Do you remember the telephone game? Back in first or second grade, the teacher, desperate for a way to kill off a midwinter afternoon, would line us all up and whisper a story into the ear of the child at the head of the line. The story would slowly pass down the line and the child at the end would announce his or her version to the whole class. Then the teacher would repeat the original version and we’d all be amazed at how the story had changed as it passed from mouth to ear to mouth. The purpose of the exercise, besides helping to kill off an afternoon, was to demonstrate a grade-school version of McLuhan’s principle of interference on the channel.
The only problem is, the principle doesn’t hold true in real life – or maybe we’re just telling different stories. For example, a few weeks ago, I was sitting in a deli in Manhattan, minding my own business, I swear, but it’s a deli, it’s Manhattan – you hear things. There’s a bunch of yuppies at the next table, blathering away and one woman says, “You know who I’d like to see in the White House? George W. Bush. He’s conservative, but he’s compassionate.” I gagged and thought, “Uh oh – telephone game.” One of George W.’s spin doctors whispers in the ear of a Texas political columnist and the next thing you know it’s on the AP wire, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Tom Brokaw and out it pops, completely intact, from the mouth of this delicatessen yuppie, as if it were an original thought. I’m having kreplachs, she’s having brainlock.
Later, walking through the slush on Seventh Avenue, I wondered if perhaps I hadn’t been unfair to Ol’ George W. I didn’t know much about him, other than that he was just elected to his second term as governor of Texas, used to own a baseball team and is the son of a president whose term in office ranged from hazardous to ineffectual. I decided to do a bit of research, seeking the compassion of a conservative.
At first, all I found were references to how George W., and his brother Jeb, now governor of Florida, added compassion to conservative politics. Those spin doctors do earn their pay. Problem was, it was all spin and no laundry. The journalists noted how the Bush boys exude niceness but never seem to take a stand on anything. But the man’s been governor of a huge state for four years, he must have some kind of record. Finally I started hitting a few nuggets, like this:
George W. Bush is a compassionate conservative because, unlike his California counterparts, he does not believe in cutting immigrants off from social services, he maintains friendly relations with Mexico, and he himself speaks Spanish. He exhibited these pro-immigration credentials when he said, “There are a lot of jobs people in Texas won’t do -laying tar in August or chopping cedars.” Well, there’s compassion. And how about the nuclear waste dump he’s trying to site in the low-income Latino community of Sierra Blanca, 16 miles from the Mexican border? Even more compassion.
Compassionate George wants to dedicate one-third of the Texas budget surplus to education. He’s also the sponsor of the “school to work” program, which brings corporations into the schools to prepare students for the local job market. Instead of training our children to think as independent citizens, it’s “Class, repeat after me: ‘You want fries with that?'”
During his compassionate term in office, George W. Bush made it legal to prosecute 14-year-olds as adults, made it more difficult for consumers to sue corporations over defective products and tried to deny additional benefits to women who get pregnant while on welfare. On the other hand, please don’t have an abortion. Oh, and the compassionate Texas execution chamber is still doing wholesale business.
That’s the thing about the telephone game – it’s about words, not deeds.
The Telephone Game
Do you remember the telephone game? Back in first or second grade, the teacher, desperate for a way to kill off a midwinter afternoon, would line us all up and whisper a story into the ear of the child at the head of the line. The story would slowly pass down the line and the child at the end would announce his or her version to the whole class. Then the teacher would repeat the original version and we’d all be amazed at how the story had changed as it passed from mouth to ear to mouth. The purpose of the exercise, besides helping to kill off an afternoon, was to demonstrate a grade-school version of McLuhan’s principle of interference on the channel.
The only problem is, the principle doesn’t hold true in real life – or maybe we’re just telling different stories. For example, a few weeks ago, I was sitting in a deli in Manhattan, minding my own business, I swear, but it’s a deli, it’s Manhattan – you hear things. There’s a bunch of yuppies at the next table, blathering away and one woman says, “You know who I’d like to see in the White House? George W. Bush. He’s conservative, but he’s compassionate.” I gagged and thought, “Uh oh – telephone game.” One of George W.’s spin doctors whispers in the ear of a Texas political columnist and the next thing you know it’s on the AP wire, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Tom Brokaw and out it pops, completely intact, from the mouth of this delicatessen yuppie, as if it were an original thought. I’m having kreplachs, she’s having brainlock.
Later, walking through the slush on Seventh Avenue, I wondered if perhaps I hadn’t been unfair to Ol’ George W. I didn’t know much about him, other than that he was just elected to his second term as governor of Texas, used to own a baseball team and is the son of a president whose term in office ranged from hazardous to ineffectual. I decided to do a bit of research, seeking the compassion of a conservative.
At first, all I found were references to how George W., and his brother Jeb, now governor of Florida, added compassion to conservative politics. Those spin doctors do earn their pay. Problem was, it was all spin and no laundry. The journalists noted how the Bush boys exude niceness but never seem to take a stand on anything. But the man’s been governor of a huge state for four years, he must have some kind of record. Finally I started hitting a few nuggets, like this:
George W. Bush is a compassionate conservative because, unlike his California counterparts, he does not believe in cutting immigrants off from social services, he maintains friendly relations with Mexico, and he himself speaks Spanish. He exhibited these pro-immigration credentials when he said, “There are a lot of jobs people in Texas won’t do -laying tar in August or chopping cedars.” Well, there’s compassion. And how about the nuclear waste dump he’s trying to site in the low-income Latino community of Sierra Blanca, 16 miles from the Mexican border? Even more compassion.
Compassionate George wants to dedicate one-third of the Texas budget surplus to education. He’s also the sponsor of the “school to work” program, which brings corporations into the schools to prepare students for the local job market. Instead of training our children to think as independent citizens, it’s “Class, repeat after me: ‘You want fries with that?'”
During his compassionate term in office, George W. Bush made it legal to prosecute 14-year-olds as adults, made it more difficult for consumers to sue corporations over defective products and tried to deny additional benefits to women who get pregnant while on welfare. On the other hand, please don’t have an abortion. Oh, and the compassionate Texas execution chamber is still doing wholesale business.
That’s the thing about the telephone game – it’s about words, not deeds.