The nominees for TV’s Primetime Emmy Awards were announced today, and details are available here for those who care.

I am one who does not. For some reason these award shows and the actual choosing of winners hold absolutely no interest for me, except of course in my capacity as a scientist of social diseases, I mean social phenomena.

Probably my main dispute with these things is that the awards are so clearly not based on true merit, but given that it’s reasonable to disagree over what merits praise or condemnation in a cultural artifact, I suppose that’s a lost cause.

Nonetheless, it always gets my goat when blatantly insane and disease-bearing rubbish garners praise because it fits a particular political-cultural agenda, especially given that the agenda thus supported appears to me to be so toxically stupid and damaging as to merit not awards but a public horsewhipping or the pillory.

So, just a few brief thoughts on this year’s nominees, and then we can each go to bed with a cold compress on our forehead.

1. There were 463 nominations overall. Hence, anyone in the industry who did not get a nomination must feel like a real ass.
2. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee had the most nominations, with fifteen. According to the HBO website, the TV movie "powerfully explores the tragic impact that the United States’ westward expansion had on American Indian culture, and the economic, political and social pressures that motivated it." I haven’t seen the film, but it sounds perfect for Emmy recognition. I’ll take a glance at it when the oppo arises, however, as the book on which the film is based can be seen as having an interesting and important angle: the observation that it was government, not white people in general, that was responsible for the outrageous depredations against the American Indians during the 19th and early 20th centuries. As the Wikipedia notes, the book by Dee Brown "chronicles the changing and sometimes conflicting attitudes both of American authorities such as General Custer and Indian chiefs, particularly Geronimo, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse, and their different attempts to save their peoples, by peace, war, or retreat." Of course, Hollywood people and other repugnant leftists see the treatment of American Indians as an ethnic/racial issue, but the real truth behind it is that it’s just another example of democide, the tendency of governments to run roughshod over people and even institute mass killings if they deem it necessary to their plans. It will be interesting to see if the movie reflects this. Given the civil-libertarian leanings of producer Dick Wolf (the  various Law and Order series), this seems a distinct possibility.
3. The Sopranos grabbed fifteen nominations. Of course.
4. Not a single major nomination for Friday Night Lights. That is an enormous pity, for the show could really use a boost. It’s one of the best things on TV, but most Hollywood people are in Hollywood in the first place because they couldn’t get recognition from their high-school peers in the prom-royalty voting and on the athletic fields, so of course they would be unlikely to appreciate the great merits of this superb program. There’s so much more to the show than just football, however, and if only they could get past the central subject matter, those who have little to no interest in football would find that they still can enjoy the show.
5. There really is an enormous amount of talent in Hollywood. If only they could be better educated about what is good and healthy for human beings and what is not. Well, that’s what we’re here for, and baby steps are better than nothing at all.