just want to work someplace like this:

The show last night was better than I expected, with the exception of My Boss the Rock Star talking after every single song. It helped that the guy who went on before him was really unbelievably awful. It helped that I was mildly drunk for the last half of the set list, too.

I have this habit of answering innocuous questions with complete and total lies, so when his manager was like, "You did a good job tonight. It was stressful, huh?" I was like, "Yeah," when what I really meant was, "No, actually, it was incredibly easy and fun, except for the part where ( you are a total fucking bitch, bitch. ) I don't know why I do this. I tend to...I don't know, live my life by reflex.

Then I spent the rest of the night telling Pixie she's not fat, and asked My Boss the Rock Star if I could read his psych books. (I can! Yes!) I have this love/hate, push/pull thing going on with him, because he doesn't so much know the difference between "boss" and "friend," and so my responses to him are really personal and vehement. When I told him I wanted a re-write of the shoddy employment contract, he started talking about how I have trust issues and he wants to be the person who shows me that not all authority figures will fuck me over, which is astute but also inappropriate and irrelevant. And now we're set up to do that thing I always do, anytime anyone in power halfway gets it, that "notice me! fix me!" thing. Like, literally, I am acting out and it is ridiculous. This is seriously the most bizarre job I've ever had. It's like a very small high school.

Anyway, what I meant to write was: I forgot how much I enjoy running live shows. I think My Boss the Rock Star is under the impression that I really really want to do PR, and he keeps wanting to introduce me to PR people, but I think what I want to do is run around managing rock shows for the rest of my life, because I am really fucking good at it.

You said it, Southern neighbor guy. I am barefoot and wearing a dress and eating lemon sorbet straight out of the carton. Can't do that at the office.

H&R Block Guy: "Hello."
Me: "Hi. I need my taxes done, but I'm missing a 1099. Can you still help me?"
H&R Block Guy: "You're missing a 1099. From what, a pension?"

Dude, do I sound like I have a pension? I fucking wish. I'd be in San Francisco right now.

In today's Iraq news:

Violence appeared to be relatively minimal, though, with one car bomb explosion killing eight civilians and wounding 10 near an Iraqi army checkpoint in the capital, police said.

Yawn. What a boring day.

Breaking news: Gay people fuck sheep (via Gawker).

Yesterday morning, there was a free Post guy on the same corner as a free Daily News guy, and they totally got into a fight. Tabloid wars! Daily News won, but only because the Post was too busy fucking a sheep.

I went leotard shopping at the Capezio store on Broadway and 57th, and man, do I miss ballet class. Do they have ballet class for grown-ups? I mean, grown-ups with little to no knowledge of ballet? I totally wanted to buy up every pair of pink tights and leather slippers in the store. And legwarmers. I'd like to wear legwarmers just once before I die. That's definitely going on the list.

Okay, so, I'm writing a makeover story. Relevant facts: I have written before-and-after captions before. Also, I have written features (both celeb and non) for the past six issues we've produced, I've been actively pitching stories, and for the past ten days or so I've been doing a lot of the stuff that has to get done (mailing and invoices and file updates, oh my) on top of the thankless editorial (editing syndicated articles and doing product pages). Okay? So. I'm writing this makeover story. It was sitting on my desk with a post-it from the Boss, spelling out what was needed like I was a five-year-old. ("Make it fun and exciting!") I started it on Tuesday, and finished it on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the Boss calls me into her office all, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" We're having this very serious talk because...she wants me to rewrite the makeover story. She says it sounds too abrupt, like I rushed. Which I did. Because, by the way, this assignment was piggybacked on a packet of two other assignments, which I found lying on my keyboard Tuesday morning, and had to squeeze in on top of the things I've been trying to get done since, like, last year, but haven't been able to because people keep throwing assignments on my keyboard. So, okay. An hour later, she brings in a makeover story from a past issue for me to look at. No problem. I worked on it, added a little more "excitement," and gave it back to her Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday, nothing on the makeover story, so I think I'm done, right? (And coincidentally, Officemate and I spent some time complaining about how we hate when we think we're done with a story, and then like three days later it comes back for yet another rewrite, which is ridicuous because it's like 300 words in the first place. How many rewrites can 300 words need? At that point, it's like, “Boss, just write it yourself.” Because if a 300-word piece needs that many rewrites, either the writer is incompetent, or what you want is for the writer to write what is in your head.)

This morning, the Boss comes into my office, pulls a chair up next to my desk, and said the makeover story still needs work. And proceeds to go over it, caption by caption, and basically re-write it in front of me. Which, again, just write it yourself. So I'm just like, "Mmhmm, right, yes, good," and make a mental note that "excitement" is code for "cliches and exclamation points." And then the Boss goes, "I mean, it's good, but I need to see that you can write for our other magazines..." Me, in my head: What? I've been writing for our other magazines. I've been writing for all of our magazines. The Boss kind of hints around about how it seems like my writing is not terribly enthusiastic or creative lately, which is true, because (a) I get paid crap, (b) I have no hope of advancement and (c) any time I do come up with something creative, it gets rewritten into the same bland crap we always produce, so why bother? (Case in point: the Boss is currently in love with Lucky. She asks Officemate and I to write like Lucky, which she describes as "snappy, one-line captions." Perfect. I know Lucky. Lucky haunts my dreams. So I hand in a piece of snappy, one-line captions in perfect Lucky voice. By the time the Boss is done with it, it’s soupy, three-line, non-cohesive captions written toward middle-aged Midwesterners. Another case in point: the Boss wants a Lucky-style editors’ picks page, and we’re all really excited about that. Cool! That’s new! That’s creative! We can write in our own voices! We can talk about why we like these people! We’ll sign our names and talk a little about ourselves! I can’t wait! So we all go pick out our “hair icons” and hand them in. My personal picks: Keira Knightley and Natalie Portman, because I have relatively short hair and I’m into that becoming a trend. And the Boss and the Big Boss are like, “Yeah, but some of these people are in the magazine already. How about you do Marcia Cross instead?” Okay, fine. So I do a snappy, one-line, first-person, Lucky-style caption about…Marcia Cross. Meanwhile, Officemate and the other co-workers are doing the same about…other random celebrities. We’re all like, “Well, this is significantly less fun, but at least it’s still different.” Until we read the Boss-edited version, which is a collection of soupy, three-line, non-cohesive captions with no names attached. Whatever. More cases in point: the time my fun celeb-style quiz was edited down to yet another “questions you should ask yourself before cutting your hair” item, the time Officemate’s cool fashion piece was turned into a another “some celebrities wore some hairstyles” spread, and every title ever, because the Big Boss is under the impression that our readers cannot utilize context clues and thus a layout full of redheads must be entitled “This Article is Abut Red Hair!!!” or something similar and preferably even more wordy.)

So yeah. Anyway. The Boss hints around that my writing is not terribly creative or enthusiastic lately, and she’s like, “I don’t know if you’ve just…well, look, if I had it my way, we would hire you, but I can't have someone here to just do products and..." Excuse me? Someone to just do products? Look, lady, my memory goes back farther than ten days, so let me point out the myriad of articles—and really good articles, mind you, which prompted the Big Boss to stop by my office and tell me how good they were—I’ve written for you, which were not product pages. What the fuck is that about? Oh, and while we’re at it, she wants me to come up with a different title, too. You know, something with more words in it.

From weather.com: "Hurricane John made landfall on the southern Baja Peninsula; meanwhile the Atlantic Basin is now quite." I understand it's Saturday morning, but come on, Weather Channel.

I really could not tell the difference between a Saturday Night Live sketch and this morning's press conference, during which the president stuttered, talked in circles, and trailed off on his points, and which was punctuated by reaction shots (I swear to God) of the press corps. The graphic read, "NBC Special Report - White House Press Conference," but I expected them to change it to, "NBC Special Report - President Accidentally Wanders Into Briefing Room Drunk," because I could not see why this was newsworthy except for his utterly bad behavior. He used the word pirouation. If you're not familiar with that word, it's because it doesn't exist. Cut to the press corps chuckling nervously. Then there was the part where he off-handedly dismissed "the American people" as not understanding the "consequences" of anything, and the bitching about the Connecticut Republicans asking him to stay out of their Senate races. Also, an actual (paraphrased) exchange:

President: "People like to talk about the war in Iraq, but they forget 9/11, they killed three thousand of our citizens."
Reporter: "What did Iraq have to do with 9/11?"
President: "Nothing! And I never suggested they did! But that kind of regime breeds suiciders..."

That's right. Suiciders.

More people who are employed: the writers of this Discovery Channel article, which informs us, "If Enceladus flipped, it's current face should show fewer impacts than its trailing regions..."

In today's issue of These People are Employed:

Our elevator has a screen that displays stock updates, AP photos, and news headlines & blurbs from CNN. One of the CNN blurbs read, "Iraqi's prime minister declared a state of emergency..." Yeah, that one Iraqi guy's private prime minister.

Also, this has nothing to do with employment, but I'm wondering how that homeless guy gets into the bank every day. I bet he has an account there.

Meanwhile, I'm part-time.

You know, this actually makes me sad.

I wonder if I still have my old copy, with the original text.

Also sad: I just realized that the title is missing a comma before "God," and I will never be able to un-know that. Dammit. Which reminds me, there is an ad for a community college on the subway in which a daughter says, and I quote: "I'm going to be just like you mom." And the mom says, "No honey, you're going to be better." I bet it's really easy to write papers there.

Fun with other cultures, courtesy of the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

They're selling pre-dirtied Converses now. Because God forbid you, I don't know, take a walk?

If you'd like to catch me in print, pick up the newest issue of Bridal Star Hairstyles (on newsstands now!), or the April/May issue of Plenty (on newsstands whenever!).

Happy 2006! Or, for those of you who enjoyed the ball drop in Times Square, Happy 2004! Here's to many more time-traveling midnights!

So the WB11 news is running the headline "SERIAL RAPEST."

Yes.

By the way, I'm unemployed.