Posted 10:33 PM by Gene

Axis of weenie.

Posted 10:04 PM by Gene

HOWELL RELENTS! (A little.) When the Times site first posted the caption to this photo it estimated the New York rally's size at 400,000; the accompanying story said the number was not unreasonable. Now the paper says "crowd estimates" are "politically tinged" and has changed its to "100,000 to 400,000."

I guess we can't make the Stalinists look too good.

Posted 8:46 PM by Gene

Your advertising dollars at work: What makes these advocacy ads offensive is that we phone customers are paying these clowns to ask folks like General Jr. to do one thing: raise rates.

Posted 7:44 PM by Gene

David Carr of Samizdata.net reviews the London protest like a theater critic. The best line:

Kudos must be accorded to the costume designer for splendid authenticity. Everywhere we looked there were muddy browns, washed-out blacks, dull greens and quite the most dizzying array of woolly caps imaginable. Many of the costumes were so profoundly soiled that, I do declare, they stood up and marched about on their own. An eye for this kind of detail is always appreciated.

I wish I could write like this.

Posted 7:35 PM by Gene

The Howell Spin Machine is ON.

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

Among the images on Yahoo! News:

I lead off from London, with our first Picture of the Day:



Now for some links:

Call the police in Athens;

Strasbourg says George should see "Sigmund";

"Texas of Evil" in Amsterdam (don't ask me what a "Geen Oorlog" is. Not my name.);

"Schroder for President" in Amsterdam;

Bush as Hitler in Santiago;

An American flag burned in Santiago;

"Serial-killing" America (and a "flag" with 45 stars and nine or ten stripes) in Brasilia;

An American "flag" with twelve stars and nine stripes burned in Lahore;

The Portuguese prime minister as American stooge in Lisbon;

Speaking for itself in front of our embassy in East Timor;

"George Bush" in London;

An American "flag" with twenty logos and at least nine stripes in Seoul;

Palestinian-imitating rock thrower in Athens;

"Warmonger Bush" and the hammer-and-sickle in Calcutta;

An Iraqi flag in Sofia;

An anti-war protest in democratic Damascus;

Bush and Osama in Kuala Lumpur;

Very good grammar in Bangkok;

Bush is eeeeeeeeevil in Bangkok;

U. S. something-or-others and a swastika (sort of) in Tokyo;

An American "flag" with fourteen or fifteen stripes and a skull-and-crossbones in Quito;

The Grim Reaper in Mexico City;

More good grammar (and spelling!) in Bahrain (and note that somebody doesn't approve of Lady Liberty, figures);

"Disarm USA," "Osama Bush Laden" and Che in Sarajevo;

(We interrupt this program to bring you: our second Picture of the Day, from Damascus!



And now, back to our regular programming:)

Four jerks in Manila;

An American "flag" with eight stripes and thirty-three stars "burned" in Manila;

More American Nazis, in New Delhi;

Commies in New Delhi;

A well-positioned effigy in London;

Stalinists in New York;

An Iraqi flag in Athens;

Ants in Hyde Park, London;

Criminal! Genocidal! Violating George Lucas's Copyrightal!

Iraqi flags in Managua;

I'd rather not know what George Washington would have done to those protesters in Raleigh.

I know one behind the picture!

Morons in Zagreb.

An American "flag" with twelve swastikas in Mexico City.

In Berlin, war is war! And Germans are Germans, and Hitler is Bush, and lunkheads are lunkheads;

Peaceful protestors in Thessaloniki, Greece;

"George Bush" in Prague (now those are hard-core Commies -- as in, bring back Gustav Husak!);

Another Canadian luuuuuhves the U.S.A.;

"George Bush" in Amsterdam;

America equals death! in Paris;

The Constitution is death! in Raleigh, North Carolina;

Our inferiors in Toronto, eh?

An American "flag" with possibly fifteen stripes and perhaps more than forty stars burned in Mexico City.

(We'll be right back, after these words:



When I grow up, I want to be a bloodthirsty criminal tyrant -- JUST LIKE SADDAM HUSSEIN!

This message brought to you by International A.N.S.W.E.R., your friendly neighborhood Communists.

And now back to More Stupid Protester Tricks!)

Hooray for Saddam in chicken Kiev!

Another Canadian loves us!

The Devil in Moscow;

In Johannesburg, a wary Osama bin Laden pleads, stop the war!

More Stalinism in New York;

A dialogue in Rome:

Gray-haired guy: "I can remember, back in '56, when we had this big rally against the reactionary hooligans who took over Budapest...."
Guy in cap: "The Russians?"
Gray-haired guy: "The Hungarians!"

Some friends in Cairo;

From Paris again: How original.

I thought Communism was dead!

So George is a butcher, eh?

An American flag burned in Vienna;

Oh go fuera yourself.

A lecture from Rio, where untold homeless children wander the streets, many with AIDS;

An American flag burned in Guadalajara;

And also joining in the fun, members of the Ba'ath Party in Baghdad!!!!!

Menatime, some of their friends burn an American "flag"! Or an unreasonable facsimile thereof.


But there were a few good guys, like these (Scottish Iraqis meeting with Tony Blair).

And here's one: a group of Iraqi counter-protesters -- in my Philadelphia! Hooraaaaaaaaaay!!!!!

And finally, whatever else happens, again from London, our third Picture of the Day:



With enemies like these, who needs friends?

A FOOTNOTE: Yesterday I came across a worn forgotten book by the late forgotten CBS newsman Charles Kuralt, he of the many roads and equally well-travelled mistress, who looked like Don Wilson (or Elmer Fudd) and spoke in a voice like an out-of-tune tuba, and I recalled that when the Gulf War started Oliver Stone and Co. marched live on TV, and you could tell just from his loose embouchure that the Sex Machine of the Highway was aching to get out there and join them in protesting an unjust, ignoble war. One wonders how many cul-de-sacs Charley's encountered on the road to eternity.

Posted 1:37 AM by Gene

Mickey Mouse Michael bullied you?

Go to the back of the line.

Posted 8:43 PM by Gene

Tariq Aziz gives the appeacers something else to march for -- as if some weren't marching for it already.

Posted 7:46 PM by Gene

THIS sounds like something from The Onion. It isn't.

I guess we've arrived, babe.

I wonder what Maureen Dowd will think.

I'm glad I renewed my Norton Anti-Virus.

Posted 7:13 PM by Gene

The more I think of these anti-war rallies the more I think of the nuclear-freeze movement, which also inspired huge protests. I remember back in the early eighties in Philadelphia a nuclear-freeze initiative appeared on the ballot, as in many other cities. It passed two-to-one. I voted no. It's one of the few votes I'm proud of -- and I haven't voted (I'm ashamed to say) since 1986.

The nuclear-freeze types were wrong then. The appeacers [sic] are wrong now.

(One of the leading freezniks, you will recall, was the late Carl Sagan, who during the Gulf War told the future Lord Koppel of Eisnerdom that all those burning Kuwaiti wells would do long-term baaaaaaaaaaad. The future Lord Koppel nodded in assent. Or perhaps he was merely falling asleep wide awake.)

Posted 7:04 PM by Gene

A brilliant choice of words:

"Ohlll veeee arrrre sayyyyyyyyink izzz give peeeeez a shhhhhhonnnnnnnnce!"

Pierre Laval and Marshal Petain couldn't have put it better.

(!@#$%^&* AP changed the story on me so I had to change the !@#$%^&* link!
!@#$%^&*!!!!!)

Posted 6:58 PM by Gene

The Feds concede the bad intel.

Don't they realize on its off days al Qaeda is essentially an unfunny practical joke?

Posted 6:53 PM by Gene

A state-run firm in France fires people? Unthinkable!

The French are blaming it on us, no doubt.

Posted 6:28 PM by Gene

Continuing on NASCAR, here's another Slate column written solely to take up bandwidth. Slate runs a fair amount of such windbaggery. Part of it is the Kinsley legacy, that not-always-sincere devil's advocacy to try to force discussion. The rest, though, is just cute writing.

Posted 6:13 PM by Gene

Here's Howell's next crusade: too few "people of color" watch NASCAR.

Can I hear you cry "Discrimination"?

Posted 1:54 PM by Gene

The fool phony apologist and Imus sidekick Howie "Hair Shirt" Kurtz is a trailing-edge commentator. So when you get this stalwart in sheep's clothing braying that news hacks are sowing a panic, well, if they haven't gone and done it.

And on this subject, the Professor of InstaPundit says:

Every time I see some anchor talk about how "frightened" and "jittery" we are, it just reminds me how out of touch Big Media people are. We're not "jittery." Americans are determined, and angry. Spoiled media bigshots, used to living in a cocoon of bodyguards and obsequious staffers, are the ones who are "jittery." We saw this in the overwrought reaction to the anthrax attacks last year, and we're seeing it again.

Agreed. But I can tell you I'm not doing this blog in hopes of getting an audience of three. And with your Rupert and Little Jeffrey and Bill connections, you're not far from stretch-limo land yourself.

Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

I wonder if this millionaire perv knew the "Rev." Paul Shanley? He scouted for -- he visited Thailand too.

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

How charming: John "The Don" Malone is now the biggest shareholder of News Corp.

If there's one man who can outsleaze the Rupert, it's him.

Posted 1:17 PM by Gene

So that's what a shiny new government bureaucracy is good for: ridicule and finger pointing.

The Education and Energy Departments, both manufactured for "crises," became bloated blobs. With Der Homeland it seems to be occuring ahead of schedule.

Posted 1:09 PM by Gene

Great. Yassir has to share his power. With whom will he share it? Hamas?

Posted 1:07 PM by Gene

How could Rand McNally compete against Mapquest? It couldn't. It's filed for bankruptcy.

That said, I suspect Rand McNally will be around long after Mapquest is an unclaimed trademark.

Posted 1:06 PM by Gene

The greatest musical of all time is playing to 78 percent of capacity two years into its projected fifteen-year run, and the man who made it the greatest has found an excuse. Hint: It's not the reviewer.

I see also from his typing that the tepidly-reviewed revival of Oklahoma! is closing on the 23rd, the miscast Patty Duke's sudden presence notwithstanding. (Whatever her age, she'll always seem sixteen to me.) Much as I revere Richard Rodgers and his lyricists, is it possible the man's doomed to overexposure -- and thus underappreciation? And where would Broadway be without revivals and theater parties? We live in a cultural dead zone, and it doesn't get more moribund than The Great White Way.

Posted 1:21 AM by Gene

You find an article on the media scare behind the terror scare. You think you have useful information, or a pungent commentary. Then....

"Bob Thompson! Aw geez, you've caught me between twelve interviews I have a Times reporter no not your Times sorry and the USA Today asked me about Joe Millionaire and one of Murdoch's papers has me on the line about Michael Jackson and I've been up to my ears with American Idol and I've got half a dozen papers asking for my take on reality TV it's tough being a professor but I think I can oblige I'll give another quote I give so many of them I'm Mr. TV Expert the Paul Derger, the Paul Daraber, the Instant Quote Man of pop culture what do you want to know?"

NO MORE QUOTES FROM PROF. THOMPSON.

Posted 12:07 AM by Gene

I have just discovered Fark.com. OYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!

It's funnier than playing Freecell.

Posted 11:19 PM by Gene

This book review reminds us in a single paragraph of one of the most odious political gatherings this side of a Nazi beer hall or a Klan cross burning, a moral disaster whose shadow still darkens us, the UN-sponsored Durban Hate Conference, run by that infamous ne plus ultra of wimps and appeasers, the "honorable" President Robinson. In an orgy of psychosis not unlike DTs, with unspeakable creatures and thoughts oozing forth from bigoted recesses into a fevered reality, the conference virtually affirmed Kurt Waldheim's undying truth repealed but still unbowed: that Zionism equals racism. The obscenity might not have even merited the usual footnote of history but that the following week the greatest dream of so many gathered in South Africa came true: America was attacked, by flying squadrons of holy cockroaches. One suspects some of the dogs of Durban will be marching for what they will call peace. To be sure, most of those protesting are humane well-meaning people genuinely wanting peace, who do not wish to see humanity suffer again after a century of unprecedented barbarism. Many will march simply because they're afraid, or because they feel humanity's only choice is to cave to tyrants and hope for the best. Some -- a significant minority -- will protest for peace because they hate America. Still a smaller lot -- and one must think it includes many of the organizers -- don't want peace because they hate America. The rallies will thus mesh hands in prayer with the knowing smirk of a Robert Tilton. I'm worried about war too: for all our might Saddam has tricks up his arsenal, and we must face retaliation at home. But war now, when casualties will be relatively light, may be necessary to prevent war later, when our race's survival is at stake. Better the smart bombs now than the Damoclean sword hung on nuclear tripwires later.

Posted 10:28 PM by Gene

Mr. Roberts might fight.

Posted 8:57 PM by Gene

Will you make up your minds?

Posted 8:47 PM by Gene

Roger the publicist knocks Lisa Marie's singing!

As if she's the only one.

Posted 8:29 PM by Gene

In congratulating The Cleaning Lady as I have I must not forget Empty Rabbit Warren, aka Piano Bar Man, whose principal accomplishment in diplomacy was to wag his head back and forth and go "Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...."

Posted 8:18 PM by Gene

I've found a use for duct tape: You pile all the rolls in the attic and let them sit for twenty years till you sell your house, and the buyer asks, "What's with the duct tape?"

Posted 8:15 PM by Gene

You can bet on Saturday, when the Nevilles and Nervous Nellies are out in force, bloggers will be reporting on all the banners and posters: "Bush=Hitler," "Tony=Hitler," "Rummy=Hitler," "End Zionist Occupation of Greater Palestine," the 73-starred American flags making fun of 9/11, "Sharon is a War Criminal," "George: Choke on This," "Bomb the White House," etc., etc., ETC.

Right-wing-biased news hacks won't.

Posted 8:03 PM by Gene

Wonderful: A moron wraps his house in Saran (among other things) thanks to a terror alert that may have been based on false information (from a holy cockroach, of course).

Hasn't this happened before?

Yes. Christo did it.

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

Repeat after me, at the top of your lungs, with your body furiously trembling, your face beet red and your head three times normal size:

"A country that can hardly provide water for its citizens cannot be a threat to the world."

Neither can North Korea.

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

The man who turned a movie title into a motel chain, Kemmons Wilson, has died at 90.

Make fun of Holiday Inn if you will, but to build a company on two words is truly felicitous.

Posted 4:50 PM by Gene

Two members of the Congressional Hooray for Hollywood Caucus propose tax breaks to prevent "runaway production."

I don't see a problem here. Hollywood types are always saying they want to leave the country. Let them.

Posted 4:38 PM by Gene

Perfesser Mark Crispin "Crrrrrrispy-Crrrrrrunchy" Miller rails about press bias too. (No mention of his leanings here, natch.) It might help, Crrrrrrispy, if your rantings didn't appear exclusively in ZNet and the Democratic Underground. (It might also help if we could avoid saying things like,

"GEORGE W. BUSH IS MOTIVATED BY AN ADOLESCENT VERSION OF THE SAME FANTASY THAT DRIVES THE TERRORISTS!!!!!

HE DIVIDES THE WHOLE WORLD INTO GOOD AND EVIL, AND HAS NO DOUBT THAT GOD IS ON HIS SIDE -- JUST LIKE

BIN LADEN!!!!!!!!!!")

Posted 4:29 PM by Gene

In his strained effort to show that leftists and rightists are wrong on news bias, Jack Shafer gets one thing straight: the left and the right do frequently talk past each other. (Or as he must say, "one another.")

Posted 4:24 PM by Gene

Europeans are worth more than Arabs? According to our news hacks, Americans are worth more than Europeans. So what do they know?

An Arab may disagree.

Posted 3:22 PM by Gene

News hacks are in a bind: if they charge for their news, people will avoid their sites; if they don't charge, they lose money. Problem is, the only unqualified success among charging news-based sites is Consumer Reports. The more sites that charge the more people may go to "unofficial" sites. The blogging movement, though but a drop in the news bucket and largely talking to itself, shows the old professional filtering process is slow and cumbersome anyway. And it isn't so much the Internet that has caused people to drop newspapers from their media menu, but the hacks' stale, tired, knee-jerk, unchanging ways. It is simply easier to get the news electronically -- period. "Free" news may be slightly on the wane. It isn't going away.

Posted 2:27 PM by Gene

A techie writer (not a Trekkie writer) goes cold turkey on his laptop. There is much about computers I can live without. I repeat Thoreau: We have become "the tools of our tools."

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

Apparently the Rupert News Channel is reporting that Columbia's left landing gear prematurely deployed. Is that a zipper thing too, professor?

Posted 1:57 PM by Gene

Simpsons fans are Trekkies too. I've never seen it and can't comment on it, but when a Trekkie writer speaks of "the greatest show of all time," why do I automatically think this is o-ver-ra-ted?

Posted 1:51 PM by Gene

Now that NY and DC are back on Osama Watch, all sorts of stupid things will happen -- like suspicious trucks full of mannequins.

Posted 11:59 PM by Gene

The shuttle is a fitting choice for Florida's commemorative quarter, but why do these coins have to be so goldarned ugly and unimaginative?

Posted 11:55 PM by Gene

We're already there.

Posted 11:43 PM by Gene

I'd like to think there's a silent majority of Arab intellectuals -- or rather, a silent sizable minority -- that feels this way. One thing's clear: When we get rid of Saddam, we can't leave the Iraqis to their own devices. That's one broken-down pickup that'll fall apart piece-by-piece.

Posted 9:32 PM by Gene

Six Congresspoops are suing for peace!!!!!

Posted 9:02 PM by Gene

There are limits even to ka-CHING!!!!!

Posted 8:31 PM by Gene

We gotta come up with a slogan for Mecca Cola®. (Sorry for the WorldNetDaily.) How about:

Terrorism goes better with Mecca Cola!™

Mecca Cola adds Zionist death to your life!™

It's the sharia thing!™

I'd like to buy the world a jihad....™

Gee, I've run out of slogans. Maybe you folks can go to Saatchi and Saatchi. Or Whorevis Communications.

Posted 7:31 PM by Gene

Soccer-mom country trembles.

Posted 7:07 PM by Gene

"Very frankly, Camry is a better product than Taurus today"....

Then why should we buy your cars?!?!?

Posted 6:57 PM by Gene

Oh, goody-goody:

Another longtime hajj hazard has been the spread of communicable diseases. Last year, for example, the British Medical Journal reported that one-fifth of pilgrims returning to the United Kingdom were found to be carrying a rare bacterium that can cause fatal meningitis.

Wonder if Osama's on the case.

Posted 6:44 PM by Gene

If we really want the NATO business to spin out of control we'll retaliate with tariffs. Then the Europeans will fire back and soon it'll be Smoot-Hawley all over again.

Posted 6:34 PM by Gene

And in more news from the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers: McDonald's has another same-store sales decline. I still say the obsessive advertising and promotionalizing made their long-standing quality-control and cleanliness problems seem worse.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Jeannette Walls also links to this article about Rupert's sleazy Joe Millionaire phenomenon. Yes, the networks are culpable for such trash under federal law and even higher laws, but they answer to one audience, and one audience only: their sponsors. I repeat: Corporate America does not know what it sponsors, and it doesn't care, and it's set itself up so it won't have to care.

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

According to Jeannette Walls, "Thirty-five percent of Americans who were polled [don't you love that?] said that if Anna Nicole Smith called them at home, they’d have the number blocked so she wouldn’t call again, according to SBC, a company that provides those caller-blocking services."

Me? It would depend on her net worth.

Posted 4:27 PM by Gene

Run, Carol, run!

Posted 4:10 PM by Gene

North Korea is about to become the first nation ever to declare war on the UN.

I'd say go pick on someone your own size here too, but the UN's a mite smaller.

Meantime, another heartfelt thank you to Slick and The Cleaning Lady!

Posted 4:03 PM by Gene

A Syracuse Viacom Network affiliate got my message and is charging for interviews. There's a lot of woe-is-me at Romenesko (where this links), but since most interviews are about PR, so long as there's an on-air disclosure and the station's upfront about the fees, I see nothing wrong with this. It's preferable to free bribes.

Posted 3:54 PM by Gene

Now you did it, General! You blew a source.

Still think the CIA did it, professor?

Posted 3:52 PM by Gene

Hmmm, The Disney Network broadcasts the Oscars®. Disney Arthouse Films leads in the nominations.

FIX!!!!! FIX!!!!!

Posted 3:44 PM by Gene

This is puzzling. You'd think having picked a fight with Turkey the Belgians would have gone all the way and allowed this. Would've heightened their standing in the ever shrinking world of Western Europe. There'd have been spontaneous pan-European demonstrations of solidarity! (And anti-Semitism.)

You missed a golden chance, Belgium.

Posted 3:41 PM by Gene

Well whoopee! Sandy Weill declines a bonus!! I'm impressed.

Posted 10:58 PM by Gene

HE IS DOING PETER AND THE WOLF!!!!! OYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

Which part?

Posted 8:15 PM by Gene

To be replaced with whom?

Posted 7:57 PM by Gene

The Osama Channel runs a story on the "Osama" tape on its web site, in English -- as a "press release"!!!!!

At least they were "honest."

Posted 7:48 PM by Gene

Freepers take over the New York Sun's editorial page, and Timothy Noah retorts with Joe Conason and cries of "fascism." John Belushi staged better food fights. Thus the common man shuts his trap and avoids politics.

What's the Sun's circulation, 60,000, maybe? Timothy's forgotten the injunction that any publicity is good publicity. Even for fascists.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

Please: The Professor, who knew the shuttle was destroyed by a "tile zippering effect," knows the alleged Osama tape was "supplied" by the CIA.

If the last three decades' history teaches us anything, it's that when conspiracy theories start, they don't stop. We're at war with holy cockroaches because of their conspiracy theories. The French hate us because of their conspiracy theories. The whole of Western Europe is aflame with conspiracy theories.

Isn't all that moolah from Rupert and Bill and Little Jeffrey enough? Take your pills, Professor.

Posted 4:36 PM by Gene

Jeez, I was hoping he'd do Peter and the Wolf.

Posted 4:15 PM by Gene

Looks like Tiny Tom's started the 'buster -- with a new 'do! (His hair's been the same color for at least a while.)

Posted 4:13 PM by Gene

I can recall when the twerps at Spy (and Graydon Carter was the twerp-in-chief) derided Leon Wieseltier as a pretentious fraud (they called him "Lay-ON Vee-sel-tee-AY"), and he did write over-intellectualized bunk -- like the time he defended his "friend" the Slick-appointing sleazeball Joe Klein. But after 9/11 he wrote a jeremiad of Biblical intensity against preening aesthetes like John Updike who used the barbarities as an excuse for bad writing, and now he thunders against the mealy-mouthed essayist (and former TNR contributor) Louis Menand for dumping on Orwell. At his best he's good.

Posted 3:34 PM by Gene

Andrew Sullivan has an eloquent side. He also has a silly side. Here's his silly side. Do you really think we give a bloomin' damn, Andy? (And the nice thing is, he didn't write this, and what's more he has this annoying practice of making all his correspondence anonymous. Triple play!)

(And even as I've typed this he's posted something about Enron, and he can't post something about Enron without mentioning Paul You-Know-Who. True, he is the Paul Begala of economics writers, but couldn't we ignore him just a little while? It's like your use of "fisking." Really, Andy.)

Posted 3:18 PM by Gene

Looks like Osama's provided all those protesters with a mission statement.

Posted 2:32 PM by Gene

Take THAT!

Well, Barney Frank's said for years we should bring some of our troops home. LET the Germans defend themselves.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Just hope there isn't a Hitler on the horizon.

Posted 2:19 PM by Gene

This story says nothing. "Euro-bashing in U.S. newspapers. . .is said to be reaching new heights," says the link in I Want Media. So who does this Melbourne Age article cite? The New York Post and The Wall Street Journals Conservative Edition. The rest of the press is respectfully (and a little gigglingly) silent.

Posted 2:11 PM by Gene

Bias? What bias?!?

Posted 2:01 PM by Gene

It figures: There's a site for overaged professional rock groupies, and, it figures, one for the Times has a daily battle with his conscience getting his logorrheic raves out.

Posted 1:53 PM by Gene

So how many viewers will tune out this year? Had to give 'em LOTR II as a sop.

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

We've been on the Web surfing for news for years and people are just "now" finding out?

I repeat: There's no longer a good reason to subscribe to newspapers -- or to rely on any other news source. Especially with Lowsy ruining -- running the radio biz.

Posted 1:39 PM by Gene

America's politics-set-in-cement leftists -- er, poets -- are taking their anti-war tantrum from the White House to "the streets."

Is another batch of Pulitzers on the way for America's news hacks taking the right side?

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

So when you want breaking news on the radio what does Lowsy Mays give you? A recording!

We sayall more neeew aynd uuused cawwrs thayn any dea -- broadcayster in America!

Posted 1:27 PM by Gene

At what point does genuine concern for new terrorist attacks end, and justification for a big shiny new government agency begin?

Posted 1:21 PM by Gene

What? Colin Powell beat The Osama Channel in broadcasting one of his "statements"? Heads will roll!

By the way, how was this one transmitted? With tin cans and a long-distance string?

Posted 1:16 PM by Gene

When Muslims aren't killing infidels, they're killing one another.

Posted 1:33 AM by Gene

Today is National Movie-Ad-Blurb-Copywriters-Make-Asses-of-Themselves Day, where America's revered super-publicists waste millions of column-inches trying to do for the Oscars® what sportswriters do for the NFL draft -- only to prove that sports metaphors and boring, overrated arthouse movies don't mix.

Posted 1:18 AM by Gene

If the Democrats pull their Guinness-Book attempt at soporific speechifying, they're obstructionists. If not, they get a -- CONSERVATIVE -- who'll probably be conservative like David Souter.

Whatcha gonna do -- Tiny Tom?!?

Posted 12:49 AM by Gene

So who will lay claim to the title, King to the Marie Antoinettes of Entertainment? Will it be John "The Lawyer with the Polyester Hair" Edwards? Will it be Howard "Gay Marriage" Dean? Dick "The Weathervane" Gephardt? Joe "Conscience of the Senate" Lieberman? John "My Whole Family is Jewish and I Didn't Even Know It" Kerry? Al "My Best Friends are In the Media" Sharpton?

The plot thickens. Hollywood is already thick.

Posted 10:58 PM by Gene

Is this a breakthrough? Or is this the latest breakthrough?

Posted 10:32 PM by Gene

Tricky's press secretary, the nerdy Ron Ziegler, has died. He called Watergate "a third-rate burglary."

A third-rate burglary from a fifth-rate president.

Posted 9:19 PM by Gene

I wonder what good it does to resurrect the rumors surrounding Marilyn Monroe's death, with Joltin' Joe's lawyer as the vehicle (Publishers Weekly pans it). The continued interest 41 years later says that Hollywood does not have a star with even an ounce of MM's appeal, and the handwringing over the Kennedy angle testifies to the futility of all the JFK second-guessing and the immense botch Johnson and Nixon made of things after Dallas.

Posted 8:41 PM by Gene

I could Kausfile bigtime about the NATO rift if I knew how, but it comes down to this: Western Europe has forgotten WWII. Meantime our newly ardent allies in Eastern Europe have not forgotten that we helped, however imperfectly (and in Dwight Eisenhower's case, indifferently), rid it of Communism. That the French are the perfect ingrates, and that Germans are tired of the Holocaust and must take it out on someone, goes without saying. That the United States of Europe are the world haven of welfare cannot be good for the self-esteem either.

Posted 7:23 PM by Gene

The AP, not far removed from its embarrassment with phony quotes, sent out a months-old bulletin on Jesse Ventura's health as "urgent." Walter Winchell posted it.

Hey Walter! I'd pull that hat down over your head.

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

On the same day Amazon.com announces it's ditching ads, PepsiCo, that charter member of the American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers and former supporter of Hezbollah TV, announces it's throwing money at AOL for a glorified sweepstakes. They're betting the news hacks will help; they will. (With that headline, they already have.) I wouldn't be too sure with those insurance companies. They have a little more sense.

Of course Pepsi has a long history of embarrassments in advertising, from Wacko's 'do to The Man baiting Catholics to that hip hop star it's had to drop because of his lyrics. We'll give the bozos in Purchase the benefit of the doubt; it was that "John Peel" jingle played endlessly on the radio ("Pepsi-Cola hits the spot!") that turned a company with a very shady past into a titan of beverages. The Pepsi Generation (another famous campaign with another famous jingle) sealed it. But the ad biz can't write good campaigns or jingles anymore; and after so many years of bad TV people have a very different attitude toward advertising, and it's not warm and fuzzy. The Hezbollah fiasco underlines it: Advertising, like so much of modern America, is a self-justifying mechanism with no useful purpose. And PepsiCo still swears allegiance to it.

Posted 4:39 PM by Gene

The Times's movie-ad-blurb copywriters pull another Carnac the Magnificent routine.

May Leo the Lion invite you for a late-night snack.

Posted 2:55 PM by Gene

Every so often the jaunty tones of the great Statler Brothers' "Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?" go through my head, when I wonder what's become of the once indispensable now dispensed with, the once ubiquitous now oblivious, those eternal flowing fountains of wisdom dried up. In their prime, so many thought, "How could we live without them?" Now we ask, "How could we live with them?"

Such thoughts may come to mind (though probably won't) when we ask, were we to ask, "Whatever happened to Vladimir Pozner?" The answer probably isn't very musical.

Posted 1:45 PM by Gene

Affirmative action must be on the ropes when it's banned in Boston.

Posted 1:30 PM by Gene

The FCC and General Jr. engage in crank sociology to figure out how much media concentration is too much.

Isn't saying the word "Viacom" good enough?

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

I think I know why I find it difficult to get worked up over a lot of things that foam the InstaPundit Army into a lather: much of their talk (or as they'd no doubt say, nearly every "issue") surrounds things that require but a nod of the head, or that need the kind of wonkish specialized knowledge few people care to acquire, or that are hypotheticals and never come to pass, or that become debates with people who don't have anything to debate. I suppose there are fifty different ways, for instance, to disarm Iraq, and the electronic pundits go through them in excruciating detail, but ultimately the "issue" comes down to three questions: does Saddam want to disarm (answer: we don't know, though the best educated guess is no), can the UN get Saddam to disarm (answer: most likely no), and can we succeed at toppling Saddam's regime (answer: most likely yes, but the true answer is beyond the realm of certainties)? I admit I don't know anthrax from ricin from mustard gas, but I do know Saddam's not a nice guy, and it doesn't take advanced degrees to figure that one out. But (so they say) we need the InstaPundit Army. Hup! Two!

Posted 1:00 PM by Gene

The Razzie Awards are cute, but show-biz knows how to counteract them: give an interview to Andy Seiler, or a starlet to Graydon Carter, or a mogul to Ken Auletta. It works every time.

Posted 12:56 PM by Gene

As Slick might have said, with a sympathetic handshake for Michael and an eye down Catherine's blouse, We Feel Your Pain.

Hardy har har.

Posted 12:54 PM by Gene

Still more proof that advertising is only about financing junk television and personal fiefdoms: Amazon.com is dropping all TV and print ads. It seems discounts move the goods better.

Posted 1:53 AM by Gene

I MUST cut-and-paste this at length:

If you listen to some of those digitally remastered jazz records from the 1920s, they sound fantastic: there was never anything wrong with the recordings, just the limitations of the delivery system - those scratchy 78s. [Phil] Spector, by contrast, designed his recordings specifically for the limitations of the day - tinny little 1960s transistor radios, on which they sounded spectacular. On CD, on 21st-century players, they sound thin and fake and hollow - and dated. I can recall only one critic ever pointing out the limitations of Phil Spector's "genius" - Donald Clarke, in The Rise and Fall of Popular Music.

But the less Spector did the more the aura of his "genius" grew. For the last 30 years, the "troubled genius" has been more trouble than he's worth: he recently flounced out of a project with Celine Dion after Quebec's steely songbird had the temerity to question him. "You don't tell Shakespeare how to write plays," he huffed. The peculiar burdens of pop genius are written on his face, which is almost as strange as Jacko's. That's another rock exception to the general rule: celebrities are supposed to age well, but the Phil Spector staring out from The Telegraph masthead last weekend is a shriveled little prune under a Status Quo fright-wig, like someone auditioning for a Bournemouth Leisure Centre production of This Is Spinal Tap.

Strangest of all, Phil was said at the time of his arrest to be dating Nancy Sinatra. The three Sinatra kids are perhaps the most normal celebrity offspring in history. Their dad was the sanest superstar I've ever met. But he didn't have to live with the tortured contradictions of commercial rock's poseur transgressivism. It's only a wonder more of them don't go nuts.

Only Mark Steyn could cut through the slime like this.

Posted 12:54 AM by Gene

NOTE: Professor InstaPundit plugs Dave Barry's blog, which is rather like Rupert and Bill plugging a Knight Ridder Web site. I'm lucky if I got five visits all of last week. Ah well, I blog on. (I may install a counter soon; that'll be good for the ego.)

Oh, I've seen his latest book (number 8,950 on Amazon.com; by the way, AllDirect.com's prices are better). The first thing you notice when you pick it up (only, as most do, to put it down) is that cute foreword where the author warns that his book contains naughty words. This might seem disarming to some, but then you ask yourself, why is it necessary to use "bad words" in the first place?

Dave Barry's good for a chuckle, not much more. Yes, some sour grapes from a would-be comic novelist, and I'll concede that, but when you consider how many "humorists" have withered and died in newspapers (Art Buchwald being the most prominent example), not to mention the many risible comic-strip artists like Bil Keane who've dragged their numb carcasses and their dead panels through year after year after year (Bill Watterson and Gary Larson were wise to quit before senility set in), it's best not to overrate people.

Posted 12:32 AM by Gene

The Christian Science Monitor frets for the future. Fact is, under Slick we had an eight-year bender. September 11 was the headache. Now we're sobering up.

Posted 12:23 AM by Gene

And now I've just run across this Independent story insisting that the CIA and MI6 are opposed to an Iraqi war. Whatever the truth is (and God knows British newspapers dispense something less than the truth, the whole truth and nothing but), the spin is coming fast and furious.

Posted 12:18 AM by Gene

Here's one to raise eyebrows (I found it via FreeRepublic): we might blockade North Korea. (The Freeper said it was from the Christian Science Monitor; but the only Michael Sheridan I can find is with the Times of London. I don't know what "TST" at the end means.)

Posted 11:54 PM by Gene

OOOOOOOOOooooooooooooh! The Belgians are picking a fight with Turkey!

Haven't they forgot the saying, "Go pick on someone your own size"?

Posted 11:07 PM by Gene

Remember Gen. MacArthur's line, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away"? Well, old Broadway musical bombs never die; they just go on the road and live forever.

By the way, is Seussical a "muze-ical" or a "muse-ical?" Whatever it is -- and I doubt that it's either -- it just played here in Philadelphia at the Merriam, the old Shubert, where Kiss Me, Kate had its tryouts. What a comedown. (Another example of how our culture's improved. Once we got Broadway tryouts, now we get a bus-and-truck production of Saturday Night Fever, a bus-and-truck production of The Full Monty, a bus-and-truck production of South Pacific -- with Robert Goulet, a bus-and-truck production of....)

Posted 7:59 PM by Gene

Now the things that once really mattered in these movies -- corruption, eroticism, madness, death -- have lost their sting. Death, especially, is often without consequence in modern film. It is presented balletically. Or as a spectacle of mass destruction that claims only anonymous extras or digital doodles. In noir, it was passion's final expenditure, obsession's last terrible gasp, projected in vivid, unforgettable ways.

--AOL's Richard Schickel, in a LALA Times review of a book about film noir.

I'm TIRED of synergistic company men like Richard Schickel having it both ways. Either movies are better than ever, or they're not. This clown wrote a long piece for The Wilson Quarterly about how awful it was that we don't have healthy foreign-film experience anymore, how stupid teens had taken over the domestic film biz -- at the same time he wrote a Time-cover press release for his company's Eyes Wide Shut. He no doubt praised a lot of that "ballet" in the first place; he's probably helping fiercely on the marketing for the Matrix sequels. Stop the sales pitches, please!!!!!

Posted 7:42 PM by Gene

WELL! I didn't see this: Apparently Howell's architecture critic's changed his mind about the Tinkertoys. Ya suppose people made fun of 'em in front of Howell? Where would people make fun of 'em? In the Times's offices? Theh's somethin' scwewy goin' on awound heah!

In other architecture-related news....

(Okay, okay, it's an instant poll, but even instant polls can have some truth.)

Posted 7:26 PM by Gene

YOUR TV ADVERTISING DOLLARS AT WORK: For years we've heard that TV news makes people abnormally fearful of crime. What a surprise to learn then that TV entertainment can make people believe every crime can be solved.

It pays to be ignorant!

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

NOTE: If something strikes me about Professor InstaPundit and Co., it's how little they write on the culture. In their world everything's wonkery. The only time they stoop is when The Professor talks about his favorite rock records (and they're all rock), or when Andy S. talks about his lover. I wish I could expound on Colin Powell in five-syllable words, but the intense debates of their world are often over minutiae, on matters that won't even interest the historians. We won't be remembered for the ghost-written speeches or the dealings in smoke-free rooms -- who was Gerry Ford's chief-of-staff? -- but for our culture, and the last twenty years have been largely a blank, or a negative. The greatest achievement of our generation, the end of European Communism, will pale in significance to the undeniable fact that the people who must put us into posterity -- the novelists, the musicians, the filmmakers, the painters, the poets, the playwrights -- have had next to nothing to say, or have only said things for publicity's sake, which can only demerit them for posterity. I could do a thousand posts on Hans Blix, but he will pass from the stage just like gold vs. silver, or the League of Nations, or Formosa, or the missile gap. Culture is not so dismissable. I only wish The InstaPundit Army would stop dismissing it.

Posted 3:20 PM by Gene

Yes, Virginia, there is a Red Country and a Blue Country. And for proof we turn to a seemingly unlikely source: the movie box-office numbers. Specifically, to what the Movies-Are-Better-Than-Ever Brigade has dubbed The Greatest Film Musical of All Time: Chicago. Last weekend it did a little over $7 million in business. This weekend it did over $10.7 million. A big increase, right? Just one problem: last weekend the Disney masterwork played at 623 screens. This weekend it played at 1,841. Just by going wide it suffered an almost 50 percent drop in its per-screen average. When you think it had been doing over $11,000 per at the 623, it looks even worse. And I doubt that it's playing in smaller houses; all the gigaplexes are pretty much standardized. This says to me that what had been -- and I stand my ground on this -- a news-hack and urban favorite has not played well in the hinterlands. It may yet have legs, but this is not good news for Mickey Mouse Michael (although what's bad news for him is good news for the rest of us.) What's galling is that this is an apparent shoe-in for the Best-Picture Oscar® -- something The Wizard of Oz and Singin' in the Rain didn't win.

I'm reminded again of its counterpart, The Greatest Stage Musical of All Time, The Producers. Billboard ran an article on its cast album, which briefly made the bottom of the 200 list -- quite an accomplishment for a cast album these days (remember when My Fair Lady sold seven million copies?). The article said the album was selling well in the big urban areas that had theater but wasn't selling anywhere else. It's not that people don't want musicals; we're starved for them. It's that when the news hacks start with their adjectives people know not to trust them (except in the highly credulous media centers). They did it with The Producers, which has long ceased to be a sell-out, and they did it here.

This is also proof that the movie biz makes product for the ad-blurb-copywriters, media-company shareholders, and dumb teenage boys. But that's an argument for another time.

P. S. As for all the bull about this new masterpiece inspiring more musicals -- and I discussed that before too -- we forget that another Disney masterpiece, Evita, starring The Man, was a hit. Did you see any new musicals afterward? Newsies?!?!? The Fantasticks?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Posted 2:15 PM by Gene

There appears in The Observer an article saying that archeologists have discovered the Roman gladiators were the "rock stars" of their day. Nice work if you could get it -- and keep it. Of course it didn't help that you were stuck with the job.

Speaking of gladiators, given the state of TV I have wondered whether someone would revive the ancient Roman games, complete with lions and death. Let's go down the list of possibles:

Rupert: Yep

Sumner "The Brow": Yep

Twilight Zon: Yep

Mickey Mouse Michael: No -- it wouldn't look good for The World's Leading Producer of Family Entertainment -- but he'd pass a memo on to Harvey Weinstein, and then when some rare news hack asked why Disney was producing the games, he'd say, "That's Miramax."

King Richard: No, but he'd pass a memo on to the guys at HBO, who'd produce the games for pay-per-view.

Barry: Yep, although first he'd clear marketing deals with his HSN® and Ticketmaster®.

Little Jeffrey: Yep, but first he'd make sure he'd cheat the contestants out of their insurance.

Sony: Are you kidding? It would be their biggest selling title in PlayStation®2.

Certainly they wouldn't lack for sponsors: DaimlerChrysler, Anheuser Busch, Cadbury Schweppes, PepsiCo, the movie studios, Yum! -- those are the leading targets, as they have official policies forswearing standards in advertising. But any company that advertises on MTV could be there. Which I guess means practically the entire American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers.

P. S. I am not joking.

Posted 1:59 PM by Gene

The Cleaning Lady apologizes (sort of) for not having nabbed Osama. (Sorry for the NewsMax.)

Posted 1:42 PM by Gene

I am broadminded enough not to label someone a Jewish comedian, an Italian comedian, an Irish comedian, or even (yikes!) a Muslim comedian. I just label them all -- comedians.

That's because I believe all comedians stink.

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

Newly reminded of his mortality, Rupert has finally realized Al Gore isn't going to be president, so now he throws his support behind Dubya.

He reports, he decides.

Rupert! You didn't have a lot of time for Petrified? You had the money.

Posted 1:02 PM by Gene

The other side of sprawl: The same Babbitts who rush to turn every last square inch of meadow into ticky tacky cannot be bothered with urban housing. Doughnuts are supposed to have holes -- black holes. As in illegal discrimination holes, as an prejudice holes. Never mind that not all city dwellers are black. This story is an outrage.

Posted 1:43 AM by Gene

A remarkable Washington Post story on the bureaucratic boondoggle of NASA -- which blames the Slick administration in no small measure for the problems in manned space flight -- contains this juicy bit of business about the orbiting pork barrel (aka the ISS):

A National Research Council report pointed out last September that...the United States is spending more than $25 billion so that three scientists can perform just 20 hours of scientific work in orbit weekly. Under agreement with Russia, the U.S. share is 7.5 hours [emphasis added].

That's it. We have no choice. End the shuttle project, abandon the space station, and start anew from scratch. This is the only way to revive the space program. If it means not having a space elevator for billion-dollar high-school-science kits or astronauts waving "Hi mom" for NASA TV, so be it.

In another story (the Post did a good job today), radar picked up something coming off Columbia a day into the mission. Space junk seems to be creeping up as a possible cause of the disaster. And we still don't know what that piece of debris that struck the orbiter was.