Posted 6:03 PM by Gene

The Saudis again prove immune to terrorism.

Fortunately, it's all "foreigners," and they're infidels.

Posted 1:54 PM by Gene

300,000 good reasons to go to war.

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

Before you know it the British Vicarage and Tea Time Club will have more brews than Starbucks.

Posted 12:57 PM by Gene

There goes CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM.

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

PROF approvingly quotes from AMERICA'S LEADING MOVIE-AD-BLURB COPYWRITER for getting ticked that a news hack wouldn't listen to him. Yes, news hacks shouldn't be so set in their ways, but I'm not sure a multi-millionaire and a FLACK for JACK (and EisnerCorp, and Mumia) is one to complain.

Posted 9:09 AM by Gene

Now an Iraqi doctor says no, which raises the question: Is the BRAGGART fibbing again?

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

Here things were going great guns for Mickey D's -- sales WAY up, a chance to spend vastly more money on bad television -- when the CEO shoots himself in the foot for protesting that the word "McJob" made it into a Merriam-Webster dictionary. Hey Jim, what would you call a job that pays minimum wage and whose fringe benefits include getting yelled at by a manager and having McMeals for lunch?

This looks like a job for -- SUPERKUDLOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P. S. Possible SUPERKUDLOW spin: "[M]ore than 1,000 of the men and women who own and operate McDonald's restaurants today got their start by serving customers behind the counter," writes the CEO. More than 1,000 out of how many who've ever worked the Mick? Don't answer that.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Earnings Up 58 Percent

Now if he weren't such a @#$%&* loony-left secular humanist.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

NEW YORK — Five male students from the city's first homosexual, lesbian and transgender public high school have been charged with a series of robberies pulled off while the suspects dressed as female prostitutes.
The cross-dressing teenagers, all between 16 and 17 years old, donned blonde wigs and earrings and then solicited sex from their victims, sources said. The boys then flashed fake badges to show their "johns" they were undercover cops and handcuffed their "tricks," who, in exchange for escaping arrest, handed over their wallets, credit cards and, in two instances, cash machine PIN numbers.
"The victims believed they were police offices," police sources said. "They would not have complied otherwise."

1. In most precincts sixteen is pretty young for a police officer.

2. We can presume Pee-TAH & Co. will not awaken America's conscience on this one.

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

While it is difficult to imagine Ellen Goodman never heard of NASCAR before writing this column, it's difficult not to imagine too.

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

BUZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's a less-than sign, a slash mark, a letter B (that's B), and a GREATER-THAN SIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOT THAT, BUZZ???????????????????

And the thing is, you had a pretty good day today!

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

I wish I could have remebered that: Mickey notes that the IDIOT TIMESMAN who wrote that craven valentine last week for JACK! is married to A SONY PICTURES EXECUTIVE. This is at the LEAST the worst kind of conflict of interest a news hack can commit, because he's clearly doing a favor for a very powerful man -- and for his wife in the deal.

OR:

Suppose a New York Times reporter were married to the owner of a major league baseball team. Would the Times let that reporter cover the Commissioner of Baseball? Or suppose a Times reporter were married to the head of a major drug company. Would that person get to cover the pharmaceutical industry's trade association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of American? Married to the chairman of General Motors and covering the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers? It's a no-brainer--"appearance of conflict," prophylactic rule, open-and-shut.

HAS THE TIMES' PUBLIC EDITOR BURIED HIS HEAD IN THE SAND? WHERE ARE YOU, DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANIEL OOOOOOOOOOOOOOKRENT?!?!?!?!?

P. S. Mickey also tells us Jack doesn't have the respect of his bosses (you're telling us!) but is treated with "reverence" by THE REAL-LIFE CREW OF K STREET. (AS IF!) I think this is as good a time as any to test THE POWER OF BLOGGING.

P. P. S. Mr. Okrent's office is conspicuously absent from The Times' Member Center's Information and Services Directory.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Men, women, gay, straight, who cares so long as we get rid of that old fogey Red Country notion of "adultery."

Posted 1:04 PM by Gene

Madame DeFarge and her husband get less from a court than they thought they would, which suggests the crow's-feet and the flab are winning.

Posted 12:18 PM by Gene

The bad news: Mickey D's sales are way up, meaning it's back to the good ol' days of lording it over us with its mediocre food and junk television. The good news -- the only faint glimmer of good news: its Japanese unit's in the red.

Posted 11:58 AM by Gene

The Turks have become as good at flip-flopping as Presidents DAMN! and McClellan.

And we can thank THE GENERAL, whose ring-a-ding-dinging seems to have convinced the Turks not to intervene. Way to go, GENERAL!

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

One reason people in the media-political axis have such depthless contempt for the public is that they were all together in student government and the yearbook and the paper and the musical in high school and college, where they honed their ego and insularity to a painful fine point. Now in an awesome exercise in personal nostalgia the worst of these jerks are taking further revenge on the rest of us by starring in a TV show even the most scarred of HBO's masochistic fans don't seem to be watching, where the fawning elite think they're making asses of us when all the while they're merely making asses of themselves.

Who wants to bet this masterpiece doesn't get renewed?

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

MARKETING IS ALL! AUDIENCES BE DAMNED!!!!!

No better words for JACK to leave on -- OR MR. ETHICAL GUMBO TO ENTER!

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

In the Jordanian capital Amman, businessman Khalid Salim said: "I support completely President Bush's speech concerning democracy in the Middle East and hope that his words will take effect soon."

But 18-year-old Jordanian worker Samer Hussein angrily denounced it: "With the justification of democracy, Bush and the Americans plan to occupy Arab and Muslim lands. We tell him, we do not want his democracy."

So: democracy=occupation, therefore tyranny=liberation. WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

It's fifteen days before the blessed anniversary (which, unfortunately, falls on a SATURDAY, meaning it will be drowned out by SPORTS -- oh, the IGNOMINY!) and already news hacks are tiresome on JFK, as they always will be.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

SHUCKS. More bad news for the economy.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

QUAGMIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RETURNS WITH A BLAST FROM THE PAST! ONE OF ITS ALL-TIME GREATEST HITS! CLEAR YOUR THROATS AND TUNE YOUR VOCAL CORDS AS WE ALL SING ALONG TO -- "FORMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (Six times.)

Sorta like singing along to the Four Aces and "(The Gang that Sang) Heart of My Heart," isn't it?

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

One Nation Deeply Divided

And I'm on the RIGHT side.

Do this guy and The Superpatriot compare notes? Or just tax returns?

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

I guess we shouldn't be surpised the educrats are sweeping school crime under the rug. Problem is they've swept so many problems under the rug it's developing some pretty fair camel humps.

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

And one of their brethren on the TV beat manages to go a whole column on why young people are fleeing TV screaming without mentioning the Q word -- something even Bill "MENSA MAN" Carter couldn't do.

Posted 6:37 AM by Gene

Another group of movie-ad-blurb copywriters throws a fit over not getting free DVDs.

A big THUMBS-DOWN to you and your raves.

Posted 7:53 PM by Gene

Wait till Al Sharpton learns NewsMax agrees with him!

Posted 3:36 PM by Gene

Between President DAMN!'S flipflops and President McClellan's flipflops their pancakes don't have a chance to cook.

One thing's sure: Dippity-DO's hair helmet will always be the same.

Posted 3:23 PM by Gene

The Beeb's issued a junk poll of the WORST FILMS OF ALL TIME -- and guess what? THEY ALL HAPPENED ON JACK'S WATCH -- AND MOST IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS!!!!!!!!!!

HEY MR. GUMBO! THINK YOU CAN TOP THAT ACT?

Posted 3:18 PM by Gene

Clark Says U.S. Must Resist Early Iraq Exit

But then again next week....

Posted 3:10 PM by Gene

President DAMN! apologizes for guys, Confederate flags, and pickup trucks.

Posted 1:24 PM by Gene

W-w-w-w-we d-d-didn't m-m-mean "a-a-a-a-anti-ch-ch-choice." W-w-w-we m-m-m-m-meant....

WE KNOW WHAT YOU MEANT.

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

GM plans hybrids of big SUVs by 2007

How 'bout a hybrid HUMMER? (Pffh-hh-hh!)

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

Bad hamburgers bequeathed a $200 million gift to NPR!

Ray Kroc's widow was an ardent Democrat, so we can see this as a posthumous SEAL OF APPROVAL.

Let's see NPR plead poverty now. Then again, they should run through the money in six months.

Somewhere Mr. and Mrs. are having an argument.

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

Five...FOUR...THREE....

Recorded music will really be fun with THREE!

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

News hacks are still angry that Viacon Network caved. And they'll take out their anger in the way they know best: with more bias, and more sneering at conservatives.

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

If a "militant" blows himself up in Mecca does that mean he gets 144 Helen Thomases?

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

I'm glad "Harold Koh will be the next Dean of the Yale Law School", but what's in it for me?

Posted 6:28 AM by Gene

Things must be serious in Happy Valley when USA Okay writes 2000 words and quotes from Kipling.

Posted 6:25 AM by Gene

Another GREAT reason for women in combat.

Posted 6:23 AM by Gene

If three out of four educrats resigned today, our schools might improve.

Certainly there'd be less chance of misspelling.

Posted 6:21 AM by Gene

Now QUAGMIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! becomes, WE COULD HAVE NEGOTIATED A PEACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hitler and Chamberlain negotiated a peace too.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

I wish NEWS HACKS would SHUT UP about how little they're paid. Yes, a lot of news jobs are low paid -- and a lot of news jobs are way-too-high paid and afford the same opportunities for loafing as the boringest civil-service post, with the added bonus of being able to talk down to your peon readers with your feet on your desk.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

And in more business ethics and morals excellence, Altria MOtive Foods (proud member of ASWIA) and the dairy giant Dean Foods did some fancy accounting for a food distributor -- which went broke anyway.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

I've got an idea! Let's up Frisco's minimum wage to $12 an hour! Then the beggars would be guaranteed a living wage!

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Speaking of the record biz, today I got a shipment from an eBay seller: the NEW, REMASTERED cast album of Hello, Dolly!, packaged in a cardboard Digipak sleeve, with a skinny "historical" liner booklet, and an interview with the wizened battleaxe Carol Channing, and it allegedly sells at retail for $18.98. I paid $7.00 ($4.00 plus $3.00 for shipping). It's made by a Bertelsmann whatisit called Arista Associated Labels, which is another way of playing "Taps" to classical music (it's made under the RCA Victor brand -- remember RCA Victor?). Nothing wrong with the record biz, right, LEGENDARY DAVIS?

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Oops! BUZZ BOLDFACES HIS WHOLE COLUMN AGAIN! Hey Buzz! Have you taken that HTML tutorial? Or do you need to fire another intern?

Posted 5:08 PM by Gene

The rats would flee the leaky boat of network TV (the one the AD VICE-PRESIDENTS and MEDIA BUYERS keep filling with water) except they're captaining the boat.

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

Today some moron on the train blasted high-tech aerobic music through his headphones, which sounded like Music to Create Media Empires By (admiring lyrics by Ken Auletta), which reminded me of every big-media firm I hate (which is to say, all of them), which reminded me that the easiest music downloading software will not fill the creative void at this industry's heart.

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

He pleads guilty to 48 murders, ho-hum.

Maybe this is whom the death penalty is for. One thing's clear: judging from the so-what that greeted the news, we're back to our deep pre-9/11 sleep.

Posted 4:54 PM by Gene

And how many lengthy philosophical treatises of six-syllable words or more will it take to discover the secret, profound and eternal truth: the last Matrix movie stinks?

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

Since JEFF "IT ZUCKS" ZUCKER says TV stinks, and JESUS II says movies stink, and the tony ad-blurb copywriter for America's most overrated magazine, The New Yorker (yes, The New Yorker), David "Impenetrable in 2,000 Words" Denby, says movies stink, can we agree our culture stinks?

No. USA Okay will proclaim another masterpiece on Friday.

Posted 2:33 PM by Gene

French store offers striptease lessons

Wait! I thought the French knew all about sex.

Another thing on which they prove their ignorance.

Posted 2:29 PM by Gene

Senator Says Downed Chopper Lacked Protective Gear

For God's sake, fix this NOW.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

One way of testing [whether the flap over you-know-what is a "new-media story," ugh] is to see whether Jim Romenesko followed the story - a good indicator of whether it really is damaging to the media liberal establishment. He ignored it.

SHUT UP, MR. SOUTH PARK CONSERVATIVE.

P. S. Yes, Andy S., Romenesko is a CW establishment type. But he writes stories almost exclusively about the press, and you-know-what isn't a news program. It's just like you, Andy, to let your fingers get ahead of your brains.

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

J'ACCUSE!!!!!

OR:

This article was reported by Bill Carter, Jim Rutenberg and Bernard Weinraub and written by Mr. Carter.

They get out their heaviest-hitting PR guys to tell us WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! did it. How anti-climactic.

Already I'm tired of this story.

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

Apparently all America's TV-ad-blurb copywriters are rising in righteous anger, which should prove if nothing else does the mind-numbing jackbooted lockstep conformity of the news business. And these clowns claim to defend the First Amendment. And they do. They defend one side of it.

Who told Viacon Network to buy a TV show about Reagan produced from behind the curtain by THE NOSE?

Posted 6:30 AM by Gene

Is Gregg looking for a job?

Posted 6:28 AM by Gene

Jonathan "Superpatriot" Alter, the seven-digit columnist so ebullient when Rush got into his well-deserved troubles, now screams and yells like a three year old, I WAN' MY POWA! It seems somebody took a program off the air in a way he didn't like. We can be sure if it were the other way around The Superpatriot wouldn't be using his expense account to dictate a column. This ardent defender of American virtue is reason #58364 why people have HAD IT with news hacks and have gone to the Web. Yet we can't seem to escape the hacks even here.

Posted 6:19 AM by Gene

Pointing fingers as usual.

Posted 6:18 AM by Gene

OOPS! The PARTY OF REACTION took two governors' seats. Shucks.

Fortunately, in Philadelphia, the mayor gets to serve a scandal-ridden second term.

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

Well, I've cleaned up my apartment.

Posted 6:39 PM by Gene

JEFF SAYS TV ZUCKS!

Now when will ASWIA?

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

As if we needed more proof that JACK'S ALPHABET SOUP should be banned: Coors is using movies aimed at teens to sell them beer. (Remember ZIMA?) "WE DIDN'T KNOW IT WASN'T GOING TO BE RATED R!!!!!" Sure. Like beer drinkers know beer doesn't get you drunk.

Posted 5:31 PM by Gene

THE BROW says Viacon wants out of "the retail business" (i.e., Blockbuster).

While you're at it, BROW, why not leave every other business you're in too.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Two League of Nations officials have been placed on "leave" over their outfit's security lapses in Iraq, which with the League is just as good as a promotion.

THE OSAMA CHANNEL'S REPORTING THIS?

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

QUAGMIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! becomes MORE TROOP CALL-UPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

I'm glad I'm not the only one to think Internet-delivered music is something of a cheat. You don't get the liner notes and photos, or the ability to make easy copies, or the sheer permanence of a CD, and the music doesn't sound as good. (A demerit, though, to Kinsley.com and the folks at BUGWARE WORKS for another deceptive headline. Besides, it's hard to imagine music getting worse.)

Posted 2:11 PM by Gene

Fight for civil rights! FIGHT FOR RICHARD M. SCRUSHY!

Exscrushyating.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

The lawyer for a man convicted of shooting and killing a policeman apologized on Monday for singing the Bob Marley hit "I Shot The Sheriff" as he was leaving the courtroom.

He should have sung "Don't Take Your Guns to Town."

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

Another "holy grail": cities MUST attract young upscale college graduates to survive. BUT they move around a lot.

This is like the BUNCOMBE that TV should attract only young adults. What about everyone else?

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

BozellNews introduces a new term: "pop-culture-driven elitism."

Sounds like our masters doing their duty.

Posted 6:37 AM by Gene

A dilettante at the Palestine Hotel bar talks "exit strategy" over his Perrier. Internet? That's science fiction.

Posted 6:31 AM by Gene

Another persecution in FREE ENTERPRISE. Won't the Feds ever learn?

Posted 6:24 AM by Gene

Wehell, there they don't go again.

Caveat: this is from two of the Times' biggest PR types; on the other hand, they rarely say anything without their show-biz bosses' approval, so I guess it's true.

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

2 al - Qaida Suspects Die in Mecca Shootout

Should be enjoying their 72 Helen Thomases already!

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Survey SAID....

Europeans are fools.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

Network TV news turns to fiction.

Nothing new.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Andy S. stayed up "the other night" and watched television -- "the cheesiest, crudest, lowest-common-denominator humor I've seen in a long while. It had Dolly Parton in the same joke as a couple of melons, for Pete's sake. And that was a high point." BUT -- it was LENO, AND: "Leno is a conservative voice in an unsettled time." So don't cheesy humor and a conservative voice make him a SOUTH PARK CONSERVATIVE?

Sorry to be so fussy, but Andy's notion really gets to me.

Posted 3:39 PM by Gene

Another Japanese auto recall!

Hmm, if the Clunker Brothers can improve just by standing still, maybe they can get away with building worse cars.

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

Well well well! Every INFORMED news site and big-name blogger said Sen. Pander from Florida was running for re-election! WELL WELL WELL! They're about as accurate as they were on Ah-NULT.

There goes the South.

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

If this story about "advertiser concerns" over TV program content is true, BozellNews, WHERE DO ALL THOSE GAZILLIONS OF OUR DOLLARS GO?

Posted 11:27 AM by Gene

Remember when RCA stood for Radio Corporation of America? WELL, that RCA TV's probably made in Mexico or Malaysia or Japip from Asian parts by a French manufacturer -- that's selling out to the Chinese.

I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!

Posted 11:22 AM by Gene

Sheridan once famously said you can judge a man by his enemies. But what if your enemy's a zero too?

Posted 10:43 AM by Gene

Once upon a time, the most successful Democratic leader of them all, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, looked south and said, "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." Today our national Democratic leaders look south and say, "I see one-third of a nation and it can go to hell."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!!! THEM'S FIGHTIN' WORDS, ZELL MILLER!!!!!

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

[T]he main function of an anchor, of course, is to sink.

And the main function of AD VICE PRESIDENTS AND MEDIA BUYERS, of course, is to pour water into a leaky boat.

Posted 10:10 AM by Gene

Bush Sr. to Rap Kennedy at Awards Ceremony

Sure that isn't "Rap with" Kennedy? Papa's capable of anything.

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

THE PERSECUTION OF THE MUTUAL FUND BIZ CONTINUES!!!!!

Or whatever Larry Kudlow would call it.

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

Who got fired for permitting Wolfowitz to stay at a hotel in Baghdad, when there was abundant evidence that Iranian-sponsored terrorists had been instructed to target the hotels?

Gooooooooooooooooood question!

Posted 6:55 AM by Gene

Meantime, after having to be nice and polite and hear the NAZ -- your opponents out and give them column inches for their intolerant EXTREMIST -- for their views, how nice to sit back in the employee sauna of USA OKAY'S luxury news suite and regale in one of America's top PR men doing some SELLING.

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

DAVID HOROWITZ MAKES THE MAINSTREAM PRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now he'll NEVER shut up. (Does he ever?)

Posted 6:42 AM by Gene

Wehell, there you go again.

Posted 6:31 AM by Gene

IN OTHER GOOD CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP NEWS:



Last year, [GUESS WHO] ordered its rock programmers to pull pictures of skimpily dressed women from station Web sites that target young male listeners. [That worked -- guess where this picture came from.] Before that, the Mays family forced aside the chief of [GUESS WHO]'s radio division, a onetime shock jock known for sexually explicit broadcasts and stunts.

THEM GOOD OL' BOYS IN SAN ANTON' DO IT AGAIN!!!!!

(Incidentally, that picture is from one of the three stations that did YOU KNOW WHAT.)

Posted 6:19 AM by Gene

Turns out Matt was joshing at FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News. This will undoubtedly restore the luster of his undying name with SOUTH PARK CONSERVATIVES (like ANDY S., where I found this), who see him as the noble exemplar of cultural sanity. To me, it's another multi-zillionaire media type playing a practical joke on the public, and I will never site him or his enduring creation on this blog again.

Posted 6:16 AM by Gene

Four hip replacements!

I guess that's why they call the guy Iron Mike.

Posted 3:17 PM by Gene

I'm waiting for the whole knee-jerk FREE-ENTERPRISE conservative brigade to scream that mutual funds are being "persecuted."

It wouldn't be the first time the knee-jerks have defended corporate misbehavior. It won't be the last.

Posted 2:49 PM by Gene

LOWSY performs another PUBLIC SERVICE.

WE'RE NOT THAT STUPID ANYMORE.

P. S. This advertiser-friendly shtick has gone on for at least four months.

P. P. S. I just looked up the words Clear Channel on Google. 4,630,000 hits without quotation marks, 548,000 with. Blogs gets 4,190,000. Where's the power of BLOGS, Professor?

Posted 12:51 PM by Gene

FINALLY, people see Iraq OUR WAY. BUT, there's a catch -- in the sixth graf:

The poll was conducted before Thursday's report that the economy surged from July through September at the fastest pace in nearly two decades.

There's too much of chicken-and-egg to polling, and much of it merely reflects the news hacks' tone on a story at a given time. Why should we believe polls?

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

MORE EVIDENCE NEWS HACKS WILL NEVER TAKE BLAME FOR WHAT THEY DO. In this case, it's a trifle, but the kind of trifle multiplied in the business by millions: THE GREATEST SHOW OF ALL TIME, THE PRODUCERS, HAS HIT A RUT. (Actually, it's been in a rut for some time, but I guess only now can the Times editors see it from their empyrean perch.) Who to blame, what to blame? Is it -- "the material"? (No, says the Timesman, it's the audience.) Is it -- "the casting"? (No, says the Timesman, it's the audience.) Is it -- "the pricing"? (No, says the Timesman, it's the audience.) Is it "chutzpah"? (No, says the...never mind.) Was it -- OSAMA?!?!? (This the writer obviously wanted to say, but there are limits to how crass even news hacks can be.) One party NOT at fault -- The New York Times, whose cheerleading for the masterwork could have drowned out all of football's, whose superb theater ad-blurb copywriter led the well-synchronized yell that this was THE GREATEST SHOW OF ALL TIME, and which soon after ran a PRESS RELEASE quoting somebody saying it would run for FIFTEEN YEARS. But why should I just rail? Let the author of this idiocy speak for himself:

At a recent Saturday matinee, the St. James was almost sold out as Mr. Applegate vamped as Max, and Don Stephenson, another lesser-known, but good, actor, squeaked comically as the nebbish Leo. Audience members seemed to be enjoying themselves, though as Mr. Landesman had said, some of the more insidery jokes landed with a thud.

"I'm not going into the toilet," says Leo, with a flourish, as he leaves his boring accounting job for the glamour of producing. "I'm going into show business."

The house was nearly silent, so much so that Mr. Stephenson did a double take to the audience, as if to say, "That's a funny line." No dice.

No funny, either. We forget that in his landmark immortal praise of this landmark immortal show, THE TIMES' LANDMARK IMMORTAL THEATER AD-BLURB COPYWRITER CALLED THE JOKES HOARY. In short, this piece of tripe was a news-hack-produced phenomenon not nearly as wondrous as its hype. In short, NEWS HACKS SOLD US ANOTHER BILL OF GOODS. If we can't trust news hacks over trivia like The Producers, HOW CAN WE TRUST THEM OVER LIFE-AND-DEATH STRUGGLES LIKE IRAQ?

Posted 9:53 AM by Gene

JACK'S Conspiracy has been screaming that time-shifting digital video recorders will cause the DESTRUCTION OF FREE TV. So what does a member of the Conspiracy do? It hands out the recorders to its cable subscribers!

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

THEY WOULDN'T GIVE ME MY GWAMMIES! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

"I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."

OH oh, ALL THREE ARE ILLEGAL IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Thanks to Trib's insistence on walling off part of its content, I can't access this article, but I can guess what Ken says: we need to enforce X, er, NC-17. PROBLEM IS, KEN, there's been ONE X, er, NC-17 since the notorious Showgirls, and it's in talent contracts and real-estate leases not to do or show X, er, NC-17. And the idiot JACK has said that what bothers the people he bribes is foul language. And so long as JACK'S ALPHABET SOUP IS RUN BY THE CIA, there'll be no change. You won't like this, Ken: THE ONLY SOLUTION IS TO DITCH THE SOUP NAZIS AND START A VOLUNTARY INDUSTRY CENSORSHIP. JACK'S wicked concoction is actually worse than anything Will Hays devised because it's so much more arbitrary and secret. A limited, specifically targeted censorship would keep the truly odious matter off our screens while not touching what movies can say. It won't happen though. As the events of Iraq demonstrate, media types will settle for nothing less than TOTAL VICTORY over the public. I repeat what Matt Welch said: YOU HAVE A CUSTOMER SERVICE PROBLEM.

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

22 American soldiers in two weeks, he says. What was it like back in Vietnam, when we lost several hundreds every week? Or in World War II, when America lost roughly 3,000 A WEEK? Yes, the ZERO-DEFECT STANDARD is in full stride with the news hacks, who would be happy to see us lose for reasons best known only to them, but which ultimately spring from withered minds and corrupt hearts.

Posted 8:03 AM by Gene

That MR. MARK must put a non-starter like this on BLUNDER's cover underscores the daily battle he has trying to find material for (to paraphrase something Henry Luce once wrote) the last and dumbest of his 3,000,000 subscribers. MR. MARK KNOWS that SHOW-BIZ SELLS, and it must pain him that, for all the GENIUS of our time, there just isn't enough of it; and superior though we are to our readers, you just can't keep on yelling QUAGMIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! until they scream in pain (or cancel their subscriptions, an unlikely thing as most newsweeklies are read by coffee tables and magazine racks). So in these interregna we must turn to topics like God and health, which inevitably makes MR. MARK wince, as well he should, for "SERVICE" FEATURES are a big reason most magazines are so DEADLY DULL.

Posted 7:47 AM by Gene

Buzz TWXster throws a mighty tantrum over Larry Lessig, who's published some kind of book. Buzz is too much the organization man ever to admit his former employer is wrong. Yes, we have gazillions of "new sources" of information, which are either impossible to find or of dubious worth or owned by the same six companies. As to entertainment (didn't you once edit a rag dealing with it?), all the electronic toys disguise that we probably do not have more manufacturers of it than we did in, say, 1910, when movies and theater were effectively controlled by monopolies. Buzz is right, though, when he says we can't rely on government. That anyone should rely on GENERAL JR. or MR. GUMBO for relief is laughable on its face, but the whole history of government intervention in media is one of splitting amoebas, until today we have the amoeba cartels essentially indistinguishable one from another. One right, however, does not make a former TWX employee any less wrong.

Is this TWXster becoming a FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News partisan? I suspect in time we'll hear that drivel about SOUTH PARK CONSERVATISM from him too.

Posted 7:35 AM by Gene

A very happy day for news hacks (and our enemies). We'll just keep at it.