Posted 11:25 PM by Gene

Movies and politics are inextricable. An example: Ebert the Disney All-Thumbs Machine gave Gods and Generals a decided thumbs-down. Freepers call him a Commie and swear the film's a work of genius -- because Michael Medved and The Washington Times said so. (Never mind the film was produced by a Commie.) The box-office isn't too enamored of it. In a capitalistic system, doesn't THE MARKETPLACE decide?

Posted 11:17 PM by Gene

A DJ at a Cheap Channel station was among the CRETINS' victims.

Good. Now Lowsy can replace him with a recording.

Posted 10:23 PM by Gene

Hey LALATimes, to read the ad for this movie -- all 1,547 words (I counted on MS Word) -- takes ten to fifteen minutes. That's the equivalent of five years on the Web. Prowling for golden needles through your haystacks of bull takes long enough. This outlasts most speeches -- and Lincoln didn't need 1,547 words for Gettysburg. It wouldn't even make decent fishwrap. STOP RUNNING THESE WORTHLESS TIME-CONSUMING ADS!

Posted 8:37 PM by Gene

"No, Chirac Didn't Say 'Shut Up.'"

But lots of other people said, "SHUT UP, CHIRAC!"

Posted 8:04 PM by Gene

MUSIC IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!!!!!! Some AP mouthful of a hack named Nekesa Mumbi Moody hypes the Grammies. Few people would truly care about show-biz awards without the considerable pump priming from PR specialists, and boy can Nekesamumbimoody publicize. First, she tries to create a horse race, then she quotes the usual industry junkmeisters (but a BIG demerit for not calling Clive Davis by his first name Legendary), then she pats everyone on the back for fostering musical "diversity" (never know when you might need those references!), then she plugs a Web site that follows award ceremonies (the moronic Ain't It Cool News, but slicker), then she engages in more backscratching by quoting people about how "strong" music is (so strong that CD sales have declined by double digits. I'd hate to see weakness.). AP puts out (by its own admission) TWENTY MILLION WORDS A DAY, mostly uninformative CW, soporifically written. No wonder people refuse to pay for news. Why does AP pay Nekesamumbimoody?

Hey Mumbi! You can always sell the name to J. K. Rowling.

Posted 7:39 PM by Gene

Finally! Rallies supporting a war.

Posted 6:54 PM by Gene

The official Iraqi government news site has been hacked. (This probably won't be up for long; here's a copy. I just hope no one gets Saddam justice.)

Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

I'm glad this is over, save for the necessary lawsuits. At best the young woman would have been an invalid and a mental cripple the rest of her shortened life. One hopes something good can result from the botch.

Posted 3:06 PM by Gene

"Detectives scour R. Kelly's studio"

-- Chicago Sun-Times headline.

"Coming as they did on the same day R. Kelly released what is likely to be THE MOST SUCCESSFUL ALBUM OF HIS CAREER...."

-- R. spokespoop Allan Mayer, a partner in Sitrick and Company, specialist in "crisis communications," and run by one Michael S. Sitrick, author of a book called Spin: How to Turn the Power of the Press to Your Advantage (with Allan Mayer).

I believe I can flyyyyyyyyyYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyyYYYYYYYYY
yyyyyyyyyYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyyYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyYYYYYYYYY
yyyyyyyyyYYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyyYYYYYYYYYY....

CRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH!!!!!!!!!

Posted 1:19 PM by Gene

The Grammies will be a Bush Bash (or rather a Bash Bush Bash).

I think given your soaring record sales and what happened in Rhode Island you're not exactly in a position to lecture people.

One thing's sure: I'd hate to be a customer-service clerk on Monday at any member of The American Association of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers. CEOs! Get out the ear plugs! Never mind. You're already deaf.

Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

Some might call France's newfound love of Jacques Chirac a burst of national pride. I call it a fit of national onanism.

Posted 12:54 PM by Gene

What's your crime rate?

Posted 12:51 PM by Gene

Brian Lowry, the Howie Kurtz of TV, devotes an article to a taping of The View. Like soccer moms and the fans of Horsey Face, is a puzzlement.

Posted 12:37 PM by Gene

Shows how much I know: Microchips have been implanted in dogs for some time. Apparently they're effective in tracking lost dogs. But I still ask the question: How long before they wind up in people?

Posted 12:28 PM by Gene

The small warehouse where the CRETINS played was over capacity.

Posted 12:53 AM by Gene

Using a very vicious attack as an excuse, some Illinois solons want to implant microchips in dogs.

Is it that long before they wind up in people?

Posted 12:47 AM by Gene

I'm not surprised to learn you can now find indoor fireworks at "bar mitzvahs" and "weddings" (not in the church, I hope -- yeah, probably in the church), another measure of our unhealthy self-indulgence, our fruitless scheming to inflate our trivial lives.

Posted 12:31 AM by Gene

Rupert apologizes to Sandy.

Oh.

Posted 7:19 PM by Gene

The show-biz mouthpiece Howard Rosenberg holds a press conference with himself. He says entertainers should speak out whenever and on whatever they wish, then knocks down straw men like Rush Limbaugh. End of conference. He wouldn't have called it if the loudmouths were conservative.

I'll say it again: whatever their politics, entertainers risk serious hurt to their careers opening their mouths. And it's on both sides: witness the malicious fun leftists have had with Charlton Heston's Alzheimers. (Let's see it happen to you.) He was in the same position as The Nose; the offers weren't coming in, and he was getting old, so he could afford to front the NRA. He surely wouldn't have done it on an active movie career. I think too of Jane Russell's recent self-anointment as a Christian bigot, odd coming from the inventor of jiggle. That liberals are disproportionate in the ridicule is because liberals are disproportionate in the biz.

In truth, entertainers should be held very strictly to their words. By virtue of their position and their luck they lord it over us. We should let them know who's master.

Posted 6:26 PM by Gene

See, now this is the French talking, and the French are mad that they're not a superpower, and they're duplicitous to the nth degree. But even fools can utter pearls of wisdom, even if they're cultured by wise-acres at the BBC. How is humanity served by having any one people dominate its culture, especially with as sleazy and odious a show-biz as ours?

Posted 6:06 PM by Gene

The CRETINS used sparklers in Florida.

I'm astonished how many companies do indoor fireworks. Judging from this example, most of them occur in very large buildings that are no doubt fully sprinklered, and sufficiently away from people. The CRETINS did theirs in a big wooden outhouse.

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

That Rhode Island night club was co-owned by a reporter for a FOX!!!!!!!!! station in Providence.

On this Freeper thread people are wondering whether other news hacks will downplay it. I'd say yes, but if he's part of the Rupert crowd, maybe not.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

AP reports three chunks of "foam" (so Boeing says) hit Columbia after liftoff. One begins to think the astronauts were doomed from the start.

Posted 4:46 PM by Gene

"Sexy trade ad may break new ground blahblahblah...." Years ago, when Variety ran far more ads than it does now, there was a whole slew of them for (probably unproduced) programmers set in concentration camps, page after page of beautiful half-naked girls threatened with Nazi abominations. Bad taste is nothing new -- for show-biz or Variety.

Posted 3:36 PM by Gene

The CRETINS may have done this in Maine. This sort of risk taking already bordered on the criminal.

Now The Smoking Gun says the CRETINS' performance rider made no mention of fireworks.

Posted 3:29 PM by Gene

Michelle Malkin engages in some conservative forest-for-the-trees wonkery about how the victim of that botched Duke transplant surgery was an illegal -- with perfect timing, as the girl has suffered permanent brain damage.

For God's sake, can't bean-counting be the last thing in mind when the girl's life is at stake?

Posted 2:38 PM by Gene

Tell these guys we gotta fill more bandwidth! Somebody named Fisher says shock jocks are liberal talk-show hosts.

BRING BACK OPIE AND ANTHONY!!!!!

P. S. I see the Slate boys have done a little presto-changeo with the MO. Now the front page link reads, "Franken in the Morning? Why Liberal Talk Radio Will Flop." No, you Kinsleyclones, it's about shock jocks, and why they're so wonderful! Somebody sue Microsoft for deceptive marketing! (It wouldn't be the first time.)

Posted 2:32 PM by Gene

The fact-inventing brigade strikes again: Crowd estimates for at least one anti-war rally were overstated.

Posted 2:27 PM by Gene

Another Rupert MASTERPIECE! Sandy Koufax, a champion in more ways than one, is severing ties with the LALA Dodgers because one of Rupe's henchmen at the New York Post ran a squib alleging he's gay.

Rupe, I think we'd have better luck accusing you of being a boor, a liar, a cheat, a cynic, a coward, a....

Don't worry Sandy, he's selling the team. You'll soon be bleeding Dodger Blue again.

Posted 2:21 PM by Gene

Perhaps there's a good guy deep inside Aaron McGruder, as with Howard Stern, but if so it's buried in shtick and cynicism. The man may resent it too that he's profited from the news hacks' "diversity" movement, and he's too self-aware not to know it.

Will he still be this angry when he's 50?

Posted 2:13 PM by Gene

Russ Smith is mad because Salon.com is liberal. (If Al Hunt had chosen the writer he'd be glad. Thus it always is with the Journals.) But we'll be poorer without it for we'll have one less exclusive Internet option for news and opinion. I still miss the enterprising Inside.com, and nothing has replaced it.

Posted 2:08 PM by Gene

With news hacks "diversity" is a code word for quotas (no whites need apply) and political uniformity. We know it's bad when Al the SOB endorses it.

Posted 1:51 PM by Gene

The utter height of stupidity: A fireworks show in a crowded wooden shack. How are things like this allowed to happen?

It appears the CRETINS did this before, without warning. And like the Chicago disaster, the club didn't have a permit.

The name Great White (whoever they are) should live in show-business infamy.

Posted 11:52 PM by Gene

An excruciating and offensive puff piece drooling over Robert Johnson, the founder of Viacom's Boogie Everynight Television, in which our author belches in business-book fashion that "Johnson may be black, but he thinks green" (did Johanna ever daydream about Legendary Welch in print?), and a friend mentions the game of Monopoly. Bob seems to have learned quite a few lessons from Sumner. Johanna has learned one lesson from her fellow news hacks: the more starry-eyed you make your show-biz hagiography, the better your chances to get a good job. And she has real competition at the LALA Times. This is a Harvard Business School case study of a reporter flaunting her Rolodex.

Upon further review I see the author (who works out of the Times' Washington bureau) doesn't need a job; she has all manner of fancy think-tank titles and once served as White House correspondent and an editor for USA Okay, and she's married to Gerry "Oh Pardon" Ford's wimpy press sec the former NBC newsman Ron Nessen, so she's in the perfect position for profitable fawning. Johnson and this hack probably flatter each other often on the Beltway cocktail circuit. This compounds the offense at Mafia usury rates.

Johanna, meet Bill Zehme, yeeeeeeeeeech.

Posted 11:39 PM by Gene

We're sending troops to the Philippines to battle holy cockroaches, that much is clear, but no one seems to know how many. The Post says 3,000, the Times said 2,000 and now 1,700, and Reuters says 750. Rummy's boys may be engaging in disinformation to confuse those stupid reporters, can't discount that; but still news hacks do not serve us well with this kind of musical-chairs numbers game.

Posted 11:31 PM by Gene

Somebody issued a report on the Patsy Mink Memorial Men's Collegiate Sports Elimination Act. Hint: Feminists don't like it.

Posted 6:39 PM by Gene

It's only a squib in the New York Post but even as I type Esquire's celebrating its 70th birthday. Think of it: In the thirties the magazine ran Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Today it runs -- Bill Zehme. Yeeeeeeeeech.

Posted 3:42 PM by Gene

Can't wait for the CAIR package on this one.

Posted 3:38 PM by Gene

I have occasionally wondered where the MadAve types get the "fictitious" names in their ads. Now we know.

Posted 3:32 PM by Gene

So much for the Net being the friend of democracy.

Posted 3:24 PM by Gene

Mickey D's is now boasting on its doggie bags and Web site about its "social responsibility."

Answer me this, Mick: How is it responsible to spend untold zillions on junk television and oodles more financing junk movies, such obsessive expenditures not only stinking up our culture but reinforcing the notion that your restaurants rot and management doesn't care, thus chasing customers out in droves, thus forcing franchise closures and unemployment? How is that responsible, Mick?

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

Good grief! You're appealing? The guy'll walk in ten years (sooner when the Germans use him as a pawn). Tell him to take it easy. He'll be out.

Posted 1:38 PM by Gene

Whoooooooops! The Brow must have given the Zon a -- brow beating.

When are you resigning, Zon?

Posted 1:08 PM by Gene

Will the Pakistanis decide? Are they against America -- or for the holy cockroaches?

Posted 1:04 PM by Gene

Congressman Peace!! PEACE!!!! goes flip-flop.

Posted 12:58 PM by Gene

Oh, great! Just what we need: the LALA Times will now have interactive movie-ad-blurb copywriters.

Can't wait until Slate gets this. Oy!

Posted 12:54 PM by Gene

Having proved he can help sleaze up the news at the Viacom Network, Twilight ZON wants to buy CNN.

Does The Brow know about this?

Posted 12:57 AM by Gene

If I recall correctly, before DaimlerChrysler (I love those Dilbertnames!) was born, Kirk Kerkorian was going to ruin Chrysler the way he destroyed MGM -- spinning it off piece by piece.

Given that Daimler's already deep-sixed Plymouth and is merely using the American operations to push Mercedes product, I wonder if there'd have been much difference.

Posted 12:48 AM by Gene

Bashar, you're going to need a lot of Noxon.

Posted 12:44 AM by Gene

One of the great mysteries of life: Why did Bertelsmann buy Napster?

Posted 12:39 AM by Gene

The ash heap of history is piled with fallen Arab idols. Nasser, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Hafez al-Assad, and in time Yassir, Qaddafi, the Extreme Holy Cockroach -- and Saddam.

Posted 11:14 PM by Gene

This is what happens when Sumner and Rupert run TV news. The problem is, once the Hair Shirt Kurtzes and the think tanks and the J-schools chime in nobody believes there's a problem because the damfools always speak on their high horses of ETHICS when it's the last thing news hacks practice. And so TV news gets worse and worse.

Posted 11:11 PM by Gene

The only way this story could have been better is if it had happened in DC.

Oh well, Baltimore's DC without the wonks.

Posted 7:30 PM by Gene

Alllllllll weeeeee arrrrrre saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng....

Posted 7:21 PM by Gene

Chelsea's been offered a job as a McKinsey consultant.

Ka-CHING!

Posted 7:17 PM by Gene

I smell a profit center: The anti-drug campaign also started voluntarily, but soon the government had to fork out billions, and there was corruption, and nobody believed the ads anyway. Ads will simply not sway people after all the scares -- especially in bus shelters or at 3 a.m. So Der Homeland Department will have to -- up the ante. I see America's super-patriotic broadcast Babbitts licking their chops.

Posted 6:17 PM by Gene

A big minus: "Bush entered the White House," says Howard Fineman, "one of the least-traveled presidents in modern history."

Boinnnnggggg! Shakespeare probably never ventured much beyond fifty miles outside London, yet he had the profoundest imagination in all literature. Lincoln probably traveled across no more than a thousand miles and became our greatest president. Slick went anywhere and everywhere. Look what it got him -- and us.

(I have not forgotten that the Shake wrote great comedy like the mad scene in Hamlet, but that's another story.)

Posted 6:04 PM by Gene

All right, I'll give General Jr. a second chance, but this honeymoon will be brief. Any government that can give us the Fairness Doctrine, the Prime-Time Access Rule (which gave us such excellence in television as Entertainment Tonight! and Wheel of Fortune), the Disney Network (created by government decree), Viacom (created by government decree), FOX!!!!! (created by Ronald Reagan's piece of paper), zig-zagging cable bills, the ludicrous V-chip, and all other manner of self-defeating nonsense should be cut so little slack it ought practically to be handcuffed to the people.

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

Which reminds me. Justice, German style: death for Jews, ten years (perhaps) for an accomplice to mass murder.

What was that about cowboys, Gerhard?

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

Another holy cockroach bites the dust. Hooray!

Or as Reuters might call him, "freedom fighter."

Posted 2:21 PM by Gene

Hey Dickie V, the Dukies are rockin' and rollin', rrrrrr-in-a-soycle, but I think their English department is cupcake city, rrrrrr-in-a-soycle!

Posted 1:57 PM by Gene

I don't know what Donna Brazile's talking about. Who's ever beat up on Al Sharpton? Certainly not news hacks, as Democratic a bastion as you can get.

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

Who are Dick Gephardt's constituents besides 62-year-old boys?

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

Here is the sort of story that will make knee-jerk conservatives (and particularly that lower subspecies, the libertarian) rage because it's "anti-American." One can also dismiss it because the writer edits a Salt Lake City newspaper and is therefore a prude. But do our show-biz exports really do us a world of good?

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

Surprise, surprise. Foreign news hacks are "insolent." Just like the home-grown.

Posted 1:16 PM by Gene

The Je$$e Gang comes to the defense of a club owner. There's money here someplace. His partner did time for manslaughter.

For the families of the dead, to use a favorite Je$$e phrase, "No justice, no peace."

Why are the Iraqis and these folks different, Je$$e?

Posted 1:00 AM by Gene

We now know more about the Korean subway fire. It appears the cars were plastic tinderboxes with few safety implements. There'll be lawsuits (there should be), and given it is South Korea I wouldn't be surprised if some high mucky-muck resigns over bribery allegations about their construction. The subway in Taegu was already beset by a deadly construction accident. I'll bet it's a boondoggle.

Posted 12:51 AM by Gene

The screaming meemies of LALA's city council spent two tumultuous, fruitless hours debating Iraq, and will do it again on Friday. Why do the mu-ni-CIP-al saps of so many cities waste so much time on their damfool symbolism about the half-million, or million, or ten million, or umpteen gazillion Iraqi kids "we've" killed when their constituents are dying on their streets for lack of police protection? Don't these clowns have better things to do? No wonder the San Fernandans wanted secession.

Posted 10:39 PM by Gene

NOTE: I do not know how anyone can run a post on the first draft, except for very short ones. I find myself constantly revising after I publish (and no, it's not my intention to get on the "Fresh Blogs" list at Blogger.com, though it doesn't hurt). I've revised this post three times. I even revise posts from two weeks ago. I do hope my writing isn't bad, although when I peruse my archives (as I'm wont to do now and then) I cringe on every third entry. Oh well, at least I don't spend my bandwidth typing "OMG."

I will comment on other bloggers soon. Let's just say, they're interesting.

Posted 10:30 PM by Gene

Why can't the French sing "Louise," or "Marguerite," or "Thank Heaven for Little Girls," just like Maurice Chevalier? Why is their favorite song suddenly "Deutschland uber alles"?

Posted 9:59 PM by Gene

This story on the antibiotic Cipro (remember anthrax?) was totally predictable.

Posted 9:45 PM by Gene

Among the known nominees for the Nobel Good Intentions Prize: Jacques Chirac(!), Bono(!!), and GEORGE W. BUSH!!!!!

Go Dubya!

Those namby-pambys would sooner slit their throats than vote for Dubya, that's for sure.

Posted 7:04 PM by Gene

Isn't this carrying hero worship a bit too far?

Posted 7:00 PM by Gene

What's the difference between a rock act that's been around for twenty years and The Glenn Miller Orchestra Conducted by Joe No-Name?

Well for one thing, the rock act just made a music video inspired by a Wurm.

Posted 6:38 PM by Gene

In Europe, everyone wins.

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

In Saudi Arabia, where al Qaeda doesn't exist, 253 people are being held for al Qaeda links, with 90 prosecutions possible, meaning in all likelihood either death for the innocent or a one-way ticket to northwestern Pakistan.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

In NRO Winfield Myers says that forty-two Catholic colleges have rolled over and died for the feminist jumping-up-and-down conniption The Vagina Monologues; only intervention by the Cardinal Newman Society has prevented more. One can be a muckraker and yell of censorship, or cart out the in loco parentis, which most schools don't believe in anyway, having substituted political indoctrination for the purpose (except, of course, for drinking, and that's a function of lawsuits; nobody cares about the sex so long as it's "consensual"). But "religious" colleges are largely religious in name only, using their long-diluted connections as a pretext for money grubbing. And if Catholic bishops see nothing wrong with their priests buggering boys why should Catholic college presidents see anything wrong with women stomping their feet and screaming oppression? Besides, the Pope is 82 and has Parkinson's. With day by passing day the "value" of college becomes more tenuous, except perhaps in the hard sciences, and one suspects even there the learning would be better with vocational doing.

Posted 4:24 PM by Gene

I see where the leader of that second-tier state got his temper.

Posted 4:13 PM by Gene

Vivendi merged itself into such a mess (or should I say, a messier) that in unmerging it Barry's got a conflict of interest. But what are conflicts of interest when you're a Master of the Universe?

Posted 4:10 PM by Gene

When GE Network News uses The National Enquirer as a source, what's the point of GE Network News?

Then again, this might be an attempt by a Rupert toady to deflect criticism from Rupert. Didn't he once own The Star?

Posted 3:58 PM by Gene

Patrick "The Mogul Stroker" Goldstein reviews a book about the Hollywood mailroom. Now we know why Mickey Mouse Michael is so lovable. Such behavior was one thing when the biz was churning out Gone with the Wind. It's another when it churns out Scooby Doo. Harry Cohn just doesn't seem so cute anymore -- except to Patrick Goldstein.

Posted 2:20 PM by Gene

It's nice of you to be thinking of your old employees, Mike, but you should have thought about this before you took up government as a hobby.

Posted 2:12 PM by Gene

The "legendary" promoter of musical no-talents Lou Pearlman has become the Scott Meredith of talent agents. That is to say, he takes people's money and gives them nothing. Oh well, that's show-biz.

Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

The leader of a second-tier state has a superpower tantrum.

Posted 1:44 PM by Gene

Forbes educatedly "guesstimates" that Wacko is worth maybe possibly could be should be would be approximately in the vicinity of a ballpark figure of $350 million. This is the same kind of "guesstimate" the magazine throws around every year in its irksome annual "That's Entertainment!" valentine, and I don't believe it. We can't know unless we're The Dangler's accountants, and sorry Brett, it's a wonderful fiction you've created but they're not talking.

Posted 1:37 PM by Gene

I almost hate to say this, but you wonder that Osama's boys didn't dream up something like that dreadful arson attack on the Korean subway. Al Qaeda's smiling today.

If it's true that a psychotic bagman did it, I hope this will make all those news hacks and Jell-O brained social scientists reconsider their idiot notion that "the homeless" are but urban pioneers, scouting for a "real" life. Most likely it won't.

Posted 1:33 PM by Gene

Another brilliant idea from the California legislature: We'd all like to ban spam, but it achieved critical mass years ago, and no force of man or God can put an end to it. The law would be a nightmare to enforce and would merely reroute the spam, much of which originates overseas. I fear the only way to stop spam is to stop e-mail. Nice try anyway.

Posted 11:29 PM by Gene

The Harvard-educated son of the liberal plagiarist Doris Kearns Goodwin and her liberal Johnson Administration-resigning husband is a soldier -- an Army lieutenant. He decided to enlist after 9/11.

No one will have to ask him about his resume.

(P. S. He's still sufficiently liberal to say that his brother's opposition to an Iraqi invasion is "patriotic." I guess that's why Howell was able to stomach this, not to mention the PC bonafides. But this is an infinitessimal quibble. The man's serving his country.)

Posted 10:54 PM by Gene

The European Union um, uh, err, ehhs its way to a position which backs the use of force, kinda sorta.

Diplomats speak crooked lines with a straight face.

Posted 9:49 PM by Gene

Chicago Magazine runs an article on the missing former columnist Bob Greene that does to him what Los Angeles Magazine did to Peter Bart. Three words come to mind: chameleon, two-faced, fraud. (Two other words come to mind: statutory rape.) I must cut-and-paste a particular example, about a 1972 piece on the Munich Massacre that won him fame:

“It took this one night to make us know” what it is to be a Jew, he wrote.

“Rabbis were quoting it in High Holiday sermons,” recalls [the columnist Robert] Feder. “That’s how big it was. It seemed to be deeply personal, deeply felt.”

Apparently, it was not. In the mid-seventies, Greene returned to Northwestern to talk to students. The appearance was well attended—Feder was among the students eager to hear Greene speak. Alan Rosenberg, who today is an assistant features editor at The Providence Journal in Rhode Island, was also there. Rosenberg looked up to Greene, and he was curious about the 1974 column that Greene had written about President Gerald Ford pardoning Nixon. “It was so extreme in its emotionalism,” recalls Rosenberg. “It was very virulent—‘We got this guy Ford and the one thing people had wanted of Ford was that he must not pardon Nixon. And now he’d gone and done that and now he’d have to pay.’ I had wondered if Greene had felt that angry when he wrote it, and when it was time for questions, I asked him.”

Greene said no, he had not felt that way. “He said that he had sat down and thought about what he should say. And that that was the way he normally conducted his business—calculate what the right reaction was, what would make a good piece.” Then Greene went on to tell the story about how he had written his column about the Israeli athletes. He said he had been watching TV and having a drink when he heard the news about the murders. And the thought that had crossed his mind was, If I handle this right, I could be famous.

“It seemed so ethically bankrupt, to have this wonderful forum and to just calculate it, to weigh it, and to say what you think would bring you to prominence,” says Rosenberg. “I could never look at him in the same way again.”

Feder corroborates Rosenberg’s story. “Greene said he didn’t really feel anything. It was all just a device that he knew would resonate with people. It made us feel like we had been taken in.”

Ethical bankruptcy -- from the man who became the Court Jester of Bathos in Oprah's Empire of Self-Pity, a fount of gaseous wisdom for the future Lord Koppel of Eisnerdom.

Posted 6:28 PM by Gene

Why is it whenever a disaster like this strikes, there's always a court order, or a fire-code violation?

Club owners come from a certain stratum -- between the ground and the slimies that crawl under rocks.

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

In DC, the snow's giving the Feds an extra day off.

They notice?

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

This interesting UPI story confirms my belief that Columbia was done in by old age -- although I originally suspected some sort of massive structural failure upon reentry, caused by gravitational forces.

I'm surprised no one has commented on that now famous photo of the shuttle breaking up. It appears to have been flying sideways, and at an angle from its vapor trail. Read the story's sixth paragraph. I've a hunch Mr. Anderson may be close to the mark.

Posted 3:26 PM by Gene

A Native Canadian (that's what I'm assuming they're called) labels Jews "a disease" and says the Holocaust was justified because the Jews owned everything.

You're a liberal.

Which side do you take?

P. S. The man apologized.

Posted 3:22 PM by Gene

South Korea's president gets the Nobel Appeasement Prize -- and the North gets four new nuclear plants!

That's a pretty fair trade to me.

Posted 3:10 PM by Gene

THIS is why we had to liberate the Afghans.

Posted 2:36 PM by Gene

More show-biz bulltwaddle from news hacks: It turns out Bart's "300th" episode was his 302nd.

If these idiots can't report, who can expect them to count?

Posted 2:29 PM by Gene

If they back women in combat, you know they'll back affirmative action.

My favorite name among the wimps: William "I Spent $300,000 Giving Jack Valenti a Medal" Cohen.

Posted 2:24 PM by Gene

AOL has ditched its interactive TV operations -- another high-tech solution in search of a problem.

Guess that means putting all that content behind the wall should be a smash.

Posted 2:16 PM by Gene

This won't work. Liberal talk radio's been tried before -- Remember Mario Cuomo? You'd think this would be a natural, that show-biz would open its welcoming arms with all the knee-jerk leftists. Problem is, conservative talk radio got a foothold because the medium's run by foot-stomping hucksters (as anyone who's tried to listen to Cheap Channel can attest) who are almost all gung-ho "free-enterprise" buyer-beware Republicans. Let's see you folks break that logjam. What's more, a liberal throwing a tantrum isn't the same as a conservative throwing a tantrum; the conservative can always claim he's the underdog. It's difficult to be an underdog when so many overdogs have you by the leash. It's also rather difficult to create radio charisma overnight. With his nasal drone Mario wasn't exactly Mr. Excitement. I suspect people will quickly weary of Al Franken pounding the table. And one more thing: If liberals can stage sponsor boycotts, so can conservatives. This won't work.

Posted 2:05 PM by Gene

And in more nepotism news, guess who's producing a new reality show for Fox?

Posted 2:02 PM by Gene

And more good tidings from Rupert, Sumner, Mickey Mouse Michael and Little Jeffrey: TV news from big media is worse. (Caveat: this is from a Columbia J-School affiliate, and those folks never met a liberal bias they didn't like.)

Posted 1:53 PM by Gene

In the days before Gerry the Poet and King Richard, Henry Luce was notorious for his bobbleheaded organization men. You knew it had to have been one of those days at Rockefeller Center when you opened the pages of Time and heard, "Yes boss!" "Oh, you're right boss!" "That is absolutely true, boss!" The magazine crawled with expense-accounted Stepin Fetchits in whiteface. Especially in '52, when Hank single-handedly elected Eisenhower with unspoken threats of reprisal.

So I am not surprised that the tyrant Rupert has an equally bracing effect on his sycophants -- 175 of them. If the Rupe thinks he's proving his manhood a story like this will spit back in his face -- and worse, his actions serve the cause of the appeaceniks, who can now claim the call for war is tainted by the machinations of a disreputable mogul -- Hearst's War II. Good going as always, Rupe.

P. S. Andy S. says, "Abolition of the BBC is essential to any serious political reform in Britain." Yeah, right. We'll sell it to Rupert. Left or right, all big media are about is power.

Posted 1:38 PM by Gene

We'll never hear the end of this: Appeaceniks bring the price of gold down!

I wonder how many of these traders bet on higher oil in '91.

Posted 10:01 PM by Gene

The only useful purpose for motion-picture film these days.

Posted 8:50 PM by Gene

I'll bet the kids are upset that it's snowing on a holiday weekend. Bummer.

Posted 8:49 PM by Gene

Gotta love those publicists: The biggest snowstorm in years is blanketing much of The Ebert Zone, and that doesn't prevent the great news-hack proxy and instant PR machine Paul "Dreck" Dergarabedian from giving us his weekend box-office numbers, at 2 p.m. -- with Sunday estimates!

Give this guy a job in Washington!

Posted 8:16 PM by Gene

Before DreamWorks SKG there was Orion Pictures, and before Orion Pictures there was American International, and before American International there was Allied Artists, and before Allied Artists there was....

The niche film company begins with a outsized dream and then runs aground because the biggies have been around for a century and the world doesn't need fifty movie companies. (United Artists, arguably the first such filmmaker, floundered for thirty years and was only set aright by the dissolution of the original partnership and a bold management team.) Given that the company hangs on Steve's prestige and Paul "Mr. Greed" Allen's luck with his investments (not so good lately) I predict this DreamWorks follows Orion Pictures, and American International, and Allied Artists, and ....

Posted 7:38 PM by Gene

A man of PEACE!! PEACE!!!! runs for president.

Hey Dennis! I've got a rock the astronauts brought back from Mars I'll sell to your friend Sheila Jackson.

Posted 7:17 PM by Gene

The Palestinians back a loser again.

Posted 4:43 PM by Gene

To quote a Freeper, the "Grenade Guy" is a Muslim. Joy.

Posted 4:30 PM by Gene

One! Two! One! Two!

We not only fought but we won, too!

Left! Right! Left! Right!

There's none of the enemy left, right?

Left! Right! Right! Leftrightright....

HALT!!!!!

Posted 4:14 PM by Gene

How reassuring to know Der Homeland boys rely so much on "snippets and threads."

Posted 3:55 PM by Gene

It's a shame there were so few Richard Daleys in the sixties and seventies when the refrigerators went up. The utter deadness of modern urban architecture is now termed a blight. Why is it the buildings of the 1920s have stately form and all manner of delightful ornamentation and today's buildings are just prefab and fixtures? It can't be just money; where's the imagination? Can't inspiration flourish on a budget? Given the wondrous state of our total culture I fear the mayor's fighting a gallant but losing cause. Especially when the Babbitts control the architects.

Posted 3:26 PM by Gene

I see Tiger's winning his first tournament back.

Has anyone ever thought that Tiger may be the worst thing to happen to golf? When he wins it's by five strokes, and when he's not in a tournament, it's not quite legitimate. We know what happens to golf without the star power; witness the Senior Tour. Is having MJ on the course really an unalloyed plus? (Acknowledging that MJ wasn't a bad golfer either.) And when Tiger finally loses his game, who'll replace him? The NBA is paying dearly for its reliance on one player, and so will the Tour.

I'll concede this: I wish I had something in my wardrobe like his red shirt.

P. S. Phil "Wrong-Way" Mickelson said something stupid. I don't think Phil and Tiger like each other.

Posted 2:57 PM by Gene

Playing Broadway tunes in a church is like the Sunday rock concerts in those Tiltonesque megachurches. People are so intent on putting on a show they forget the script.

Posted 2:50 PM by Gene

Now Cheap Channel's taking over the museums.

My only question is, when do they put in the foreground Muzak with the ads?

Posted 2:44 PM by Gene

It takes a special spunk, a certain chutzpah, to allow yourself to be defrauded of $1.8 billion.

Businessdilberts stand side-by-side with news hacks as the most credulous fools on earth.

Posted 2:36 PM by Gene

One of Howell's hacks reads UK editorial pages and detects a "gulf" between the "leaders" and the "people."

Keep running articles like this Howell and we won't need the Web.

Posted 2:23 PM by Gene

Our kind of churches are "leading" the anti-war movement -- if you consider Unitarians and Reform Jews "religious." (Unitarian Universalist Social Clubs and Reform Jewish Coffee Klatches is more like it.) The president will have none of them (shucks! I guess he is retarded).

P. S. Most of these social clubs and nearly empty former churches are pro-choice. I've always wanted to ask these clowns how they can prioritize killing.

I do have one good thing to say of the Unitarians -- they rented out one of their clubs in Washington to Stan Getz to record his first bossa-nova album. They're fine recording studios.

Posted 2:10 PM by Gene

Conservative Federal judge (bad) appointed by Reagan (very bad) becomes pen-pals with (and ultimately visits) a death-row inmate (good). The state of California thinks he's going soft (so long as it's only persons of color, good). The LALA Times is conflicted.

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

Another story that means nothing. Older people are buying CDs. So what? The young must replenish our culture, and the young aren't writing Gershwin.

Posted 1:46 PM by Gene

Saddam says thank you for "International Day of Confronting the Aggression."