Posted 8:28 PM by Gene

WHAT?!? A pro-war rally -- in FRISCO?!?!? Unbelievable!!!!!

Posted 4:50 PM by Gene

All they have to do is aim it at Berkeley.

Posted 4:48 PM by Gene

Tell 'em to charge it to Saddam.

Posted 4:43 PM by Gene

Walter Duranty should have his Pulitzer revoked. Walter Duranty will not have his Pulitzer revoked.

One reason Walter Duranty will not have his Pulitzer revoked: The Pulitzers are administered by Columbia University.

Posted 4:26 PM by Gene

In more business-fraud news (isn't it all?), another exec is about to plead guilty in the HealthSouth scandal (I confess I haven't followed it; these things are so de rigueur), and Delta Air Lines's chief just got a 120% raise.

Ho-hum.

Posted 4:09 PM by Gene

Well who would ever have guessed we'd see this?

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

I have FAR more faith in smart bombs hitting their targets than dumb-fat-happy-rich news hacks gleaning the truth through surveys.

Posted 1:22 PM by Gene

Military Mirrors Working-Class America

And the news hacks, perfessers, Hollywood fornicators, unwashed S.T.A.L.I.N.I.S.T.S., etc., etc., mirror -- who knows.

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

"MADONNA VIDEO ENDS WITH IMAGE OF PRESIDENT BUSH WITH GRENADE IN HIS LAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

SHUT UP, WALTER WINCHELL!!

SHUT UP TOO, AOL!!!!!

(Looks like we're back to every fifth post about King Richard again.)

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

Watch FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! News and you love the war. Watch GE Network News and you sorta kind like it, but....

Is news bias just a matter of reporters?

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

Only the Saudis would get mad that our missiles would wind up in their sand. I guess they're worried over the health of zillions of grains of silica. Well if you don't need them, Saudis, we have beaches.

Another smile for The Osama Channel!

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

Even Howell recognizes bad PR when he sees it.

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Hans Blix, self-appointed scapegoat, quits.

Hans who?

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

One of those perfessers who caused Columbia to have a stroke over Iraq is now in trouble (extremely slight trouble) because he wished a holocaust on U. S. soldiers.

It amazes me how the "higher-education" industry continues to bilk its customers and the taxpayers with impunity. Here's another symptom. And to me there's no difference between bigoted professors and the zeroes at 000000000000klahoma! They both spawn in the same cesspool.

Posted 8:05 AM by Gene

It's NewsMax, and it's FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, but I'm not surprised that missile that struck in Kuwait was made by the Chinese.

Thanks again, Slick, Cleaning Lady and Uncle Bernie!

Posted 7:51 AM by Gene

Really! Really! Vee vant ze U. S.zzzzzz to ween. Becoz if ze U. S. luusays zen eet make uss luuk bahd. Alzhough really we're rooting for ze side with ze morrre oilllll....ZE U.S. WEEEEEL WEEN!!!!!

Posted 7:47 AM by Gene

Since they can't fight fair, they'll fight dirty.

It's a GREAT day at The Osama Channel.

Posted 7:28 PM by Gene

The university with America's most prominent J-school just had a stroke over Iraq.

Posted 7:25 PM by Gene

The head on NRO's home page reads, "Does oil doom democracy in Iraq?"

Judging from who runs the oil industry I say yes.

Posted 7:21 PM by Gene

The wrong side protests for the right reason.

Posted 7:19 PM by Gene

News hacks in Iraq "haven't showered in two weeks."

They're just adding a natural smell to their artifical one.

Posted 7:16 PM by Gene

The conservatives who declared victory over The Mess may have cheered too soon: They're replacing Phil Donahue with HHHWal-ter Crrrron-khite Jr.

Posted 7:11 PM by Gene

Just what the news biz needs -- more news 'dos.

Dippity-DO!

Posted 7:09 PM by Gene

Consultants have no business running news rooms -- and neither do antiwar protestors.

Posted 7:07 PM by Gene

You've come to the right place.

Posted 6:47 PM by Gene

One of The Three Stooges is about to run the AP!

Helloooooo --

Helloooooooooo --

HELLOOOOOOOOO --

HELLO!!!!!

(I DO NOT apologize. This guy ran USA Okay, which often reads like a boink on the head.)

Posted 6:39 PM by Gene

Goody! I guess this means my AOL service will get even BETTER!

They call it "security," by the way. I call it another ham-handed layoff from Corporate America.

This is the same AOL, natch, that's pulled some nifty accounting deals. By the company's own practice, those responsible should be given a choice of the means for their execution.

Posted 6:36 PM by Gene

Salon.com may be proof of near-death experience!

Posted 6:34 PM by Gene

Three "stupid" men "sitting around drinking" closed a Big Apple bridge for two-and-a-half hours.

Heaven forbid if they'd been playing cards.

Posted 6:32 PM by Gene

When MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE rule the media and baseball, guess who loses.

Posted 6:28 PM by Gene

At this point it scarcely matters whether it was a Turkish plane hijacked to Greece or a Greek plane hijacked to Turkey.

Posted 6:26 PM by Gene

Half-a-million "protesting" in Damascus and they wouldn't support Uncle Saddam? That stretches credulity.

Posted 6:22 PM by Gene

Either Saddam's up to his old tricks in Kuwait, or the holy cockroaches are. How can anyone doubt their intentions?

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

We control 40 percent of Iraq. Now that number's surely open to debate, as so much of the nation is desert. Still 40 percent in ten days is a pretty good figure. Plus we have 100 percent of the skies.

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

News hacks get around the Q word by using the U word.

Posted 6:11 PM by Gene

Libraries have been implicated in terrorist acts, and lots of dirty old men (and boys) get their jollies at public terminals. Is it really an affront to the First Amendment to censor porn in libraries?

Posted 6:05 PM by Gene

Andy S. returns from his happy-and-gay sojourn to post remarks of uncommon eloquence -- the words of a peace protestor who has changed his mind, quoting an Iraqi:

Life is hell. We have no hope. But everything will be ok once the war is over....No matter how bad it is we will not all die. We have hoped for some other way but nothing has worked. 12 years ago it went almost all the way but failed. We cannot wait anymore. We want the war and we want it now.

For people like these, we must fight this war -- and we will WIN.

Posted 8:09 PM by Gene

With McDonald's having no luck running burger joints, it seems to stretch things to believe it can run anything else well.

Posted 7:49 PM by Gene

Does everyone in Washington work for Whorevis? The superhawk Richard Perle has resigned as a high-mucky-muck White House adviser because he represents Global Crossing, now about to be sold to Chinese interests. Some superhawk. Honest to God, all these Beltway ultrawonks can think of is money. And the friendlier friends of China continue to work their way into every White House briefing. With Slick it was Uncle Bernie Schwartz, and with Dubya it's Mr. Big Brain.

Posted 7:29 PM by Gene

On the eve of College Basketball for Dummies, guess which coach has resigned.

Posted 7:26 PM by Gene

I'm a little despondent that one of our formerly local retailers, the jeweler Caldwell's, is closing its once-flagship store in the city. (Consolation prize: it's keeping its commercial division here.) But I shouldn't be surprised. The jewelry biz has been in the doldrums for years; witness the closing of Service Merchandise and a clientele increasingly limited to middle-aged women with bad taste. And as I've said before, business was the right hook to the Je$$es' left cross in destroying our cities, with whole blocks of vacant storefronts the result. To get to my new job I travel an elevated train line through part of our ghetto, once the home of such antediluvians as "Iris's Millinery Shop" and a oculist named Fellman, now block after block of cheap furniture stores and pawn shops; the only national retailers are liberal (Viacom's Blockbuster) or vultures (Walgreen's). Businessmen just will not locate in cities. The future for the Caldwell block's a mixed bag: yes, as the hopeful local says, there are new stores there, but two are relocations (although the Borders does attract good traffic and the site it left near Rittenhouse Square is next to construction that could house a big upscale outfit), and the Woolworth's will never again be occupied. I think those ghetto storefronts are going to stay the same for a long time. Retailers can cite taxes and crime and lack of good help until hell freezes over, but I will say again and again, the real reason they won't open in cities is n...you know the word. They do.

Posted 5:46 PM by Gene

Talk about setting teeth chattering....

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Yes, war news and stupid can co-exist.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Why haven't their been more suspensions of news hacks for protesting?

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Why would antiwar types target their friends?

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

Have any great musicians come from piano contests?

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

More Arabs take courses in chemistry.

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Now the Nasdaq has barred The Osama Channel, which presumably means even fewer electronic intercepts for its spies.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Thank you, Sen. Kyl (or your staffer), for reminding us of European perfidy in the Civil War. Fact is, the British didn't become unshakable friends until WWII.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

Can we spin that head to mean the war, Tribune West?

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

The Butcher Broadcasting Corporation admits it may be a teensy-eensy bit biased in Saddam's favor.

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

McCARTHYISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meantime, in other CENSORSHIP news....

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

News hacks will take the increase in our troops as a sign of FAILURE. I take it as a sign we need more troops to secure Iraq.

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

The day after Tribune Company tells us about that wonderful Marine's mother protesting the war, why, if Col.'s successors don't report about forced conscripts and executions. I guess our side is slightly better than theirs.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

The League, as everyone knows, luuuuuuuuhves children. So does Saddam.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Amazing when our ambassador walked the whole League didn't wave to him and sing "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye."

Posted 8:32 PM by Gene

The only thing stopping the movies from doing a trillion a year is -- you guessed it -- THE WEB. It's this kind of thinking-in-the-box hackery that inspired me to let my Business Week subscription lapse.

Posted 8:19 PM by Gene

With the unredeemable hack Ty "My Name Sounds Like a Beanie Baby" Burr proclaiming MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!!!!!!, wanna bet he starts a newsroom fight with Renee Graham, who proclaims the idea of a movie musical renaissance is bull? And who will predict that the future star of Ebert and Roeper, a man who learned his trade sucking up to Steve and Gerry at Time Warner, a man obviously expert at putting his name above the names above the title and salivating at million-dollar TV paydays, will prevail?

Posted 6:21 PM by Gene

It's not just the Oscars'® ratings that got clobbered. The NPCAA Ad Festival (also known as College Basketball for Dummies) is taking a licking too. You can blame that on the war, but I still say every institution that's hitched its wagon to the TV star, from Miss America to the World Series, has seen the star work loose from the reins and fall away, the wagon following -- because so many people can't stand the TV biz, and because so many people can't stand the advertisers.

Posted 6:14 PM by Gene

Well whoop-de-doo! Sony Music's firing 400! That probably means lots of little folks get hurt, no more decent reissues and more $200 million contracts.

Posted 6:11 PM by Gene

Hey bozos! How much liberating did you do in the twentieth century?

Posted 6:07 PM by Gene

I could think of some Club Meds for a few CEOs. And I don't mean Bermuda.

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

Jessica Reif Cohen, the media-stock sales -- analyst, says Comcast has shrunk the numbers of its newly-acquired AT&T cable subscribers buying dishes.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! I'll believe that PR when I see it.

Posted 5:55 PM by Gene

Oh goody! Another cheer goes up from The Osama Channel in CATARRH.

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

In contrast to Trib Company heroines, the U. S. too often shows a better side.

What would Un...cle HHWWal...ter think of this?!?!?

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

So obviously the only way to fight terrorists is to GIVE UP.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

SuperPundit gets 3,000 e-mails, six million hits, and he won't be blogging all day because he's moderating a debate! WOW!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

I've got a better idea: let's make every Iraqi soldier a member of the Procrastinator's Club.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Is Sears deconstructing?

Hmmm, looks like GE Bancorp's going to buy the credit-card business. Doesn't it already have one? Y'know, that charges 22% interest?

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

The former senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan has died. At times he showed true courage, as a godfather of the welfare-reform movement, and in his scathing criticisms of the League of Nations -- er, the UN. But once he got that cosy permanent job in the senior doofuses' chamber he became the worst of all political creatures: the thinking man's party hack. Prof. Moynihan's career should serve as a guidepost and a warning. It is not enough to be a self-publicizing iconoclast.

How appropriate too that Sen. Rodham announced it. She owes something to the ex-Senator's dissembling.

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

Why we WILL win this war: we "destroyed" a force of the fearsome Iraqi Republican Guard.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

IF WE'D SENT IN MORE TROOPS YOU NEWS HACKS WOULD HAVE SCREAMED THAT WE'RE SENDING IN TOO MANY TROOPS!!!!!

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

The one-way signs (and the news-hack traffic cops) are out on that "street" again. I wouldn't worry about the Syrians. Their leading products are despots and sand.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

Obviously Reuters employs Eric "What? Me Biased?" Alterman as a consultant.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

What did CNN expect when it brought The Voice of Dilbert on the air?

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

My big fat Greek idiots: You guys gave us Never on Sunday. Since you support Saddam we'll return the favor: Never on any day.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Don't tell me those mealy-mouthed wishy-washy soccer women are going to determine the course of this war?!?!?

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

What did the Chinese know and when did they know it?

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

It wasn't too long ago when the pioneering rock groupie John "Rock Around the Clock" Rockwell knocked Rosemary Clooney as squarer than Perry Como. Long transformed into a highbrow (that's why Howell demoted him) he now says he's seen a contemporary opera "masterpiece." That means two-note melodies, the same chord a thousand times, and unremitting navel staring.

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

When you stop acting as the press ministry (and a possible intelligence agency) for Al Qaeda, maybe then we'll discuss your "freedom of the press."

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

More good news for International S.T.A.L.I.N.I.S.T.S.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

In other fifth-column news, brought to you by the Tribune Company ("A whole column in itself!®"), the mother of a marine is a heroine for protesting the war.

Col. McCormick must be turning in his grave.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

We killed fourteen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, maybe, which means after The Osama Channel's done it'll be a thousand, and after that womyn's studies professor's done, it'll be 8,600.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

Oh, no! The market was down! AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHH!!!!!

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

Oh, no! Andy S. has turned -- guarded! AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHH!!!!!

Posted 7:35 PM by Gene

This is absolutely the LAST I say about the Oscars® (I mean it -- honest!), but everything here makes sense: people want to see Michael Moore make an ass of himself -- AND THEY DON'T WANT TO SEE THE ADS.

Meanwhile, an earthquake strikes every subordinate at Washington Mutual, JCPenney, P&G, AmEx, McDonald's, etc., etc., as every one of their CEOs screams, "I HAD THE GREATEST TIME AT THE OSCARS® AND YOU DIDN'T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Posted 7:20 PM by Gene

In honor of Barry Switzer: The NPCAA, brought to you by proud Corporate Champions like Coca-Cola, admits this week's Sweet Sixteen are graduating too few players.

Ka-CHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or as a school's fight song and state song goes, "You're doin' fine ØklahØØØØØØ-ma! ØklahØØØØØØ-ma, ØØØØØØØØØØØØ-kay!"

Of course that fight song sounds pretty silly with all zeroes. But then zeroes on the court equal millions on the books.

Posted 7:13 PM by Gene

As a master manipulator of news (gotta admit it) Rummy knows whereof he speaks.

Posted 7:07 PM by Gene

For once, Slate isn't ironic.

Posted 6:56 PM by Gene

The League of Nations wants to vote on an Iraq resolution because Kofi Annan believes "Saddam's regime is no longer functioning, and that it may soon cease to exist entirely."

Couldn't we say the same of the League of Nations?

Posted 6:52 PM by Gene

The next time there's a big quake in the Frisco area, wouldn't it be nice if it broke away from California and floated off in the sea?

In a way, it already has.

Posted 6:29 PM by Gene

News hacks have assumed the defensive about their Iraq coverage since the beginning because we remember Vietnam, we remember the Conscience with the Moustache telling LBJ to withdraw, we remember the hacks brandishing their Pulitzers, we remember the crowing and preening, we remember the Boat People, we remember the Killing Fields, we remember that as the self-congratulation reached its peak a seven-year-old heroin addict appeared in the Washington Post. We remember.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

The good ones or the bad ones?

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

But there is this happier news.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

A startling admission from Howell (he must FIRE SOMEBODY!):

One week after the United States entered Afghanistan and encountered a surprising level of resistance, the word "quagmire" began to appear in news reports. But within a month, most of the military objectives had been achieved.

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

TV viewers are obsessing over Iraq the way they obsessed over the 2000 election, and are learning virtually nothing -- again.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

Again, sociologists come to the rescue of common sense.

Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

When the greedsters at the NYSE say The Osama Channel isn't responsible....

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

Some people will always be furious with our reconstruction of Japan, but Gen. MacArthur's work was one of the phenomenal successes of world history. We were the only people with the moral, legal, and political authority to do it. In no small measure as a result, Japan is one of our closest allies in the Iraq War. We can do that again too.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

This won't be half the war it could be unless the Iraqis do a little of the liberating themselves.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Saddam wants a quagmire. So do his friends.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

The Saudis, as usual, want to knock us down to their Lilliputian size.

NO SALE.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

I guess we shouldn't have worried so much about the Russians. They also made exploding TVs.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

Here we go again. Is this fact or is this wishful thinking?

Posted 5:11 PM by Gene

When news hacks act like barometers, we can count less on hard facts and more on opinions. I can't recall a time when news hacks have done more speculating -- unless it was Afghanistan, or Princess Di's death, or the OJ verdict, or...Gulf War I, or....

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Iraq suffers a setback.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

I guess the war is going well again; stocks went up. Jeez.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Will Chicago and Chuck Mangione ever die?

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

Ty Burr, the Will Rogers of movie-ad-blurb copywriters -- he never met a movie he didn't like -- gives a new twist on the phrase MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!

Why must ArtsJournal.com link to these execrable hacks?

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

Why must this "street" always be one-way?

Posted 9:17 PM by Gene

I think I like this photo. (Taken in Dearborn, Michigan, by the way.)

Posted 8:52 PM by Gene

For the last time (until next year), these companies didn't waste millions on the Oscars® because they were introducing new campaigns, they were there because the CEOs were there. Not even buying $800,000 in advertising for $1.3 million can deter the most determined social-climbing hobnobbing brownnosing high-mucky-muck CEO Dilbert. I'll be blunter: At this level advertising is Enroning in a different key. If I owned stock in one of these companies I'd be mad.

Posted 8:06 PM by Gene

Nicer: A former Beirut hostage and CNN producer plans to travel to Baghdad to protest the war.

Good luck! You'll need it.

Posted 8:01 PM by Gene

Nice: The antiwar protestors' good guys have apparently gotten the go to use chemical weapons. Sweet.

Posted 7:45 PM by Gene

We're virtually in Baghdad. Now comes the hard part.

Posted 7:04 PM by Gene

Two Disney Radio babblers babbled (to FR's delight) that after we "took care of Saddam" Tariq "Jews Do Not Exist" Aziz was frantically on his cell phone to Ba'ath Party members, the CIA triangulated his calls, and ka-BOOM!!!!! No more Tariq Aziz.

Well look who's here at this press conference! Tariq Aziz! Thought they had you dead to rights, Tariq!

In fairness, several of the Freepers likened these talk-show idiots to the Mouth from Outer Space, Art Bell. THIS is why people don't trust talk radio. This is also why Free Republic has a smell.

Posted 6:48 PM by Gene

CEOs can delude themselves into thinking that by sponsoring college stadiums they're engaged in something purer than pro sports. Sorry, egomaniacs. It's the same Chevy Chase Syndrome, the same corporate money wasting, the same corruption.

Posted 6:45 PM by Gene

Andy S. could have been one of FDR's ghostwriters on December 8. And then he writes something like this:

Okay, so I did watch the Oscars for a few minutes - in the Billy Madison commercial breaks. And I did catch a very cute young man....

Andy, think twice before you write like that. You're alive today because of medical science. My older brother wasn't as lucky.

Posted 6:37 PM by Gene

Teachers should keep their mouths shut on politics for the same reasons show-biz types should.

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Congratulations, movie clods! You're making SOOOOOOOOOO many movies SOOOOOOOOOOO many people like the Oscars® just scored the lowest ratings in their history!!

One instant excuse is war-news churn. Maybe, but they were starting from lower numbers, and there was plenty of advance hype about antiwar sloganeering, plus four of the five nominees were arthouse pictures (and the winner came from Disney's arthouse division), AND, let's remember, MOVIES ARE BETTER THAN EVER!!!!!

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

How soon we forget: Gulf War I went pretty well at first. Then came the Scuds on Israel and it "bogged down." Then after several weeks we were on our way to victory. It would have been total victory except that Papa, John "My Favorite Martian" Scowcroft and Larry "Whataburger" Eagleburger snatched Saddam from its jaws. Victory here will be decisive too. Just wait.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

The loonies of Wall Street are as trustworthy in predicting the war as news hacks, or pundits, and should be taken as seriously.

Posted 7:07 AM by Gene

I finally figured out the MO of Corporate America. It's not in existence to sell products or services. It's in business to provide dividends and stock increases to shareholders. So long as the two are mutually exclusive, they're under no obligation to do right. Hence the existence of ASWIA.

Posted 6:56 AM by Gene

News hacks are starting to talk about "doubts." (So much for the Post's pro-war editorials.) A day's setbacks and we must surrender. With so many of them in ardent opposition we can not take even the most mild criticism as neutral. Many on the other side want us to lose. Period. They may not say so, but it's certainly their endgame.

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

The talk at MoveOn.org may be morale-boosting bull. Then again, with Peetah, we have no reason to doubt it.

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

Thanks, all you blithering incompetent news hacks, for speculating. (Thanks especially to those with "CIA connections.") I am not again running anything on anything unless I can be sure about it.

Posted 6:27 AM by Gene

I can think of a lot of past sensations that are unreadable, unwatchable, and unlistenable today. (It goes without saying that Frank Rich will always be unreadable.)

Does anyone here remember the number-two best seller of 1924 -- The Plastic Age? A raging satire of collegiate life, "critically-acclaimed." Scarcely years after it was published its author, Percy Marks (who was forced to quit from Brown University because of it) wrote to a fan saying his book was unreadable. I read it. It's unreadable.

P. S. The film version the following year starred the adorable It Girl, Clara Bow -- the most popular female film star of her age. Just thirty-three years later Oscar Hammerstein 2nd wrote this lyric for Flower Drum Song:

Tonight on TV's Late Late Show,
You can look at Clara Bow!

to which the chorus yells, "WHO?!?!?"

One other note: in Clara Bow's heyday he wrote a lyric for one of Sigmund Romberg's operettas, The Desert Song, called "It."

Posted 6:20 AM by Gene

Michael Moore got booed at the Oscars®? Shame!

Or was that the canned-laughter-and-applause machine?

By the way, I see the rapist won. There's a limit to election campaigns, Harvey. Unfortunately there's no limit to arrest warrants, Roman.

Posted 6:52 PM by Gene

Is the rest of the world having a nervous breakdown?

Posted 1:36 PM by Gene

Watching the NPCAA Advertising Festival, I just caught Courage in a bulletin saying, "When news breaks out, we'll break down." (At least it sounded like.)

This is what happens when you deliver news by catch-phrase.

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

Come HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME, America!

Posted 11:52 AM by Gene

Steve Lopez, a million-dollar columnist (okay, $300,000), makes a few phone calls, puts his feet up on a desk, and eructates, "In the weeks, months and years to come, the impact of the war could reverberate around the world, spinning endless cycles of violence in God's name. Nothing stands in the way but conscience."

I got an idea, Steve: Give up your newspaper job and live the life of an ascetic, fighting for peace. Oh. There's no money in asceticism.

Posted 11:28 AM by Gene

Now here's something: Such hordes of Iraqi soldiers are surrendering it's impeded our march on Baghdad! Interesting.

Posted 11:12 AM by Gene

I guess I'm starting to obsess over the jerks, like Andy S., and that doesn't help my credibility (assuming a blogger who gets two hits a day has any), but somebody has to wipe the smiles off their faces.

Posted 11:08 AM by Gene

The Saddamites have evidently taken prisoners, possibly executing several. This, like yesterday's crime spree, would be of no consequence -- an inevitability of war -- except that the Howells want NO casualties, and the tantrum throwers want NO casualties, and Hollywood and academe want NO casualties, and a considerable chunk of the Democratic Party wants NO casualties. In that respect we fight with one hand tied behind our back. Not happy news, but this won't impede our progress.

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

Who'da thunk it! The heroic Saddamites for whom peace demonstrators have gotten arrested are using civilians as human shields. (So CNN says.)

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

For months and months after Newt took over the Congress in '95, news hacks' stories were filled with quotes from -- Democrats because they had no sources on the other side (read, among those reactionary bigots).

Why do I get a similar feeling reading Subtract Seymour Jr.'s story, and so many other stories about the brave antiwar movement?

Posted 8:17 AM by Gene

Howell, that headline of yours: you wouldn't be satisfied unless our forces retreated waving white flags, so shut up. At any rate, that business about the four soldiers is from a SkyNews story (you rely on RUPERT?!?) that was essentially retracted. A double shut-up.

Posted 8:07 AM by Gene

One wonders how many rank-and-file employees at ASWIA companies will squirm over tonight's Oscars®, at the likely drumbeat of PC and anger over Adolf W. Bush. The poor customer-service clerks will need replacement ears come tomorrow afternoon. But ultimately the only opinion that counts is the man's in the Kodak Theater, the CEO, and he's the man who'll say, "I had a TREMENDOUS time at the Oscars® AND YOU DIDN'T BECAUSE YOU WEREN'T THERE!"

Do ordinary employees at these companies ever get exercised over their bosses' Chevy Chase Syndrome?

Posted 7:59 AM by Gene

A commander of the "elite" Republican Guard has surrendered. They ran in Gulf War I. They may not run now, but their circle's getting smaller and smaller.

Posted 7:51 AM by Gene

At some point people will be so disgusted with the demagoguery of news hacks they'll just quit reading the news. Who knows how many millions have already abandoned newspapers and the network news? But not even mass abandonments of the press will change any hack's opinion. Why? "We'd rather be right." News hacks have such egos, such certainty of their correctness (and their political correctness) that they can never be wrong. Hence the difficulty of getting them to issue even the mildest corrections. And as I said yesterday, you can't argue with a news hack over bias, because he has twenty different ways of ducking the argument. Even if the hacks lost ninety percent of their audience, they'd still plug on as before, and they'd still be right.

Posted 7:47 AM by Gene

Still going strong.