Ann Althouse is quickly becoming my favorite commentor

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/06/wow-am-i-crazy-or-has-nyt-just-deployed.html

She says things that are as provocative as anything Ebert says, but has such
a winsome way of doing it that I feel like applauding her instead of
berating her.

Take this piece, for instance. I felt like standing and applauding her last
paragraph.

"Wow. Am I crazy, or has the NYT just deployed some powerful new liberal
> bias technology?"<http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/06/wow-am-i-crazy-or-has-nyt-just-deployed.html> "I
> mean, with the 'draws attention to' formulation, Times editors can concoct a
> lede 'news' story making practically any tendentious ideological connection
> they want."<http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/23/nyt-deploys-powerful-new-media-bias-weapon/>
>
>
>
> The Times wields a rhetorical device — does it have a specific name? —
> where you exclude human agency not with the passive voice but by making some
> abstraction the subject of a sentence written in the passive voice.
>
> The headline Mickey Kaus draws attention to is "Sagging Economy Draws
> Attention to War Spending." In reality, *somebody* — e.g., Obama, the NYT
> — is trying to tell us to look at Y instead of X. The headline absurdly
> infuses the "sagging economy" with the will and the capacity to cause
> "attention" to be diverted to the subject of war spending.
>
> The word "attention" also drains the headline of human will. The truth is
> that Obama/the NYT would like *people* to look at war spending instead of
> the economy. "Attention" isn't an entity with powers of perception that can
> be influenced to look at from one thing to another. The economy isn't trying
> to get *attention* to look at flit immediately from the troublesome
> subject of itself over to the preferred topic of war spending.
>
> Real human beings, with interests and will, are trying to manipulate the
> minds of other human beings, who also have interests and will. And there's
> no evidence that the people have turned our attention to the subject the
> would-be manipulators prefer. In fact, we're still looking at the economy.
> *It's the economy, stupid*, a wise man once said. We're not stupid.
>

Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |*
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