THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.
PERMALINKS:
THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY
THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY
AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!
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Saturday, June 21, 2003
In what is less a tribute to a "pioneering" show-biz flack than another lengthy self-serving jaysonist mea culpa, the LALA Times admits the weekend box-office lies, er, grosses have become pure PR (not that that would stop the LALA Times, of course -- if it stopped running PR it would stop covering show-biz), and more to the point, that the news hacks' obsession with these numbers helped cause the explosion in el-stinko movies, and that the veritable inventor of gross BO reporting, a Variety hack named Art Murphy, was not pleased.
Sorry that so many of my posts are inspired by LALATimes.com, but on a daily basis it runs more risible stuff than any other newspaper-based Web site, NYTimes.com and SFGate excepted.
Sorry that so many of my posts are inspired by LALATimes.com, but on a daily basis it runs more risible stuff than any other newspaper-based Web site, NYTimes.com and SFGate excepted.
INTERNS TAKE OVER USA OKAY SITE!
Freight train derails into So. Calif. neighborhood Town officials upset that their was no warning of runaway cars.
Pope gets chilly reception Pontiff's visit to ethnically divided Bosnia-Herzegovina innerves many Christian Orthodox Serbs.
Or do we have the equivalent of a byline strike in the works?
Freight train derails into So. Calif. neighborhood Town officials upset that their was no warning of runaway cars.
Pope gets chilly reception Pontiff's visit to ethnically divided Bosnia-Herzegovina innerves many Christian Orthodox Serbs.
Or do we have the equivalent of a byline strike in the works?
A follow-up to the LALA Times and horse manure: Years ago Smithsonian ran a story on the endless and endlessly fascinating subterranean caverns of New York, miles and miles of crawlspaces and walkways and abandoned subway stops and old train tunnels. It followed a man -- I forgot what he did; I think he worked for Con Edison or a city agency -- who came by one spot in the depths, took a sniff, and said, "Elephants." He was under the site of the long-demolished Hippodrome Theater, whose last show (in 1935) was the famed Rodgers-and-Hart circus spectacular Jumbo, with Jimmy Durante, "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," and elephants. I can thus say with absolute certainty that the LALA Times's smell of horse manure will survive anyone alive today -- and possibly even the LALA Times itself.
Here's predicting Reader's Digest Association declares bankruptcy. It won't do to say the flagship publication's a relic that survived, unlike Life or The Saturday Evening Post, nor that it couldn't adapt to change, nor that its purpose was superseded decades ago by other media; the truth is it's a thoroughly atrocious magazine that abandoned its strengths, and its core readership, for the usual celebrity worship and vapid "service" features, and people subscribe to it out of habit, much like the newsmagazines, and those people are dying off, and given how atrocious Reader's Digest is, you couldn't pay the replacement readers to subscribe to it.
Again, we have the definition of musclehead.
Whom the Hollywood demigods love their cousins the news hacks love with equal fervor, so I guess we can be expecting a tsunami of press releases for Gov. Dean, despite Sen. Heinz' lovely hair helmet.
By the way, who's "Marvin Hamish"? A hamish actor?
By the way, who's "Marvin Hamish"? A hamish actor?
Aw shucks, that hard-headed Dubya's keeping us oil bigwigs from making a killing in Iran.
Why not talk to Vice-President Inside?
Why not talk to Vice-President Inside?
U.S. forces broke into an abandoned community hall early Saturday and seized piles of intelligence equipment and top secret documents bearing the seal of the former Iraqi secret service.
Must've had some weird square dances.
Upstairs above the hall, which also was used as a funeral parlor, the troops found two large rooms stacked with cryptograph machines, secure transmission devices and binders of documents, with more papers strewn on the floor.
Very weird square dances.
Must've had some weird square dances.
Upstairs above the hall, which also was used as a funeral parlor, the troops found two large rooms stacked with cryptograph machines, secure transmission devices and binders of documents, with more papers strewn on the floor.
Very weird square dances.
With thirty runaway freight cars barreling down a track at 70 mph, what would you do?
God, I hate repeating myself: every column inch news hacks devote to onanism is "one less to expose corrupt politicians, one less to expose church sexual abuse, one less to expose business chicanery, one less to expose supporters of terrorism, one less to expose squalor in schools, one less to...."
But like the man said, what's good for KnightRidder is good for America!
And another thing: what you onanists forget is that thanks to the Web we get a lot more of your bullhockey. What was easily avoided with one newspaper becomes a deluge with hundreds of newspaper sites. Please, PLEASE, jaysonists, we know you love yourselves so much, but please, PLEASE, OCCASIONALLY, respect our intelligence and leave us alone. PLEASE?????
But like the man said, what's good for KnightRidder is good for America!
And another thing: what you onanists forget is that thanks to the Web we get a lot more of your bullhockey. What was easily avoided with one newspaper becomes a deluge with hundreds of newspaper sites. Please, PLEASE, jaysonists, we know you love yourselves so much, but please, PLEASE, OCCASIONALLY, respect our intelligence and leave us alone. PLEASE?????
[S]ome Democrats want the Clintons to go away [?!?!?]:
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently did focus groups around the country with Democratic-leaning voters and found widespread resentment of both Clintons, according to a Democratic aide familiar with surveys conducted in several cities.
Many focus group participants called the former president "immoral, smooth, crooked" and dishonest, the aide said, while Hillary Clinton was seen as an "opportunist." "It gives us a brand we just don't need," the aide said.
Immoral, Smooth, Crooked™. Who says marketing doesn't work?
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently did focus groups around the country with Democratic-leaning voters and found widespread resentment of both Clintons, according to a Democratic aide familiar with surveys conducted in several cities.
Many focus group participants called the former president "immoral, smooth, crooked" and dishonest, the aide said, while Hillary Clinton was seen as an "opportunist." "It gives us a brand we just don't need," the aide said.
Immoral, Smooth, Crooked™. Who says marketing doesn't work?
Friday, June 20, 2003
Belgian Minister Sued Under Own Human Rights Law
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
Okay, news hacks, here's a question for you: Which got more coverage: the new Harry Potter book, or Osama before 9-11?
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT! YOU LOSE!! (And we lose too, it goes without saying.)
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT! YOU LOSE!! (And we lose too, it goes without saying.)
Here's the next professional-sports scam: teams named for corporate sponsors. After that it's players, coaches, ball boys, and...all I know is, it'll lure a LOT of fans.
Okay, maybe "interest groups" are "exploiting" the Catholic church's sex scandals, but I'd say a few of the Catholic church's own priests did a pretty good job exploiting boys.
Keeping in mind the last post, House Majority Leader Snidely Whiplash just made Texas Monthly's Top-10 Worst Legislators' list!
I don't know about worst, but prevaricating, perhaps; annoying, definitely.
I don't know about worst, but prevaricating, perhaps; annoying, definitely.
"Good press or bad press, all press is equal in our eyes,” said Peter Kafka, an editor at Forbes, explaining why his magazine annually insults its readers' intelligence with a blend of conjecture and PR and BS called The Forbes Celebrity 100.
Or as Peter Carlson wrote:
...[T]here are many reasons for the rise of The List. The top five reasons are:
1) Lists are the easiest way to organize information without actually thinking.
2) Magazine editors are too lazy to think of anything more creative.
3) Magazine editors figure their readers are too lazy to read anything but lists.
4) Magazine readers really are too lazy to read anything but lists.
5) David Letterman's Top Ten lists have warped everybody's mind.
Most magazine lists are, needless to say, totally stupid.
Or as Peter Carlson wrote:
...[T]here are many reasons for the rise of The List. The top five reasons are:
1) Lists are the easiest way to organize information without actually thinking.
2) Magazine editors are too lazy to think of anything more creative.
3) Magazine editors figure their readers are too lazy to read anything but lists.
4) Magazine readers really are too lazy to read anything but lists.
5) David Letterman's Top Ten lists have warped everybody's mind.
Most magazine lists are, needless to say, totally stupid.
Movies will not get better: a bunch of fans run overly popular Web sites for obsessive-compulsives that have the ear of the moguls, thus making them even more dependent on "product" for dumb blind teens.
Continuing on the subject of cheerleading, I cite this piece as an example of how news hacks can have it multiple ways. While Claudia dons the skirt and waves the pom-pons and yells out all her Jerry Dreck and Paul Dreck routines with a 500-watt bullhorn, someone named Phil Sheridan dumps on the Philadelphia 76ers' new head coach even before his hiring is announced. Okay, maybe the guy will be a rotten head coach, but he's no more deserving of being walloped than Claudia is of her job at the LALA Times, and the oafishness of Phil's column even more glaringly shows off the sell-out of Claudia's.
It's hard to tell from the real-estate writers -- a flock even more notorious for its cheerleading than the show-biz writers, but far less harmful -- but "downtown" New York does seem to be doing well enough. Now why can't somebody just erase that hole in the ground?
Add the LALA Times to the list of Web sites that could use sound effects. Today show-biz-cheerleading resume writer Claudia Eller gives us a great big
'RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!
'RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!
Thursday, June 19, 2003
Education is the great financial rathole of America, with untold hundreds of billions going to taj mahals, dubious pedagogy, incompetent teachers, and lazy administrators. But the big reason the rathole remains so oblivious to change is that the students don't seem to be getting -- or becoming -- appreciably smarter.
Speaking of CEOs, why keep a shrew when you can have -- A BILLIONAIRE?!?!?
Think of it, Slick -- Missus is financially independent now, thanks to her fiction skills. (Notice I didn't say fiction writing.) And just imagine all those hundreds of millions to feed the hungry, clothe the naked -- and speaking of naked, you could a have a nice harem on the side, with hundreds of willing women to service your every whim when you're not out there doing the exhausting business of improving the world. And with the change, why, you could bri -- you could talk people into giving you a THIRD TERM!
So why not? Anna Nicole Smith showed there's no harm in it. Go for it, Slick! Be the GOLDDIGGER OF 2003!
Think of it, Slick -- Missus is financially independent now, thanks to her fiction skills. (Notice I didn't say fiction writing.) And just imagine all those hundreds of millions to feed the hungry, clothe the naked -- and speaking of naked, you could a have a nice harem on the side, with hundreds of willing women to service your every whim when you're not out there doing the exhausting business of improving the world. And with the change, why, you could bri -- you could talk people into giving you a THIRD TERM!
So why not? Anna Nicole Smith showed there's no harm in it. Go for it, Slick! Be the GOLDDIGGER OF 2003!
WE'RE IN THE MONEY!
Why can't these mismanaging Super-Pointy-Haired Bosses be out of the money for once?
Why can't these mismanaging Super-Pointy-Haired Bosses be out of the money for once?
I guess the Canadians will have another excuse to cry in their Molson's and project their manifold failings on us, but military personnel should very seldom, if ever, be prosecuted for acts of friendly fire. Though what happened to the Canadian troops was a tragedy, it is also a cost of war.
If this talk of Belgium prosecuting us for war crimes ever gets beyond the yakkety-yak phase -- it appears it won't -- we should break diplomatic ties posthaste.
Let them eat brie.
Let them eat brie.
Report by the E.P.A. Leaves Out Data on Climate Change
Gay Marriage Plan: Sign of Sweeping Change in Canada
Has the Times thought of equipping its Web site with sound effects, so that when you click on the first story you'd get loud BOOOOOOOS, and the second, tremendous CHEEEEEERS? It might add to its aura. The late HOWELL would certainly have approved.
Gay Marriage Plan: Sign of Sweeping Change in Canada
Has the Times thought of equipping its Web site with sound effects, so that when you click on the first story you'd get loud BOOOOOOOS, and the second, tremendous CHEEEEEERS? It might add to its aura. The late HOWELL would certainly have approved.
A happy day: the moron who made American Movie Classics into the American Motors Corporation Channel ("Lots of clunkers, lots of ads!™") has been fired along with thirteen other Cablevision employees for cooking the books.
You have to wonder how many other cable programmers are lying between their reruns.
You have to wonder how many other cable programmers are lying between their reruns.
Yes, the smell of beer and horse manure wafting from "Animal House" is still redolent, 25 years after its release.
And yes, the smell of horse manure will be wafting from the LALA Times long after the last person alive from today has shuffled off this mortal coil. (No beer; in today's luxury news suites they drink Perrier.)
Beware any article bylined "special."
And yes, the smell of horse manure will be wafting from the LALA Times long after the last person alive from today has shuffled off this mortal coil. (No beer; in today's luxury news suites they drink Perrier.)
Beware any article bylined "special."
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
We should all mourn that Hollywood cannot and will not produce pictures for adults -- the way it used to. The problem is, scarcely a week before the LALATimes's ad-blurb copywriter Kenneth Turan demanded "serious, intelligent works with dark [WHY MUST NEWS HACKS USE THAT WORD?!?!?], grown-up themes", his colleague Patrick "The Mogul's Friend" Goldstein was raving over one of the would-be tycoons who makes hits for stupid blind teens. Show-biz news hacks have thoroughly laid waste to the notion of quality in entertainment, first with their mindless raves, and second with their endless valentines.
Sen. Hatch made idiot comments suggesting show-biz zap people's computers when they illegally download copyrighted material. Combine this with the heavily-denied suggestion that Sonny Bono's panting congresspoop widow wants to run the RIAA and it looks like Republicans are doing big business as usual with a vengeance.
I agree that the estate tax should be repealed. It's double jeopardy in taxation. Nonetheless because REPUBLICANS suggest it, they stand accused -- with no small justification -- of pandering to their infernal constituencies, big business and the superrich, and it is some relief to learn it stands not a chance in the senior outhouse. If only there were just way of doing it, but so long as both parties stand solely for their special interests they will never be just.
There's an exceptionally lurid trial going on here in Philadelphia in which four teenagers are accused of practically crushing a fifth to death after luring him with the promise of sex. Normally I ignore crime stories involving private citizens -- news hacks notwithstanding, I find them repetitive and dull -- except that it reminded me once again of the despicable flack Richard "ADVERTISEMENT" Corliss, as the teens prepared for their act listening to the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" 42 times. Yes Synergy Dick, listening to a song, or seeing a movie, won't lead you to commit a crime. But one such crime here, and another such crime there, and a third crime there, and more and more such crimes everywhere suggest, as I said before, that something has snapped in the American psyche, and the pop-culture biz must be held to account for its part, along with indifferent parents and defective schools.
Now the Orbiting Jalopy goes up (so they say) in 2004's first quarter.
If they do go up, they risk another catastrophe. If they don't go up -- they can wait a few years and make a much better vehicle.
If they do go up, they risk another catastrophe. If they don't go up -- they can wait a few years and make a much better vehicle.
Introducing -- THE SOMINEX CHANNEL!!!!!
"Watch Sominex tonight and sleep.
Safe and restful sleep, sleep, sleep."
"Watch Sominex tonight and sleep.
Safe and restful sleep, sleep, sleep."
Another mark of moral excellence: the EX-bishop of Phoenix may have driven under the influence.
Is it me, or do most of these clerics who get in trouble look like Walter Mitty? (The exception, of course, is Mr. Law, who looks like a former GM chairman, and that is NO compliment.)
Is it me, or do most of these clerics who get in trouble look like Walter Mitty? (The exception, of course, is Mr. Law, who looks like a former GM chairman, and that is NO compliment.)
Sumner took my advice! It's back to #2.
Now I can boast of my connections the same way Ken Auletta can.
Now I can boast of my connections the same way Ken Auletta can.
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
On the day Viacon tells us "Hillary 'Clinton's'" "memoirs" have sold 45 million copies, the book mysteriously slips to #4 on Amazon.com.
Sumner! Buy another two million!
Sumner! Buy another two million!
In professional college football, calling a coach an Al Capone is a compliment.
And when the man calling him Al Capone says Clinton was a good president (typical Kinsley.com punchline), it's a double compliment.
And when the man calling him Al Capone says Clinton was a good president (typical Kinsley.com punchline), it's a double compliment.
Three things will happen: the top execs will attend a few games, and a few games only, yell "I HAVE A LUXURY SUITE AND YOU DON'T!!!!", take zillions in tax breaks off of our hides, and, with any luck, see their stock decline eighty percent in two years.
By the way, the bank's the Philly branch of a Rhode Island firm owned by a Scottish bank. When do you suppose they find out?
By the way, the bank's the Philly branch of a Rhode Island firm owned by a Scottish bank. When do you suppose they find out?
Newt opens his mouth -- AGAIN!
We may be tempted -- given his history, given that he does look like an overgrown Dennis the Menace, given his shrill, piercing whine -- to say shut up, but he knows, as most people know, Fogbound is filled with appeasers and Beeb fans, who'll do anything to sell us out in the name of a peace (sic) of paper, or a promise, or a puff piece in the Times. Keep it up, Newt.
We may be tempted -- given his history, given that he does look like an overgrown Dennis the Menace, given his shrill, piercing whine -- to say shut up, but he knows, as most people know, Fogbound is filled with appeasers and Beeb fans, who'll do anything to sell us out in the name of a peace (sic) of paper, or a promise, or a puff piece in the Times. Keep it up, Newt.
What could have gone through that bishop's mind as he drove away? I guess we shouldn't be too harsh; in the same circumstance we might panic too. But this wasn't a common criminal, or a teenager, or someone with a sixth-grade education. This was the putative leader of 430,000 Catholics. Had he a little common sense he'd have been moved to a momentary passion, and stopped his car to see what happened; and if what he preached was more than platitudes, or CYA for his turning the other cheek at buggery, he'd have seen what happened, and might have tried a little CPR, or at least dialed 911. But the leader of 430,000 Catholics just drove away, indicating that perhaps he didn't have common sense, and perhaps what he preached were mere platitudes -- in short, he was a Lawless Law of the West. What we do have here is tragic, but swift, justice.
I see the Professor and the No-Spin Spin Doctor are in a food fight. The Web should be given wide latitude; but Mr. No-Spin has a good point too: it is easy to ruin someone's rep with a few keystrokes. That the Professor calls No-Spin a crybaby tells me he hasn't considered his point enough.
Monday, June 16, 2003
If Tinkertoys and shards are a bad idea, a void is worse -- a perpetual Oprahland of self-pity, a maudlin admission of cultural defeat -- and at any rate part of the void has been filled in with public-works projects. God I wish somebody like William Van Alen were around who could combine rememberance and soaring optimism.
I don't know who Tye Wolfe is, but (while he does work in the place the Freepers MUST call "The City of Evil," and his letter is couched in the usual mealy-mouthed news-hack blah about "journalistic independence") clearly the Twicks of ATWOLA Publishing are getting on someone else's nerves too.
In one of the greatest distributions of a resume in newspaper history, a hack named Vinay whinnies that TV has turned our life into paradise. Or to quote some of the wind he/she/it expels from his/her/its lower orifice,
Without television, they might still be fighting in Vietnam. [Or, since this hack can't write, maybe "they" would have concluded the war successfully and several millions of Southeast Asians would still be alive.] The Tiananmen Square massacre may have escaped detection. [Boy did that make a big difference.] Cameras were there when JFK and Trudeau [HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! These Canadians are SO -- er, provincial] were laid to rest, when the Shuttle went up [and blew up, again and again and again and again and again], when the Berlin Wall came down [and the Osama empire went up, hardy har har], when The Newsroom [some CBC series nobody here has ever heard of] said hello, when Cheers said goodbye.
TV also brought us reality programs, MTV, Comedy Central, Oprah, Jerry Springer, the WTC falling 50 billion times, the OJ chase, race riots like LA '92, focus groups, CNN's intrepid reporting of Tailwind and from Iraq, non-stop pundits, non-stop advertising, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Gilligan's Island, the CNBC Bubble, al Jazeera, the month-long anthrax panic, the presidency of Richard Nixon, the presidency of Billy Jeff, the 2000 presidential election, crooks and rogues like Barry and Enright and Chuck Barris and Jim "The Cobra" Aubrey and Fred Silverman and Aaron Spelling and RUPERT!!!!!!!!! and Sumner and Jesus II and Mickey Mouse Michael and Geraldo and Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, pompous asses like HHWWalter Crrronkite and Norman Lear and GOD and Lord Koppel of Eisner, the Deer Hunter suicides, Action News, $12 million anchormen, $500 million athletes, canned laughter, monopolies, TV "critics" -- but why go on with the mentally challenged? He/she/it goes on,
[I]n my experience children who watch shows such as Bob The Builder or Teletubbies seem to be bright, engaged and well-adjusted.
Kids who watch no television at all — not so much.
Okay, Know-It-All, explain why home-schoolers -- many of whom probably are raised without television -- make up a disproportionate number of the finalists in contests like the National Spelling Bee? But then to systematically dissect this piece of dead frog in print would take days and ruin my eyesight. We can end it, though, with his/her/its last line:
So the real test is this: Can you turn it off?
Yes, you can turn the television off. BUT WHO CAN TURN TELEVISION OFF?!?!?
Happily, some nerd at the Toronto Star's Web site got the last laugh:
Time to accept television f[SIC]
(Courtesy of the IMBECILES at ArtsJournal.com, who HAD to link to this.)
Without television, they might still be fighting in Vietnam. [Or, since this hack can't write, maybe "they" would have concluded the war successfully and several millions of Southeast Asians would still be alive.] The Tiananmen Square massacre may have escaped detection. [Boy did that make a big difference.] Cameras were there when JFK and Trudeau [HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! These Canadians are SO -- er, provincial] were laid to rest, when the Shuttle went up [and blew up, again and again and again and again and again], when the Berlin Wall came down [and the Osama empire went up, hardy har har], when The Newsroom [some CBC series nobody here has ever heard of] said hello, when Cheers said goodbye.
TV also brought us reality programs, MTV, Comedy Central, Oprah, Jerry Springer, the WTC falling 50 billion times, the OJ chase, race riots like LA '92, focus groups, CNN's intrepid reporting of Tailwind and from Iraq, non-stop pundits, non-stop advertising, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Gilligan's Island, the CNBC Bubble, al Jazeera, the month-long anthrax panic, the presidency of Richard Nixon, the presidency of Billy Jeff, the 2000 presidential election, crooks and rogues like Barry and Enright and Chuck Barris and Jim "The Cobra" Aubrey and Fred Silverman and Aaron Spelling and RUPERT!!!!!!!!! and Sumner and Jesus II and Mickey Mouse Michael and Geraldo and Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, pompous asses like HHWWalter Crrronkite and Norman Lear and GOD and Lord Koppel of Eisner, the Deer Hunter suicides, Action News, $12 million anchormen, $500 million athletes, canned laughter, monopolies, TV "critics" -- but why go on with the mentally challenged? He/she/it goes on,
[I]n my experience children who watch shows such as Bob The Builder or Teletubbies seem to be bright, engaged and well-adjusted.
Kids who watch no television at all — not so much.
Okay, Know-It-All, explain why home-schoolers -- many of whom probably are raised without television -- make up a disproportionate number of the finalists in contests like the National Spelling Bee? But then to systematically dissect this piece of dead frog in print would take days and ruin my eyesight. We can end it, though, with his/her/its last line:
So the real test is this: Can you turn it off?
Yes, you can turn the television off. BUT WHO CAN TURN TELEVISION OFF?!?!?
Happily, some nerd at the Toronto Star's Web site got the last laugh:
Time to accept television f[SIC]
(Courtesy of the IMBECILES at ArtsJournal.com, who HAD to link to this.)
WHY DON'T YOU TWO COMPANIES JUST MERGE? You've already turned everything you've touched into advertising.
Isn't monopolizing great, GENERAL JR.?
Isn't monopolizing great, GENERAL JR.?
Another of Ed Rendell's mayoral-campaign platforms was to turn all of our Center City into a gigantic back lot. That way we'd get zillions of free publicity in bad movies and millions and millions and millions in the fees and taxes and revenues that would never materialize (thanks to caterers and lawyers), and every street would be a frozen zone. Just think of rubbing bumpers with some third-rate star's stretch limo! Apparently in LALALand they're not quite as gullible.
Does the Washington Post site have a theme song?
For God's sake, Sousa wrote you a march. You don't have to give us "Meg's Mirthful Mugging."
For God's sake, Sousa wrote you a march. You don't have to give us "Meg's Mirthful Mugging."
Flowers? Peaceful-looking white wisps? The late Ayatollah should be surrounded with fire and flying pitchforks.
And a lot of young Iranians would seem to agree.
I suppose I can just understand why news hacks think they must run junk like this -- they suppose they're coffee klatches in print. But I don't click on news Web sites to shoot the bull; I click on them for information. There's too much bull in newspapers as is. Shut up, Mortimer.
Airbus Wins $8.5 Billion Order, May Pass Boeing as World's Top Planemaker [front-page headline]
And we couldn't have done it without LOTS of support.
And we couldn't have done it without LOTS of support.
Sunday, June 15, 2003
I dedicate this entry to America's news hacks, particularly that breed that insists on overrating every pop-music act that comes down the splitting-headache pike: on GOOGLE, entering "rap genius" creates 104,000 hits, "rap brilliance" 23,100 hits, "hip-hop genius" 98,100 hits, and "hip-hop brilliance" 17,900. (By contrast, "Mozart genius" yields 62,900, and "Beethoven genius" 57,900.) Yes pop culture is disproportionately represented on the Web, and yes most of the hits have nothing to do with rap and genius combined, and evidently there's a rap act with Genius in its name, but enough of them do combine to demonstrate yet another example of the news hacks' intellectual slumming and whoring.
Well that was an exciting tournament zzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZ. How many more such exciting events can professional sports endure before its ratings really plummet?
THE GLIBERAL says "the media" have overdone L'Affaire Blair. Problem is, others have said it better. MUCH better.
I SAY IT'S SYNERGY, AND I SAY THE HELL WITH IT.
What's the difference between a dog's call to nature and ATWOLA magazine? ATWOLA does it four million times a week.
Sorry, but these hacks have a visceral contempt for their readers.
(I've changed the name from AOL Time Warner rag as that name always pops up in the URLs of AOL sites, and it does sound comical.)
What's the difference between a dog's call to nature and ATWOLA magazine? ATWOLA does it four million times a week.
Sorry, but these hacks have a visceral contempt for their readers.
(I've changed the name from AOL Time Warner rag as that name always pops up in the URLs of AOL sites, and it does sound comical.)
Doot do doot dooooo do doot dooooo do do doot! FLASH! MUSIC BIZ IGNORES ADULTS!! Doot do doot dooooo do doot dooooo do do doot!
Saudi Arabia's holy cockroaches are serious. Are the Saudis?
That we have to ask this after such a raid means it will be a long, long time before we take the Saudis' protestations seriously.
That we have to ask this after such a raid means it will be a long, long time before we take the Saudis' protestations seriously.
Evan Thomas (Norman Thomas's grandson) writes for BLUNDER. Evan co-wrote a big, BIG story saying government leaders were caught up in a big, BIG BLAME GAME over the catastrophe in Iraq. Evan's co-authored story said the CIA was suicidal because its sources at the Beeb said THE STREET was about to let forth with cataclysmic demonstrations, and when it told members of the senior outhouse, they wanted to jump off the Capitol dome. Now Evan tells us al Qaeda's regrouping and ready to strike. Does that mean he's right again?
ANOTHER BIG WINNER FOR THE ASH:
"I don't think (terrorists) have the middle name 'Ozzie,'" says David Nelson.
"I don't think (terrorists) have the middle name 'Ozzie,'" says David Nelson.
After the news we're selling the joint for umpteen gazillion I'd take a little nap too.