Journal: News & Comment

Wednesday, September 04, 2002
# 8:31:00 AM:

Well well well, well well...

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Elvis may have been incoherent onstage in his later years, but Tech Central Station's Glenn Reynolds (via Doc Searls, as usual) argues that his impact helps keep totalitarianism at bay:

If what you want is to dress up funny and bond with a lot of other people in front of a great light show, well, you don't need the Nazis to do it anymore -- even in Berlin. Since Elvis, the bonding-and-catharsis element of mass media has expanded to outdo anything that any politician can deliver. We describe an especially popular politician today as looking "like a rock star," rather than the other way around, after all. (Could there be a worse insult than describing a rock musician as looking "like a Congressman?" I can't think of one.)

And, in keeping with a strange theme I've unintentionally developed this week, the piece even mentions Iran at the end.

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