THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.
PERMALINKS:
THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY
THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY
AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!
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Monday, June 30, 2003
And speaking of the Beeb, Andy S. is excited something might happen to it. But as the Telegraph article he cites points out, it was TONY who appointed the DYKE, who is a flaming Labourite. He thus bears as much blame for the Beeb's descent into partisanship as his hacks. And he cannot be excused for it because he did it before he grew up. No, he should have had the minimum common sense to realize biased news can hurt anyone, left or right -- though more often right.
Fogbound (probably the source of the "one source" here) wants "a Marshall Plan for the Palestinians." This means we give them billions and lots of military hardware, and neither we nor the Israelis get anything in return. Guess what happens next.
Is listening to the Beeb hazardous to your health?
Is listening to the Beeb hazardous to your health?
RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s NEW YORK POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! runs a Cindy Adams column on consecutive weeks, and no one at the POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! notices.
Sorta like, uh, Jayson. Right?
Sorta like, uh, Jayson. Right?
Before we get excited that 10,000 NEW WORDS appear in Merriam-Webster's latest Collegiate Dictionary, consider how many words are listed as Obs. in the OED.
NEWS HACKS IS THE CLEVEREST PEOPLE: A reporter uses THE Q WORD at a briefing with Rummy, and though he cuts her off, the whole point was to get her fellow news hacks to use the Q word. Sure enough, REUTERS, The Freedom Fighters' News Service™, uses it in a headline. And the idiots aren't political?
Gov has done such a good job with his terror alerts, they're moving him up the list of succession!
As usual, there was no debate. Like with the Disney Protection Act.
As usual, there was no debate. Like with the Disney Protection Act.
Hey Kinsleyites, either Dubya was lying about WMDs, or he wasn't. Which is it?
HHWWalter Crrrronkite Jr. is ticked that Disney Sports has hired an -- ex-cheerleader to be a sideline reporter on Monday Night Football. Al and John should "resign in protest," declaimeth HHWWalter Jr.
You still mad at ESPN, Keith? Or are you trying to live the definition of "Get a life?"
You still mad at ESPN, Keith? Or are you trying to live the definition of "Get a life?"
Does YOUR GoogleBlogger still have the hiccups?
Blixie says bye-bye to the League of Nations and weapons inspecting.
Thanks again, Hans, for -- what?
Thanks again, Hans, for -- what?
On the heels of the magnificent success stories of two of JACK's superbudgeted superhyped superdumb pieces of cinematic dog t -- er, wondrous masterpieces of filmic art, now comes word from RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s PR man Roger that AH-nult may lay an egg for AOL!
Better run for gov'nor, AH-nult.
Better run for gov'nor, AH-nult.
Another news hack icon -- DESTROYED: St. John-John wasn't so saintly. Neither was his wife.
Sunday, June 29, 2003
Katherine Hepburn was a controversial figure early on in her career with her "tomboy" looks, but she was perhaps the first significant unconventional beauty of film, with a talent and a larger-than-life persona to match. If some of her vehicles are dated now -- her pairings with the equally great Spencer Tracy have a little more of the cutes than might be desirable, and The Philadelphia Story is a glorified and embarrassing sitcom -- there was no mistaking her magnetism. Now, with her passing, only the recently eulogized -- I mean, congratulated Bob Hope remains of all the great and gloried and celebrated of their time, and as the last of what was good about show-biz disappears, it becomes completely paved over by the monumentally overwhelmingly mind-numbingly inescapably synergistically symbiotically cross-promotionally merger-and-acquisitionally bad.
(I see the news hacks are doing their doubleplusgood routine by calling her a feminist. Is there any escaping their knee-jerk lockstep sieg heil?)
(I see the news hacks are doing their doubleplusgood routine by calling her a feminist. Is there any escaping their knee-jerk lockstep sieg heil?)
Exhibit number TWO in the case for why show-biz news coverage is irrelevant when it isn't sycophantic, and sycophantic when it isn't unethical, and unethical when it isn't a resume -- and many times, a four-bagger. (Bonus half-point to John "Can't Stop Blowin' My" Horn for referring to movies as "brands." Maybe we ought to put YOU in the running for JACK's chair!)
So the proper thing, dear exalted news hacks, is for the Israelis to lie down and die. Right?
This is another thing that drives me bananas about the jaysonists: they criticize -- usually in the oblique, weasel-worded manner of "objectivity" -- but they don't offer alternatives, perhaps because if they tried it would expose their near total ignorance. PUT UP, I SAY, OR SHUT UP.
This is another thing that drives me bananas about the jaysonists: they criticize -- usually in the oblique, weasel-worded manner of "objectivity" -- but they don't offer alternatives, perhaps because if they tried it would expose their near total ignorance. PUT UP, I SAY, OR SHUT UP.
CORRECTION: You can click your blog open in a new window, and without right-clicking; but to do that you have to position your cursor over the eenie-weenie little icon in the View Blog tab. Convenient!
Here's an exciting sport: Szzzzzzzzzzzenior, er, CHAMPIONSzzzzzzzzzzzzz Tour™ Golf.
ANOTHER JACK MILESTONE: IF the box-office ESTIMATES are to be believed -- a BIG if -- one of JACK's superbudgeted superhyped superdumb pieces of cinematic dog t -- er, one of his wondrous masterpieces of the filmic art -- the one last week -- suffered A SEVENTY PERCENT DECLINE IN ITS BOX OFFICE IN ITS SECOND WEEK! A TREMENDOUS achievement for Jack and the film biz!!
Or as Arthur Freed would say, "That's Entertainment!"
Or as Arthur Freed would say, "That's Entertainment!"
Exhibit number one in the case for why show-biz news coverage is irrelevant when it isn't sycophantic, and sycophantic when it isn't unethical, and unethical when it isn't a resume -- and many times, a four-bagger.
Also in the Times Bernard Holland, in a eulogy for the symphony orchestra, writes what is (with slight adjustments) a eulogy for our culture as well:
As for disappearing audiences, no amount of managing will solve that one. Classical music has only itself to blame. It has indulged the creation of a narcissistic avant-garde speaking in languages that repel the average committed listener in even our most sophisticated American cities. Intelligent, music-loving and eager to learn, such listeners largely understand that true talent and originality must find their own voice. What they do not understand is why the commitment to reach and touch listeners in the seats does not stand at the beginning of the creative process, as it did with Haydn and Mozart. This kind of art-for-art's-sake has much to answer for.
As for disappearing audiences, no amount of managing will solve that one. Classical music has only itself to blame. It has indulged the creation of a narcissistic avant-garde speaking in languages that repel the average committed listener in even our most sophisticated American cities. Intelligent, music-loving and eager to learn, such listeners largely understand that true talent and originality must find their own voice. What they do not understand is why the commitment to reach and touch listeners in the seats does not stand at the beginning of the creative process, as it did with Haydn and Mozart. This kind of art-for-art's-sake has much to answer for.
The other day I mentioned the fantasy of Harvey "Arthur Freed" Whiner. WELL, the Film Forum in New York is staging (wouldn't you know it?) an Arthur Freed festival, and that accounts for our Line of the Week -- from a movie-ad-blurb copywriter -- for The Nation!!!!! (which has Peter "Movies-Were-Better-than-Ever-in-the-Seventies" Biskind as an occasional "editor," so you know how PC that is):
Cyd Charisse['s]...legs are deadlier than all the firearms in Chicago.
Nuf said.
Cyd Charisse['s]...legs are deadlier than all the firearms in Chicago.
Nuf said.
There's always a "but" with the news business, and it's always a sales pitch. This time it's a LALA Times tribute to Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, which as I pointed out without the benefit of somebody named Susan King, elected Nixon president -- and it's there in the LALA Times because AOL's selling a DVD set. What's good for AOL....
150,000 attend Houston Pride Parade
The more news hacks use statistics, the more they get people mad -- and the more politically charged a story the more suspect the numbers. These same people said that hundreds of thousands, millions, protested war in Iraq; they've given counts on Iraqi war dead that have ranged from thousands to gazillions; they gave us numbers of dead in the Riyadh bombing from 10 to 91; they give us movie box-office estimates that are sometimes off by several millions; they said untold zillions would die from SARS; they've told us anywhere from 750 to 3000 troops would be deployed to fight terrorism in the Philippines; they've said 3,000 or 18,000 are active in al Qaeda; they're addicted to global warming stories because they let them famously screw around with numbers -- AND, the biz employs Paul Krugman. News hacks already tell lies and damn lies; the statistics are but the icing on the cake.
The more news hacks use statistics, the more they get people mad -- and the more politically charged a story the more suspect the numbers. These same people said that hundreds of thousands, millions, protested war in Iraq; they've given counts on Iraqi war dead that have ranged from thousands to gazillions; they gave us numbers of dead in the Riyadh bombing from 10 to 91; they give us movie box-office estimates that are sometimes off by several millions; they said untold zillions would die from SARS; they've told us anywhere from 750 to 3000 troops would be deployed to fight terrorism in the Philippines; they've said 3,000 or 18,000 are active in al Qaeda; they're addicted to global warming stories because they let them famously screw around with numbers -- AND, the biz employs Paul Krugman. News hacks already tell lies and damn lies; the statistics are but the icing on the cake.
The League of Nations fights -- corruption pffh hh hh hh hh hh!!!!!
Saturday, June 28, 2003
Does anyone edit superstar news hacks on the Web? In the third graf of her June 27 piece on BLUNDER.com Eleanor "The Token" Clift writes, "[L]awmakers fear the unknown." Then in the last graf she writes, "Democratic officeholders have a fear of the unknown." So is it lawmakers or Democratic lawmakers? If I did something like this I'd be in a tiz for days. With someone like Eleanoooooh it's an extra $200,000 in the bank.
CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) says (with a smile) that our death toll in Iraq has passed the "grim milestone" (oh, how pleasing to the ears) of 200. That, by even CURLEY's admission, is still little more than half the death toll in Gulf War I, and three-and-a-half-percent the US toll in Vietnam. Still, with news hacks, Iraq will be QUAGMIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! forever.
Isn't it enough Kofi that the League of Nations has already screwed up big time in Africa? No -- we gotta screw up one more time!
Looks like the latest superbudgeted superhyped superdumb piece of cinematic dog t -- er, the latest wondrous masterpiece of the filmic art blew a relative fuse at the box-office.
She's been out of the public eye for six years, but the Demi Moore publicity machine is working full throttle again.
And it wouldn't work if we jaysonists didn't supply copious amounts of WD-40.
And it wouldn't work if we jaysonists didn't supply copious amounts of WD-40.
JACK, THE MAN WHO MADE MOVIES STINK, WANTS TO QUIT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Your life's just BEGUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, his would-be successors have been drooling for the chance for years. Boy could we put one over on the public now! And what a standing-room list: Slick, Billy "The Broadcaster's Lackey" Tauzin, Ed "V-Chip" Markey, can't count out Mary "Copyright Forever and a Day" Bono -- heck, can't count out Trent Lott, who passed the Disney Protection Act under cover of darkness (although that's probably a nonstarter because he's REPUBLICAN -- then again, with "one-party rule" maybe it'll start after all). Sen. Foghorn Leghorn's NG because he's almost as old as Methusa -- JACK, and we don't want a cartoon character as our lobbyist (even if one already is). Shouldn't dismiss high-profile frauds like Mickey Mouse Michael though. That could be his retirement job. His most natural successor (and we definitely shouldn't count him out) is Ken Auletta, who knows all about expensive suits, Morton's, and sucking up. He's at the top of my list. Although Claudia "The Cheerleader" Eller would make a natural spokesperson for bad movies. Don't forget the Spy Brothers Carter and Anderson. They'd party without END.
Are there any available candidates already in the Mafia?
Anyway, his would-be successors have been drooling for the chance for years. Boy could we put one over on the public now! And what a standing-room list: Slick, Billy "The Broadcaster's Lackey" Tauzin, Ed "V-Chip" Markey, can't count out Mary "Copyright Forever and a Day" Bono -- heck, can't count out Trent Lott, who passed the Disney Protection Act under cover of darkness (although that's probably a nonstarter because he's REPUBLICAN -- then again, with "one-party rule" maybe it'll start after all). Sen. Foghorn Leghorn's NG because he's almost as old as Methusa -- JACK, and we don't want a cartoon character as our lobbyist (even if one already is). Shouldn't dismiss high-profile frauds like Mickey Mouse Michael though. That could be his retirement job. His most natural successor (and we definitely shouldn't count him out) is Ken Auletta, who knows all about expensive suits, Morton's, and sucking up. He's at the top of my list. Although Claudia "The Cheerleader" Eller would make a natural spokesperson for bad movies. Don't forget the Spy Brothers Carter and Anderson. They'd party without END.
Are there any available candidates already in the Mafia?
eBay wouldn't engage in this whirlwind of PR if scamming weren't a problem. Let's see if it actually works.
Friday, June 27, 2003
Maybe it's more than your politics: About five hours ago America's most intrepid reporter, Walter Winchell, said that an Arab newspaper reported that al Qaeda's number-two man and its chief spokesman were captured in Iran. Five hours later, that scoop is inexplicably missing.
Time to pull that hat down over your head again, WALTER.
Time to pull that hat down over your head again, WALTER.
KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH I hear KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! the footsteps KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! of the newshack KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! THOUGHTPOLICE!!!!!
KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!
The author of the first of the Biskindites' Movies-Were-Better-Than-Ever-in-the-Seventies movies, an award-winning hack named Newman, has died. This piece of cinematic brilliance helped bring forth the set of circumstances that now make good movies impossible and "critically-acclaimed" movies impossible. (Ironically, the author of this immortal masterpiece also wrote the Superman supermegamarketing movies, which I guess had to be masterpieces too.)
I got an idea, Dubya! Let's make Nelson Mandela president for a month.
I predict after a month we'd have depression, famines, pestilences, hundreds of terrorist attacks and 23 simultaneous wars. Wanna do it, Dubya?
I predict after a month we'd have depression, famines, pestilences, hundreds of terrorist attacks and 23 simultaneous wars. Wanna do it, Dubya?
New Yorkers who made a national pastime out of seeing the shrink are sending their dogs to yoga classes. This way their dogs go to the dogs too.
QUAGMIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! takes a new turn. Now it's called Incomplete.
P. S. The word "retired" appears in the story five times.
P. S. The word "retired" appears in the story five times.
Paul "You Can Do Anything with Numbers" Krugman, inspired by Frank "The Gliberal" Rich's way of imitating a stroke before he'd write his columns, turns his face beet red and his head three-times-normal size fantasizing that America is becoming a one-party state. Calm your blood pressure, Paul, there's an answer: the one-party state of media and academe.
Reuters is gushing that some clowns starting America's 4,728th cable channel have sandblasted Jackie Gleason "Honeymooners" shows from the late sixties. These are not the immortals of '55-'56, the Holy Grail of sitcomdom; these are hour-long musicals, with (as I recall them) corny plots, corny songs, corny production numbers, and very little funny. Yet it is a measure of how hard up cable-TV networks perennially are for reruns that we got a press agent to call them "classic." Hey but The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and Gilligan's Island (which also aired on the alleged Tiffany Network, then called CBS) are "classic" too. Right?
Congresspoops Mary "Copyright Forever Minus a Day" Bono and Billy "The Broadcaster's Lackey" Tauzin made a rap video ("to an Eminem tune") for record-industry lobbyist Hilary. Figures. They both have ATTITUDE.
Hope someday that video shows up in public and does the same damage to their reps as all those Enron videos. Six of one....
Hope someday that video shows up in public and does the same damage to their reps as all those Enron videos. Six of one....
I am hard-pressed to judge Strom Thurmond's significance. Yes, he led the Dixiecrat walkout of the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia in '48, presaging the South's walkout of the party in the decades following; but what else did he do? His Senior Outhouse career was as undistinguished as it was long. Name one piece of -- legislation for which he's famous. No, Strom Thurmond was a get-along, go-along politician, changing allegiance with the changing times, who'll be remembered, thanks to serving in his old age under the Kliegl lights of television, as a doddering puppet for staff-member ventriloquists. I'm not sure that's how he should be remembered; I'm not sure that's how he shouldn't be.
Thursday, June 26, 2003
I'm starting to peruse Jeff Jarvis's blog, and I'm starting to think maybe working in the AOL megamachine for years and years isn't as deadening to the soul as I thought.
Another GoogleBlogger innovation: all our posts now have eighteen digits. WOW!!!!!!!!!!
Stories like this are useless (or worse, more synergistic jaysonist mea culpas) because people now instinctively know to give up and say, Big Media, you win again. When we turn over our life, our liberty, and even our pursuit of happiness to a few moguls, we may as well burn our Constitution and our laws. It is precisely such stories that led Bill Safire to hope and pray that GENERAL JR.'s rehearsal for his career as a zillionaire lobbyist could be overturned. I wish I could be hopeful, but as the experience of over a century shows, faced down by media moguls the public doesn't stand a chance.
IF the Saudis prosecute the alleged Riyadh bombing "mastermind," AND convict him, AND sentence him to death or at least an airless cell for life, THEN we'll know they're serious.
I'll hand this to the Nine Fingers: even with their lack of understanding of the Constitution, they realize the Founders put the prohibition on ex-post-facto laws in for a reason, even if it helps buggering ex-priests.
RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s PR man Roger writes a delicious story about the premiere of yet another superbudgeted superhyped superdumb piece of cinematic dog t -- er, another wondrous masterpiece of the filmic art. As he puts it with typical understatement, "[Drew] Barrymore is no Claudette Colbert."
Another nice thing about the new GoogleBlogger: you can't right-click open your blog in a new window with View Blog. Way to GO!
The Nine Fingers' ruling on Texas's sodomy law seems reasonable; government's last place should be in the bedroom. But then those forces of left, er, right, the enforcers of America's speech code, the defenders of what Joseph Epstein has called totalitarian pluralism -- the NEWS HACKS -- grab hold of the story like a dachshund engaged in a death struggle with his leash, and before you know it, COMRADE STALIN HAS SCORED A TREMENDOUS VICTORY OVER BOURGEOIS REACTIONARY HOOLIGANISM!
William Safire says GENERAL JR.'s opponents can get around Billy "NAB" Tauzin in the House. We'll see. We'll see.
All this scratching of the head, Donna, over MONEY? Heck LeBron didn't wax philosophic before singing that Nike contract. Neither did the Hokies -- they just followed the example of the exalted senior Sen. Ossified Kleagle and said, "MONEY!!!!!" And isn't MONEY what professional college sports is all about?
ANOTHER NEW GOOGLEBLOGER INNOVATION: It won't stop posting -- even when you have nothing to post! IT'S THE ELECTRONIC HICCUPS!!
WE KNEW YOU'D COME THROUGH!!!!!
WE KNEW YOU'D COME THROUGH!!!!!
Arafat Says Arab Militants Expected to Approve Cease-fire
And the following week there'll be three suicide bombings. (I guess he "said" this in English.)
I'm waiting for the cream-pie from this latest CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) to splat us in the face.
And the following week there'll be three suicide bombings. (I guess he "said" this in English.)
I'm waiting for the cream-pie from this latest CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) to splat us in the face.
Looks like Mickey Mouse Michael has given Harvey Whiner the go-ahead to throw his company's money down the toilet.
Sorry Whiner, last I checked, Arthur Freed was still dead. He has to be. I don't think he'd produce Pippin otherwise.
(It's printing bloviations like these that allows Jaysons to emerge. Why can't editors control their charges' insatiable desires? Because they share them?)
Sorry Whiner, last I checked, Arthur Freed was still dead. He has to be. I don't think he'd produce Pippin otherwise.
(It's printing bloviations like these that allows Jaysons to emerge. Why can't editors control their charges' insatiable desires? Because they share them?)
A NEW GOOGLEBLOGGER INNOVATION: Make an error typing in your links, and it disables all your previous links on the Edit Post page!
We KNEW you'd come through!
We KNEW you'd come through!
8 MILLION COULD LOSE OVERTIME PAY!!!!!!!!!! Well if this isn't nirvana for hard-core conservatives, Dick "Free Market" Armeys, Jim "Dow 36,000" Glassmans, Buttman, er, Cato Institutes, etc., etc., etc., -- but then you go to Google and learn from the leftist news-tantrum-throwing group FAIR that the source of that headline, the Economic Policy Institute, is "progressive." One of my favorite Beltway frauds: give your group an anodyne name to disguise its contempt for the public. Even better: no mention in the MESS.com report that the group's, er, "progressive." I HATE WASHINGTON!!!!! I HATE NEWS HACKS!!!!!
The hero of the third world is reduced to communicating by mail.
Hey hero worshippers! Isn't it time to join the 21st century?
Hey hero worshippers! Isn't it time to join the 21st century?
I'm not sure what the difference is between the new, "improved" GoogleBlogger and the old, unimproved GoogleBlogger, colors and fonts excepted -- but we did have to wait for hours to get it.
Let's see if it crashes as often as it used to.
Let's see if it crashes as often as it used to.
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
The New York Times had a general in the army! (Half-point demerit for being reported by Little Howie "Hair Shirt" Kurtz.)
Comedy Central has laid off twenty percent of its workers thanks to Viacon's getting total control, but don't cry; it'll triple in size in five years, thanks to the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers.
Another Harvard Business School case study from the Disney Network: You pay umpteen gazillions to keep a show on the air, then you move it around the schedule forty times, then the ratings tank, and you blame -- nobody?
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Can Bush Be Both Ignorant and a Liar?
Kinsley.com should be careful whom it picks fights with, for BILL THE ENTOMOLOGIST has proved one can be a OMNIPOTENT and a liar.
Kinsley.com should be careful whom it picks fights with, for BILL THE ENTOMOLOGIST has proved one can be a OMNIPOTENT and a liar.
For policemen and firemen to be wearing blackface (at all, let alone in public) was WRONNNNNNNNNNG, but for one of America's most PC cities to fire the men smacks of a certain intolerance too.
And who fired the men? Mayor Saintly Hero.
And who fired the men? Mayor Saintly Hero.
A thoroughly depressing story on urban spelunking in Detroit. What could be glories are vacant rotting hulks because Babbitts don't want to be caught within 1,000 MILES OF A NIG -- an urban-warfare zone.
While there's a bit of the Camille Paglia to this long dissertation against you-know-who and her books, the fact remains this is the first negative article I've read on the phenomenon in quite a while. You-know-what books have entered the Pantheon of the Untouchable, along with HBO series -- they cannot, and WILL NOT, be criticized, not only because of the "what's-good-for-AOL" mentality that dictates the news biz, but perhaps because the jaysonists feel that by criticizing you-know-who and you-know-what they may discourage kids to read (as if they don't provide enough discouragement themselves), ignoring what this writer says very plainly: too many adults are reading the books too. The argument that you-know-what books are a manifestation of "cultural infantilization" cannot be ignored.
Thank you, ArtsJournal.com, for not linking to a press release or a trendy rave, for once.
Thank you, ArtsJournal.com, for not linking to a press release or a trendy rave, for once.
Looks like those knee-jerk communistic CNN types weren't the only ones who slobbered over Saddam. (Half-point demerit for being reported by Little Howie "Hair Shirt" Kurtz.)
Does anyone remember a book called Living History? It's down to 9 on Amazon.com.
Don't put too much credence in publishers' numbers.
Don't put too much credence in publishers' numbers.
I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THIS WOULD HAPPEN: Guess who's joining in the battle over Spike (Arf! Arf!) TV? THE SON OF SPIKE JONES!!!!!
In some secluded rendezvous....
In some secluded rendezvous....
Atlanta's transit authority wasted millions of high-tech, New York's Health Department wasted millions on high-tech. Lord knows how many other times this has happened. Maybe the promise of Bill isn't all he cooked it up to be.
Certain gung-ho conservative bloggers are getting all riled at Congressman Weathervane's lame assertion (made before the Je$$e Gang) that he would overturn Nine Fingers rulings with executive orders. Why now? Where were they when presidents flung pieces of paper out the Oval Office declaring God-knows-what and allowing God-knows-what? Why are these truth-tellers suddenly shocked! SHOCKED! that a president would want to have his way? Methinks they doth blog too much.
Monday, June 23, 2003
Okay, so it wasn't 38, but proving that the cultural crime of all time happened at that @#$%&* Iraqi National Museum is an ever more desperate enterprise, and perhaps it's a measure of how news hacks can't afford to overplay their hand that the Post relegated this to an inside page, on a Saturday, and I only found out about it two days after the fact via ArtsJournal.com.
Somebody had to compile a list of "10 Most Influential Blogs" (the usual, many like the Professor and Andy S. and Mickey with connections to Big Media), which means they get read and nobody else does, which means other good blogs get ignored, which means we have the same self-selection in blogging that we have in Big Media, which means blogging is ossifying, which means why bother blogging?
The LA police officer who writes for NRO under the nom de keyboard "Jack Dunphy" sums up the news hacks' attitude very well:
We know best, you see, and if you disagree it can only be attributable to some gross defect of character that renders you unfit for polite company.
I mentioned earlier the great difference between news hacks and politicans. That reminds me of a lyric from the long-ago flop musical How to Steal an Election:
And when you're on the ticket (Yes, sir!)
You'll learn rape is not a crime
When you do it to the voters
A million at a time! (Doodley doodley doodley)
Substitute "in the newsroom" (or rather, news suite) and "readers" (or "surfers") and you'll get the idea. News hacks, politicans -- as the great Don Marquis's alter ego archy the cockroach quoted a flea, "millionaires and bums taste about alike to me." And many news hacks and politicians are both.
We know best, you see, and if you disagree it can only be attributable to some gross defect of character that renders you unfit for polite company.
I mentioned earlier the great difference between news hacks and politicans. That reminds me of a lyric from the long-ago flop musical How to Steal an Election:
And when you're on the ticket (Yes, sir!)
You'll learn rape is not a crime
When you do it to the voters
A million at a time! (Doodley doodley doodley)
Substitute "in the newsroom" (or rather, news suite) and "readers" (or "surfers") and you'll get the idea. News hacks, politicans -- as the great Don Marquis's alter ego archy the cockroach quoted a flea, "millionaires and bums taste about alike to me." And many news hacks and politicians are both.
Little Howie "Hair Shirt" Kurtz does a favor for the New York Observer -- so much of a favor you'd never know it's lost millions. (It's "not far from turning a profit" says Howie in his best let's-weave-and-dance-and-canter-around-the-truth mode. Clever writing! Maybe you ought to be in the Observer. And this is in the same column as Mortimer's fib?)
Senators Say Five Years in Iraq Is Realistic
Longer is likely, I'd bet. I don't care -- as long as we do it right.
Longer is likely, I'd bet. I don't care -- as long as we do it right.
You-know-who's American publisher is insisting you-know-what has sold an "estimated" five million copies. But you-know-who won't let her British publisher give out sales figures. Is her American publisher telling the truth? Regardless, one thing's clear: the PR -- er, news hacks won't if they can help it.
The Nine Fingers in the Wind have also decided Congress can force libraries to install Internet porn filters whether librarians like it or not. All these decisions were what are called "split," which is to say, The Nine Fingers in the Wind don't know how to point.
The Nine Fingers in the Wind have decided race preferences in universities are maybe sorta kinda rather good and maybe sorta kinda rather bad.
I've no doubt knee-jerks like Jim "Dow 36,000" Glassman would insist the cure for our economic doldrums is more M&A.
Problem is, so many companies have already M&A'd so much it would require GEs to merge with Microsofts. Which would be just fine with Jim "Dow 36,000" Glassman.
Why do I think the hard-core "capitalist" is nothing more than a communist in drag?
Problem is, so many companies have already M&A'd so much it would require GEs to merge with Microsofts. Which would be just fine with Jim "Dow 36,000" Glassman.
Why do I think the hard-core "capitalist" is nothing more than a communist in drag?
What is the difference between a news hack and a politician?
None. Both kinds of creatures always campaign, always search for a better job, always mug for the cameras, always lie (the politician calls it "plausible deniability," the news hack calls it "objectivity") -- and they're both in "show-biz for ugly people."
None. Both kinds of creatures always campaign, always search for a better job, always mug for the cameras, always lie (the politician calls it "plausible deniability," the news hack calls it "objectivity") -- and they're both in "show-biz for ugly people."
Sunday, June 22, 2003
At Tony Award time I said that Broadway was a glorified tourist trap and the allegedly bustling theater scene outside New York was largely a thing of navel staring. Here's proof of both. All these geniuses trodding the earth writing musicals, and they're mad because -- the New York critics don't like them! Could it be that the reason the critics don't like them is because -- their music is no good? One of their excuses is they're up against the Broadway Branson machine, but because it disgorges so much bad and overrated doesn't make their work any better. So people like Adam Guettel (who'd be nowhere without that healthy dose of Richard Rodgers in his bloodline) have taken their acts on the road, to the usual appreciative crowds of 100. It is highly unlikely any of the names in this report will ever find an audience outside what the news hacks must call "cults." It's just not a good time for music, period -- not least because of the musicians.
Greek Forces Find 680 Metric Tons of Explosives on Ship
And if it had been bound for us would the Greeks (who loved us during the war) have sent it on its merry way?
And if it had been bound for us would the Greeks (who loved us during the war) have sent it on its merry way?
In yet another lengthy self-serving jaysonist mea culpa, CNN and CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!), all but admitting there's no difference between them and alcoholics and drug addicts, say "we're sorry" for devoting so much time to Laci. Hey IDIOTS! You've been saying the exact same thing again and again since OJ. The fact that this story was more important than Columbia shows YOU'LL NEVER CHANGE -- and unlike most alcoholics and drug addicts, that's precisely how you six- and seven-digit frauds want it.
GENERAL JR.! BILLY "NAB" TAUZIN! SUMNER! ZON!! RUPERT!!!!! LOWSY MAYS!!!!!!!!!! WE MUST PREVENT BROADCASTERS LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!
Friends and supporters say his denunciations of the war, his fiery stump attacks on Bush and his signing of Vermont's landmark bill allowing gay and lesbian civil unions have painted an inaccurate national picture of Dean.
As governor, Dean was a fiscal conservative whose steadfast opposition to some taxes and spending programs rankled the state's vast reservoir of liberal activists.
Unfortunately, he's not running for governor.
As governor, Dean was a fiscal conservative whose steadfast opposition to some taxes and spending programs rankled the state's vast reservoir of liberal activists.
Unfortunately, he's not running for governor.
When Palestinians kill Israeli civilians, and the Israelis strike back by killing terro -- Palestinian leaders, that's WRONG!
NEWT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NEWT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This week BLUNDER's "Conventional Wisdom" features a "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Edition." I don't blame them: if I were MR. ARROGANT BLUNDER I'd want to stay anonymous myself. (Although who knows: at BuffettMedia the moron's a hero no doubt.)
Take this story -- about millions in waste on unused computers at Atlanta's transit authority -- and multiply it by three. Now take THIS story, and multiply it by 50,000, and you get an idea of the jaysonists' priorities.
The author of you-know-what refuses to have her publisher disclose her sales, an extremely shrewd move on her part, for it allows the news hacks to do what they do best -- endlessly speculate, endlessly publicize, and endlessly BS.
THE INTERNS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE USA OKAY SITE AND WON'T LET GO!!!!!
Former Congressmen Bob Stump dies (headline)
Rep. Bob Stump, R-Ariz. died Friday at a Phoenix. (photo caption)
The interns must have had something against former Congressmen Stump.
Former Congressmen Bob Stump dies (headline)
Rep. Bob Stump, R-Ariz. died Friday at a Phoenix. (photo caption)
The interns must have had something against former Congressmen Stump.
One hopes the historical spectacle is the next big sewer drain for the film biz, but it's been lucky far too many times before.
Saturday, June 21, 2003
In what is less a tribute to a "pioneering" show-biz flack than another lengthy self-serving jaysonist mea culpa, the LALA Times admits the weekend box-office lies, er, grosses have become pure PR (not that that would stop the LALA Times, of course -- if it stopped running PR it would stop covering show-biz), and more to the point, that the news hacks' obsession with these numbers helped cause the explosion in el-stinko movies, and that the veritable inventor of gross BO reporting, a Variety hack named Art Murphy, was not pleased.
Sorry that so many of my posts are inspired by LALATimes.com, but on a daily basis it runs more risible stuff than any other newspaper-based Web site, NYTimes.com and SFGate excepted.
Sorry that so many of my posts are inspired by LALATimes.com, but on a daily basis it runs more risible stuff than any other newspaper-based Web site, NYTimes.com and SFGate excepted.
INTERNS TAKE OVER USA OKAY SITE!
Freight train derails into So. Calif. neighborhood Town officials upset that their was no warning of runaway cars.
Pope gets chilly reception Pontiff's visit to ethnically divided Bosnia-Herzegovina innerves many Christian Orthodox Serbs.
Or do we have the equivalent of a byline strike in the works?
Freight train derails into So. Calif. neighborhood Town officials upset that their was no warning of runaway cars.
Pope gets chilly reception Pontiff's visit to ethnically divided Bosnia-Herzegovina innerves many Christian Orthodox Serbs.
Or do we have the equivalent of a byline strike in the works?
A follow-up to the LALA Times and horse manure: Years ago Smithsonian ran a story on the endless and endlessly fascinating subterranean caverns of New York, miles and miles of crawlspaces and walkways and abandoned subway stops and old train tunnels. It followed a man -- I forgot what he did; I think he worked for Con Edison or a city agency -- who came by one spot in the depths, took a sniff, and said, "Elephants." He was under the site of the long-demolished Hippodrome Theater, whose last show (in 1935) was the famed Rodgers-and-Hart circus spectacular Jumbo, with Jimmy Durante, "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," and elephants. I can thus say with absolute certainty that the LALA Times's smell of horse manure will survive anyone alive today -- and possibly even the LALA Times itself.
Here's predicting Reader's Digest Association declares bankruptcy. It won't do to say the flagship publication's a relic that survived, unlike Life or The Saturday Evening Post, nor that it couldn't adapt to change, nor that its purpose was superseded decades ago by other media; the truth is it's a thoroughly atrocious magazine that abandoned its strengths, and its core readership, for the usual celebrity worship and vapid "service" features, and people subscribe to it out of habit, much like the newsmagazines, and those people are dying off, and given how atrocious Reader's Digest is, you couldn't pay the replacement readers to subscribe to it.
Again, we have the definition of musclehead.
Whom the Hollywood demigods love their cousins the news hacks love with equal fervor, so I guess we can be expecting a tsunami of press releases for Gov. Dean, despite Sen. Heinz' lovely hair helmet.
By the way, who's "Marvin Hamish"? A hamish actor?
By the way, who's "Marvin Hamish"? A hamish actor?
Aw shucks, that hard-headed Dubya's keeping us oil bigwigs from making a killing in Iran.
Why not talk to Vice-President Inside?
Why not talk to Vice-President Inside?
U.S. forces broke into an abandoned community hall early Saturday and seized piles of intelligence equipment and top secret documents bearing the seal of the former Iraqi secret service.
Must've had some weird square dances.
Upstairs above the hall, which also was used as a funeral parlor, the troops found two large rooms stacked with cryptograph machines, secure transmission devices and binders of documents, with more papers strewn on the floor.
Very weird square dances.
Must've had some weird square dances.
Upstairs above the hall, which also was used as a funeral parlor, the troops found two large rooms stacked with cryptograph machines, secure transmission devices and binders of documents, with more papers strewn on the floor.
Very weird square dances.
With thirty runaway freight cars barreling down a track at 70 mph, what would you do?
God, I hate repeating myself: every column inch news hacks devote to onanism is "one less to expose corrupt politicians, one less to expose church sexual abuse, one less to expose business chicanery, one less to expose supporters of terrorism, one less to expose squalor in schools, one less to...."
But like the man said, what's good for KnightRidder is good for America!
And another thing: what you onanists forget is that thanks to the Web we get a lot more of your bullhockey. What was easily avoided with one newspaper becomes a deluge with hundreds of newspaper sites. Please, PLEASE, jaysonists, we know you love yourselves so much, but please, PLEASE, OCCASIONALLY, respect our intelligence and leave us alone. PLEASE?????
But like the man said, what's good for KnightRidder is good for America!
And another thing: what you onanists forget is that thanks to the Web we get a lot more of your bullhockey. What was easily avoided with one newspaper becomes a deluge with hundreds of newspaper sites. Please, PLEASE, jaysonists, we know you love yourselves so much, but please, PLEASE, OCCASIONALLY, respect our intelligence and leave us alone. PLEASE?????
[S]ome Democrats want the Clintons to go away [?!?!?]:
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently did focus groups around the country with Democratic-leaning voters and found widespread resentment of both Clintons, according to a Democratic aide familiar with surveys conducted in several cities.
Many focus group participants called the former president "immoral, smooth, crooked" and dishonest, the aide said, while Hillary Clinton was seen as an "opportunist." "It gives us a brand we just don't need," the aide said.
Immoral, Smooth, Crooked™. Who says marketing doesn't work?
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently did focus groups around the country with Democratic-leaning voters and found widespread resentment of both Clintons, according to a Democratic aide familiar with surveys conducted in several cities.
Many focus group participants called the former president "immoral, smooth, crooked" and dishonest, the aide said, while Hillary Clinton was seen as an "opportunist." "It gives us a brand we just don't need," the aide said.
Immoral, Smooth, Crooked™. Who says marketing doesn't work?
Friday, June 20, 2003
Belgian Minister Sued Under Own Human Rights Law
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
Okay, news hacks, here's a question for you: Which got more coverage: the new Harry Potter book, or Osama before 9-11?
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT! YOU LOSE!! (And we lose too, it goes without saying.)
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT! YOU LOSE!! (And we lose too, it goes without saying.)
Here's the next professional-sports scam: teams named for corporate sponsors. After that it's players, coaches, ball boys, and...all I know is, it'll lure a LOT of fans.
Okay, maybe "interest groups" are "exploiting" the Catholic church's sex scandals, but I'd say a few of the Catholic church's own priests did a pretty good job exploiting boys.
Keeping in mind the last post, House Majority Leader Snidely Whiplash just made Texas Monthly's Top-10 Worst Legislators' list!
I don't know about worst, but prevaricating, perhaps; annoying, definitely.
I don't know about worst, but prevaricating, perhaps; annoying, definitely.
"Good press or bad press, all press is equal in our eyes,” said Peter Kafka, an editor at Forbes, explaining why his magazine annually insults its readers' intelligence with a blend of conjecture and PR and BS called The Forbes Celebrity 100.
Or as Peter Carlson wrote:
...[T]here are many reasons for the rise of The List. The top five reasons are:
1) Lists are the easiest way to organize information without actually thinking.
2) Magazine editors are too lazy to think of anything more creative.
3) Magazine editors figure their readers are too lazy to read anything but lists.
4) Magazine readers really are too lazy to read anything but lists.
5) David Letterman's Top Ten lists have warped everybody's mind.
Most magazine lists are, needless to say, totally stupid.
Or as Peter Carlson wrote:
...[T]here are many reasons for the rise of The List. The top five reasons are:
1) Lists are the easiest way to organize information without actually thinking.
2) Magazine editors are too lazy to think of anything more creative.
3) Magazine editors figure their readers are too lazy to read anything but lists.
4) Magazine readers really are too lazy to read anything but lists.
5) David Letterman's Top Ten lists have warped everybody's mind.
Most magazine lists are, needless to say, totally stupid.
Movies will not get better: a bunch of fans run overly popular Web sites for obsessive-compulsives that have the ear of the moguls, thus making them even more dependent on "product" for dumb blind teens.
Continuing on the subject of cheerleading, I cite this piece as an example of how news hacks can have it multiple ways. While Claudia dons the skirt and waves the pom-pons and yells out all her Jerry Dreck and Paul Dreck routines with a 500-watt bullhorn, someone named Phil Sheridan dumps on the Philadelphia 76ers' new head coach even before his hiring is announced. Okay, maybe the guy will be a rotten head coach, but he's no more deserving of being walloped than Claudia is of her job at the LALA Times, and the oafishness of Phil's column even more glaringly shows off the sell-out of Claudia's.
It's hard to tell from the real-estate writers -- a flock even more notorious for its cheerleading than the show-biz writers, but far less harmful -- but "downtown" New York does seem to be doing well enough. Now why can't somebody just erase that hole in the ground?
Add the LALA Times to the list of Web sites that could use sound effects. Today show-biz-cheerleading resume writer Claudia Eller gives us a great big
'RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!
'RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!
Thursday, June 19, 2003
Education is the great financial rathole of America, with untold hundreds of billions going to taj mahals, dubious pedagogy, incompetent teachers, and lazy administrators. But the big reason the rathole remains so oblivious to change is that the students don't seem to be getting -- or becoming -- appreciably smarter.
Speaking of CEOs, why keep a shrew when you can have -- A BILLIONAIRE?!?!?
Think of it, Slick -- Missus is financially independent now, thanks to her fiction skills. (Notice I didn't say fiction writing.) And just imagine all those hundreds of millions to feed the hungry, clothe the naked -- and speaking of naked, you could a have a nice harem on the side, with hundreds of willing women to service your every whim when you're not out there doing the exhausting business of improving the world. And with the change, why, you could bri -- you could talk people into giving you a THIRD TERM!
So why not? Anna Nicole Smith showed there's no harm in it. Go for it, Slick! Be the GOLDDIGGER OF 2003!
Think of it, Slick -- Missus is financially independent now, thanks to her fiction skills. (Notice I didn't say fiction writing.) And just imagine all those hundreds of millions to feed the hungry, clothe the naked -- and speaking of naked, you could a have a nice harem on the side, with hundreds of willing women to service your every whim when you're not out there doing the exhausting business of improving the world. And with the change, why, you could bri -- you could talk people into giving you a THIRD TERM!
So why not? Anna Nicole Smith showed there's no harm in it. Go for it, Slick! Be the GOLDDIGGER OF 2003!
WE'RE IN THE MONEY!
Why can't these mismanaging Super-Pointy-Haired Bosses be out of the money for once?
Why can't these mismanaging Super-Pointy-Haired Bosses be out of the money for once?
I guess the Canadians will have another excuse to cry in their Molson's and project their manifold failings on us, but military personnel should very seldom, if ever, be prosecuted for acts of friendly fire. Though what happened to the Canadian troops was a tragedy, it is also a cost of war.
If this talk of Belgium prosecuting us for war crimes ever gets beyond the yakkety-yak phase -- it appears it won't -- we should break diplomatic ties posthaste.
Let them eat brie.
Let them eat brie.
Report by the E.P.A. Leaves Out Data on Climate Change
Gay Marriage Plan: Sign of Sweeping Change in Canada
Has the Times thought of equipping its Web site with sound effects, so that when you click on the first story you'd get loud BOOOOOOOS, and the second, tremendous CHEEEEEERS? It might add to its aura. The late HOWELL would certainly have approved.
Gay Marriage Plan: Sign of Sweeping Change in Canada
Has the Times thought of equipping its Web site with sound effects, so that when you click on the first story you'd get loud BOOOOOOOS, and the second, tremendous CHEEEEEERS? It might add to its aura. The late HOWELL would certainly have approved.
A happy day: the moron who made American Movie Classics into the American Motors Corporation Channel ("Lots of clunkers, lots of ads!™") has been fired along with thirteen other Cablevision employees for cooking the books.
You have to wonder how many other cable programmers are lying between their reruns.
You have to wonder how many other cable programmers are lying between their reruns.
Yes, the smell of beer and horse manure wafting from "Animal House" is still redolent, 25 years after its release.
And yes, the smell of horse manure will be wafting from the LALA Times long after the last person alive from today has shuffled off this mortal coil. (No beer; in today's luxury news suites they drink Perrier.)
Beware any article bylined "special."
And yes, the smell of horse manure will be wafting from the LALA Times long after the last person alive from today has shuffled off this mortal coil. (No beer; in today's luxury news suites they drink Perrier.)
Beware any article bylined "special."
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
We should all mourn that Hollywood cannot and will not produce pictures for adults -- the way it used to. The problem is, scarcely a week before the LALATimes's ad-blurb copywriter Kenneth Turan demanded "serious, intelligent works with dark [WHY MUST NEWS HACKS USE THAT WORD?!?!?], grown-up themes", his colleague Patrick "The Mogul's Friend" Goldstein was raving over one of the would-be tycoons who makes hits for stupid blind teens. Show-biz news hacks have thoroughly laid waste to the notion of quality in entertainment, first with their mindless raves, and second with their endless valentines.
Sen. Hatch made idiot comments suggesting show-biz zap people's computers when they illegally download copyrighted material. Combine this with the heavily-denied suggestion that Sonny Bono's panting congresspoop widow wants to run the RIAA and it looks like Republicans are doing big business as usual with a vengeance.
I agree that the estate tax should be repealed. It's double jeopardy in taxation. Nonetheless because REPUBLICANS suggest it, they stand accused -- with no small justification -- of pandering to their infernal constituencies, big business and the superrich, and it is some relief to learn it stands not a chance in the senior outhouse. If only there were just way of doing it, but so long as both parties stand solely for their special interests they will never be just.
There's an exceptionally lurid trial going on here in Philadelphia in which four teenagers are accused of practically crushing a fifth to death after luring him with the promise of sex. Normally I ignore crime stories involving private citizens -- news hacks notwithstanding, I find them repetitive and dull -- except that it reminded me once again of the despicable flack Richard "ADVERTISEMENT" Corliss, as the teens prepared for their act listening to the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" 42 times. Yes Synergy Dick, listening to a song, or seeing a movie, won't lead you to commit a crime. But one such crime here, and another such crime there, and a third crime there, and more and more such crimes everywhere suggest, as I said before, that something has snapped in the American psyche, and the pop-culture biz must be held to account for its part, along with indifferent parents and defective schools.
Now the Orbiting Jalopy goes up (so they say) in 2004's first quarter.
If they do go up, they risk another catastrophe. If they don't go up -- they can wait a few years and make a much better vehicle.
If they do go up, they risk another catastrophe. If they don't go up -- they can wait a few years and make a much better vehicle.
Introducing -- THE SOMINEX CHANNEL!!!!!
"Watch Sominex tonight and sleep.
Safe and restful sleep, sleep, sleep."
"Watch Sominex tonight and sleep.
Safe and restful sleep, sleep, sleep."
Another mark of moral excellence: the EX-bishop of Phoenix may have driven under the influence.
Is it me, or do most of these clerics who get in trouble look like Walter Mitty? (The exception, of course, is Mr. Law, who looks like a former GM chairman, and that is NO compliment.)
Is it me, or do most of these clerics who get in trouble look like Walter Mitty? (The exception, of course, is Mr. Law, who looks like a former GM chairman, and that is NO compliment.)
Sumner took my advice! It's back to #2.
Now I can boast of my connections the same way Ken Auletta can.
Now I can boast of my connections the same way Ken Auletta can.
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
On the day Viacon tells us "Hillary 'Clinton's'" "memoirs" have sold 45 million copies, the book mysteriously slips to #4 on Amazon.com.
Sumner! Buy another two million!
Sumner! Buy another two million!
In professional college football, calling a coach an Al Capone is a compliment.
And when the man calling him Al Capone says Clinton was a good president (typical Kinsley.com punchline), it's a double compliment.
And when the man calling him Al Capone says Clinton was a good president (typical Kinsley.com punchline), it's a double compliment.
Three things will happen: the top execs will attend a few games, and a few games only, yell "I HAVE A LUXURY SUITE AND YOU DON'T!!!!", take zillions in tax breaks off of our hides, and, with any luck, see their stock decline eighty percent in two years.
By the way, the bank's the Philly branch of a Rhode Island firm owned by a Scottish bank. When do you suppose they find out?
By the way, the bank's the Philly branch of a Rhode Island firm owned by a Scottish bank. When do you suppose they find out?
Newt opens his mouth -- AGAIN!
We may be tempted -- given his history, given that he does look like an overgrown Dennis the Menace, given his shrill, piercing whine -- to say shut up, but he knows, as most people know, Fogbound is filled with appeasers and Beeb fans, who'll do anything to sell us out in the name of a peace (sic) of paper, or a promise, or a puff piece in the Times. Keep it up, Newt.
We may be tempted -- given his history, given that he does look like an overgrown Dennis the Menace, given his shrill, piercing whine -- to say shut up, but he knows, as most people know, Fogbound is filled with appeasers and Beeb fans, who'll do anything to sell us out in the name of a peace (sic) of paper, or a promise, or a puff piece in the Times. Keep it up, Newt.
What could have gone through that bishop's mind as he drove away? I guess we shouldn't be too harsh; in the same circumstance we might panic too. But this wasn't a common criminal, or a teenager, or someone with a sixth-grade education. This was the putative leader of 430,000 Catholics. Had he a little common sense he'd have been moved to a momentary passion, and stopped his car to see what happened; and if what he preached was more than platitudes, or CYA for his turning the other cheek at buggery, he'd have seen what happened, and might have tried a little CPR, or at least dialed 911. But the leader of 430,000 Catholics just drove away, indicating that perhaps he didn't have common sense, and perhaps what he preached were mere platitudes -- in short, he was a Lawless Law of the West. What we do have here is tragic, but swift, justice.
I see the Professor and the No-Spin Spin Doctor are in a food fight. The Web should be given wide latitude; but Mr. No-Spin has a good point too: it is easy to ruin someone's rep with a few keystrokes. That the Professor calls No-Spin a crybaby tells me he hasn't considered his point enough.
Monday, June 16, 2003
If Tinkertoys and shards are a bad idea, a void is worse -- a perpetual Oprahland of self-pity, a maudlin admission of cultural defeat -- and at any rate part of the void has been filled in with public-works projects. God I wish somebody like William Van Alen were around who could combine rememberance and soaring optimism.
I don't know who Tye Wolfe is, but (while he does work in the place the Freepers MUST call "The City of Evil," and his letter is couched in the usual mealy-mouthed news-hack blah about "journalistic independence") clearly the Twicks of ATWOLA Publishing are getting on someone else's nerves too.
In one of the greatest distributions of a resume in newspaper history, a hack named Vinay whinnies that TV has turned our life into paradise. Or to quote some of the wind he/she/it expels from his/her/its lower orifice,
Without television, they might still be fighting in Vietnam. [Or, since this hack can't write, maybe "they" would have concluded the war successfully and several millions of Southeast Asians would still be alive.] The Tiananmen Square massacre may have escaped detection. [Boy did that make a big difference.] Cameras were there when JFK and Trudeau [HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! These Canadians are SO -- er, provincial] were laid to rest, when the Shuttle went up [and blew up, again and again and again and again and again], when the Berlin Wall came down [and the Osama empire went up, hardy har har], when The Newsroom [some CBC series nobody here has ever heard of] said hello, when Cheers said goodbye.
TV also brought us reality programs, MTV, Comedy Central, Oprah, Jerry Springer, the WTC falling 50 billion times, the OJ chase, race riots like LA '92, focus groups, CNN's intrepid reporting of Tailwind and from Iraq, non-stop pundits, non-stop advertising, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Gilligan's Island, the CNBC Bubble, al Jazeera, the month-long anthrax panic, the presidency of Richard Nixon, the presidency of Billy Jeff, the 2000 presidential election, crooks and rogues like Barry and Enright and Chuck Barris and Jim "The Cobra" Aubrey and Fred Silverman and Aaron Spelling and RUPERT!!!!!!!!! and Sumner and Jesus II and Mickey Mouse Michael and Geraldo and Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, pompous asses like HHWWalter Crrronkite and Norman Lear and GOD and Lord Koppel of Eisner, the Deer Hunter suicides, Action News, $12 million anchormen, $500 million athletes, canned laughter, monopolies, TV "critics" -- but why go on with the mentally challenged? He/she/it goes on,
[I]n my experience children who watch shows such as Bob The Builder or Teletubbies seem to be bright, engaged and well-adjusted.
Kids who watch no television at all — not so much.
Okay, Know-It-All, explain why home-schoolers -- many of whom probably are raised without television -- make up a disproportionate number of the finalists in contests like the National Spelling Bee? But then to systematically dissect this piece of dead frog in print would take days and ruin my eyesight. We can end it, though, with his/her/its last line:
So the real test is this: Can you turn it off?
Yes, you can turn the television off. BUT WHO CAN TURN TELEVISION OFF?!?!?
Happily, some nerd at the Toronto Star's Web site got the last laugh:
Time to accept television f[SIC]
(Courtesy of the IMBECILES at ArtsJournal.com, who HAD to link to this.)
Without television, they might still be fighting in Vietnam. [Or, since this hack can't write, maybe "they" would have concluded the war successfully and several millions of Southeast Asians would still be alive.] The Tiananmen Square massacre may have escaped detection. [Boy did that make a big difference.] Cameras were there when JFK and Trudeau [HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! These Canadians are SO -- er, provincial] were laid to rest, when the Shuttle went up [and blew up, again and again and again and again and again], when the Berlin Wall came down [and the Osama empire went up, hardy har har], when The Newsroom [some CBC series nobody here has ever heard of] said hello, when Cheers said goodbye.
TV also brought us reality programs, MTV, Comedy Central, Oprah, Jerry Springer, the WTC falling 50 billion times, the OJ chase, race riots like LA '92, focus groups, CNN's intrepid reporting of Tailwind and from Iraq, non-stop pundits, non-stop advertising, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Gilligan's Island, the CNBC Bubble, al Jazeera, the month-long anthrax panic, the presidency of Richard Nixon, the presidency of Billy Jeff, the 2000 presidential election, crooks and rogues like Barry and Enright and Chuck Barris and Jim "The Cobra" Aubrey and Fred Silverman and Aaron Spelling and RUPERT!!!!!!!!! and Sumner and Jesus II and Mickey Mouse Michael and Geraldo and Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, pompous asses like HHWWalter Crrronkite and Norman Lear and GOD and Lord Koppel of Eisner, the Deer Hunter suicides, Action News, $12 million anchormen, $500 million athletes, canned laughter, monopolies, TV "critics" -- but why go on with the mentally challenged? He/she/it goes on,
[I]n my experience children who watch shows such as Bob The Builder or Teletubbies seem to be bright, engaged and well-adjusted.
Kids who watch no television at all — not so much.
Okay, Know-It-All, explain why home-schoolers -- many of whom probably are raised without television -- make up a disproportionate number of the finalists in contests like the National Spelling Bee? But then to systematically dissect this piece of dead frog in print would take days and ruin my eyesight. We can end it, though, with his/her/its last line:
So the real test is this: Can you turn it off?
Yes, you can turn the television off. BUT WHO CAN TURN TELEVISION OFF?!?!?
Happily, some nerd at the Toronto Star's Web site got the last laugh:
Time to accept television f[SIC]
(Courtesy of the IMBECILES at ArtsJournal.com, who HAD to link to this.)
WHY DON'T YOU TWO COMPANIES JUST MERGE? You've already turned everything you've touched into advertising.
Isn't monopolizing great, GENERAL JR.?
Isn't monopolizing great, GENERAL JR.?
Another of Ed Rendell's mayoral-campaign platforms was to turn all of our Center City into a gigantic back lot. That way we'd get zillions of free publicity in bad movies and millions and millions and millions in the fees and taxes and revenues that would never materialize (thanks to caterers and lawyers), and every street would be a frozen zone. Just think of rubbing bumpers with some third-rate star's stretch limo! Apparently in LALALand they're not quite as gullible.
Does the Washington Post site have a theme song?
For God's sake, Sousa wrote you a march. You don't have to give us "Meg's Mirthful Mugging."
For God's sake, Sousa wrote you a march. You don't have to give us "Meg's Mirthful Mugging."
Flowers? Peaceful-looking white wisps? The late Ayatollah should be surrounded with fire and flying pitchforks.
And a lot of young Iranians would seem to agree.
I suppose I can just understand why news hacks think they must run junk like this -- they suppose they're coffee klatches in print. But I don't click on news Web sites to shoot the bull; I click on them for information. There's too much bull in newspapers as is. Shut up, Mortimer.
Airbus Wins $8.5 Billion Order, May Pass Boeing as World's Top Planemaker [front-page headline]
And we couldn't have done it without LOTS of support.
And we couldn't have done it without LOTS of support.
Sunday, June 15, 2003
I dedicate this entry to America's news hacks, particularly that breed that insists on overrating every pop-music act that comes down the splitting-headache pike: on GOOGLE, entering "rap genius" creates 104,000 hits, "rap brilliance" 23,100 hits, "hip-hop genius" 98,100 hits, and "hip-hop brilliance" 17,900. (By contrast, "Mozart genius" yields 62,900, and "Beethoven genius" 57,900.) Yes pop culture is disproportionately represented on the Web, and yes most of the hits have nothing to do with rap and genius combined, and evidently there's a rap act with Genius in its name, but enough of them do combine to demonstrate yet another example of the news hacks' intellectual slumming and whoring.
Well that was an exciting tournament zzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZ. How many more such exciting events can professional sports endure before its ratings really plummet?
THE GLIBERAL says "the media" have overdone L'Affaire Blair. Problem is, others have said it better. MUCH better.
I SAY IT'S SYNERGY, AND I SAY THE HELL WITH IT.
What's the difference between a dog's call to nature and ATWOLA magazine? ATWOLA does it four million times a week.
Sorry, but these hacks have a visceral contempt for their readers.
(I've changed the name from AOL Time Warner rag as that name always pops up in the URLs of AOL sites, and it does sound comical.)
What's the difference between a dog's call to nature and ATWOLA magazine? ATWOLA does it four million times a week.
Sorry, but these hacks have a visceral contempt for their readers.
(I've changed the name from AOL Time Warner rag as that name always pops up in the URLs of AOL sites, and it does sound comical.)
Doot do doot dooooo do doot dooooo do do doot! FLASH! MUSIC BIZ IGNORES ADULTS!! Doot do doot dooooo do doot dooooo do do doot!
Saudi Arabia's holy cockroaches are serious. Are the Saudis?
That we have to ask this after such a raid means it will be a long, long time before we take the Saudis' protestations seriously.
That we have to ask this after such a raid means it will be a long, long time before we take the Saudis' protestations seriously.
Evan Thomas (Norman Thomas's grandson) writes for BLUNDER. Evan co-wrote a big, BIG story saying government leaders were caught up in a big, BIG BLAME GAME over the catastrophe in Iraq. Evan's co-authored story said the CIA was suicidal because its sources at the Beeb said THE STREET was about to let forth with cataclysmic demonstrations, and when it told members of the senior outhouse, they wanted to jump off the Capitol dome. Now Evan tells us al Qaeda's regrouping and ready to strike. Does that mean he's right again?
ANOTHER BIG WINNER FOR THE ASH:
"I don't think (terrorists) have the middle name 'Ozzie,'" says David Nelson.
"I don't think (terrorists) have the middle name 'Ozzie,'" says David Nelson.
After the news we're selling the joint for umpteen gazillion I'd take a little nap too.
Saturday, June 14, 2003
Remember Jayson Blair? Fired from the New York Times because all his stories filed from Tuscaloosa and Pocatello were actually written in his bedsit with a bit of local colour lifted from the internet? What exactly did he do wrong? He copied what everybody else was saying, and it was mostly true and he saved a bundle on expenses.
On the other hand, media organisations spent a fortune sending vast teams halfway across the world to Baghdad to come back with a news event that never happened, and then paid their heavyweight commentators even more dough to amplify the hogwash. I mean, in what way is Simon Jenkins's column* any less risible than that Iraqi information minister announcing that the American aggressors' stomachs are now being roasted in hell? And which ought to be the greater media embarrassment - the sacking of Jayson Blair or the non-sacking of the Baghdad Museum?
Good question, Mark Steyn!
*This hack wrote of "...the destruction of the greatest treasure from the oldest age of Western civilisation, the greatest heritage catastrophe since the Second World War. We who claim to crusade for civilised values could not summon one tank to defend their earliest repository..." Or as Mr. Steyn says, "Etc., etc."
On the other hand, media organisations spent a fortune sending vast teams halfway across the world to Baghdad to come back with a news event that never happened, and then paid their heavyweight commentators even more dough to amplify the hogwash. I mean, in what way is Simon Jenkins's column* any less risible than that Iraqi information minister announcing that the American aggressors' stomachs are now being roasted in hell? And which ought to be the greater media embarrassment - the sacking of Jayson Blair or the non-sacking of the Baghdad Museum?
Good question, Mark Steyn!
*This hack wrote of "...the destruction of the greatest treasure from the oldest age of Western civilisation, the greatest heritage catastrophe since the Second World War. We who claim to crusade for civilised values could not summon one tank to defend their earliest repository..." Or as Mr. Steyn says, "Etc., etc."
Looks like the news hacks are back to pound-the-table pound-the-table POUND-THE-TABLE mode, and if the object of their affection doesn't happen to own one of the best search engines and one of the worst Weblog services.
Think we can blow up a second bubble?
Think we can blow up a second bubble?
Well look who's leading the Open? POLITICALLY INCORRECT!
If only Howell were still alive.
If only Howell were still alive.
It appears that, given Friday's B.O. numbers (see #3 and #4), marketing may only go so far. And is that hissing sound the air coming out of Harrison Ford's career?
Stories like this make you work extra-hard to discern the motive, and motive you can be sure they have. Do they run as form of mea culpa? As a kind of disclaimer? As a fig leaf to use in legal actions? As a grudging repsonse to the homicidal hatred more and more people have toward megamedia? Even if this story's motive is pure, we must view it as dishonest. How does that kind of overtime thinking help you news hacks?
In the ideological pretzel factory of jaysonism, a hack named Rutten decides that Walter Duranty was "a bottom-feeder," "BUT",
the Times has forthrightly confronted its institutional complicity, most recently in the 150th anniversary issue it published two years ago. In that same issue, former Times Executive Editor Max Frankel commented at length and with equal candor on what he called "the century's bitterest journalistic failure" -- the Times' refusal to print what it knew about the Holocaust that consumed 6 million European Jews a decade after the Ukrainian famine.
In other words, the Times has institutionally paid for Walter Duranty's sins, therefore, Walter Duranty keeps his Pulitzer.
He also tries to justify the piece of tin by saying the Ukrainians who've mounted the campaign against Duranty have kept stone quiet on their own people's acts of genocide. In other words, because Ukrainians were involved in genocide, Walter Duranty keeps his Pulitzer.
One way we know news hacks are among the smallest minded people on earth is the sheer obsession they have with winning awards. The carnival that is the Pulitzers, with its months of long-distance preening and lobbying and begging and beseeching, is a forum for the circus clowns of print to justify their lives; without that medallion, everything, EVERYTHING is worthless. It never occurs to them that ninety-nine one-hundredths of what they do is worthless. They GOTTA have that piece of tin!!!!! Take even ONE piece of tin away, from even -- a BOTTOM-FEEDER, and what does that do to our SELF-ESTEEM?!?!?
Here's a question, Tim -- if you had lived in 1932, would YOU have done any better? OF COURSE YOU WOULD!
the Times has forthrightly confronted its institutional complicity, most recently in the 150th anniversary issue it published two years ago. In that same issue, former Times Executive Editor Max Frankel commented at length and with equal candor on what he called "the century's bitterest journalistic failure" -- the Times' refusal to print what it knew about the Holocaust that consumed 6 million European Jews a decade after the Ukrainian famine.
In other words, the Times has institutionally paid for Walter Duranty's sins, therefore, Walter Duranty keeps his Pulitzer.
He also tries to justify the piece of tin by saying the Ukrainians who've mounted the campaign against Duranty have kept stone quiet on their own people's acts of genocide. In other words, because Ukrainians were involved in genocide, Walter Duranty keeps his Pulitzer.
One way we know news hacks are among the smallest minded people on earth is the sheer obsession they have with winning awards. The carnival that is the Pulitzers, with its months of long-distance preening and lobbying and begging and beseeching, is a forum for the circus clowns of print to justify their lives; without that medallion, everything, EVERYTHING is worthless. It never occurs to them that ninety-nine one-hundredths of what they do is worthless. They GOTTA have that piece of tin!!!!! Take even ONE piece of tin away, from even -- a BOTTOM-FEEDER, and what does that do to our SELF-ESTEEM?!?!?
Here's a question, Tim -- if you had lived in 1932, would YOU have done any better? OF COURSE YOU WOULD!
Friday, June 13, 2003
From the excellent (though occasionally cloying) NRO, yet another indication that true unconventional wisdom comes to news hacks once in a month of Sundays: Somebody cuts down Willie Nelson's rep, and boy does that multi-million-dollar-owing monotone's rep need a good chainsaw.
I don't know why Kinsley.com keeps knocking Bob Graham's candidacy. He may be stiff, and he may pander, and yes, he did give away some credibility on national security, but he isn't a flake, and I think he could beat Dubya.
I HAVE TO REMIND YOU MOVIE-AD-BLURB COPYWRITERS, it was all your adjectives of orgasmic praise over Dumb and Dumber, There's Something About Mary, etc., etc., ETC., that brought on all the dumb teen flicks you ostentatiously DESPISE. You scratch the movie moguls' backs so many times we can feel our skin peeling off.
Another immortal cliche: News hacks have said "rock music is dead/dying/defunct" for going on twenty years. Truth is we have more annoying pop music now than ever, and rap is just another form of rock, without the music.
Somebody named Peter Plagens complains "a critic’s pronouncing somebody 'the greatest/most-important sculptor/bassoonist/director/novelist/cheesemaker/whatever of his generation'...says that the critic wants to get the authoritative-sounding but actually sonorously empty words 'greatest' and 'generation' together in the same sentence." True enough; but Peter wrote these words for BLUNDER.com, whose parent rag has been the home of the late Jack "I Never Met a Movie or Play I Didn't Like" Kroll, David "MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!" Ansen, and Devin "The PR Guy" Gordon, and which puts some overrated show-biz phenom on its cover every third or fourth issue, and that is perhaps first among the newsweeklies in running advertorials. Your truth, Peter, is somewhat vitiated by the vehicle you've chosen for it.
I should have known the MORONS who told Howell and Co. about the "ransacking" of the @#$%&* Iraqi National Museum were "Ba'ath Party appointees".
And with all due respect Charles, "narcissist" and "snob" are too weak words to describe THE GLIBERAL.
And with all due respect Charles, "narcissist" and "snob" are too weak words to describe THE GLIBERAL.
That new Oz musical opening on the coast sounds like a little bit more o'Branson, and what with the ad-blurb copywriters' proclivity to sugar-coat and soft-pedal everything, it's probably worse than he says.
Thursday, June 12, 2003
If this writer is to be believed, Tina does the absolute worst interviews on television -- worse than Larry, worse even than "Lollipop" Lou Dobbs.
How fitting. Sucking up seems to rob a person of his vocabulary.
How fitting. Sucking up seems to rob a person of his vocabulary.
First the memorial pit would be 70 feet. Then it went to thirty feet. Now people are talking of eliminating it. It has been quite obvious from the start that the WTC rebuilders don't know what they're doing, and it was inevitable with the dearth of architectural visionaries like William Van Alen we'd be stuck with corporate boxes, or the late unlamented Tinkertoys, or the Shards. We're well on our way to what I feared would happen: construction of an ugly, impractical, politically-sired horde of white elephants.
Sounds like Little Jeffrey's boys are doing HEAVY-DUTY lobbying, and as usual the news hacks are in up to their eyeballs in show-biz' dirty work, and by September they'll be so busy crawling over one another for the usual adjectives of toadying we may scream, as would the truth faced with Jayson Blair. By the way Jeff, why is it in your zillion-dollar corporate campaign you never mention the network? 'Course LEGENDARY never did either.
Gregory Peck and David Brinkley at least superficially had a lot in common: Good looks, earnestness, a low-keyed nature and deep baritones, from (Brinkley) or identified with (Peck) the South, representatives of a media past that no longer exists. Both could have played Abraham Lincoln, and while I don't know if "the elder statesman of TV news" could have been an actor, Peck could easily have been a network-TV anchorman. While it is true that Brinkley became a star because of a gimmick -- the match with the long-deceased Chet Huntley, which was for quite a while more popular than Uncle Walt -- unlike the 'dos of our day Brinkley could write, and observe, with a trenchant wit that should have come to the surface far more than the demands of TV news would let it. As for Peck, it is to his credit that, while he did appear in a fair number of Valenti-era movies [i.e., automatic stinkers, or as the movie-ad-blurb copywriters would say, masterpieces], he refused to do "turkeys," and he even starred in a few gems -- mostly early on. Another word that comes to mind for both gentlemen: integrity -- and I say that in spite of Brinkley's unfortunate shilling in retirement for ADM; after all, Chet appeared at a piano bar for American Airlines just before he died. We forgive you. RIP.
Mickey D's is backbackBACK with the loonies of Wall Street, nearly doubling in value in the last three months. And company management's trying to fix the chain with a heavy dose of the news hacks' favorite word, HIP. But there is reason for hope:
"Their image problem may be more psychological than physical," says Joseph Selame, branding director at Brand Equity International. No matter how the chain fixes food or restaurants, "There's a negative train of thought that goes through many people when they think about McDonald's."
Translation: bad food, dirty stores and LOTS of TV advertising = no trips to McDonald's.
"Their image problem may be more psychological than physical," says Joseph Selame, branding director at Brand Equity International. No matter how the chain fixes food or restaurants, "There's a negative train of thought that goes through many people when they think about McDonald's."
Translation: bad food, dirty stores and LOTS of TV advertising = no trips to McDonald's.
Bush Under Fire in Congress for Criticizing Israel
Is Dubya taking advice from Papa's shifty-eyed appeaser Jim "The Fixer" "OIL! OIL!! ANYTHING FOR OIL!!!!!" Baker?
Is Dubya taking advice from Papa's shifty-eyed appeaser Jim "The Fixer" "OIL! OIL!! ANYTHING FOR OIL!!!!!" Baker?
Bush limits involvement in Mideast (MESS.com headline)
After the great successes of the last several weeks I'd say that's a good idea.
After the great successes of the last several weeks I'd say that's a good idea.
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
I must admit I'm slightly uncomfortable with the idea of honoring show-biz types on commemorative stamps; the time will come when we honor Mick Jagger and Eminem and Jack Nicholson and other retch-provoking no-accounts. That said, we did put the likes of Judy Garland (and the dog not named Toto) on a stamp, something she richly deserved, whatever her private life; and if we're going to honor any other actress, let it be Audrey Hepburn -- an eternal beauty, a surpassing humanitarian. That face alone is testimony that we are not living in entertainment's golden age, whatever the grosses.
And for once the Postal Service got it right -- very right.
From Amazon.com's entry on Sen. Rodham's fully-ghosted factually-challenged "memoirs":
4 people recommended The Little Guide to Happiness: How to Smile Again in addition to Living History
Is this an appropriate recommendation?
5 people recommended Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism instead of Living History
Is this an appropriate recommendation?
I don't know. I think they may both fit in somehow.
4 people recommended The Little Guide to Happiness: How to Smile Again in addition to Living History
Is this an appropriate recommendation?
5 people recommended Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism instead of Living History
Is this an appropriate recommendation?
I don't know. I think they may both fit in somehow.
The pink-papered piece of puppy-training litter that gave us Candace "EW! YUCK!! GROSS!!!" Bushnell thinks HOWELL did a good job.
You and who else?
You and who else?
I don't know, Dickie V, I think things are gonna get messy in the gloryland of professional college sports!
LEE SMITH FOR NEXT EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES!!!!!
(I guess even Bill's Kinsley.com magazine is embarrassed; usually it gives its worst pieces a big graphic.)
(I guess even Bill's Kinsley.com magazine is embarrassed; usually it gives its worst pieces a big graphic.)
As I've said before, news hacks are always walloping Wal-Mart not for the greedy conniving things it shouldn't do but for the politically incorrect things it should. This is the first time I've actually seen somebody defend the company for its "prudery." Could our republic take -- two such columns?!?
In its latest hopeful thinking, NASA plans to launch the orbiting jalopies by daylight.
Didn't it launch Columbia during the day too?
Didn't it launch Columbia during the day too?
Gay marriage poses a conundrum for news hacks: It's obviously THE RIGHT THING, but support it with too much fervor and our single-digit declines become double-digit (not to worry about advertisers; they'll always be "cool"). WHAT TO DO?
Of course we're hearing about it because the guy's A REPUBLICAN, but I'm not surprised the majority whip of the House wants to do a little favor for Altria MOtive; tobacco is the conservative's favorite drug. It is to Denny's credit he pulled Roy's you-scratch-my-back out of the bill, even if out of scaredy-catness.
Yesterday I blew up at CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) for running a press release. Today I blow up at his former employer, USA Okay, for running this complete waste of time and resources about the definition of cool. If news hacks are going to spend so much effort trying to rot our brains, why don't they just end the game and declare bankruptcy? They already have the moral kind.
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Every column inch given over to press releases is one less to expose corrupt politicians, one less to expose church sexual abuse, one less to expose business chicanery, one less to expose supporters of terrorism, one less to expose squalor in schools, one less to...
And CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!), I'd like to hear you tell me to my face this isn't a press release.
And CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!), I'd like to hear you tell me to my face this isn't a press release.
A Slate typist posits that Wal-Mart is today's GM, without noting the irony. (A Slate article without -- IRONY?) If a GM could stumble and fall, one had better not hold his breath that the retail tyrant of Bentonville can't do the same thing.
Youth is valued. So is "edginess," whatever that is. Arrogant disrespect is so much more interesting than painstaking reverence.
Who's YOUR boss, Roger?
Who's YOUR boss, Roger?
One of HOWELL's central desires was to turn all his paper's cultural coverage into a quote fount for Andy S.'s Poseur Watch. Judging from stories like this, even with Howell gone, he's succeeding.
It's not just that the same Gang of Idiots is controlling the media as twenty years ago -- it's essentially the same as seventy-five years ago. And it's wishful thinking to compare them to the chaebol, and hope they'll collapse. If a company like Paramount can endure in various forms for a century, its owner, Viacon, with much better management, could survive for many more centuries.
It doesn't look good for purer-than-the-driven-snow Martha when her buddy gets 87 months.
Here's a double maroon: a maroon for serving beer to eighth-graders, and a maroon for partying with eighth-graders.