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
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Saturday, March 01, 2003
Stupid pitcher was drunk while pitching a perfect game; stupid pitcher thinks it's funny enough to dictate into a book; people laugh unintentionally; his manager scowls; stupid pitcher now denies he pitched drunk. The book's still coming out in April.
There weren't just goose eggs in that game, bud.
There weren't just goose eggs in that game, bud.
The link reads, "TV Review: 'Salem Witch Trials': Fanning Mass Puritan Hysteria, in the Salem Style." I link, but I will not read. Knowing the Times I can make the connections: Salem=puritans, puritans=witch hunts, witch hunts=Joe McCarthy, Joe McCarthy=hysteria. This is the same paper that has never forfeited Walter Duranty's Pulitzer for his lies about Stalin's famine. You can't make an omelet without a few scheming eggheads.
I hope Dubya overcomes his obsession with secrecy and makes the trials of these chief cockroaches public, even recognizing they'll be more theater and symbolism than true jurisprudence and the evidence will be heavily censored. Unless we go PC wimpy we should seek the death penalty too. The only way to treat cockroaches is with an extermination.
On the Disney Network's coverage of this Arthur Andersen spinoff's way to get its senior executives to say I SAW TIGER WOODS AND YOU DIDN'T, Peter Alliss likened Tiger to Artie Shaw. With all due respect, Peter (and you are a pretty good announcer), I'd rather hear Artie Shaw play, and besides, you can't hum a golf swing.
Reuters marvels at the world-changing force of blogs (astonishingly, you-know-who's name's not here). One wonders whether the blog is turning into a mere successor to the e-mail as our boxes clog with spam. (Of course, bloggers can be flamed too.) As for the scoffing notion that most blog entries are "one or two-sentence gasps," most of life doesn't require more than a nod of the head. Why should I ramble about my navel?
In other New York news, Honorary Mayor Mike is ticked that people harp on his wealth.
Why don't you build that new stadium, Mike? You'd have change left over for investments.
Why don't you build that new stadium, Mike? You'd have change left over for investments.
The mother of all boondoggles: The Jersey Jets propose a "$1.2 billion" stadium on Manhattan's West Side with no on-site parking; and guess who will have to pay $250 million for the foundation. We may presume Honorary Mayor Mike likes it because "the Olympics" will justify it. What if they decide on somewhere else? Prediction: $3 billion and all-day traffic jams.
Ecologically-correct tantrum on a Swiss lake:
Four points:
1. The color of that paint is open to interpretation. Is it red?
2. Saddam's blameless, as always.
3. I hope the fish like swimming in a slightly pink lake.
4. The lake will melt. Saddam won't.
Four points:
1. The color of that paint is open to interpretation. Is it red?
2. Saddam's blameless, as always.
3. I hope the fish like swimming in a slightly pink lake.
4. The lake will melt. Saddam won't.
Why is it when naked women protest they're almost always ugly?
Friday, February 28, 2003
What's the difference between "flammable" and "inflammable?" "Flammable" is the word you use when you don't know "inflammable" means "flammable." Which includes virtually all news hacks.
LIBERALS! Here's another Hobson's choice for you: animal-rights activists -- or Jews?
In the end, all the techie magazines like Red Herring did was ooh and aah and sell steakless sizzle.
Thank you for your part in the bubble.
Thank you for your part in the bubble.
Now that The Miz, one of the Black Crooks of our time (a smash in 1866 with its girls in leotards and its lavish scenery, unrevivable two generations later), is closing (along with that PC version of Flower Drum Song and God knows what else), who's going to pay for Sulzberger the Junior's overpriced theater ads?
This is what happens when you sit on your haunches all day complaining about our policy toward Iraq.
The authors of the latest chapter of Profiles in Courage bait the Supremes.
How appropriate. Let them clean up our mess.
How appropriate. Let them clean up our mess.
Jim Cramer calls Kenneth's interview with Saddam an "infomercial" (third item).
He should know, having sold enough stocks on CNBC.
He should know, having sold enough stocks on CNBC.
The Klan may protest at Augusta.
Wonderful. Now Howell will really think the Republicans are behind those reclusive golf snobs.
Wonderful. Now Howell will really think the Republicans are behind those reclusive golf snobs.
Isn't it FUN when a pop-up ad from Orbitz freezes your computer?
The leader of the CRETINS wants immunity from prosecution.
You should have thought about that when you guys set off the fireworks without telling anybody.
Also, that nightclub's owners acoustically insulated their death trap with "packaging material" -- "the cheapest stuff." Why spend big money fireproofing an outhouse?
You should have thought about that when you guys set off the fireworks without telling anybody.
Also, that nightclub's owners acoustically insulated their death trap with "packaging material" -- "the cheapest stuff." Why spend big money fireproofing an outhouse?
"Newsweek thinks its time has come" (hardy har har) -- for what? For more political CW? For more Matrix ads? Your time has come for folding. Or for more premiums and "professional discounts."
Speaking of BS, Sam Donaldson is still -- a man without a network. Shucks!
Didn't MSNBC just get rid of Phil Donahue?
Didn't MSNBC just get rid of Phil Donahue?
Al "SOB" Neuharth, who founded USA Okay as an outlet for BS (or rather, SOB), thinks we can rely on him to help sort it out!
That's like going to Pravda for the truth on Communism, or Der Sturmer for the truth on Jews.
That's like going to Pravda for the truth on Communism, or Der Sturmer for the truth on Jews.
So! Jack "Buy Signal" Grubman was Bernie Ebbers's ventriloquist.
"Is Worldcom all right?" "'Sallright!"
"Is Worldcom all right?" "'Sallright!"
Many may not know who owns what in the media, and many may not care. But they must care about the overflow of sleaze on television; the endless vapid sound-alike tunes among endless commercial breaks on the radio; the IQ-murdering movies for teenage boys. They see it, they hear it, and they don't like it. And they know in the back of their heads there's little they can do about it, and they resent it. Between the megalomaniacs running the biz and the sponsors who finance anything, reform doesn't stand a chance. How does it serve us to have so much of our public life run by a virtual dictatorship of the electrons?
If these bozo pedagogues spent as much time teaching in class as demagoguing, we'd have a generation of geniuses.
Thursday, February 27, 2003
A peeved diplomat resigns -- and sends his letter of resignation to The New York Times. Howell is singing tonight!
The Democrats now have their foreign-policy platform for 2004.
P. S. This guy must be a leading figure in diplomacy: a Google search finds 91 hits under Brady Kiesling in quotation marks, and TWO under John Brady Kiesling in quotation marks. Hardly that common a name.
The Democrats now have their foreign-policy platform for 2004.
P. S. This guy must be a leading figure in diplomacy: a Google search finds 91 hits under Brady Kiesling in quotation marks, and TWO under John Brady Kiesling in quotation marks. Hardly that common a name.
Another "role model" comes sloshing down the ladder.
I guess we could cite Lincoln's line about Grant and his booze but I suspect Dave's in no shape to fight -- a war.
That bit about Mickey Mantle's funny too -- until you realize he spent half his life making beer commercials under the influence, and whatever was left apologizing.
I guess we could cite Lincoln's line about Grant and his booze but I suspect Dave's in no shape to fight -- a war.
That bit about Mickey Mantle's funny too -- until you realize he spent half his life making beer commercials under the influence, and whatever was left apologizing.
Having continuing trouble deleting THAT IDIOT PRIEST'S POSE from my head I use this story from The Guardian (linked via Arts and Letters Daily) as a prop to post a masterpiece by Titian -- Venus Rising from the Sea, just acquired by Scotland's National Gallery:
Gorgeous! GORGEOUS!
I now have the perfect excuse for running pictures of naked women here.
Gorgeous! GORGEOUS!
I now have the perfect excuse for running pictures of naked women here.
After all this time! That imbecilic FBI agent who refused to wiretap Muslim terrorists due to their religion has been "reassigned" out of Riyadh. I hope it's not a euphemism for promoted.
Some tasks should not be handled by human beings. Like toll-booth clerking.
Disney Arthouse Films is remaking Guys and Dolls. Who's going to play Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra?
One thing's certain: the movie-ad-blurb copywriters are already calling it a masterpiece.
One thing's certain: the movie-ad-blurb copywriters are already calling it a masterpiece.
When I heard Congresspoop Star Trek asking in her inquisitorial-dummy tone if Dubya would ditch the shuttle (perhaps to keep from asking when men might land again on Mars), and the NASA boss said no, I knew what that meant: more science kits in space, more astronauts saying "Hi mom," more pork to every state -- more of the same.
Are you cops kidding? In LA, car chases are A PROFIT CENTER!
I'd like to know if there's a correlation between coverage of car chases and the sweeps.
I'd like to know if there's a correlation between coverage of car chases and the sweeps.
If The New York Post is gay then what about Rupert the Babymaker?
"How many gawdawful columnists does Frisco's Chronicle have?" sounds like a Polish joke. I need a punchline.
"How many gawdawful columnists does Frisco's Chronicle have?" sounds like a Polish joke. I need a punchline.
When Saddam sneezes, does Hachette go "gesundheit"?
I know this, when Dubya sneezes, the French yell, "OIL!!! OIL!!!!!"
I know this, when Dubya sneezes, the French yell, "OIL!!! OIL!!!!!"
What a joke! Oprah's reviving her Schmaltz and Self-Pity Book Club. Guess those sappy woman publishers knocked on her door. That and she must have missed the power.
Literature goes downhill again.
Literature goes downhill again.
I give Bob Graham a better than even chance at winning the Democratic nomination. He isn't polyester like John Edwards, or a flake like Congressman Neville "Bankrupt Flip-flop Cow" Kucinich; he doesn't throw PC tantrums like Al Sharpton; he isn't a conscience, like Joe Lieberman; he isn't a boy, like Dick Gephardt; he isn't a 'do, like John Kerry; and he does have a brain, unlike Carol Moseley. Dubya should be planning on his nomination too.
"Zelig" Selig has banned ephedra in the minors. Is that because major leaguers can't die?
It won't do to say, if only we call all be as humane, as decent as Fred Rogers; we can't be. The next best thing is to know someone as humane, as decent as Fred Rogers, and even that is a rarity.
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Hey A.J.! Here's one you can't answer from Encyclopedia Britannica: What famous editor got Cameron Diaz to salute a camera with her finger?
If that doesn't tickle your brain A.J., here's another one: How many puff pieces has Bill Zehme written for Esquire?
If that doesn't tickle your brain A.J., here's another one: How many puff pieces has Bill Zehme written for Esquire?
Why do I think, the higher the government taxes cigarettes, the more smuggling occurs -- not to mention the thousands of new government employees reciting The Bureaucrat's Creed, "Sorry Can't Do That"?
Did making all those phone calls leave us mean today? Tom DeLay is Snidely Whiplash minus the handlebars and the stove-pipe hat, and he shouldn't have dumped on Kosovo because Slick ran it. But Bill is so busy Conasoning and feeding his unquenchable rage that he doesn't tell us what he thinks. Is he against DeLay? Dubya? A war in Iraq? Or is he auditioning for Crossfire? The cute deceptive manner in which he lays into DeLay is a left cross at his own midsection. We can only think this kind of Terrible Tempered Mr. Bang would shut up like an army of antiwar protestors in Iraq when confronted with the drool of Sheryl Crow in Bosnia. Demagoguery and dishonesty -- the mark of a perfect news hack.
Sorry Bill, I take these insults to my intelligence personally.
By the way, what's Microsoft's policy on political activism on company time?
Sorry Bill, I take these insults to my intelligence personally.
By the way, what's Microsoft's policy on political activism on company time?
The only way to stop intellectual atrocities like this (as linked through Andy S.) is for the deep-pocketed alums to stop emptying them. But they'll give on for the same reason corporate America keeps sponsoring junk television: inertia, misplaced guilt over their own presumed intolerance, and willful ignorance.
One minor quibble: how many attended the hatefest? If it were fifty or a hundred, one can dismiss this as a puny unruly mob. But if it were 500 or a thousand, I might sound the tocsin a little louder.
One minor quibble: how many attended the hatefest? If it were fifty or a hundred, one can dismiss this as a puny unruly mob. But if it were 500 or a thousand, I might sound the tocsin a little louder.
Another anti-war, pro-choice clod needs his bottle. (I'm not crazy about guns or the NRA either.)
That's a cute name for your column. Do we file this under "notes" or "errata"?
That's a cute name for your column. Do we file this under "notes" or "errata"?
Hans Blix plucks a daisy: He is, he isn't, he is, he isn't, he is, he isn't, he is, he isn't....
Courage's "friend" Ramsey "Uncle Joe" Clark helped set up that interview. Anyone have to ask why the White House is ticked?
Looks like the Tinkertoys are back. Wonder how much screaming Howell did on the phone. But there's already been so much tinkering with the tinkertoys one suspects they'll get even uglier. These people don't know their rears from a memorial hole in the ground.
Jack the Wizard of Wizened Prunes is telling college students they must not file-share. And so he's getting an earful -- first at Duke (Go Dukies!) and now at Georgetown. Serves ya right, idiot!
I'm surprised there aren't more fires in nursing homes.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Dance-dance-dancing at the Buttman (formerly Cato) Institute: Union membership declined again last year. The bad news is, the unions remain intransigently in place where they can do the most damage: government and education.
Of course at Buttman they want no unions period. They don't have 'em in porno.
Of course at Buttman they want no unions period. They don't have 'em in porno.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooh! Richard Cohen said a naughty word! He called Congressman Dennis "Neville Flip-flop" Kucinich a "fool."
Have you ever seen his face? Any Congressman of whom you could say, "Don't be a cow, man!" is definitely a fool.
Have you ever seen his face? Any Congressman of whom you could say, "Don't be a cow, man!" is definitely a fool.
Dingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingding FLASH! MSNBC CANCELS DONAHUE! I DID IT!
C'mon, Walter. Donahue did it.
C'mon, Walter. Donahue did it.
Conservatives aren't gonna like this: James Bowman pans Gods and Generals. He's linked on The American Prowler.
Californians are MAD at Gray Davis. They're so mad they just re-elected him.
Also in this column, Roger says hip-hop started "a complete decline of the business as it was kidnapped and tortured by wanna-be thugs on a joyride."
Who's your boss, Roger?
Who's your boss, Roger?
How long will this career last? Our ol' FOX!!!!!!!!!!!! publicist Roger says "[Norah] Jones's success is no fluke; [her producer Arif] Mardin is one of the geniuses in the business." I like that; her record's a multiplatinum seller and her producer is the "genius."
Quick! Who produced Satchmo and the Hot Five?
Quick! Who produced Satchmo and the Hot Five?
Another wonderment of crime: Four men are dead over a CD player.
The "Non-Aligned" Movement, that former Charlie McCarthy to the Edgar Bergens in the Kremlin, but still an international dummy, really really wanted to beat the U.S. over the head with its self-righteousness, but then, doggone it, the "non-aligned" North Koreans fired a missile. Too bad.
Perhaps competition in the news biz is overrated. With so many of the same background, relying on the same sources, and ultimately engaging in the group equivalent of talking to yourself, how much can it help? We see it already in cable -- a thousand channels (lots of "competition" there) and nothing on. We see it in blogs -- a million of them and nothing to say.
Expensive aesthetes have egos. If it's true in rock, it's even truer in the hermetically-sealed world of architects, itself but a planet in the talent-free universe called art.
I'm starting to think those Fighters for Democracy at the top of the blogging world are becoming as cliquish and withdrawn from real life as news hacks. It amazes me how little they talk about everyday matters, or even those news stories of interest to common folk. No, it's all Iraq and snow sculptures. I'm equally amazed about how many of these bloggers type on for paragraph after uninteresting paragraph when they should know the whole medium is about surfing, and that the Web's flashing lights aren't good for the attention span. If I don't want to spend ten minutes reading a LALA Times press release for a movie, why should I spend even five minutes reading a blow-by-deadening-blow account of how Colin Powell should handle the UN? Besides, so little really merits more than a sentence or two; any more and you start repeating yourself. I do and I've stuck to squibs.
What did I say about Tiger? Now the grand poobahs of golf are thinking about standardizing tournament golf balls because everybody can hit 600 yards and the game's become "one-dimensional" -- just like tennis.
Somehow though, I suspect the longer the golf balls drive, the more the duffers throw their putters into the nearest water hazard.
Somehow though, I suspect the longer the golf balls drive, the more the duffers throw their putters into the nearest water hazard.
NASA may send a tile-repair kit into space.
Boys, boys, stop trying to patch up the orbiting jalopy; just ditch the shuttle and think of something else.
Boys, boys, stop trying to patch up the orbiting jalopy; just ditch the shuttle and think of something else.
Meantime, the Disney Network continues to prove America does not need four over-the-air TV networks.
Why do I think all this money the idiots of big business are pouring in to finance more junk television and bad radio is coming out of the money they could use to hire people? The only ones who benefit from this obsessive spending are Lowsy Mays and the liars of MadAve. How does this scattering of dollar bills into the streets help us?
It didn't help Cheap Channel's shareholders; the stock's down anyway.
It didn't help Cheap Channel's shareholders; the stock's down anyway.
Monday, February 24, 2003
Another thank you to Slick and The Cleaning Lady -- with a special tip of the hat to Uncle Bernie Schwartz!
I post this to remind myself of what a real woman looks like (as the song goes, it's been a long, long time), and more to the point, to expunge the noxious image THAT IDIOT PRIEST FROM FLORIDA left in my brain.
Timothy Noah asks, why was there no Grammy moment of silence for the CRETINS' victims? Drudge had the answer on his radio show: a moment of silence costs money.
Years and years ago, when Walt Disney put Davy Crockett on TV, he got decked for turning a liar and a drunk into a national hero. Now his better Mickey Mouse Michael's turning The Battle of the Alamo into a politically-correct victory for Hispanics.
With these folks, the truth never wins.
With these folks, the truth never wins.
Has anyone noticed that The World's Leading Blogger has not discussed the two biggest stories of the past week -- the CRETINS' Fireworks Show and Jesica's tragedy, even though the latter certainly has (to use a Kausism) "public-policy implications"? Instead he's been droning on about Iraq. White House consulting you there, prof?
Saddam challenges Dubya to a debate, with Dan Rather as moderator.
First, does anyone believe Dubya will consent to Mr. Courage moderating after what he tried to do to Bush I? And second, there are said to be half-a-dozen authorized Saddams roaming Iraq. Which one would show up?
First, does anyone believe Dubya will consent to Mr. Courage moderating after what he tried to do to Bush I? And second, there are said to be half-a-dozen authorized Saddams roaming Iraq. Which one would show up?
Heck, Charlie Hustle can't even make the Canadian Hall of Fame, and the Canadians have even less self-respect than we do.
Ho hum, the former Sony Music boss, the former Mr. Mariah Carey, emulated Mafiosi down to the "shiny black suits." Meantime his putative boss and eventual deposer Howard Stringer asked something that could well apply to both: "Tell me what this guy does. Tell me what this guy does. Tell me what this guy does."
Our latest definition of "idiot." Hey guy, you may think posing like Marilyn's sexy -- especially with that beer belly, hubba hubba! But I doubt one of those hot eighteen-year-olds is going to want to nuzzle it -- unless he's really starved for affection.
I think what The Smoking Gun censored was a sign reading, "I'm with Stupid."
I now see the idiot was -- er, exposed by one Stephen T. Brady of Roman Catholic Faithful, who sent out a letter to this dimbulb's bosses just last Wednesday.
It occurs to me, he really is posing like Marilyn. Marilyn Manson.
I think what The Smoking Gun censored was a sign reading, "I'm with Stupid."
I now see the idiot was -- er, exposed by one Stephen T. Brady of Roman Catholic Faithful, who sent out a letter to this dimbulb's bosses just last Wednesday.
It occurs to me, he really is posing like Marilyn. Marilyn Manson.
Well by golly, the automobile industry's introducing 25 new models of cars, and gee whiz, they've got to tell somebody, and they've got money to burn, or throw in the garbage, or flush down the toilet, and by gum, what better way to do it than on the TEEVEE!
Why does America need J-schools? It once got along well enough without them. All they've brought the news biz are snobbery and useless credentialism. It escapes President Bollinger that you pay $40,000 per annum not to make $25,000 per, but to become a lazy op-ed columnist reclining in a leather chair and typing three words and filling stretch limos and modeling Pan-Cake in a TV studio to the tune of $3 million per. That Columbia isn't fully serious in reforming its J-school can be gleaned from the names on his select "reimagining" committee: Ken "Sumner's My Best Friend" Auletta, Gene "No Fewer than 50,000 Words on the Snail Darter" Roberts, and anybody from Newsweek.
Poor Little Jeffrey. Legendary Welch turned General Electric into GE Bancorp. Now the company has to figure out what it wants to do when it grows up. Alas, GE Bancorp, like dogs or anime characters, seems to be in a permanent state of adolescence.
One reason MUSIC IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!!!!!! is because the biz can only create flashes in a pan. Do we have another such instant success on our hands?
With their razor-thin margins and all the shelf-space shenanigans it's a wonder that more grocery chains haven't gone Enron.
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Well well well! It looks from all accounts as if the great and noble recording sensations held their mouths. This isn't France, where the grandchildren of collaborators can chuckle cynically about our evil. Having your sales go through the floor and half of corporate America looking over your shoulder can clear one's mind wonderfully (not that the sponsors would have cared, trying oh so hard as they do to be HIP like a chairman of the board in baggy pants and tattoos). It will be interesting to see if this increasingly irrelevant ceremony does a Miss America in the ratings.
Jacques Chirac runs an art museum in Frisco -- and gets cold feet.
Howell must have doubled his meds.
Howell must have doubled his meds.
Well we know one sponsor who'll proudly finance the Bush=Hitler rantings tonight on the Grammies: P&G (figures), another charter member of the American Association of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers, and former backer of Hezbollah TV (it stopped last June).
That company may sell Crest toothpaste in Spanish, but tomorrow I expect to be complaining to P&G by phone and e-mail -- in English.
P. S. I won't be watching -- but then, neither will any P&G executive above vice-president (except in advertising).
That company may sell Crest toothpaste in Spanish, but tomorrow I expect to be complaining to P&G by phone and e-mail -- in English.
P. S. I won't be watching -- but then, neither will any P&G executive above vice-president (except in advertising).
Another Howell cause celebre? I have trouble too with blackface on eBay. But what if you're an acoustical-record buff and you want to fill out your collection, and you come across Ada Jones doing a "coon" song? Why can't it sell while the hate-filled half-baked poesy of a rapper trades freely? In the end all sorts of politically incorrect merchandise will be out of bounds -- and the $25,000 Columbia coins and the WTC rubble will remain untouched.
A Howell spokespoop whose middle initial is 8 congratulates leftists on using the Internet to organize their Bush=Hitler rallies. (No mention of A.N.S.W.E.R., and the New York Bush=Hitler rally is back up to 350,000.)
See! See! The Web isn't right-wing after all!
See! See! The Web isn't right-wing after all!
Why the AP is BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD: Tiresome sociology on the middle-finger salute. Guess all those wires needed greased. Where's Perfesser Thompson?
Twenty million words a day....
Twenty million words a day....
Now Newsweek tells us "Planned Al Qaeda Attacks Timed to Take Place Just Before or Just After War Starts with Iraq, FBI Bulletin Says."
Does that mean more press conferences with Gov. Ridge?
Does that mean more press conferences with Gov. Ridge?
Either the CRETINS were lying, or the owners were lying.
Does it make that much difference when 96 are dead?
Does it make that much difference when 96 are dead?
Health research is "politicized," say "critics." This is news? The continuing AIDS disaster has been all politics. If we hadn't gone squishy-legged at the screaming of extreme elements of the gay-rights movement and their news-hack mouthpieces in the opening phase, tens of thousands might still be alive today. Stem-cell research? That isn't about politics? Abortion? Of course a big problem is with those bigoted Nazi Chris -- pardon us, Mea Culpa -- religious conservatives who want to tell the whole dam -- excuse us, Mea Culpa -- who want to practice their religion. This is what happens when news hacks are skeptics.
Having demonstrated his political incompetence already, Bill Simon, thinking himself thus qualified, hint-hints that he'll run for office again.
One good ego trip deserves another.
One good ego trip deserves another.
Mea Culpa Shaw says news hacks need some of that ol'-time religion. He believes his brethren are much too -- skeptical. Well, on the first point, it didn't help that when I rang up his article the first thing that popped up was Miller Brewing's "Out in LA" banner ad (and we all know how psychotically intolerant right-w -- uh, certain believers can be); and on the second, if the Mea Culpa thinks news hacks are skeptical, he should read this, or this. When the reporting profession isn't skeptical of its platitudes or connections it isn't skeptical period. And sorry Mea, cynicism isn't skepticism, Maureen Dowd to the contrary.