September 27, 2007

• The kid is fine, the reporter is a moron.
• I respectfully disagree. The kid is rude, an egomaniac, and the reporter has to pry out information from him with a crowbar. She maintains her cool, keeps smiling, and tries to get on with her interview even though he's doing his best to avoid every question.
• I don't think much of either of them. Although, I guess she could just be following orders to be smug and patronizing.
• I thought the kid was pretty ok. Also you'd think a TV reporter would have better enunciation.
• I don't see where you're coming from, Dumber. Seems like a perfectly normal kid to me (as opposed to a polished, fakey "sitcom" kid). The woman, on the other hand, is utterly appalling (and she mispronounced the word, causing him to spell it according to her pronunciation the first time).
• W. C. Fields said, "Never work with kids or animals". Kids are kids. My own five year old can be loquacious, mute, or anywhere in between during a single day. What do you expect? You think CNN would know the power of recording an interview and editing it to a finer form to present to the public. Oh, wait a minute....
• Homeschooling: not the best way to ensure social graces in children. Cheerleading: not the best way to ensure correct pronunciation in newscasters.
• ninfinite FTW
• This kid is at least 13 years old. Not 5 years old. Not an elementary school kid. He's a 13 year old kid who can't manage anything near typical social interaction. proof
• ... somebody has some issues...
• This kid should have his genitals cut off, be eviscerated through that opening, then be hung on a hook in a public place as a warning for other kids with lagging social skills.
• What is the point of this post, anyhow? The proof link doesn't seem to prove anything to me other than he sounds somewhat normal and that has a supportive family.
• How is this reporter going to help this kid with the pronounciation when the kid asks, "Scombewedae?" How is she supposed to correct him if she can't tell if he's pronouncing it right. If that kid was in public school his teacher would probably be recommending his mother to put him in voice coaching. Her pronounciation by the time he was prepared to spell was not Scomberdae it was Scombridae, the inflection is on the first syllable. Give her a break for using a word she never encountered before (and most of you likely never have) on live television while dealing with a hostile guest who she has to step on eggshells around because he's thirteen years old and homeschooled. Anyway, what the fuck was up with showing the sandwich? That was hilarious.
• Yeah. Some production assistant went out and bought that sandwich special. Very odd, like news product placement. Didn't she say that the sandwich had come from, like, Blimpies or something? Also, ninfinite FTW cubed. Isn't it necessary for the kid to know the word before asking him to spell it? Or am I being obtuse? Not understanding the spelling thing, can't spell at all, thankyoubabyjesus for spell check.
• Give her a break for using a word she never encountered before That's one idiosyncracy of the whole spelling-bee phenomenon, especially nowadays when kids train for it as they would a track meet. They're not necessarily learning to spell words as they would encounter them in real life, but only under certain circumstances (i.e., being read with perfect pronunciation, having them used in a sentence, being told the language of origin, etc.). I also don't think it helped that they were via satellite and not in the same room. I agree with IC about the sammich - at first I thought I was imagining it. "Is she actually waving a tuna sub in front of the camera as if it helped her make her point?" I don't think Murrow would have ever resorted to food props.
• The proof was proof of his age, which if I'm not mistaken is actually 14. This is important only because as a 13-14 year old, the kid should know better than to act this way on national news. The point is that this (to me) an entertaining watch due to the obvious discomfort and awkwardness of the situation. You've got a woman lobbing questions softer than Bush's planted reporters and a kid who's bristling like a porcupine and arrogant to boot, and in my mind, the combination is funny. Sorry if you disagree.
• No one knows how to act on national tv. It's part of the charm of watching an anchor interview an 'ordinary person'. That the boy was snotty is just wonderful to me. It's ok not to be awed by tv. CNN lost me at the sandwich, anyway.
• The point is that this (to me) an entertaining watch due to the obvious discomfort and awkwardness of the situation. Well, I think that's still true regardless of how old the kid is, or how articulate (or not) one expects him to be at said age. Still comedy gold. Kind of reminds me of the "Stewart" sketches from MadTV.
• The kid was fine. I don't blame him for being exasperated when put on the spot without conviction of either pronunciation or etymology. The reporter was a little dense but standard operating intelligence levels for female US TV news readers were in effect. WTF was up with that sandwich business?
• I may have mentioned this in an earlier thread: When I was 11 years old, I was the last person standing in the VT state spelling bee championship besides a kid from Braintree. I lost the Bee by spelling Martyr wrong. Ugh. I didn't understand the irony until a few years later.
• I was spelling bee champ when I was 13, but it was a team competition. I'd also competed minus the team when I was 12 but nerves got the better of me very early on and I left the 'e' off 'feature'. I was so ashamed for a very long time.
• Wow, I guess that means that we came this close to being called MonkeyFiltr!
• *Waves sandwitch "So you didn't get a chance to eat your brainfood." Bitch! Yeah, he did say that fish was good for your brain in a previous interview. So she decided to score with the audience at his expense. I'm thinkin' the kid may have Asperger's syndrome. (which I may or may not know how to spell write) I thought he was a perfectly charming 14 year old geek. Had a big smile throughout. What was he supposed to do, let her get away with pronouncing his name wrong? It was her fault he spelled the fishes family word wrong, so why shouldn't he call it on her? He probably DIDN'T know what his mom said when he won if he didn't talk to her. Again, Asperger's. They take things very literally. I think he'd be fun to talk to and interact with. He says he hopes someday to be a math teacher or a composer. How many of THOSE fall into the social butterfly category? Careful what you say about him. He may be kind of geeky and lacking in social graces, but we all know who else was like that. Bill Gates. And Gates OWNS you.
• Not me. I have a Mac.
• Not me. I have a Subway sandwich. Mmmmmm, brain food.
• 
• Yu kin be smarts lik Jared.
• >>This is important only because as a 13-14 year old, the kid should know better than to act this way on national news. Oh my yes, I had forgotten that as Americans it is our duty to all be groomed and polished and trained to perform on national television. By 13.
• Uh, he wasn't leading a revolution. He was engaging in a polite - if unintentionally condescending - human interest story. It doesn't matter that he's on TV. Please tell me that was facetious sarcasm.
• I don't understand your comment, Insolent, but yes, I was being sarcastic. Also, I completely believe that condescension was the appropriate response to a person such as that interviewer.
• Seemed like Asperger's to me.
  
  
• More.
  
  
• I was hoping that you were being facetious about being sarcastic, rushmc. "Performing" on TV is an exaggerated way of describing a modicum of politesse during an interview. If Lou reed in an interview is clearly being an asshole for exhibiting the same behavior then so is this kid. If you don't want to talk to people, don't do the interview. While the interviewer was being somewhat condescending towards the kid, it was more indicative that she had forgone interaction with children in the pursuit of her career. His reaction was typical of a egotistical and bitterly alienated thirteen-year old with poor social skills and burgeoning teen angst. They were both out of their element. Anyway, can Asperger's be an excuse for poor behavior if we simultaneously laud Williams Syndrome children for their gregarious and simple but charismatic novelty? Of course, I'm coming to the realization that I've been institutionalized these past five years so my point is more than likely moot, considering I don't yet know the extent of the damage uni has done to my ways of seeing.
• Lou Reed has decades of experience of human interaction to give him a certain amount of judgement over how he appears. This kid does not. Lou Reed is a sophisticated creature of the entertainment biz who possesses control over his communication in a media situation, this kid does not. Bad analogy. I didn't see poor behaviour or egotistical, bitterly alienated dysfunction. That's projecting. The child was assertive. People are threatened by that. In fact, perhaps the Lou Reed thing isn't a bad analogy, in that if he wasn't 13 and home schooled, and was a rock musician, no one would have cared about this exchange. The fact that he's a kid makes people get all Victorian-era 'seen and not heard' harumph harumph kinda vibe, which frankly seems like bullshit. If you don't have some kind of chip on your shoulder, this kid is not threatening. I also think the Asperger's assessment is a leap.
• He's a kid! *slams bedroom door, sulks*
• You say assertive, I say hostile. Po-tay-toes, po-tay-toes. Assertive would mean he actually let the interviewer know how he felt or got his message, whatever that should be, across in spite of the poor interview. More like passive-assertive. However you paint it: asshole. Decades of experience are no excuse for Lou Reed; inexperience is no excuse for this kid. Shitty behaviour is shitty behaviour; I don't care whether you're a seasoned pro or a snotty kid: you're a bastard. Fuck excusing people because you identify with them. Maybe I did that kind of anti-social shit when I was 13; I don't anymore because I have respect for other people which doesn't diminish for minor slights in spite of my knowledge that we are all essentially garbage - in fact that is what makes us all somewhat equal.
• He's acting like brainy 13-year-old boy. They're all obnoxious. I don't see what the debate is about.
• He wasn't hostile. Hostile is different. He wasn't even surly. I think you've got a chip, IC. Live and let live. The kid's not harming anyone. Life will beat him down into submission, just like the rest of us, soon enough.
• >>His reaction was typical of a egotistical and bitterly alienated thirteen-year old with poor social skills and burgeoning teen angst. I don't see it. Perhaps you are projecting? You say "don't do the interview if you don't want to talk to people." But he DID talk to her. What you are really saying is "don't do interviews if you aren't willing to regurgitate the pleasantly meaningless blather that we've all been trained to expect in television interviews."
• I have to admit, the kid did remind me somewhat of a few of my Grade 8 classmates. Of course, I thought of them as arseholes at the time.
• Hey, you confused us with your girl thing. We did what we had to do to survive.
• Okay, okay. We all see it different. Sometimes chickens, sometimes feathers. And you're right, Koko: there's no point wasting any more of our time on why he's obnoxious.
• Hmmmmm, so the @ssh0les that are supposedly representing the film and music industry get a pass while everyone's down on the 13yo geek? What's with that? He's a fairly nice kid. After dealing with a couple sophomore and junior little snots today, I'd take that little dude in a heartbeat. Bet that one doesn't tell a teacher to f___ off in the middle of class. And I'll bet he gets his work done on time without constant prodding. Kids today seem to come in three flavors--the sophisticated looking ones that know the system, do what they need to do, and are on track with their lives--doesn't mean they don't screw up, but generally they're OK. The next bunch are the naifs, geeky, awkward, have to be shown repeatedly, just can't seem to quite get it together with anything. These are the ones that are fun to work with. When the light comes on, bingo! You've got a winner, and the kid gets the wind under him and starts to turn into that first kinda kid. The last bunch--meh. Most are alright, they're just going to have to do it the wrong way first, and nobody's going to help them, because they know everything, and the rest of the world is composed of idiots. They're the ones in class that try their best to make it hard on all the other kids trying to learn, and interfere with helping the second group. Finally, there's a few, a very few, in this bunch that aren't worth trying to save. There was an article in today's paper: A 17yo in Oregon went into a campground and killed a man. He claimed he slit the man's throat because he wanted "to put him out of his misery." This was after he wacked him over the head with the flat of an ax and made him miserable. There are some seriously screwed up thought processes here. Sorry, if this is where he is at 17, I don't think this kid can be salvaged. Our 13yo is a pretty good kid.
• Typo on diplomas embarrasses Ohio principal. I totally wouldn't hand the first one back.