Columbia University’s Carl Hart reenacted the Marshall McLuhan scene from Annie Hall on the O’Reilly Factor–playing the McLuhan role himself.
One of the most satisfying O’Reilly Factor episodes ever aired Monday night (1/6/14) when, through some terrible miscalculation, someone who knew what he was talking about managed to get on the show.
It happened as O’Reilly was explaining his latest crackpot theory about why young people are so horrible. According to the Fox News host, texting, marijuana use and videogames are leading the young down an escapist path to destruction. O’Reilly repeated his theory through several iterations:
- “A perfect storm of increasing marijuana use, video games and texting [is] creating major social problems in America.”
- “I see a coming storm here, a tsunami building with the drugs, the soft drugs, the pot and the high-tech abuse. I think it’s abuse. I think that kids texting 100 times a day, that’s abuse.”
- “Here’s a kicker, a study by the University of Winnipeg in Canada says students who text more than 100 times a day are 30 percent less likely to be ethical or principled in life. Are we getting all this? Young people in America are combining drugs, alcohol, and high-tech to build false lives to run away from reality.”
The Fox News host also quoted a tweet from Daily Beast editor Tina Brown (1/3/14): “Legal weed contributes to us being a fatter, dumber, sleepier nation even less able to compete with the Chinese.” He presented this as evidence that even liberals were starting to come around to his anti-marijuana views. Then he expanded on Brown’s theme:
In China, young people are encouraged to compete, be disciplined, to live in the real world. Not here. And, again, there are very few voices speaking out against drug and tech abuse. This is an epidemic that will lead to a weaker nation. And anybody who tells you differently is lying to you.
In another segment on the same show, O’Reilly told Fox News liberal Juan Williams there was not a large number of people arrested for using marijuana: “Juan, there’s no mass arrests of users.”
In the US, there’s a marijuana arrest every 42 seconds, totaling 750,000 in 2011, 87 percent of which were for simple possession.
But O’Reilly’s mess of a theory hit a snag during a segment featuring–in addition to cranky Fox News psychiatrist Keith Ablow–Columbia University neuroscientist Carl Hart, who told the host that his key premise, that marijuana use was trending upward among the young, just wasn’t true:
O’REILLY: And the prevalence of this is overwhelming now, so you’re going to have a lot of casualties on the battlefield.
HART: That’s not true. Let’s talk about the statistic, let’s talk about the data. In 1978, the recent number of marijuana smokers in the 12th grade, it was 37 percent of the 12th graders said that they smoked marijuana recently. Today that number is down to 22 percent.
O’REILLY: Not the number I just gave.
HART: Well, your number is wrong. Your number is wrong.
O’REILLY: Take it up with the National Institutes of Health. All right? They’re the one that–
HART: No, look, I am a council member on the National Institute of Health. Your number is wrong. I’m telling you, it’s 22 percent of seniors who smoke marijuana in the past month. That’s a fact.
O’REILLY: Well, I doubt it’s a fact, because we don’t get this wrong, these researchers.
HART: That’s wrong.
O’REILLY: All right, we’ll call them again and tomorrow I will say yes or no. Go ahead, Dr. Ablow.
If O’Reilly had any hope Fox News‘ Ablow would save his argument, that quickly went up in smoke when the bizarre psychiatrist’s remarks made O’Reilly’s look cogent:
Yes, look, the doctor has it wrong. The bottom line is this is not 1978; 1978 people weren’t carrying cell phones. They weren’t using Facebook. They weren’t depositing themselves on YouTube and being surprised by being arrested after beating somebody up on YouTube. They’re like: “Wait, this is the real world, I can get arrested for this? I thought it was all fun and games.” We are weakening our young people because we are suggesting to them that it’s OK to be high all the time.
That was perhaps too kooky even for O’Reilly, who backed away from Ablow: “I don’t know if we’re suggesting that. I don’t know if we’re suggesting that.”
In case there were any doubt, Carl Hart’s numbers were right. And O’Reilly did not keep his promise to check and tell us “yes or no” the next night (1/7/14), though he did rail against marijuana some more.
Still, seeing reality intervene on the O’Reilly Factor, even for just a brief moment, was satisfying. Of course, it likely resulted in an urgent meeting of O’Reilly’s producers to make sure that it never happens again.
How can it be a FACT?? Its a survey of high school students, if that’s his idea of a fact then global warming is a hoax, there is life on Mars, Bigfoot exists because that’s what HS believe in surveys
@dan No one can be sure whether the survey was accurate, but the results of the survey certainly are a FACT. The survey reults are not a matter of opinion, although whether those results are accurate could be a matter of opinion.
So yeah, 22percent is a FACT
dan, you just don’t seem to understand what a fact is. A poll was taken, 22% was the final figure from that poll. This is a fact. And yes, it may be a fact that a percentage of people believe in Bigfoot (although it is nowhere near 60% as you claim, but most certainly only a fraction of a percent), but this does NOT mean that Bigfoot’s existence is a fact. Do you get the difference? One more time, Dr. Hart is saying that 22% in the POLL was a fact, not that 22% is a real world figure that is accurate (which, btw, is impossible in gauging percentages among a huge population).
Dan, the survey is of what people do (smoking marijuana). It is not a survey of peoples opinions, but on peoples ACTIONS. There is a difference.
Oreilley did not correct it the next night because he ate crow about 1 minute later. Ironically Oreilley furiously consulted his SMART PHONE and said “It turns out Dr Harts numbers are correct”. Did you watch the interview or did you just go off of hear say? Anyway Oreilly is a info-bully and he took his embarassment out on Mary Katherine Hamm in the next segment. she is obviously pro legalization and he hates on her when she articulates it. he belittles her and treats her like a lower class citizen. She has more brains in her gorgeous smile than he has in his whole body.
We are actually experiencing a de facto civl war between the majority (those who embrace reason and function in the real world of cause and effect) and the prohibitionists, who, numbed by their isolation and despair, are seeking meaning in a mythical world that can never, ever, be reality-based. A world of deceit and lies, of blood and corpses—a world of complete social and economic collapse.
Prohibitionists are not only infantile, their insatiable need to inflict suffering on the rest of us and their greed for both money and power is a threat to every single civic institution of our “once proud and free” nation. Their final objective, a drug-free society, toward which all their deceit is directed, is not even obtainable in a single maximum security prison anywhere on this planet.
Prohibitionists claim to be protecting society, but they would gladly destroy every single liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.
Personally I liked the take of Jon Stewart on the “Literal Russian Roulette” comment.”
The only difference between a bong hit and pointing a loaded gun at your own skull,” Stewart said, “Is that the gun can kill you instantly and must never be criminalized or restricted in any way ever.”
Bill O’rilly reefered him to the same institute for data that the man being interviewed belonged to; regardless of how inaccurate these sample surveys are of the population overall – it makes Bill look like a complete monkey and just a shill of a tool.
Hmmmm—- facts. Well looking at this intuitivley, I would have to say that Bill O’ Reilly was stoned and Carl Hart was not. : )
Dan I cannot believe in 2014 you made reference to dr. Hara’s ethnicity. You do realise that’s racist don’t you?
Do they not have iphones or ipads or any kind of networked computer somewhere in the studio when they’re filming the O’Reilly show? This is the kind of information that is available almost instantly. Maybe someone should inform Bill O’Reilly that he doesn’t have to “call them tomorrow” to get the right information. Maybe someone can show him how to use Google.
I saw the show, and you are framing it wrong.Bill o was very respectful to a man who disagreed on the stats …NOT the discussion that simply was asking, are our youth spending time doing things,to many things that are useless endeavours to their future success.It is debatable to be sure.But unlike on the left WE are OK debating these subjects.I guess the flip of the Bill O coin would be that Pot and electronic time users are good for our youth.Not so much.So thanks for the debate bill.
This whole thing about what today’s youth are doing is completely silly. I have never understood why every older generation is always blathering about what the younger generation is doing. In the 1920s, the older generation quacked about the drinking and the music. Same thing in the 1930s, it was the music and drinking; same in the 1940s, and 1950s. Then came the 1960s, and my parents were sure that the Beatles and Elvis Presley, along with marijuana, were going to the end the world. It was the same in 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s: parents always yacking about the horrid music and whatever. What is amusing is that youth grow up with not too much damage, and become the harpies that their parents were. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Ruth that is true.But that is not to say that the movement of the youth in a society can all just be pooh poohed away.I can give you any number of instances where youth gone wrong have resulted in serious consequences for their society..I could also make a case that those kids who grew up in the sixties have not been the best stewards of the wealth of this country.Certain endemic problems within that age group arguably arose from liberal values instilled in that time period.I have seen very interesting (and alarming) dissertations on the subject.
Bill’s attack of texters is just weird. If anything, it has more to do with trying to discourage the use of social media because the corporate elite recognize this as a key tool for the people to organize uprisings, which they consider a serious threat.
Teejay what is weird is that anyone would worry at all about people who spend all their time texting.My experience has been that that type is quite a few bricks short of a full load.Believe me,the so called corp elite would treasure these numb skulls as easy to manipulate.My God most of them voted for Obama.Thats what ya call a case closed.
Dan, you are obviously missing the fact that O’Reilly attempted to cite the survey first, got it wrong, and was corrected. O’Reilly was therefore not only factually wrong about the survey, but the one who brought it up as a source to support his claim, and was then exposed for not knowing what it actually said. He was therefore the one who first cited it as a relevant source of factual information.
As you demonstrate, his supporters are unable to follow even simple chains of logic when it contradicts their beliefs, whether in a significant or merely tangential way.
This is why I call O’Rielly “Oh, Really?” … because one has to dive into ANY “fact” he ever rolls out.
Oh Really? is like a broken clock, right maybe two times in a day, IF you include him eating breakfast, and getting to work on time.
And this shows how Oh Really? treats real facts.
When a COUNCIL MEMBER of the National Institutes of Health contradicts what Oh Really? says ABOUT THE NIH, does Oh Really say “Oh, then I stand corrected?” No he does not.
Rather, he says “I’ll get back to you” — and then goes back to taking the idiots’ word for it, that the sky is falling.
While recreational pot usage is controversial, many people agree and believe that the drug should be legal for medical uses. Online Budz