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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Saturday, February 01, 2003
NOTE: This has not been my best day. Aside from my heavy heart over Columbia's fall I just can't seem to do anything right with this blog. I type things that I'm certain make me sound like a blowhard or a fool. No wonder I can't get published. I suspect if I had a counter I'd be lucky to reach negative single digits. It takes more to blog than an opinion. But I'll keep trying, and maybe something I'll say will make some sense after all.
This video from Floridatoday.com shows "debris" falling down Columbia's left side during liftoff. Ice? Challenger, of course, took off on an abnormally cold day, and if I'm not mistaken it had been somewhat chilly lately in Florida. The unidentified chunk goes dark, and then kicks up (or disintegrates in) a shower of debris at the end. Ice? Insulation? Both? You can't tell because of the selective darkness (and also because you can't back-and-forth the video).
Well prof, I'll give you a little benefit of the doubt. Something happened on the left side of Columbia. But let's wait until the experts convene. With our luck this will be all they can go by.
Well prof, I'll give you a little benefit of the doubt. Something happened on the left side of Columbia. But let's wait until the experts convene. With our luck this will be all they can go by.
A little comic relief here (and boy do we need it): Former Gov. Ryan of Illinois has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
I'm sure we'll all be anxious to see him accept the award -- IN PRISON.
I'd give him a slight chance except they've already awarded a citizen of the wo -- an American.
Anyone want to organize an expedition of crime victims to Oslo if he wins?
I'm sure we'll all be anxious to see him accept the award -- IN PRISON.
I'd give him a slight chance except they've already awarded a citizen of the wo -- an American.
Anyone want to organize an expedition of crime victims to Oslo if he wins?
I should have posted this earlier: A scientist of Indian birth was among the Columbia crew.
She was also an American.
May God grant you all eternal peace.
She was also an American.
May God grant you all eternal peace.
I must post this: The authorities have found remains. I suppose we'll hear that this helps bring "closure." It doesn't.
Now I know he was a moron: Steve Case predicted AOL's market cap would surpass GE's and Microsoft's! Last week we sniffed the tendrils of bankruptcy. The best-laid plans of mice and men result in rodent leavings and deep doo-doo.
Much as I loathe Big Brother -- I mean, big media -- didn't a tax on newspapers (among other things) help bring on the Revolution?
Another Republican governor raises taxes. In Dan Rather's immortal word, "Courage."
Another Republican governor raises taxes. In Dan Rather's immortal word, "Courage."
The Mess is reporting that the debris hasn't stopped falling yet. If I lived in East Texas I'd stay indoors for awhile.
One wonders how the propagandists in the Arab state media are "reporting" the Columbia story. Do they count six astronauts? Or six astronauts and a hook-nosed monkey? They must be having fits at The Osama Channel. MEMRI should make interesting reading in the next few days.
Notice the slut who's reported this laughs that the astronauts died over Palestine, bwaaahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!! Which I'm afraid in Texas is pronounced Pal-uh-steen.
Hey Barb! You should get a job at Whorevis Communications.
Notice the slut who's reported this laughs that the astronauts died over Palestine, bwaaahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!! Which I'm afraid in Texas is pronounced Pal-uh-steen.
Hey Barb! You should get a job at Whorevis Communications.
The Times gives six possible causes for Columbia's failure of which I got two (well, one-and-a-half), Professor InstaPundit one, and they pay him the big bucks. (I promise I will not mention his name again -- for a while.) But brace yourselves:
"There's a strong possibility they may never know," said John Tylko, a space shuttle expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "There are no on-board flight recorders that are recoverable," as is usually the case in commercial airplane crashes.
That last fact to me is remarkable, considering the almost infinite chances for something to go wrong on that spacecraft.
"There's a strong possibility they may never know," said John Tylko, a space shuttle expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "There are no on-board flight recorders that are recoverable," as is usually the case in commercial airplane crashes.
That last fact to me is remarkable, considering the almost infinite chances for something to go wrong on that spacecraft.
Manned space flight will now be in the Russians' hands for some time. And their record for disaster is far worse than ours.
Meantime Professor InstaPundit knows -- knows -- it was "a zipper effect [in the heat-resistant tiles] followed by burnthrough and structural damage, leading to the loss of the left wing," that caused the disaster -- this when investigators have just started collecting debris, this when there's no clear visual evidence from earth or anywhere else of the exact cause, unlike the Challenger explosion, which was more or less obvious. Let's wait for the pros, huh prof? Even with your many assistants and contracts you're still only a professor with a computer. I will give you credit if you're right. But remember, your name isn't Richard Feynman -- and they don't give Nobel prizes in law, yet.
Sorry if my bitterness comes through, but it can be a little gloom-provoking when you're typing a blog only for yourself.
Meantime Professor InstaPundit knows -- knows -- it was "a zipper effect [in the heat-resistant tiles] followed by burnthrough and structural damage, leading to the loss of the left wing," that caused the disaster -- this when investigators have just started collecting debris, this when there's no clear visual evidence from earth or anywhere else of the exact cause, unlike the Challenger explosion, which was more or less obvious. Let's wait for the pros, huh prof? Even with your many assistants and contracts you're still only a professor with a computer. I will give you credit if you're right. But remember, your name isn't Richard Feynman -- and they don't give Nobel prizes in law, yet.
Sorry if my bitterness comes through, but it can be a little gloom-provoking when you're typing a blog only for yourself.
We're lucky nobody was killed or seriously injured in Columbia's debris field. A CBS station reports 27 in and out of the hospital in Nacogdoches.
One thing is certain: from that little bit I get of the Web, a lot of people knew Columbia was lost well before the TV 'dos did.
One thing is certain: from that little bit I get of the Web, a lot of people knew Columbia was lost well before the TV 'dos did.
If certain movie stars are so -- "hot" -- why must they do commercials in foreign countries?
Encouraging words: The Tinkertoy scaffolds and glass shards projected for the WTC site may never come true if Larry Silverstein has his say -- and he does have a big say. Go get 'em, Larry.
I can see one likelihood if the scaffolds come to pass: guano. They're open structures and birds would nest and squat on every level. To keep them off would be a never-ending struggle. Plus the Tinkertoys might not stay up in a fierce wind. A fitting tribute to Howell.
I can see one likelihood if the scaffolds come to pass: guano. They're open structures and birds would nest and squat on every level. To keep them off would be a never-ending struggle. Plus the Tinkertoys might not stay up in a fierce wind. A fitting tribute to Howell.
Professor InstaPundit's making a big thing that some idiot CBC commentator apparently asked whether the Columbia disaster could be blamed on "American arrogance." I wouldn't be surprised; but prof, calm down, calm down, huh?
This will seem very, very small-minded, but it appears today's sporting events will not be canceled. When bad things like this happen -- except for monstrosities like 9/11 -- we need the distraction. We must recognize that disaster is a fact of life in space -- America alone has lost seventeen noble astronauts in three accidents over thirty-six years -- and not let life come to a complete stop. That the big-money element enters into the equation makes the sports types look crass, but they'd look crass anyway. But we can't just think of this the whole day. Therein lies madness. Besides, all manner of bad TV will be running, shuttle disaster or no. Why should live sporting events be prohibited as if by law?
I say this because I stopped watching prime-time entertaiment decades ago -- I blame Doris Day, though I have since more than forgiven her for her singing -- and sports are my only respite, though less so as Chevy Chase Syndrome completely takes over.
Eventually I'll discuss one of the true gems (chuckle, chuckle) of TV: The Confusion Channel.
I say this because I stopped watching prime-time entertaiment decades ago -- I blame Doris Day, though I have since more than forgiven her for her singing -- and sports are my only respite, though less so as Chevy Chase Syndrome completely takes over.
Eventually I'll discuss one of the true gems (chuckle, chuckle) of TV: The Confusion Channel.
"AWFUL EVENT." The New York Times could not think of better words to lead on Lincoln's assassination, and so I will use them now. I was asleep when the Challenger exploded, so I missed that one. Thankfully I missed this too, although the omnipresent TV cameras appear to have caught little more than streaks in the sky. (I won't be tuning into TV, either, wall-to-wall speculation and replays, as always.) At least this happened instantly. Let us pray the astronauts were spared the agony of the Challenger crew of descending in their cabin, perhaps not entirely unconscious. (Something I remember well: The shuttle was planned so that a parachute would be stored in the nose and deploy in event of an accident. Cost cutting took it out. One wonders whether that would have made any difference.) The understandable first bit of speculation -- given an Israeli astronaut was on board (the Israelis must be taking this quite hard) -- is that holy cockroaches did it. This strikes me almost totally unlikely: The vehicle and the launch site were exceptionally well secured prior to launch, by all accounts, and the Columbia was flying at an extremely high altitude and I doubt that the evil geniuses would have anything to take a spacecraft down. Let us go to the only likely cause: the shuttle just conked out. Face it, how many times did Columbia go up and down, up and down in flight? How long was it in service, close to two decades? If airplanes have disintegrated in flight, it makes sense to think a space shuttle could, enduring as it does tremendous G-forces and terrific extremes of heat and cold. Columbia could not take one more landing.
We should not stop sending people into orbit, that's a given, but with NASA marching in place for so long it's dug a hole for itself with its marching boots. Now is the time for a thorough top-to-bottom scrubbing of our space program. If it's in business to do high-PR school-kid experiments, and to kill people in flight, it serves less than a useful purpose.
The disaster also puts the space station at risk; it looks more like an orbiting pork barrel than ever. Are we going to build a replacement for Columbia, or wait for the much vaunted "next generation" of space vehicles? And how much will either option cost? Were we still cannibalizing the shuttle fleet for repairs? We shall soon learn, I guess.
A further thought: I remember the late, great Mike Royko, in one of his rare lapses of judgment, expounding with intensest vitriol that the idiots who launched the Challenger should be tried and convicted. No. That would have been scapegoating. Launching a shuttle is a huge collaboration, and no one person should have taken the blame for that, nor now. (Although Morton Thiokol's culpability is coming back to me.)
A further further thought: Was it space junk? Did it hit debris before reentering the atmosphere? There are a lot more metal shards up there than there were in 1986. I doubt it, but that's a further further thought.
One last observation: I HOPE NO ARABS ARE CELEBRATING.
Update: Columbia was in service for twenty-two years. Some civilian aircraft are retired long before that. Discovery and Atlantis are almost as old. This is unacceptable.
Update 2: I'm trying to find information on the life expectancy of airplanes; this is proving difficult. I found one piece indicating the lifespan of the Airbus models A330 and A340 is twenty years, so I may not be wrong.
Update 3: Here's something I didn't know (as if I know anything): Boeing and Lockheed Martin manage the shuttle fleet. Their joint venture, United Space Alliance, was formed in 1996 to consolidate NASA contracts. I wonder if this was in any way a consequence of Challenger.
We should not stop sending people into orbit, that's a given, but with NASA marching in place for so long it's dug a hole for itself with its marching boots. Now is the time for a thorough top-to-bottom scrubbing of our space program. If it's in business to do high-PR school-kid experiments, and to kill people in flight, it serves less than a useful purpose.
The disaster also puts the space station at risk; it looks more like an orbiting pork barrel than ever. Are we going to build a replacement for Columbia, or wait for the much vaunted "next generation" of space vehicles? And how much will either option cost? Were we still cannibalizing the shuttle fleet for repairs? We shall soon learn, I guess.
A further thought: I remember the late, great Mike Royko, in one of his rare lapses of judgment, expounding with intensest vitriol that the idiots who launched the Challenger should be tried and convicted. No. That would have been scapegoating. Launching a shuttle is a huge collaboration, and no one person should have taken the blame for that, nor now. (Although Morton Thiokol's culpability is coming back to me.)
A further further thought: Was it space junk? Did it hit debris before reentering the atmosphere? There are a lot more metal shards up there than there were in 1986. I doubt it, but that's a further further thought.
One last observation: I HOPE NO ARABS ARE CELEBRATING.
Update: Columbia was in service for twenty-two years. Some civilian aircraft are retired long before that. Discovery and Atlantis are almost as old. This is unacceptable.
Update 2: I'm trying to find information on the life expectancy of airplanes; this is proving difficult. I found one piece indicating the lifespan of the Airbus models A330 and A340 is twenty years, so I may not be wrong.
Update 3: Here's something I didn't know (as if I know anything): Boeing and Lockheed Martin manage the shuttle fleet. Their joint venture, United Space Alliance, was formed in 1996 to consolidate NASA contracts. I wonder if this was in any way a consequence of Challenger.
Friday, January 31, 2003
NOTE: I hope I make sense. Sometimes when I read my posts I see non-sequiturs and omissions and all sorts of bad things. Luckily, no one else reads them, so I'm spared some embarrassment. Still, I plod on, fifteen or so posts a day, and will do so until it no longer seems worthwhile, whenever that is.
DANGER! DANGER! South Africa's "fighting deadly malaria" with -- DDT! Oooooooooh! Might poison some eggs.
Will someone tell me why so many female rock acts -- I'm thinking the kind you hear on foreground Muzak -- insist on singing with steel guitar? Are they trying to find their inner country? What an affectation. The chain-store pop vocalist Dolly Parton has always been the leading offender, but now there are dozens. Why?
Vaclav Havel truly was a hero of Eastern Europe. He suffered mightily as a political prisoner to liberate the Czechs. He had his less-than-heroic aspects, to be sure: his goofy party-guy side and his tortured intellectualizing of Kurt Waldheim's vicious evil when he made a state visit. But he has more than earned his bold place in history among the Europeans like the Pope and Lech Walesa and Gorbachev -- and an American, Ronald Reagan -- who helped "tear down that wall."
That we roll our eyes over stories like this (the words "Nut Case" in the headline won't help), involving murders inspired by films/TV shows/video games (pick your poison), is a measure of how the acid-cynical influence of news hacks has worked its way through our culture. We should be outraged at such crimes, and yet we must think clinically, with a measure of knowing Auletta-style insider ennui. The problem is, news hacks have dual loyalties -- to themselves (the only loyalty they really appreciate), and to any business affiliated with themselves (i.e., entertainment). We saw it with Columbine, when they went out of their way to blame guns and absolve show-biz. News hacks bade goodbye to the human race long before The Front Page, but now their defense of crime in the name of self-interest has become mind-boggling. Should anyone wonder that so many people want to ditch the First Amendment? If we ever do, it will be mostly the news hacks' fault.
Marvin "The Slob" Davis, who along with Melvin "Shylock" Simon brought the world Porky's, is now bidding for Vivendi's entertainment unit. The self-delusion hasn't ended yet. Joy.
Now, on top of everything else, it appears that AOL's cable business is suffering from financial shenanigans. (Why should we be surprised? Cable rate hikes are an industry engine of growth.) Did anyone notice that in the big writedown for its latest quarter, more than a fifth came from cable?
I see Dick Wolf's revival of Dragnet is getting pummeled by the sort of news hack whose favorite word is "ironic" (which includes practically all the TV-ad-blurb copywriters). To be sure, it wasn't a good idea. Not only was TV different in Jack Webb's day; the world was, too. What's more, Dragnet was Jack Webb, and his shtick was the stuff of parody long before the first version went off the air. (Remember Stan Freberg's "St. George and the Dragonet"?) But then he wasn't some undifferentiated bon-bon from the TV junk-food factory. Unlike the zillionairheads who never stop exulting in their superiority complex, Jack Webb was the real deal. And how many in Hollywood have an allegiance to the audience?
Earl Blumenauer has "cleansed" the spirit of Jim Traficant from his former office. Alas, some people can't take a joke.
DA, you're going to have to await, and await, and await....But it's all for a good cause.
Italy should be a natural for holy cockroaches: A nation of studied indifference. Hope these authorities don't get fired.
I know bloggers like to present themselves as members of a fierce guild of unwavering truthseekers with an unswayable devotion to intellectual independence, but how many of their stories and their links come from the big boys? And their opinions?
And how independent are they, anyway? Without slighting their slants (usually well-considered), Mickey writes for Bill, Professor InstaPundit writes for Bill, Rupert and Little Jeffrey, Andy S. writes for Rupert and King Richard, and he once wrote for Howell. This is independence? These are the Davids fighting Goliath? With all their Goliath David can't stand a chance.
Mind you, I'd like the dough too, and am not so much an ingrate as to antagonize my patrons. But I wouldn't put a false face of disinterestedness over it.
And how independent are they, anyway? Without slighting their slants (usually well-considered), Mickey writes for Bill, Professor InstaPundit writes for Bill, Rupert and Little Jeffrey, Andy S. writes for Rupert and King Richard, and he once wrote for Howell. This is independence? These are the Davids fighting Goliath? With all their Goliath David can't stand a chance.
Mind you, I'd like the dough too, and am not so much an ingrate as to antagonize my patrons. But I wouldn't put a false face of disinterestedness over it.
Here's another variation on news we don't need to know. Chases get the news hack's blood pumping because he can smell the death, and the greenbacks. And when he/she/it works for TV the hairspray gets that much shinier. But what do such stories do except work people into panics and further lower the already infinitessimal standing of the press? And please don't tell me about voyeurism. News hacks are the first voyeurs. Everyone else follows.
Bozo legislators will never learn: California's assembly is about to vote on a "resolution" to bring the Grammy Awards back permanently. As sure as night follows day we know what will follow such a "resolution": Tax breaks, sweeteners, flat-out bribes. This is Al Davis's home state (and Gray Davis's). When will these idiots realize there are some things money shouldn't buy?
I'd say awwwwwwwww to this story of the groundhogs seeking love on their day, except that Groundhog Day has turned from a festive little bit of whimsy into yet another overhyped overextended overburdened American megamachine manufactured by news hacks.
DaimlerChrysler (Dilbert-spell if ever there was such a thing) shows its mettle as a member of the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers. The same company that inflicted the Dodge "beef-jerky" ad on Super Bowl viewers (I didn't see it, and I'm glad) censors a cartoon of the late Bill Mauldin's, presumably out of respect for Jeeps that have gotten shot. We can be sure DC sponsors all manner of grotesqueries on the tube. Of course, it's a GERMAN company. Unfortunately, Germany was not on the right side of the war. It still isn't.
The more I think of this story, the angrier I get. Jeeps were in the vanguard on the road to freedom. Where did Daimler vehicles lead? To the gas chambers? (Daimler used forced labor, natch.)
The more I think of this story, the angrier I get. Jeeps were in the vanguard on the road to freedom. Where did Daimler vehicles lead? To the gas chambers? (Daimler used forced labor, natch.)
How do we support a war without supporting a war, especially with so much of our "base" part of The Tantrum Coalition?
Though reporting this story must have seemed quite exciting, it isn't going to happen. Ted's love of the deal helped get AOL in trouble by providing a role model. He called Steve 'n' Gerry's conjugation "better than sex." And where will he get the money? Even Bill's enormous vanity, his desire to conquer universes, won't lead him to buy. This is pure unmitigated bumcombe. But the guy will never lack for spin doctors.
If one thing troubles me about President Bush it's that he doesn't quite level with us in the name of "national security." I think that's why the fool Europeans call him "cowboy." Having a covert vice-president doesn't help. His penchant for secrecy may come back to haunt him.
As I said earlier, one wonders what's up at AOL. First we have The Washington Post reporting that America Online suffered its first-ever subscriber drop, and now The Wall Street Journals are telling us that the company may sell off Warner Music, even Time Inc. Sounds like an implosion to me.
What was the point of all this merging?
What was the point of all this merging?
Thursday, January 30, 2003
According to the Fox News flack Roger Friedman, Ben Affleck's new film got so expensive that DreamWorks "threatened to take the shoot out of Chicago and across the border into Canada."
Uh, Roger, across the nearest border from Chicago is Indiana. I guess when you write about show-biz you needn't know these things.
(We'll forgive you though, Roger, seeing that your "one assistant" Tina has gone to kitty heaven. We have a heart in these things. And a cat.)
Uh, Roger, across the nearest border from Chicago is Indiana. I guess when you write about show-biz you needn't know these things.
(We'll forgive you though, Roger, seeing that your "one assistant" Tina has gone to kitty heaven. We have a heart in these things. And a cat.)
After reading this knealing (sic) piece of twaddle on Davos, I feel a little bit tired and cranky too. (For all its rep as a contrarian magazine, Forbes does a lot of bedding with the big boys.)
A painful reminder of the past we have lost, and even if the writing verges on the condescending (as it will with sports hacks, especially the golfing kind), it's still painful. Of the generation of show-biz giants who hit their stride in the thirties, only Bob Hope and Katherine Hepburn remain. All the movie-ad-blurb copywriters shouting every last hosannah and hallelujah for the Vanity Fair Flavor of the Month cannot change this. Somehow I doubt that the Eminem Human Target Practice Championship has the same ring to it.
On Romenesko's page, some columnist's none-too-subtle suggestion that maybe the Washington Redskins drop their name appears right above a story in which a TV sports 'do (who once worked at the Disney Sports Cable Channel) is accused of swiping a seat cushion from the Super Bowl venue.
That's our news hacks!
That's our news hacks!
Well Patsy, looks like we'll be able to continue ditching college men's teams after all. You can go back to eternal sleep now.
A BRILLIANT idea, there, David! BILL buys AOL! BUGS 'N' BUGS!
Shucks, he means the online service. But why not buy the whole shebang? Then Bill could claim to have conquered sixteen more universes, and....
Seriously, can you imagine Bill buying America Online? He'd lose millions of customers instantly who'd think a bad thing would only get worse.
Shucks, he means the online service. But why not buy the whole shebang? Then Bill could claim to have conquered sixteen more universes, and....
Seriously, can you imagine Bill buying America Online? He'd lose millions of customers instantly who'd think a bad thing would only get worse.
Time's running out! Less than five hours to buy the film rights to The Consultant! A steal at $100,000!
How much will Cheap Channel have to spend to procure tricks from the Congress and General Jr.?
(Judging from the belch of Conrad "Extinguished" Burns, not much.)
(Judging from the belch of Conrad "Extinguished" Burns, not much.)
It's amazing that people can now speak of The Mess (MSNBC) being shut down. It began life as America's Talking, an attempt to merge talk radio with TV, as if to disprove some sort of notion that talk-radio callers should be heard and not seen (and most times they shouldn't be heard). The channel was just getting a little traction -- it staged a largely ceremonial (and false) contest to find a show host from the public (the winner turned out to be a professional) -- when LEGENDARY WELCH decided to create a joint venture with Bill the Entomologist, and voila! The Mess was born. I remember well the joint press conference from 30 Rock that aired on the then Big C (and no doubt cost a million bucks) in which Legendary spun all sorts of gobbish webs about interactivity, and promised the GE Network News staff would be there, and trotted out Tom Brokaw in a demonstration of an elaborate video archive that would never materialize (backed by BILL's technology! HA HA!), and made grand promises about merging TV with the computer. The promises quickly vanished; after some short lived techie programs the audience got Brian Williams and overexposed has-beens screaming. How fitting that the network may not survive one more overexposed screaming has-been. The mess of the Mess is a cautionary tale hand-in-hand with AOL's that most of show business's alleged riches are built on very thin, very hot air. I shall not miss The Mess.
Evolutionary study isn't a branch of science; it's a branch of politics.
Wallis Simpson, the future Duchess of Windsor, had an affair with a car dealer while courting her future duke, which reminds us she had a face only a car dealer could love.
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
The nervous giggles emanating from NewsMax raise the question: Would Microsoft be better as a capitalist firm -- or a capitalist state? And what is the difference between a corporation and a state at this magnitude? Don't both have bureaucracies? Aren't both deaf to public opinion? Don't both offer lousy customer service? Don't both charge too much (in taxes or purchase prices)? Don't both own too many underused or useless assets? Don't both offer a form of welfare? Can't both be above the law? Yes, the public can't elect the chairman of Microsoft, and all his little factotums, but to more and more people, what's the importance of it?
You NewsMax news hacks and other knee-jerk conservatives forever claim that Bill and his collection of bug breeders are The Eighth Wonder of the World. What's the difference between Microsoft Corporation and a Microsoft Republic, NewsMax?
You NewsMax news hacks and other knee-jerk conservatives forever claim that Bill and his collection of bug breeders are The Eighth Wonder of the World. What's the difference between Microsoft Corporation and a Microsoft Republic, NewsMax?
The New York Observer, the rag that gave us Candace Bushnell, the, er, lady who made sex as appetizing as (and roughly analogous to) a wad of Skoal in Lenny Dykstra's mouth (EW! YUCK!! GROSS!!!), has this bad habit every three months or so of puffing trendy coming-phenom writers who then disappear forever. Here's the latest new thing. While the usual intolerable cliches are happily missing ("edgy", "hot", etc.), they're made up for by the sailor-mouth words Arthur L. Carter seems to think make his pile of pink newsprint "adult."
To the PR types who write for the Observer, a question:
Whatever happened to Jay McInerney?
To the PR types who write for the Observer, a question:
Whatever happened to Jay McInerney?
Hmmm: That syringe factory in North Carolina that blew up today was "cited for numerous safety violations." Hmmm....
At least the death toll came down, that's good.
(Update: Those safety violations apparently had nothing to do with it. This was an almost spontaneous accident, like a grain-elevator explosion.)
At least the death toll came down, that's good.
(Update: Those safety violations apparently had nothing to do with it. This was an almost spontaneous accident, like a grain-elevator explosion.)
Timothy Noah accuses David "Axis of Evil" Frum of badmouthing Bush's State of the Union message because he didn't write it. Knowing the Beltway's wonks, I wouldn't be surprised.
Go figure: the more students earn A's, the more they need remedial courses. Go figure.
AOL's huge loss is the sort of mirage called "goodwill," yet it definitely came from somewhere -- the shareholders' wallets. This news and Ted's sudden resignation as company figurehead hint that maybe this debacle is bigger than anyone wants to admit.
"This is your brain. This is your brain on fast food." The latest shtick in the food wars. (Guess which word had to be corrected in the last paragraph.)
Speaking of Congresspoops, when Ron Paul speaks, the spirals in his eyes spin.
Poor Patsy Mink, the woman who mandated that colleges shut down men's sports teams in the name of "equality," must be rolling over in her grave.
With his giddy, smirky face and his facile non-thought, General Jr. seems the sort of man foreordained to be a slut in government for industry. Now he's setting up the FCC to rewrite the regs so that Rupert and Sumner and Lowry and the whole bunch of show-biz villains who've served us so well get to own everything. "LET THE MARKETPLACE DECIDE!" says his hammer to his knee. I think of that other great slut in the FCC, Mark Fowler. During his reign several companies came up with competing technologies for AM stereo -- low-fi sound, to be sure, but something that might have revived the lesser part of the dial. "LET THE MARKETPLACE DECIDE!" bellowed Mark, but the marketplace couldn't decide anything, and AM stereo withered. A small loss, perhaps, but all too predictable when "THE MARKETPLACE DECIDES." Fowler went on to become a broadcast lobbyist, natch -- as will General Jr.
What purpose do news hacks serve in reporting stories like this? We've been getting an awful lot of private tragedies lately from this scum. Every column inch devoted to needlessly upsetting readers is one column inch less for stories on Iraq, or the economy, or other important news. And we know that news hacks are cold and clinical about such horrors in the same way ER doctors are cold and clinical about stab wounds. "Well," news hacks might respond, "the poor girl's family deserves an outpoutring of sympathy." First off, why are you forcing me to be a party to somebody's deep sorrow for no good reason, and second, haven't you heard Dr. Johnson's maxim that "grief is a species of idleness"? We don't need these stories. If you must report them at all please bury them in the news-summary column of the Metro section. NO MORE SUCH STORIES!
Like a president's politics or not, "recycling" and "State of the Union" do go together.
Imagine that! Retiring 60 Minutes boss Don Hewitt says the Times's front page is being dictated by "demographics." That of course explains the new 27-year-old A & L editor who'll be plying us with pretentious essays about alternarock citing Freud and Nietzsche. In Howell's world pandering and demagoguery form a snug fit. It also explains why certain seventy-somethings are such debased idiots chasing down their target demographic. If not for their wealth and power they'd just be idiots.
Most businesses may be run by decent people, Peter Kann, but decency only goes so far with twenty layers of management, and decency only goes so far when it's overwhelmed by "competition," and decency only goes so far when you're at political cross purposes (like The Wall Street Journals), and decency only goes so far when you're in a crooked business. eBay believes "people are basically good," and is overrun with scammers. Sorry, the Bible says pretty definitively that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Businessmen are among the sinners, and too often, they show it. Ralph Nader didn't call the Journals the police blotter of business for nothing.
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Again, the political obtuseness of America's corporations rears its ugly quotas. The ultra-liberal HR departments get the ear of the somewhat liberal legal departments, and we get this. And the CEOs know enough to shut up, because they're craven and they don't want Howell on their case. Not to worry, the Republicans will make a come back, perhaps at PepsiCo, where the Frito-Lay marketing boys can turn 5.5-ounce potato-chip bags to 5 ounces (without changing the price), or maybe at Bank One, where the marketing boys can invent some new fees. Go get 'em GOP!
A few more righteous martyrdoms and maybe the Palestinians won't have any money at all. (This being the Beeb, it's mostly Israel's fault.)
Some years back, when Chuck Barris (a Philadelphia native) made an appearance during a Flyers game, a sellout crowd booed. Reading this slightly overwrought but ultimately telling review of George Clooney's film version of Barris's first volume of alleged memoirs (which, unlike nearly every other movie review, does not regale us with the genius of the film and the brilliance of the reviewer), I think how richly he deserved it. We can only take a kind of evil pleasure to think that Barris, a creature of limited gifts and unlimited gall, who made his fortune trashing our intelligence, will end his life a very bitter and unhappy man. (We might take some pleasure too in that the film is bombing at the box office.)
Recently he appeared at the Center City Borders. I thought of going, but didn't. I might have booed him too.
P. S. I believe the anecdote about the three old men appears in Barris's second (and probably more truthful) book of memoirs, The Game Show King. No mention of the CIA in that one.
Recently he appeared at the Center City Borders. I thought of going, but didn't. I might have booed him too.
P. S. I believe the anecdote about the three old men appears in Barris's second (and probably more truthful) book of memoirs, The Game Show King. No mention of the CIA in that one.
The State of the Union Message has long been a theatrical fake. The President enters the House chamber to the kind of hearty huzzah only uttered by a roomful of politicians with knives behind their backs. The Cabinet minus the usual nonentity for safety's sake (a joke that isn't as funny as it used to be) offers polite applause, either because its members are in the loop and have heard things discussed to death or are out of the loop and thinking of quitting. The Supreme Court docilely applauds, then sits. From behind the too-obvious TelePrompTer the President issues twenty thoroughgoing applause-line bromides written by someone else and greeted with a kind of rolling standing O that resembles "the wave" because members of the opposition don't want to be too opposing. The President salutes a pre-planted victim in the peanut gallery -- over here, Mr. President -- and the whole peanut gallery stands. After what is now ninety minutes of mind-numbing speechifying the President leaves and even the stalwarts of his own party can't work up an cheer through the whole recessional as their behinds are numb too for all the standing Os. Really, as Andrew Ferguson notes, the speech would be better done as a report -- especially so now, when we might war with Iraq, and the president could offer compelling evidence for war in, say, a classified appendix -- and all the busybodies and interns and clerks who do DC's real work could get to write on all the things the President doesn't know about. Ah, but we must have our useless theater.
Altria MOtive (or Philip Morris Altria) is now showing off its logo. Is it a new kind of Rubik's Cube?
Rich! On Altria MOtive's second day, Kraft Foods announces an earnings shortfall. RICH!
Rich! On Altria MOtive's second day, Kraft Foods announces an earnings shortfall. RICH!
The Freepers had a conniption today because the Wicked Witch of the White House, Helen Thomas, called Dubya "the worst president ever." (I've linked here, though it hasn't worked all day; it's also posted here.) I suppose we must tolerate the Hag due to her advanced age, and she does deserve some leeway because she is, in the responsibility-avoiding language of the press, a "columnist"; but she also asks questions at White House briefings, and is something more than a mere opinion spouter. One doesn't wish to fire people for their opinions, but the Hag has crossed a line somewhere, and the imbeciles at Hearst who hired her should have their biscuits baked by an angry readership.
We -- and I speak of America collectively -- wronged the Native Americans. Had the nation followed the divinely-inspired example of the truly great man who founded my state, William Penn, we'd have avoided the virtual annihilation of that race. So how can news hacks right a wrong with yet another sudden spasm of PC? Because they've righted it in their own heads. (Linked through Jim Romenesko, natch.)
Is this another sort of spam gag? I just got an e-mail from "INVALID_ADDRESS @ .SYNTAX-ERROR."
What was Toyota thinking with its Scion wagon? Nostalgia for the 1920s? A delivery van? Or a new kind of hearse?
It's official: GM no longer makes the ugliest car.
(Apparently Jerry Flint and Forbes.com got their pictures crossed. This is no doubt what Jerry Flint was discussing, the second photo in the article. Its official name is the Toyota Scion xB.)
It's official: GM no longer makes the ugliest car.
(Apparently Jerry Flint and Forbes.com got their pictures crossed. This is no doubt what Jerry Flint was discussing, the second photo in the article. Its official name is the Toyota Scion xB.)
Jimmy Kimmel's show started off with "a meltdown." And guess who was in the audience for the meltdown? You'll never guess.
Now even Patrick Goldstein, one of those interminable show-biz insiders, finds out what America has known since 1968: Jack's ratings system, aside from being so many other things (don't get me started!), is deceptive marketing. That fraud should be tarred, feathered, and then dumped to the bottom of the ocean. The ratings system, AND Jack.
And this deception was inspired in a small way by Rob "Kid-Friendly" Reiner, who, in the tradition of people who always have our best interests in mind, had no comment for the mogul-friendly Mr. Goldstein.
And this deception was inspired in a small way by Rob "Kid-Friendly" Reiner, who, in the tradition of people who always have our best interests in mind, had no comment for the mogul-friendly Mr. Goldstein.
The wife of the former columnist Bob Greene, who disappeared from the Chicago Tribune under mysterious circumstances, has died at 55. One wonders what her last year was like.
Another link from the ArtsJournal site: If Broadway's producers really want to secure its reputation as a theme park of the dead, they'll get rid of the musicians, as they'd like to. True, some of them aren't very good, but one can tell the difference. Producers, by contrast, are interchangeable.
It's official: Howell tells New York, "We're building Tinkertoys on the WTC site -- NO DEBATE!"
Now, will the officials in charge turn into melting Jell-O in the wind of his bad breath?
(I got this link from ArtsJournal, which includes at least one irritating story a day.)
Now, will the officials in charge turn into melting Jell-O in the wind of his bad breath?
(I got this link from ArtsJournal, which includes at least one irritating story a day.)
Monday, January 27, 2003
Two questions: How will AOL and its huge network of corporate affiliates downplay this story; and how will all the news hacks who've spent every waking moment turning The Sopranos into the greatest thing since sliced bread downplay this story? Downplay this story they will, and must. What's good for AOL is good for America.
You got me, it's from NewsMax, but the liberals' deafening silence on things like this is a continuing disgrace. (So long as the target's a Republican, it's OKAY.)
The Arabs have reluctantly concluded that, yes, removing an Arab tyrant may be justified.
This is what we'll lose when AOL puts some of its magazine unit's content behind its wall.
Good luck, King Richard!
My page surfing was interrupted by a pop-up from Pop Secret, a product of General Mills -- a member of the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers.
Good luck, King Richard!
My page surfing was interrupted by a pop-up from Pop Secret, a product of General Mills -- a member of the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers.
Answer me this, attorneys: Is your holy-cockroach client upset about that video the Feds made that shows what he could have done? I'd think he'd be proud of himself.
For at least a week, while walking down a Center City street, I've passed a stoop with a pile of bedding. I suspect there's someone within it. I needn't tell you it's been so cold I fear to walk outdoors lest ice form on my nose. (It should moderate some this week.) Of course, in a humane society, someone would do something about the pile of flesh in the pile of bedding, but someone can't. Why? He has his rights. It's kidnapping. No one can tell another person what he/she/it can do. The more fatuous may quote Walden, or William O. Douglas. An enterprising "reporter" could turn it into a Knight Ridder "j'accuse."
Such is our society's melancholy state when (to cite Professor InstaPundit) news hacks are our default public intellectuals, and all they read is their own copy.
Such is our society's melancholy state when (to cite Professor InstaPundit) news hacks are our default public intellectuals, and all they read is their own copy.
Now Tom Daschle's saying Dubya can't go to war without Tom's permission.
Waaaaaaaaah! He's going to war without me! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Waaaaaaaaah! He's going to war without me! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Speaking of Robert Thompson, every time there's a big hit aimed squarely at news hacks we get malarkey about "historic change" in the culture. The Fox News publicist Roger Friedman's blurb that the news-hack and urban-area favorite Chicago has inspired somebody to perhaps remake Fiddler on the Roof for TV (WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!) reminds me of the truckloads, the mountains of BS that followed the premiere of The Producers on Broadway. No less a drone than John Lahr ("I'm BERT LAHR'S SON! Remember? THE COWARDLY LION?"), he who opined on 9/11 that our government may have been behind it, spoke of an undying masterwork that turned in "the biggest numbers ever in the history of Broadway." Ben Brantley, ringleader of the raves, spoke of ecstasy beyond the Second Coming. Everyone agreed The Face of The Broadway Musical had been Changed -- FOREVER. Yet recently the New York Post made a fatal admission: the producers of The Producers (which include Harvey Weinstein and Cheap Channel) had to launch a massive TV campaign because people weren't buying tickets to the immortal production the way they did after it got called immortal. Why? Because -- now prepare for a shock -- it was a STAR VEHICLE. Once Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick left the show, apparently, it had to fend for itself, and even Ben Brantley conceded (in his rave-of-raves review!) that the jokes were -- and I quote -- "hoary." Perusal of recent Varietys indicates the show is no longer a 100% sellout. And that flood of great new musicals some predicted? What have we had in the last two years? A future bus-and-truck-company favorite based on the movie Hairspray, The Best of ABBA (?!?!?), and Billy Joel's Greatest Hits (oooooooh-wah a-oooooooooh-wah a-ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh-WAH!). In a letter I sent to The New Yorker (I don't want to know if they printed it) I suggested that despite the earth-moving PR more people heard of Michael Vick (who was drafted shortly after the epoch-making premiere), and that he made more money.
Can one modern hit really change the course of show-biz -- HISTORY? Years ago (to speak in the manner of Richard Corliss) some former star of westerns made an anti-western that may have won an Oscar® (if Dick Corliss can't remember the name, neither can I). Did that launch a flood of westerns? No, the Valenti business can make only three things: bastard screwball comedies, bastard Buck Rogers remakes and bastard Shaw Brothers chopsockey. One fluke hit will change this? (NOTE: In their hanger's-on report on the continuing soap opera at the top of Viacom Gerry Fabrikant and Bill Carter state one reason The Brow and Twilight Zon don't get along is that Zon doesn't like the cyclical movie biz. Get it? Cyclical.)
Can one modern hit really change the course of show-biz -- HISTORY? Years ago (to speak in the manner of Richard Corliss) some former star of westerns made an anti-western that may have won an Oscar® (if Dick Corliss can't remember the name, neither can I). Did that launch a flood of westerns? No, the Valenti business can make only three things: bastard screwball comedies, bastard Buck Rogers remakes and bastard Shaw Brothers chopsockey. One fluke hit will change this? (NOTE: In their hanger's-on report on the continuing soap opera at the top of Viacom Gerry Fabrikant and Bill Carter state one reason The Brow and Twilight Zon don't get along is that Zon doesn't like the cyclical movie biz. Get it? Cyclical.)
Some CRETIN named Bob Thompson has devoted A WHOLE ARTICLE to that vapid quote machine Robert Thompson, perfesser of TV-Is-Better-Than-Ever at Syracuse. Just what a quote machine needs, more lubrication. What's next, Bob? A whole article on the quote machine Paul "Dreck" Dergarabedian?
A good line about "the Abortion Party, formerly known as the Democratic Party":
FDR stood up to Hitler, Truman stood up to Stalin, and JFK made the Russians blink first in Cuba, but Democrats won't stand up to Kate Michelman, who couldn't even help a Kennedy get elected in the country's most liberal state.
FDR stood up to Hitler, Truman stood up to Stalin, and JFK made the Russians blink first in Cuba, but Democrats won't stand up to Kate Michelman, who couldn't even help a Kennedy get elected in the country's most liberal state.
The one thing that would make French government leaders happier than kissing Robert Mugabe on the cheeks is returning Adolf Hitler from the dead.
Ari Weinberg of Forbes.com has a brilliant idea: Legalize sports betting in the name of "education." Wasn't that the point of lotteries? Where did all that educational tobacco money go -- to anti-smoking campaigns? I thought Forbes was a conservative magazine. LITTLE MAL-COLM!!!!!!!!!!
Peter Bart has given the movie-ad-blurb copywriters a mid-life crisis. He exposed them for what manically impatient readers knew them as already: Nose-in-the-airs at best, paid flacks without the pay at worst. (Well, if you don't count their regular pay, which can be very good indeed.) Michael Wilmington, a pretentious Paulette with the Trib (and heir to the multi-millionaire Disney flack Gene Siskel), isn't going to praise "commercial" movies because -- they're commercial! That quality always takes precedence over quality. And quality can only be found in pictures that play the "Ougadougou Film Festival." It never occurs to these scribblers that both kinds of films can be bad -- in different ways. The problem is, many of the same copywriters now donning the hair shirts praised Spiderman as an apex of cinema. These morons want it both ways -- and being news hacks, they get it.
One wonders that Tina Brown never made it to TV before. Judging from her resume I'd say her favorite activity is scanning herself in a mirror.
Today it's official: Philip Morris changes its name to Altria. It's changing the name because it wants to be in the tobacco business without the death. But its ticker symbol is still MO. So feel free to call it Philip Morris Altria. Or better still, Altria MOtive. I will.
Sunday, January 26, 2003
Sorry, Dan "Tragic" DeLuca, the Bucs deserved to be in the Super Bowl -- and they deserved to win.
Congratulations too to the Disney Network on the blowout, and to all the advertisers who once again wasted money on the second half, the Raiders' half-hearted comeback notwithstanding. I still wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of Chevy Chase Syndrome come tomorrow morning.
One hopes we're returning to the old tradition of Super Bores. Tonight's game is a good omen.
Congratulations too to the Disney Network on the blowout, and to all the advertisers who once again wasted money on the second half, the Raiders' half-hearted comeback notwithstanding. I still wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of Chevy Chase Syndrome come tomorrow morning.
One hopes we're returning to the old tradition of Super Bores. Tonight's game is a good omen.
What has the Sundance Festival produced besides awards and navel staring?
Yet another AOL mea culpa about AOL's rotten stock. If I'm not mistaken the late unlamented Spy magazine ran a story that when Warner Communications bought out Time Inc. to form Time Warner Marshall Loeb sent a message through Time's e-mail saying, "WE WIN! WE WIN!" It took Greenspan's Bubble years later to lift them above water. When AOL came along a lot of people swelled about their stock options. I feel sorry for all the less-than-executives who placed their retirements in the Internet's tentacles, but when I think of Steve and Gerry and their Masters-of-the-Universe hubris -- and their ultimately ruined reps -- I don't feel the least bit sorry.
Wait a second! People have been arrested for betting on the Super Bowl? THIS IS UNAMERICAN!!!!!
Question: When you watch the Super Bowl at home, do you sit on your hands like the corporate elite in person? Or do you merely doze off?
Or are you one of those big-media-inspired dolts who sleeps during the game and wakes up for the commercials?
Or are you one of those big-media-inspired dolts who sleeps during the game and wakes up for the commercials?
A glaring admission from Richard Corliss, one of show-business's top flacks: "I can, without so much as a thought, rattle off the Best Picture Oscars from 1932 to the mid-70s; but ask me to spit out the winners of the last decade, and I stumble into blank embarrassment." Wait a second, Dick! I thought you were vice-chairman of the Movies-Are-Better-Than-Ever Brigade! They'll drum you out of AOL if you keep talking like this! (Fortunately, you needn't worry about it. You work for AOL.)
So here some holy cockroaches in England have suits to ward off NBC attacks, and the pansies in Tony's government are more worried the disclosure might be racist. Idiots.
(NOTE: I got it off a link from Professor InstaPundit.)
(NOTE: I got it off a link from Professor InstaPundit.)
We're always told what a sainted wonder the Rev. John Lewis was for the civil-rights movement, what a model of moral rectitude he is. Well if he's such a wonderful guy why is it every time I turn on C-SPAN and see him in the well of the House he's jumping up and down and screaming "mean-spirited" and "extremists" at Republicans?
The headline reads, "Fiat Stalls After Agnelli's Death." I'd say it's been going in reverse for some time. Didn't these folks have something to do with the Yugo? They built an auto plant in the Soviet Union and condemned the country to roads full of big boxes on wheels. No wonder communism collapsed there. Fiat makes GM look good.
(Now they tell us: GM owns a fifth of Fiat. I guess that's where the company learned quality control.)
(Now they tell us: GM owns a fifth of Fiat. I guess that's where the company learned quality control.)
Billy Joel, the man who turned doo-wop into beer jingles and later into a national mental-health crisis, has been released from the hospital after a car wreck. Wanna bet he was drunk?
Ooooooooh-wah a-oooooooh-wah a-ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh-WAH!
Ooooooooh-wah a-oooooooh-wah a-ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh-WAH!
What Bill Richardson did for North Korea, he can do for Mexico!
You running for secretary of state, Bill?
You running for secretary of state, Bill?
One last note on Eldred: it wasn't just Trent and Mary Bono who sneaked that law through. It was the scourge of evil everywhere, David Horowitz, and his David Dreier Memorial Republicans Can Be Even More Craven than Democrats in Lying Down for Show Business Committee. I will never forget the delicious look on Horowitz' prose when The New Republic caught him after Newt took over the world -- the very definition of "He can dish it out. . . ."