Re: “I Facebook-Friended Richard Salzman into a State of Terror, and I Am Sorry”

Terrence can be a nice guy, but he does have some issues with social etiquette, especially online. He thinks he is being funny when he is really just being a jerk and a dumbass, as he describes in this story. Of course, even this story about him apologizing or regretting what he did to Richard Salzman has a jerky tone to it. We get it Terrence, nobody is funnier, wittier, smarter, etc. than you. Maybe it's something that happens to folks who work at the Arcata Eye as Hoover seems to suffer from the same affliction.

Re: “Confession”

Good column Hank. I think you're pretty much right on that voters are somewhat vapid and do not care about policy. Why is it this way? I think there are two main reasons:

1. People believe that politicians as a whole are corrupt and incompetent. This narrative is reinforced through news and entertainment media. If they're all corrupt and liars, why should anyone care about their policies since they will not be acted upon or carried out?
2. The news media presents politics to the public in sound bites and in an extremely limited fashion. Now, you could say that the public is to blame because they don't choose a different type of news coverage, but they really don't have much to choose from. CSPAN is ok if you want to watch congress in live action, but it rarely offers analysis or context of these events. All we are presented with is sound bite media coverage void of substance. So, since TV is God, people's perspective on politics is shaped by this type of news coverage.