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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2016-01-14, Page 5Other Views The devil made them do it Say what you will about the bouffanted buffoon we've come to know and loathe as The Donald....He's got chutzpah. Also known as gall, effrontery, cojones, moxie and unadulterated arrogance. Chutzpah. A quality personified not only by the orange -haired vulgarian with both feet in his mouth but also by that other man. The one who, having murdered his mother and father, pleads for the mercy of the court on the grounds that he is an orphan. If you want to see chutzpah in full flower, the courts are a good place to start. Consider the case of Ethan Couch, a Texan punk who, at the age of 18, stole two cases of beer, drank himself into a stupor then went out for a drive, killing four pedestrians. Did he do time? Nah. Ethan comes from money. His family hired a lawyer who argued that Ethan wasn't a criminal. He suffered, the lawyer argued, from `affluenza' — a life so insulated by vast wealth and indulgent parents that he literally didn't know right from wrong. In other words, the money made him do it. Now Dan White, he had a different defence. After he shot George Moscone, mayor of San Arthur Id: Black Francisco, White found a lawyer who claimed White wasn't responsible — it was all those Twinkies he ate. White's addiction to junk food led to `diminished capacity' causing him to kill. The sugar made him do it. A 35 -year-old schoolteacher in Buffalo used a variation of the Twinkie defense when facing a drunk driving rap. Her lawyer argued that while she had blown a blood alcohol level four times the limit, it wasn't her fault. His client suffered from `gut -fermentation syndrome' — basically, her stomach was an unlicensed distillery that converted food into alcohol. Not her fault, you see. Her stomach made her do it. Sandie Craddock, a London barmaid, also suffered from an internal problem. She stabbed a co-worker to death. Her lawyer claimed she was cranky that day due to pre-menstrual syndrome. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 2016. PAGE 5. I guess you'd have to call that a crime of the month. And there's John Hinckley, the nutbar who shot Ronald Reagan back in 1981. Hinckley said he did it to impress actress Jodie Foster. In other words, Hollywood made him do it. Aside from sharing a stratospheric level of absurdity, these defenses have one other thing in common: they all worked. Ethan Couch's Affluenza defence earned a wrist slap sentence of 10 years probation; Dan White was acquitted of the murder of mayor Moscone; the Buffalo schoolteacher had her DUI charges dropped and the homicidal London barmaid with PMS, pleaded down from murder to simple manslaughter. And John Hinckley Junior? The man who shot Reagan was acquitted of 13 assault, murder and weapons charges. Not guilty by reason of insanity. What's the lesson to take away here? That no one ever went broke underestimating the credulity of judges (and juries). Also that it doesn't hurt to keep the phone number of a chutzpah -heavy lawyer in your wallet. As the comedian Stephen Wright said: "I broke a mirror and now face seven years bad luck. But my lawyer thinks he can get it down to five." The world needs better newsfeeds Whether you're an avid internet user and find yourself getting some of your news from the Facebook news feed or a good bit of international news comes from tickers on the bottom of news channels, the world needs those sources of stories to be better. This morning I woke up and while I expected (and wasn't frustrated by) the amount of different news stories about David Bowie's passing and the Golden Globe Awards, I found myself awestruck at just how shallow the "trending" news was that was provided to me through several different news sources. On any given Monday, many of the news stories usually reflect big events that occurred over the weekend. This Monday, there could have been stories detailing how Canada was essentially cut in half by the heaving of the Trans -Canada Highway, how a shooting occurred at a Calgary night club early Sunday morning or how Syrian refugees were assaulted with pepper spray in Vancouver. Unfortunately, those stories were nowhere to be seen. Aside from the Bowie tributes, one of my newsfeeds had stories about the Playboy Mansion going up for sale, stars' dresses at the Golden Globes, interviews with amateur video game designers and images from an upcoming super -hero movie without a single comment on the "real" news stories listed above. Now, I know that I can't blame the people who make the newsfeeds available. Twitter can't be blamed that topping their list of trending Canadian news over a major national transportation route are stories about Toronto Maple Leaf James van Riemsdyk being out six to eight weeks with a broken foot or Josh Leivo being called up in the wake of that incident. Facebook can't be blamed for the fact that Kirsten Dunst's dress at the Golden Globes is generating more interest than the assault of refugees seeking a home in Canada. The only people that can be blamed are those clicking on these stories. I've touched on this subject before, however, this time I'm looking at these newsfeeds not as something to be used but as something I akDenny Scott Denny's Den personally plan to avoid. To stop the proliferation of `news' stories focused on dresses, video game modifications and other entertainment tidbits parading around as important information, people need to know, part of my New Year's resolution is to avoid `clickbait.' `Clickbait' is a relatively new term that means content designed for the sole purpose of increasing the number of visitors to a page. Whenever a story that someone is sharing with you or that pops up on your newsfeed that starts with, "You'll never believe..." or "Shocking news..." or "Number 11 was my favourite..." or anything similar, you can bet you're staring at clickbait. Like chatting with a neighbour or friend, the internees advertisers and news providers can remember what stories you visit and try to interest you in similar stories. Every time you click on something on a site, it logs it. Rumour and gossip is part of being human. We all want to know what is happening to the people in our community because we either like them or don't. With the internet, however, our `community' has gotten a lot larger and, with those clicks, with those shares and with those chain e-mails, we're telling advertisers and news outlets that we're more interested in the Playboy Mansion's asking price than we are in actual news happening close to home. The same can be said of our personal interactions. Every time you laugh, smile or thank someone for telling you a story, you are telling them you enjoyed that kind of story, so they know to tell you things they find out that are similar. Whether it's a salacious rumour about a neighbour down the street or sharing your love for a television show, when you tell someone something and they genuinely seem interested in it, you're making a connection between them and that kind of news the same way an advertiser looks at clicks on a website. As a matter, of fact, while it is a new term, many linguists and researches have linked the idea of clickbait to rumours. How many times do people say, "You'll never guess what happened to me..." or "You'll never guess who I saw doing..." or "Guess who was at the...". It's the same style of drawing in a reader with a story that is more flash than sizzle. What differentiates clickbait from genuine news being shared? Well, typically, it's re- hashed content. It's lists that other people have already assembled being repeated so a website can get more clicks and more money from their advertisers. I plan on avoiding listening to or clicking on stories like that as I also plan on avoiding anything that isn't related to what I'm dealing with at the time. With so much information available on the internet, it can be incredibly easy to start looking for one thing and end up completely distracted and looking at something else. To demonstrate, visit the Trans -Canada Highway story on CBC.ca. While this will certainly change by the time The Citizen hits the stands, there are a half- dozen stories on the side of the page that have to do with the Ontario jail staff contract deal, David Bowie and racism and discrimination against indigenous people. This isn't clickbait. This is legitimate news being shared on a legitimate news site. Now point your browser to any entertainment news site or even a site like YouTube and look at the difference. You're not seeing news stories there, you're seeing advertisements based on your browsing habits and stories based on trying to generate interest, not get the news out. My resolution, in its entirety, is about NOT getting sidetracked, but browsing habits are a big part of that for me. Feel free to join me if you like, it can only serve to show advertisers and websites that we're interested in real news, and not those seven outrageous cat videos or amazing true celebrity stories. Shawn Loughlin Shawn's Sense Golden hilarity Wecan all sit here and debate the validity of movie awards shows until we're blue in the face — but on Sunday night at the Golden Globe Awards, one thing was so strange that it was the butt of many, many jokes over the course of the night. The Martian, a rich, involved movie starring Matt Damon and directed by Ridley Scott — all based on a book by Andy Weir, which has been called one of the most well -researched and feasible science -fiction novels of all time — was honoured with the Golden Globe for Best Picture... musical or comedy. I have seen The Martian and I know there's no music in it. So we're left with comedy and that movie, my friends, is not a comedy. Host Ricky Gervais, who knows a thing or two about comedy himself, ridiculed the odd categorization all night. Even when Ridley Scott, one of Hollywood's most respected directors, accepted the award for The Martian he made a comment that was akin to "The Martian, a comedy? Not so much." While many praise the Golden Globes for this split, which encourages the inclusion of not just dramas, but of comedies and musicals, the dark side of that decision is providing an avenue where a movie with dubious -at -best ties to the comedy genre can enter the category and sweep away movies that have more of a right to be there. So while there were jokes about how "hilarious" Matt Damon was in The Martian, all with tongue firmly planted in cheek, you couldn't help but feel bad for other movies that were rightly in the comedy category that lost out because The Martian opted to take over the category, rather than tangle with the big boys like The Revenant, Spotlight and Steve Jobs in the drama category — all favourites for plenty of awards this year. As I said at the beginning of this column, awards aren't everything. In fact, plenty of people go out of their way to avoid critically - acclaimed movies — especially ones that win Golden Globes or Academy Awards, thinking that if they appeal to a snobby, artsy film critic audience, there won't be anything in it for your average movie-goer. There have been plenty of examples of this recently, with movies like Birdman, The Artist and The King's Speech taking home the Academy Award for Best Picture in the last few years. Has anybody really seen many of these movies? No. And for every year when a movie like Birdman or The Artist wins big, there will always be movies that grossed hundreds of millions of dollars that reached a much wider audience. Decisions like these leave average movie-goers scratching their heads and just serves to alienate them further from the system. For every Saving Private Ryan (a movie everyone saw and loved) there is a Shakespeare in Love, which swept in to win Best Picture. For many, there will always be 1977 when a little movie called Star Wars actually did not win Best Picture. Instead, it lost to Woody Allen's Annie Hall in what many of those skeptical of the system and who it serves point to as ground zero for the "who watches these movies, anyway?" discussion. So back to The Martian winning an award for best comedic picture. People already feel like they can't trust the award system (sure it's their Best Picture, but it sure isn't mine) so don't go confusing the genres on them too. If millions flock to watch The Martian, last year's "best comedy" this week, looking for yuks, they may be greatly disappointed.