Worst.News.Article.Ever

Quayle.jpeg


So this morning I’m reading the Sacramento Bee at the kitchen table. I know, “what was I thinking”, but you know it has the weekly Frys and CompUSA ads, so its just something you have to wade through to get to the stuff you really want. Now, The Bee is such a hate filled leftist rant that I actually have to read the “socialist daily worker’ on occasion just for sharp relief, but this mornings edition was such a pant load that it deserves to be ridiculed.

For those of you not in California, you are probably not aware that Disneyland is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. For those of us who’s childhood memories and family rituals involved spending a great deal of time at ‘The Park’ this is a big deal. In my family, the haunted mansion is still considered a “new Ride”.

So naturally of course the Bee will observe the event. But what can we expect fro a leftist crank-fest like the Bee? Simple observation and a little basic reporting? Oh, hardly.

For those of you without a copy of the print edition, you’ll just have to use you imagination.

The ‘above the fold’ headline`

Disneyland turns 50’ – magic survives as the kingdom has grown.
And the ‘below the fold’ headline?

...But critics see a flawed fantasyland.

(cue the ominous music…)

This article is one of the worst examples of biased hatred that I have ever seen in a newspaper. What bothers me more than anything about this piece is that it is presented to the reader as a celebration of Disneyland and its 50 years of existence. Instead the article is an indictment of everything that Disney accomplished with his vision for the park, wrapped in the cover of “ oh sure you could go to Disneyland, but wheres the fun in that, eh comrade?”.

Excerpt:

Carole Blair, a professor of rhetoric at the University of North Carolina, studies the cultural significance of American commemorative places. She worries about the pervasive sway of Disney on children.

"Disney has such a profound influence on kids that it's really impossible to escape," she said. "This is one of the ways our kids are educated. And that brings up another issue that troubles academics. Disney presents a view of American history that is cheerful and pleasing but not always true. And there's been an explosion of interest in how Disney handles issues of gender and race."

Professor MacCannell, one of Disney's most vocal critics, discerns an underlying political agenda.

"Disneyland is very political in a deep sense, because it wants to control the way the U.S. understands itself," he said. "Not only control it, but pretend that the more egregious things - things like nuclear bombs and slavery - never happened. It hangs a veil over those parts of history. I'm certain, if Disney were allowed free rein, that we would be living in a very foolish, juvenile world."

She should thank her lucky stars. Because if Walt Disney was in fact "allowed free reign" I'm sure he would assign this meathead to working vomit cleanup on the teacup rides, in August, on the Afternoon Shift, after the crew of USS Kitty Hawk has been given shore leave and free tickets to the park along with a complementary open bar at the Disney Hotel.

Way back in the heady days of the early 1990s, popular media scourged Vice President Dan Quayle when he made a statement about the TV show ‘Murphy Brown’ and its stance towards single parenthood.

“Its only a TV show” they said. “Is he so stupid that he cant tell the difference between a story and reality”. Need we ask that the same policy be applied here? Oh we can ask, but we all know the response. ( crickets chirping...)

So, Professor MacCannell, I ask you:

Are you really that stupid as to think that a business man would create a park for entertainment of the masses that would expose children to all the horrors of real life, and then expect them to beat down the doors in celebration of that idea?” Tell me, do you have to work hard to be this big of a moron, or does it just come easy?

Do you have any children? If you do, then I ask you another question.

Why?

Why would a soulless prig like yourself inflict your acid filled vision of the world on children? Don’t you know the horrors that are inflicted on the world by the civilization you work to support as a part of your tax supported tenure at the University of North Carolina? Don’t you understand the damage mankind has done to the biosphere? Don’t to realize the risks to ‘mother earth’ earth that you will be inflicting with your offspring? Oh, and if you do understand this then please tell your children all of this every second of every day because anyone with a smile on their face is obviously a buffoon who doesn’t understand the crimes we in the west have committed in the world.

I believe this is why there was never a Soviet Disneyland. They would need water fountains that dispense liquid Xanax just to make it a livable experience. I can imagine a world where Walt Disney was in charge. I cant imagine a world where Professor MacCannell were " allowed free reign". Ok, maybe I can. It would be like working in the sorting center of the US post office, only with no civil service benefits and no windows or airconditioning, and the breakroom would only serve soy byproducts and tap water.

Politburo Leader: “Fireworks? We don’t need capitalist fireworks to demonstrate the strength of the soviet state. We will have thousands of comrade workers simultaneously throw colored paper into the air that viewed from above would make a picture of the glorious Comrade Leader Lenin to celebrate the new soviet man. Ice cream? What Western decadence, we shall have a Sugar cane harvest in “fantasyland” where workers and their children can celebrate the glory of feeding the motherland. Ah yes, it will be glorious, wont it comrade! Ah yes, come and see the “Hall of Robber Barons” at Main Street where the evil Vanderbilt and Morgan will show the new soviet children how they killed and ate small children of the workers of the world while they plotted the enslavement of all mankind for their own enrichment.

Oh yeah. That sounds like fun.

This is why I cannot be a leftist. They have no sense of humor, everything is viewed through the lens of “this is why America sucks”.

So, here’s a message for ya, 'Sacramento Bee':

I like Disneyland. Its fun, it’s always been fun. Frankly, it get funner every year. Its an AMUSEMENT PARK. I GO THERE BECAUSE I WANT TO BE AMUSED! Its not real, its just a fun place to go and take my kids because it’s the ONE PLACE LEFT ON THE PLANET THAT DOESN’T HAVE SEX BEING SOLD TO KIDS IN THE GUISE OF SEX BEING “COOL”.

Oh, and by the way I’m not an idiot, but thanks for letting me know that you think I am one by preaching to me like I'm a damned 2 year old.

With the left, It’s all ideology all the time. It’s like being at your pious spinster aunt Margarets house on a Sunday. No theres no TV, and theres certainly no radio. Oh sure you can read, just as long as it’s the bible, and only if it makes you feel bad for the evil you have done clearly done, and if not you then certainly your parents.

This is what the left has become. Once they were the vanguard of the working man, but now they have become the “New Calvinists”, always there to admonish you for not holding to the party line by shopping where you want to shop, driving what you want to drive and living where you want to live and the way you want to live. They are like the Puritans of old, always on the lookout for someone who might be having a good time so they can lock them in the stocks at the town square as a warning to anyone else who thinks of having a good time.

Note: The original arictle is avaliable here.
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Posted @ May 01, 2005 12:42 PM | Current Affairs

Comments

I can see it now, Nuclearwinterland, where radiation kills and mutates everything in sight. You could make some pretty scary rides there.

And how about Globalwarmingland, where everybody is frying to death.

If they want Realityland (the history stuff and Disneyland is steeped in reality btw), why don't they just make it themselves? Although the name would quickly be changed to Nightmareland after the complaints of parents and their children never being able to sleep.

Posted by: ryanmscott [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 1, 2005 05:34 PM

I read the Bee, to. You really should have read the whole article before going off in to such a rant. I agree with your main premise, and the rebuttal was tucked away inside the paper, but they did give your side too.

Posted by: jgrimm [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 1, 2005 09:59 PM

Lesson from Disney's Genie in Aladdin...

...But oh, to be free. Not to have to go "Poof! Whaddaya need," "Poof! Whaddaya need," "Poof! Whaddaya need?". To be my own master. Such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world...

Yeah - we better watch out - real radical thinking Disney is teach our kids! LOL

Posted by: SquareSlant [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 2, 2005 12:42 PM

J Grimm,

That is part of the problem with the LLL MSM. When they do put in the opposing view, it is always hidden at the end of something past the point where most people read. That way they can, as you do, say "but I gave your side in the article." Check the construction of the unbiased articles they write some time. The LLL point of view is stated clearly in the first couple of paragraph, the opposing point of view is the second sentence of paragraph 16 below the fold on the continued page. This allows the writer to pat himself on the back for being "fair and unbiased, unlike them religious right rednecks b*stards." Check it out!!

Posted by: dick [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 4, 2005 08:13 AM