Unprotected

WPA/Pennsylvania Federal Art Project
Artist: Robert Muchley
Library of Congress
Although I'm hardly expected to use my brain at the office, I do make efforts to protect it.

Efforts foiled again and again—as Monday morning arrives, and I'm wakened by the clock radio.

Today's "Morning Edition" included this, from
Dina Temple-Raston:

Polls carried out in Muslim countries by the Pew Charitable Trust late last year show a huge shift in public sentiment against al-Qaida. Pakistanis with an unfavorable opinion of al-Qaida jumped from 34 percent to 61 percent last year. Only 9 percent of those surveyed in Pakistan have a favorable view of al-Qaida.

Sounds about like the perception of Republicans—not that you'd know, from the media treatment they get.

But what really set me off was the Wisdom-Gleaned-From-Pop-Culture finish to the piece:

For the past decade, the Fox show 24 has built a franchise on America's fascination and fear of terrorism. Remember when Jack Bauer was cool? The show 24 was often ahead of the curve. It had a black president, years before President Obama. It offered a window into the fight against terrorism. It helped fuel a serious debate over the use of torture.

Serious debate? That's WTF one of NPR's finest calls the prime-time legitimizing of torture?

Legitimized so much that in 2007 Jane Mayer reported on the dean of West Point and other brass flying to Hollywood—to plead with the show's producers—that

... the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. "I'd like them to stop," [West Point dean William] Finnegan said of the show"s producers. "They should do a show where torture backfires."

...

Although reports of abuses by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have angered much of the world, the response of Americans has been more tepid. Finnegan attributes the fact that "we are generally more comfortable and more accepting of this," in part, to the popularity of "24"... The third expert at the meeting was Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator in the war in Iraq. He told the show's staff that DVDs of shows such as "24" circulate widely among soldiers stationed in Iraq..."People watch the shows, and then walk into the interrogation booths and do the same things they’ve just seen."

Other material in Mayer's piece includes how seriously Bush administration members have used the show as an "example" of how to fight their "wot," as well as the apparent origin of the "ticking time bomb" trope itself: a 1960 French novel, published during the Algerian occupation. "Les Centurions" appears to have had no basis in actual events, but may have provided a "more palatable rationale" for French torture than traditionally racist ones (i.e., Algerians were brutes who only understood force).

But back to our crack NPR reporter—

And now Fox has just announced that the ticking clock is winding down -- this is 24's last season. So is this another case of the writers of 24 predicting the future?

"It probably doesn't change our analysis too much," McNeal says. "But certainly suggests something about pop culture-wise thinking about terrorism. Maybe we're all just bored with it."

Boredom is like a death sentence for terrorists. This is one way these movements can end.

Looking for what else Temple-Raston has had to say lately, I find this one I [mercifully] missed two weeks ago. About Jus' Folks in The True Heartland—

America's New Kinder, Gentler Militia

To cancel out the infuriating spin, I listened to the latest Driftglass-Blue Gal Friday Podcast. These weekly efforts just get better and better.

Only one problem: this week, as always, they're talking sense, as they size up the media and wingnut landscape.

And they lay out what would win elections for Dems. But they may come from Driftglass' love of science fiction...