Off The Old Block

Interesting Op-Ed by Garrison Keiller, someone I’m quite familiar with from his “Lake Woebegon” series, played endlessly on family vacations in years past. He points to an interesting meme that seems to be gaining some traction: “Impeach Bush?” And while he falls short of pointing out what really needs to happen (elect democrats to get some checks and balances in place, forget impeachment until then) - he does a nice job of reminding us what “America” is supposed to be about.

While I’m still getting comfortable being overtly political (my last serious relationship made me wary of expressing my views openly) I’ll say that we need - more than ever - to be reminded of exactly what it is that makes “America” a special place to be. Lately the signposts that might jog that memory are sorely missing from our public face.

I originally saw this story over at Boing Boing, prompting me to go check out the google video link (available below) and watch the video. Ars picked this up here - although with a slightly different view on the issue. I’m sure this was on Digg and SlashDot also. It is a pretty interesting story, especially when you consider the various legal implications involved. Strictly speaking, NBC is 100% within their rights to call for the video to be removed, and further, probably entitled to some compensatory damages. But if we look at the evolution of things, it would appear that this is the exact opposite action to take. Judging from the fact that “Red Vines + Mr. PIBB = Crazy Delicious” is it’s own meme now, spawning such parodies as “Josh Schachter + Yahoo = Crazy Del.ico.us”, I’d say that NBC had a huge opportunity here and are handling it without much elegance.