Posted 10:13 PM by Gene

To the three people who pay attention to me: I'm thinking of changing the site's appearance (i.e., the template). Maybe I can get four hits a day that way. Stay tuned.

Posted 9:44 PM by Gene

An emergency drive to immunize millions of Africans against polio ended with "mixed results" in Nigeria's heavily Muslim north, where many families heeded some Islamic leaders' claims that the vaccine was part of a U.S. plot to render them sterile, U.N. officials said Friday.

Here, Michael Novak and company, is a DOWNSIDE of religious fundamentalism.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

I am getting sooooooooo tired of this story, but we'll quote from Howie as CHEAP CHANNEL is not to be trusted -- just like VIACON:

"Clear Channel has tons of Rap stations, and I'm sure the word nigger is used on those," he said in reference to the content CC cited in dumping him. "And that's not even a word considered objectionable by the FCC, but I still hung up on the dude because he said the N word."

Of course it is, and of course CHEAP CHANNEL doesn't know its rear end from a hole in the ground -- except in selling ads, which is ITS ONLY BUSINESS.

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

The Pentagon's spending $6.3 million on a home-grown news service to cover the military theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan, something that wouldn't be necessary had NEWS HACKS not won all those PULITZERS STOPPING AN UNJUST WAR.

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

I'm thinking what a second Civil War would be like. We already know the combatants: two sides with a monopoly on truth and the total absence of humility. I can see the control rooms now: here's Michael Moore, five hundred wires sticking out from a surgically-exploded skull, barking commands to Joe Conason, who has six surgically-attached cell phones sticking from his ears and gives orders to every media operation to tell the world, "This is a war for tolerance -- and anyone who believes otherwise should be shot!" HWWWALTER CRRRONKHITE's visage glares from every TV, Goldstein-like, bellowing, "MY COUNTRY RIGHT OR WRONG -- and NEVER RIGHT!" There's WALTER WINCHELL, living alone in a 200-room mansion that's a cross between a falling-down Catholic church and San Quentin, wearing a high-tech surgically-attached fedora, barking orders by e-mail to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, both residing in cryonic chambers one next to the other, who stir only when arguing who had the bigger bank account and when yelling at the world, "This is a war about Jesus Christ -- and anyone who won't accept Him is eternally damned and will go to HELL!" Each side has its stooges: the former (besides the media) has the Democratic Party and academe, who weekly stir up huge rallies likening their enemies to Hitler, accusing them of anti-Semitism while themselves fomenting it overseas; the latter has the GOP, with thousands of lobbyists hitting up big business for the money to fight the war. It also has the military, the GOP owning a monopoly on the flag, having passed laws making it illegal for a Democrat to fly one. In the end, the RIGHT has the nukes, the LEFT has the words, and the country commits suicide.

Of course this is an idiotic fantasy. But we've come to the precipice too many times since the first Civil War. Twice in our history communists scampered under our beds, leading to something approaching cold civil wars. In the early thirties America faced revolution over a 25% unemployment rate -- and it could have happened had FDR not escaped an assassination attempt. (Remember that?) We still have not quite uprighted ourselves morally from the social upheavals of the sixties. And for those who would cite indefinable inexorable forces, some have blamed the Civil War on a woman. And the murder of some silly archduke in a country that no one heard of led to most of the last century's catastrophes. Who's to say today's intolerant ninnies can't lead us to total destruction?

Posted 2:45 PM by Gene

I don't want to complain, but I'm tired of writing for myself. I've been at this blog for going on fourteen months, averaging at least fifteen posts a day, and I can't get anybody to do anything but click on my catch-as-catch-can links on GoogleBlogger, read one word and then go elsewhere. Am I that bad? If I were some teenage airhead fantasizing about his (more likely her) sex life I could understand, but I'd think by now I'd have even the smallest audience. Please, don't just click and walk away, read me for a second, and at least pay me a little attention.

I don't like writing like this, but some days I get so bewildered and frustrated.

Posted 2:11 PM by Gene

I subscribe to Model Railroader -- one of these days I'll talk about that peculiar, relaxing magazine -- so I know enough to know...



...that train shouldn't be smashing through a crossing, because crossing barriers are set up parallel to the tracks -- to prevent cars from getting through. With news hacks the little errors multiply until we get one great big error, or news hacks doing the everyday.

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

Terry Teachout quotes from himself -- I fear without any sense of irony:

Alas, they have always been with us, especially in wartime and most especially in America, far too many of whose well-meaning citizens are allergic to the exhilarating fizz of high art with a light touch. It seems not to occur to them that life is such an indissoluble mixture of heartbreak and absurdity that it might be more truly portrayed through the refracting lens of comedy. Instead, they prefer what Lord Byron, who knew a thing or two about both life and art, would have crisply dismissed as "sermons and soda-water."

Today Lord Byron might have termed it "sermons and hydrochloric acid." And Terry was one of the locksteppers because he works for the CONSERVATIVE half of America's most ideologically dishonest paper. I hope eventually he comes to his senses, and when he does, he may be embarrassed.

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

"In the old days, movies didn't sweep because there were so many great movies out there, but now it seems there's only a handful each year."

So can we infer that CGI Tolkien's MASTERPIECE may be less-than-great? I think so. (We may also infer that when they put their names above the titles the ad-blurb copywriters are honesty-challenged.)

Posted 1:19 PM by Gene

I'm especially struck by how the conservative media, press and intellectual establishment has been, so far as I can tell, completely uniform in its positive response. Among the theocons and neocons, uou [SIC] are less likely to find a criticism of this movie than you are to find criticism of the president! Have I missed something? Has some brave neoconservative or any writer who gets his paycheck from the conservative media dared to criticize this movie? Or is the Popular Front intact?

I know the feeling, ANDY S. (Although in truth it has been criticized by the likes of James Bowman and Christopher Hitchens, whose sympathies lie more or less within the camp.) But on Tuesday I posted, "[T]omorrow the whole @#$%&* CONSERVATIVE WORLD will be deafening with Tarzans." I saw this coming before you, and I don't get ninety quintazillion hits. (I will admit, though, the one thing about getting three hits a day is that nobody can call you overrated.)

P. S. I still recall how R. EMMETT and The American Spectator, in a long-ago prelude to this five-act banshee scream, did a puff piece to end all puff pieces on the late, unlamented Morton Downey Jr., who came to admit his Rush-before-Rush routine was an act. And let us not forget only months ago CONSERVATIVES blasted anyone who criticized MR. MORALS for gambling -- because he was CONSERVATIVE. They've been working up to this lockstep gag for a long time, and I've lost a lot of respect for a lot of conservatives in the process.

Posted 12:46 PM by Gene

Kerry picks up Mario Cuomo backing

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Posted 12:25 PM by Gene

Remember Martha Burk? The pill who protested at Augusta National -- with the late HOWELL at her side? Well, she's given up the good fight -- for now, but as we all know whom the Times be for GOD cannot be against. He doesn't have the power.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

PUNKS SIEG HEIL FOR DEMOCRATS!

OR:

But conservative or liberal, celebrity-driven voter registration campaigns may not sway an election.

"By and large people don't vote because a celebrity tells you to vote," said Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.

In spite of MTV's Rock the Vote campaign and other initiatives, only 29% of the 8.4 million people aged 18 to 24 cast a ballot for president in 2000. Turnout has been in decline since 43% of young people voted in 1972.

Translation: TAKE THAT RING OUT OF YOUR NOSE!

Posted 10:06 AM by Gene

The Times has an excuse for Dippity-Do: COMPLEX.

Hey, JAYSON had a complex also.

OR:



What a photo. The Senator, self-important, with a self-important bulge in the cheek. The future Senator: an unregenerate SLOB, or maybe a lieutenant in HAITI. But the hair was great even then.

Posted 10:01 AM by Gene

MICHAEL JACKSON! COME OUT WITH YOUR MASK UP!

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

Life as usual in Port-au-Prince.

Posted 9:55 AM by Gene

Lane, Broderick to Leave 'The Producers'

THE END IS NEAR!

Posted 9:46 AM by Gene

The minute you walked in the joint...

Ovitz, according to the study by an independent accountant, spent more than $2 million to remodel his office. At one point, he and his decorator proposed changes to the woodwork. The tab: $150,000.

I could see you were a man of distinction...

It wasn't his only capital improvement. Disney also spent $48,305 on Ovitz's home screening room and $14,055 on his home office. To ensure that Ovitz motored in style, the company plunked down $99,135 to buy his BMW from his former employer.

A REAL BIG SPENDER...

Disney also spent nearly $80,000 on hundreds of gifts given by Ovitz to Hollywood players and others. Among the goodies: a $946 "firearm" for director Robert Zemeckis and a $200 cigar cutter for producer Al Ruddy.

HEY, BIG SPENDER!

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

It would be just like Dubya with his secrecy obsession to withhold news of Osama's capture for the election -- the fool Karl Rove probably suggested it -- but if he does DEMOCRATS and NEWS HACKS will be all over him; it wouldn't look any better than LEGACY's WAG-THE-DOG ATTACK of that aspirin factory. All this said, likely nobody knows where MR. EVIL is, and I doubt if people would say if they could.

Posted 6:24 PM by Gene

If anyone out there reading my blog has one of his own, please, link to me. I'm tired of getting all my hits from GoogleBlogger's home page.

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

Here's one to send knee-jerk liberals into a tiz: the Justice Department is demanding Planned Parenthood's records. Of course we will hear about rights to this and rights to that until news hacks are blue in the face and black in the ledgers, but abortions are a profitable biz for Planned Parenthood, and its founder Margaret Sanger was a leading inspiration behind Hitler's all-singing all-dancing all-Aryan fantasies.

Posted 5:51 PM by Gene

Sixty Days -- Ya Know It!

(All RIGHT, all right, I won't do this again.)

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

A year ago I puzzled as to why so many "found Martha Stewart the embodiment of evil." To be sure she's taken a beating in the interregnum, but it's clear one reason she was tried was for being famous, and while I thought the verdict could go either way (I didn't particularly care which) I'm not surprised she's been let off the hook on one big charge.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Today in 1991 George Bush the I declared the defeat of Iraq's army, an event that wouldn't happen until twelve years later.

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

This is why we can't trust news hacks: How many die in Windy City homicides each year? 500? And some @#$%&* hack refers to that @#$%&* loss in the @#$%&* baseball playoffs as "a long national nightmare." Of course it is no national nightmare that lives are cheap in urban America, day after day after day. But then in NEWSHACKDOM up is down, right is wrong, and left is right.

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

Isn't it ironic that at the the same time Clear Channel kicks Howard Stern off their air, it sponsors a screening of Mel Gibson's Passion, a movie that is being condemned in many quarters for stirring up anti-Semitism[?]...[M]any of the same people who are flocking to the movie...are complaining about Stern.

Why can't you be this way ALL THE TIME, Buzz, rather than sporadically, like a flickering light bulb?

(Of course I've pointed out this contradiction HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE but I don't get twenty kazillion hits a day.)

Posted 1:18 PM by Gene

A $60-million-a-year company (so BusinessWeek says) definitely does NOT qualify as a NO-SPIN ZONE.

THE HUMAN TOP probably hasn't written a word in years.

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

Hope no one gets FIRED for this:

News executives at WTOP radio in Washington decided to yank the scheduled CBS news update at 8 a.m. because its earlier news report about the Stern controversy seemed designed to fuel interest in his show. "It seemed promotional more than newsworthy," said Mike McMearty, news director for WTOP. Additionally, as McMearty noted, the CBS story failed to point out its corporate ties to Infinity.

You can't trust VIACON down to its last preposition and conjunction.

Posted 10:41 AM by Gene

The folks who want to send the Orbiting Jalopy up again have trouble enough keeping track of things on earth.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

Not every FREEPER foams at the mouth:

He has no talent. Stern is a one joke kind of guy, and we have seen the joke.

You are not his audience. Thirteen and fourteen year old boys getting dressed in the morning before getting on the school bus are his audience.

They grow up into dysfunctional 18- through 24-year olds that leer at the equally screwed up females in their age bracket.

Both quite right.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

Finally, the senseless California supermarket strike has ended. What did it achieve except suffering among the checkout clerks and anger among the customers?

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

HEY HUMAN TOP! WHY DON'T YOU ENDORSE THE MOONIE PAPER? IT SPINS AS MUCH AS YOU!

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

The damfool blithering idiot greedmeister SLEAZEBALL GUMBO has ditched plans to take a zillion-dollar job lobbying for the drug biz. Now go into retirement, SLEAZEBALL, and oblivion, and spend the rest of your damfool life nursing your bleeding ulcer.

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Another reason to wonder if schools can teach: the kids are busy playing with their TOYS.

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

Hey HOWIE! Aren't you getting a little OLD for ka-ka and wee-wee jokes? Without the funny dyed hair and glasses you'd look like a U. S. SENATOR. And if you wore your hair a natural color you'd look like AN OVERAGED FRUIT-AND-NUT HIPPIE.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

COMPARE AND CONTRAST:





NUF SAID.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

I'd like to know the ratio of mentions of private parts to the mentions of SUMNER and ZONNNNNN on the HEROIC Howie's show. The number probably approaches Howie's salary.

Marchons, MARCHONS, etc., etc., etc.

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

NY pension fund to withhold Eisner vote

As NEW YORK goes....

Posted 3:16 PM by Gene

Sen. Pander, that's a really good idea of yours, invading Haiti. Then we can help set up a banana republic without the bananas.

I think the Haitians are doing a pretty good job of it themselves, no thank you Sen. Pander.

Posted 3:02 PM by Gene

How many times must we hear this: THE GOVERNMENT COULD HAVE PREVENTED IT.

Posted 12:16 PM by Gene

Ex-Minister Says British Spies Bugged Kofi Annan's Office

...and fell asleep on the job?

Posted 11:41 AM by Gene

Andy Rooney: 'Passion' Good for a Few Laughs

But it's NOTHING compared to the COMEDY KINGS of NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 11:37 AM by Gene

There's only one answer for the injustice and indecency of sending our soldiers into Iraq -- LET'S INVADE HAITI!!!!!

Posted 11:33 AM by Gene

'Ashamed' Clear Channel chief apologizes to House

If you want to know the truth, we're ashamed too.

"True and lasting change will only be achieved if the broadcast community recommits to its public service roots and its tradition of abiding by community standards of decency."

I thought you thought "public service" was a fairy tale, GENERAL JR.!!!!!

"Some of this hand-wringing in public is from the very people who have brought us a rogue's gallery of shock jocks."

PRAISE GOD FOR MEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 10:45 AM by Gene

With her rag and Taboo and now this, Rosie O'Donnell is trying to prove you can be a total ass and not pay for it.

She's paid for it.

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

WELL, WELL:

From all the talk, you'd expect that the entire country watched the Sunday finale of "Sex and the City."
Actually more people watched Monday's regularly scheduled episode of the far-less-buzzed about "Yes Dear" on CBS. And, surprise, shows like "Sex," for all the critical buzz they're getting, aren't sending viewers running to subscribe to HBO.
The pay cable network has in fact been stuck in a year-long subscriber lull that’s holding even at about 27.2 million, according to Kagan Worldwide.

The article claims the outfit's making big money on DVDs -- and shady internecine deals:

"Sex" will debut on TBS in September 2005 after the network agreed to a reported $500,000-plus per episode fee.

Translation: One set of TWXSTERS sends "money" to another set of TWXSTERS. In short, IT'S A ZERO-SUM GAME. No wonder TWX Internet Service has a rep. No wonder Pennsylvania's suing the TWXSTERS. This is blatant fraud aimed at shareholders.

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

"WE'LL BE AT THE OLYMPICS AND YOU WON'T UNTIL 2012!!!!!"

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

Not only did the FUMBLERS, BUMBLERS AND INCOMPETENTS help OSAMA launch 9/11 with its PC indifference, a few of its agents TOOK SOUVENIRS FROM GROUND ZERO!!!!!

One thing's clear: NO ONE WILL EVER BE FIRED.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

The problem with classical music is this: NO ONE'S WRITTEN GOOD MUSIC IN DECADES.

Posted 9:06 AM by Gene

The GEEZERS don't like the GEEZER!

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

CALPERS dumps on MICKEYMOUSE NIXON!

The Reign of Terror may slowly be coming to an end. One problem: if the ROBBER-BARON ROBERTSES win, we'll have a Reign of Error.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

Poll: Americans don't understand anti-terror law (front-page hed)

Here's betting our enemies do.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

And speaking of P. R. Mel, here's one time when liberal intolerance may do us some good.

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

A CONSERVATIVE BLASTS P. R. MEL'S MASTERPIECE!!!!!!!!!!

DRUM HIM OUT OF THE MOVEMENT!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

VIACON shows its TRUE SIDE. We cannot trust anything these bozos say, down to the last preposition and conjunction.

This is why the hero of the century was banished, BUZZ.

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

Even as conservatives everywhere suffer a holy nervous breakdown, DEM CUBBIES FANS think that by DESTROYING A BASEBALL, they'll LIFT A CURSE.

I guess one could be cutesy pie and say awwwwww, isn't that sweet, but these fool fans really believe in voodoo. So much for castor oil.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

Northeast University has called off a rap "concert" because some of its students rioted after the SUPER UNBORE?

I thought college was about entertainment!

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

Oh, NO!!!!! BUZZ T. NEWHOUSE'S GHOST WRITER HOWARD STERN HAS BEEN SUSPENDED BY CHEAP CHANNEL!!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS WAR!!!!!!!!!!

I suppose the easiest thing is to say that Howie will cry all the way to the bank, but I'm not sure. Opie and Anthony haven't come back, and Congress has since declared war on broadcasters. And before you say SATELLITE, BUZZ, imagine the HUGE audience. And people will want to pay $10 a month for ka-ka and wee-wee jokes? I don't think so.

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

Shucks, the Nine Fingers in the Wind are still heathens.

I believe in God (though I must confess I haven't been inside a church since my days in a college choir); but I also believe religion is an intensely private matter. I think of the story of how CBS's "legendary" co-founder Bill Paley (remember him?) tried to keep Groucho Marx and You Bet Your Life in his stable. The two huddled in the bathroom at Gummo Marx' house and Paley said, "We Jews should stick together. You can't afford to go to NBC." It was a spectacularly lame-brained remark; NBC was owned by RCA, which was run by a Jew, the "legendary" "Gen." David Sarnoff. (Remember him?) And it was a cheap appeal to Jewish "clannishness," deeply offending the Grouch, who was a free thinker if ever there was one. He went to NBC; the rest is broadcast history.

Religion has its good side, its very good side, in the untold millions who find peace through it. It has its bad side, its very bad side, in the Crusades and the Troubles and the Middle East and 9/11. I'm all for preaching the word, but you'd better be sure who's doing the preaching: William Penn (one of the truly great men of history), or a movie ass. And if it's a movie ass, you'd better be sure he's not picking your pockets. And that sin dates from at least the Bible.

P. S. Anyone following my blog (that's a laugh!) may think I'm turning liberal (that's a laugh too). My leanings are inherently conservative; I am pro-life, anti-PC, and supported our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with equal fervor. But I also believe the Biblical injunction that "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God," and I don't think there's a politico alive who's managed to pass a bill to ban sin yet, nor a news hack who could will it away with his scribbling. And forgive me, but I am suspicious of a religious pleading that comes from Hollywood, where believers in Ron outnumber believers in God, and that is embraced by a political movement that lived a good stretch of its life endorsing the tenets of anti-Semitism.

Posted 3:12 PM by Gene

Here's one for you, BILL O'REILLY:

Spinning your way to fitness

Posted 3:00 PM by Gene

JOKE OF THE WEEK:

It is increasingly likely that Comcast Corp. will have to add cash to its bid for Walt Disney Co., says Jessica Reif Cohen, an analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co....

Merrill has a banking relationship with Comcast and Disney. One or more of the Merrill analysts covering Comcast owns shares of the company.

HARDY HAR HAR!!!!!

Posted 2:57 PM by Gene

Why would ANYONE want that pile of debt and rotten music called Vivendi?

Posted 2:51 PM by Gene

Now if Dippity-Do had put it in his BACK it would be another story.

Posted 2:03 PM by Gene

Another one of those Forbes.com Quotes of the Day:

"I have no fear of photography as long as it cannot be used in heaven or hell."
-Edvard Munch

He didn't know Hollywood.

Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

DOW JONES WENT ON STRIKE!

What does THIS say about FREE ENTERPRISE?

By the way, did the JOURNALS CONSERVATIVE EDITION's people SCAB?

Posted 1:50 PM by Gene

THE HUMAN TOP PLAGIARIZES!!!!! (Second item.)

Just so long as it's for a GOOD CAUSE, MR. NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONE.

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

Now it's advertising and obesity. The LARRY KUDLOWs and BUTTMAN-INSTITUTE TYPES are doubled over in laughter: but if this past week's demonstrated anything it's that CONSERVATIVES can twist a mean ideological pretzel too, and as they've already said that certain kinds of bad media exposure are good we can expect the pretzel dough to twist even tighter.

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

"FREEP THIS POLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

SHUT UP, NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 11:49 AM by Gene

OOOOOOOOooooooh, THE WIZARD OF AL's going after the GEEZERS!

How can he talk of cutting SocSec benefits when we're giving the store away on prescription drugs? Make up your minds, somebody!

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

Perhaps, as we get puffed up over matters that won't matter next year (or next month), we should seek peace of mind through the likes of our nation's most eloquent poet, Emily Dickinson. In an age so disrespectful of art and beauty we can do worse than to turn to her diamond-radiant, diamond-permanent verses and reflect, why can't our age do this? It only turns out masterpieces.

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

I wonder if Republicans will conveniently forget all their "states-rights" blather when considering Dubya's amendment. At least the tantrum throwin' Sen. Craig realizes you don't amend the Constitution every day. But as I said, we're between the rock and the rockheads here.

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

First God created pepper-jack cheese, hard pretzels, and beer. And he said, "These are good." But God decided that others should appreciate his creations so he created the universe and then Earth and man and the light with which man could eventually see the pepper-jack cheese and beer. Later man discovered fire….animal husbandry….then came the Peloponnesian Wars….crop rotation….dwarf tossing….and National Review….
Let's skip ahead…

This is an odd bio from a man who just went into meltdown.

By the way, Jonah, AREN'T GOD'S PRONOUNS CAPITALIZED?!?!?!?!? OR AREN'T WE TALKING ABOUT JESUS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Posted 10:52 AM by Gene

The Michelin guide, that bible of food-and-wine snobs, is apparently not quite as honest as it's cooked up to be (pun sort-of intended).

I'm shocked! SHOCKED! Just like movie-ad-blurb copywriters. I'll never live it down.

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

I'll believe the big-box gang is serious when I see their stores in MY backyard.

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

EIGHTY-NINE YEARS AGO:

When Griffith released [The Birth of a Nation] in 1915, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (or NAACP) and other groups protested; the NAACP published a 47-page pamphlet titled "Fighting a Vicious Film: Protest Against The Birth of a Nation," in which they referred to the film as "three miles of filth." W. E. B. Du Bois published scathing reviews in The Crisis, spurring a heated debate among the National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures as to whether the film should be shown in New York. However, President and former history professor Woodrow Wilson viewed the film at the White House and proclaimed it not only historically accurate, but like "history writ with lightning." Like Woodrow Wilson, many whites felt it a truthful and accurate portrayal of racial politics, so much so that they flocked to join the rejuvenated Ku Klux Klan. [Emphasis added.] The years after Griffith released The Birth of a Nation saw massive race riots throughout the country, peaking especially in the North in 1919; many historians lay the blame for this racial conflict on Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.

Think to yourself: how many people these days talk about The Birth of a Nation?

P. S. I am not among those who believe David Wark Griffith should be expunged from film history; after all, he invented film's grammar, syntax, and most of its words. But his actions led to racial violence, and though I doubt anything approaching a rejuvenated KKK will happen again, given people are just so tired of reliving history (and those praising and opposing P. R. MEL's MASTERWORK are mostly full of their own importance; NRO, for instance, is in total meltdown), films, like words, can have consequences. But how wearying it is to know today's acme of controversy is tomorrow's relic.

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

A Move to Satisfy Conservative Base

Translation: HE'S LOSING THE ELECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meantime PROF devotes the usual eight or nine thousand words to the story and discovers there's a thing called POLITICS. GASP! How this must corrode someone so PURE of HEART!

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

LETTER OF THE DAY:

I recall, but cannot identify, a conversation between two actors who mentioned Sarah Jessica Parker's tube top as perhaps the smallest garment ever made. If you want to see Mrs. Parker-Broderick acting in a manner consistent with her dubious attributes and talents, you need look no farther than Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! wherein she plays a vacuous television reporter whose head is transplanted onto her Chihuahua's body and she falls in love with Pierce Brosnan's disembodied head.
-- Bob Johnson
Bedford, TX

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

NEWS HACKS say their fellow AD-BLURB COPYWRITERS are OKAY!!!!!

The fox guards the henhouse again.

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

By Backing a Gay Marriage Ban, Bush Keeps Faith With His Base

Translation: He's pandering.

But THE "RIGHT" RESPONDS: WE CAN PANDER WITH THE BEST OF THEM!

Interesting, though: when I clicked on the POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'S front page I got this:

‹µVÿoâ6ÿ¹ù+ÜLZ@×Æ íµÇ‘dK)×v: ºé¦I•ILð‘ØÌ1ÐÞnÿûžóåÊ ëî&-Áþ¼÷ü¾?Ç›«, ÛS†§˜Jipûa8Oìî ?ŽÑ-Ý B.ÐPä xÊ8E½˜)&¸‡K
ÃÃå
†7ñ£q0M"‘ é›ßÍŠÇ4}P°?)ØÃ9‹jßnÃ~½œ?™pæáqñ A8FãÞänˆ¦4a•00Œ»£›á½o¯î«žÿY“q$ÙR•ÒÆ‘à3–¬$ÑæpÒýJ¦ÈGÖ\©å[Œ[NÛv»ýÆvÏÏñˆ’´OcF0‰slu ?œ)º$ ÕR›ÍÆæ?Kˆ„‰ÌB¯Ð†ñXlìTD… {IÔœ“Œv@ù>i *2­B€Ç$[¦4ÇÙÇ[§¢R™²\?-3Ë ü}E壆ª½"2¡J÷ª`˜ò‰ÚuzMek`v?RZê?å8nëäôõÙù›¶cuPI(ônãOŠa¬$ã jôÁS[p?k4›ÛÂåÊÎWÓ¼âm!×mvŒÙŠGÚ¨‚åv0ê‡ïàhýa ‹h•Q®ì?„ 5,/D×£Þ;ßÔq®S÷ YQÊ¢Å=°£„ášö%ÎÀ€ÝÕöðc½¯ ءƪõ5½Œ1 &š„£«Þį)U´?XàÈkoúWhêî˜ ¥¤ ëÙÿnñÅ`tÙùNàá°0òO(‰¢QpÙ)/¶Œk»U×<+·c°jp²f QBÚ«œÊ0Ñ®CíÓ‡Á¬aõÅ'–¦ŸXMtè£c}þŒ¾JâÔvÐ/t:ù¹–lBlwKV[°?Ú°æ¾4¼èáË Ò]X4þÍО¬ÞouôuJ¾!!U6ž;h=o£ðò©…þ1LeLG7Ýë‚Y0Msú…²Õ‹{ëfwëYSMâÛ ®PÎ>Qr?#õÍP2’]ÓtM‹ÈÑgÚ¬£_W’Est1Ñ3>ϨÔAsIg¾ #&Çú¥¢‰Ê¾óÍûiJøÂɲÄ8Èe䛘e?œÏ$(wZ­SçÔN˜¾kH ï4Œ†ÀȆÅjî·^»p7 SY´ Œïù4_vžÔçK!UŽË?;×Cù«Œ˜’h±kà ÿj‚‡¹˜B ‚‚¼Pð­‹NÓD‚wõDöÍê.ŒR‘ÓFÓ ŠEuCjO¡Np?pë’ ?éo†‚X~?ü$6Ad•

How apt from RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P. S. I had to remove a lesser-than sign to get this to post. Truth in advertising.

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

I was thinking today, how could we get along without newspapers? There'd be no Democratic campaigning, no show-biz PR, no invasions of privacy, no condescension, no prurience, no half-baked satire, no bad comics, no sportswriters gnashing their teeth and screaming that the world was coming to an end when their team lost, no Martin Luther King Day sales, no instant martyrs, no scapegoating -- life would be very pleasant.

But then we'd have TV, and radio -- and the WEB. And those three media pick up where newspapers leave off.

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

MEL's P. R. hits a slight stumbling block: apparently a few religious leaders will NOT see it. AND ONE OF THE SUMNERS IS "DISTRESSED"! WELL!!! (In the end, she proved to be just another SUMNER. Criminal activity runs in some families.)

While I suspect most of the faithful will take their castor oil -- LIKE A MAN, I wonder how many will walk out mid-masterpiece -- and then blame their pastors?

Although there is considerable enthusiasm about the film among evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestant leaders in Massachusetts, where churches tend to be more liberal than in other parts of the country, made it clear at the press conference and in interviews afterward that they have concerns about the film.

The film has become a litmus test. Thanks, P. R. MEL. You get rich rich while the country suffers.

Posted 6:28 PM by Gene

A rare personal note (rare in that I don't believe my private life should be on my blog, not that it would interest people): yesterday I learned from Edifice Complex College's alumni bulletin and a Google search that a girl I'd "dated" in college and who thus captured a small role in my never-to-be-published comic novel died last autumn in a hospice after a very long illness. (She was my age.) After several decades I still find it difficult to accept people who did me wrong, yet I felt an ineffable sadness knowing one of my characters was now gone, and I forgave her.

Posted 6:22 PM by Gene

Twenty-four posts today -- and all of six hits. IS ANYONE OUT THERE?!?!?

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

Well, two little bits of good news: CHEAP CHANNEL'S sales were down -- and the state of P-A is suing the TWXSTERS. Show-biz types can't always get away with their basic, inbred fraud.

Posted 6:08 PM by Gene

Amid the Tarzan yells on the Freep -- and I recall all too well when Mrs. Bush chided the networks for airing the WTC obscenity ad nauseum, there was a veritable JUNGLE of them, and tomorrow the whole @#$%&* CONSERVATIVE WORLD will be deafening with Tarzans -- a voice of occasional sanity, chosen at random:

Will someone on this forum (maybe someone who is Jewish) explain to me why everyone is SO sensitive about their heritage?

Myriads of Jews have been persecuted, robbed, beaten, raped, tortured, exiled, and murdered because crowds were inflamed around this time of year with material relating to the Passion. It is a haunting memory, given the circumstances.

The dimwit CONSERVATIVE ad-blurbist ninny Michael Medved LuuuuUUUUUUUUHHHHHVES it because it's conservative. (So, alas, does Terry Teachout -- because he writes for THE WALL STREET JOURNALS CONSERVATIVE EDITION.) WHY MUST THIS @#$%&* MOVIE BE A CONSERVATIVE LITMUS TEST?!?!? It's screaming like this that proves the old left-right dichotomy does us so much harm.

And need I remind the TARZANS the true test of this movie will be the SECOND week?

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

Another civic glory causes a -- problem. Every time the Rendells put up another huge arts center there's a problem -- in our case (in Philly), cost overruns, in LALA's, heat. Honestly guys, the arts won't save your hide. When will you learn?

Wanna bet this costs TENS OF MILLIONS OF TAX DOLLARS to fix -- if it can be fixed?

Posted 3:03 PM by Gene

In more heroic testimony to warm the cockles of LARRY KUDLOW'S (and Richard Co -- whoops!) heart, Tyco, the non-toy company with the toy cash register, dispensed $24 MILLION in "home loans" to Denny and his CFO.

FREE ENTERPRISE AT WORK!

Posted 1:28 PM by Gene

NYTBR editor isn't sure what he'll do with Blair's book (Romenesko link)

Why not burn it?

Posted 1:14 PM by Gene

NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION ALERT:

WHY IS MEL GIBSON ACTING SO CRAZY????????????? (front-page hed)

As it happens, the story is conventional column-inch-filler/quote-anthology/show-biz-PR/news-hack-irony stuff, which end with our intrepid author intimating P. R. MEL is a business genius -- which he couldn't have been without the help and support of NEWS HACKS.

Posted 11:57 AM by Gene

Parents are responsible for indecent TV programing -- NOT US.

By the way, LACHLAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, I can't find any press release on the FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! site, on the NEWSCORP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! site, on "RCA"'s site, or on Thomson's site. Good deking, LACHLAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 11:24 AM by Gene

I wish people would call Andy Rooney a blithering idiot more often, not just when he attacks SACRED cows like P. R. MEL.

Posted 11:20 AM by Gene

And speaking of the invaluable IWantMedia.com (that's where I got the last story), an idiot CHEAP CHANNEL shock jock has lost his gig. Good bye, good riddance, and get yourself a job as a paper towel.

Posted 11:08 AM by Gene

NOW YA DONE IT, MS. BOOB: YA TICKED OFF LENA HORNE!

Posted 11:06 AM by Gene

C.I.A. Was Given Data on Hijacker Long Before 9/11

The more we learn, the more we learn the Feds screwed up bigtime, don't we.

P. S. Why does "politics" appear in the URL? I don't think 9/11 was about POLITICS.

Posted 10:46 AM by Gene

Another reason to SCREAM: The ad-blurb copywriters HATE IT (EisnerCorp's thumbs were clearly writing for the peanut gallery; on their salaries they can afford to), meaning KNEE-JERK CONSERVATIVES will drum it into our dear little ears that means THEY'RE A BUNCH OF COMMUNIST HUMANIST ATHEIST GLOBALISTS!!!!! But the ad-blurbists' judgment doesn't make the public's look better; Titanic was huge, and look what's happened to its rep.

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

Andy S. will have a BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD DAY today.

The Eighteenth Amendment shows the folly of social engineering in the Constitution. But lots of judges think The New York Times is the Bible and Pinch is God. What can we do faced with the rock and the rockheads?

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

An unpleasant thought: we now have knee-jerk books for left and right. With P. R. MEL'S STUNT will we now have knee-jerk movies?

It will be hard, however, to improve on MOVIES FOR JERKS.

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

AP Poll: Prescription Costs a Burden

So let's burden the taxpayer -- and add an extra charge for efficiency!

Posted 9:50 AM by Gene

CHENEYCORP...never mind.

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

BUTTMAN INSTITUTE FREE-ENTERPRISE-CONSERVATIVE ALERT: Young kids are vulnerable to commercials. Eyeball-rolling factor: It's the American Psychological Association.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

'Qaeda tapes' warn of more attacks

WHERE'S ELVIS?

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

Putin Says Government Resigns

Resigned -- or PUSCHED?

Mitigating factor: the ex-PM worked for Boris the Drunkard.

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

Good news for LARRY KUDLOW: America's footnote factories are doing something FREE-ENTERPRISE: they're using more part-time profs -- and they're CHARGING MORE! THE MARKETPLACE TRIUMPHS!

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

Clever politicking: by not bringing up his anti-war record, NEWS HACKS can deny Republicans a chance to "pin" DIPPITY-DO with the L-WORD. Clever, no?

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

Of course, every week is a week for Richard "Crybaby" Cohen. This week he speaks of the "WONDERFUL" President Legacy -- "that exuberant economy above all" -- and then screams, "There's something just plain wrong when the average CEO makes 500 times the salary of the average worker -- AND, PLEASE, SPARE ME ANY LECTURES ABOUT THE MARKET SYSTEM AND SUPPLY AND DEMAND!!!!!" But didn't "Dennis Kozlowski and Conrad Black" earn most of their obscene riches in the reign of wonder? To make his too long story short, he doesn't want RALPHIE BOY to run. One word explanation: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

Maybe, Herr Doktor Prager, women are exposing their bodies because they're exposing their bodies. Not everything has a scientific explanation.

This is going to be one of THOSE weeks for conservatives.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

I hear NEWS HACKS smacking their lips again! Some butthead in Dubya's cabinet (the butthead who runs the buttwarming Education Department) called the NEA a "terrorist organization," and you know what THAT means: NEWS HACKS and DEMOCRATS (six of one...) will make this a campaign issue and demand his resignation every single day. He shouldn't have said it; but the truth is the NEA is the keeper of PC in our schools and their excellence owes in no small measure to its laziness and stubbornness. But schools can get excellent in a hurry when your MORTAL ENEMY attacks.

CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGE quotes five Democrats and a Republican. BIAS? WHAT BIAS?!?!?

Posted 4:59 PM by Gene

We don't expect dignity from the nominees; we don't expect dignity from the presenters; we certainly don't expect dignity from the PRODUCTION NUMBERS; but the Oscar® organizers are expecting DIGNITY IN THE COMMERCIALS?

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

RALPH the SCOLD has turned talk of "corporate criminals" into such a cliche no one can take him seriously. That corporate thievery thrives means big business's critics have been effectively neutered, in part because one expects RALPHs to criticize it, in part because of a generation of KNEE-JERK CONSERVATIVES who will defend business through every misdeed because what's good for corporate America is good for America.

Posted 1:14 PM by Gene

And speaking of CRETINS, I wonder if we can expect COMMISSIONS and CONCERNED NEWS HACKS to study THIS ONE.

Posted 1:03 PM by Gene

The fan clubs for SLUTSVILLE and GORY FOR GLORY have more similarities than they may wish to admit. To start, they're both very insular: the soccer mom females, the Bible Belters and knee-jerk conservatives; neither (if Free Republic can be judged on the latter) will admit their masterworks are bad; they're both at worst politically intolerant; and they're both led by the most insular of news hacks (the gushmeisters and ad-blurb copywriters, NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and THE HUMAN TOP). The only thing in SLUTSVILLE's favor is that its cult saw the show. More to the point, the properties share something too: excess; SLUTSVILLE was to sex what GORY FOR GLORY is to violence, and both respective sides should bow their heads and contemplate themselves a little for what their obsessions have done to us. Alas, given some of the CRETINS who run America's churches, we can no more expect that for P. R. Mel than for Horseface.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

Someone has finally realized what many of us who frequent Mickey D's and chain stores already know: Music can be punishment.

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

Gibson’s fervor, it seems to me, belongs as much to the realm of sadomasochism as to Christian piety.

GLORY TO SADOMASOCHISM!!!!!

The real damage will not, I think, be in the realm of Jewish-Christian relations, at least not in this country. Anti-Semites don’t need an excuse to be anti-Semites. The damage will be to those who come to believe that Gibson’s crimson tide, with its jacked-up excruciations, is synonymous with true religious feeling.

But "Dr." Dobson! GORY IS GLORY!!!!!

Posted 9:16 AM by Gene

Remember when USA Today gave Dean a four-donkey rating?
(Romenesko link)

I'd give USA Okay a hundred-donkey rating -- beause it's full of ASSES.

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

I love Venn diagrams. Picture this one: In one circle, all the female NEWS HACKS who found President Legacy SEXY. In another, all the (mostly) female fans of SLUTSVILLE. The two overlap.

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

WE OUGHTA CALL YA THE HUMAN TOP, NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONE!

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

I pity all those super-educated, super-earning, super-slow news hacks who have nothing to do now that ONE OF THE GREATEST ARTISTIC CREATIONS IN THE UNIVERSE'S HISTORY is history. I KNOW!! WE CAN ELECT DIPPITY-DO PRESIDENT! Doesn't he have a SEXY FOREHEAD? And if that doesn't work WE CAN ELECT SEN. GOODHAIR GRISHAM!

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

"Frankly, sharing a media market with Chuck Schumer is like sharing a banana with a monkey. Take a little bite of it, and he will throw his own feces at you."

Sorry, if someone said that of me, I might be a little angry too. For one thing, if you're going to make fun of me, at least be funny.

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

A search I did using Google to research today's column turned up 75,334 pages devoted to "comic book movies." I'd still be sitting there clicking "next" if I decided to read them all.

If you hadn't become like the fans (and producers, and writers, and actors) first: mentally -- challenged.

Posted 6:53 PM by Gene

Here's one for Terry Teachout, and I'm sending this to him by e-mail: Sir, am I the only person put off by the overpowering PR for SLUTSVILLE and GORY FOR GLORY? Am I the only person thinking these alleged masterpieces of our time won't last -- in no small measure because they are (or should be) verboten for young people, exactly the audience needed to preserve art? You don't need an age restriction on Huck Finn (though I might put it off limits to some educators). And you should know this one, Mr. Teachout: Menck always touted Joseph Hergesheimer's novels, and he almost single-handedly got Sinclair Lewis's Main Street in print. He called these works "genius." Who reads them anymore? When news hacks tout something with one voice (and especially through their 50 gigawatt megaphone) that alone should put the bug of suspicion in our minds. (I'm not knocking Lewis, by the way, because Babbitt is one of my few fiction favorites.)

Posted 6:40 PM by Gene

Here is why serious fiction doesn't matter much these days: first off, who has the time for it? Second, enough people write for their navels. Third, when was the last time you could quote a memorable fiction line that wasn't embarrassing? Fourth, The New Yorker helped kill it with all its short stories about Walter Mittys (he started there) and dissolute families. Fifth (and this is hardly news), the people who write serious fiction simply don't want to write to entertain. Hard-core Christians and World War II buffs aside, who wants to spend a night curled up with a bottle of castor oil? Sixth, news hacks rave so much fiction you can't tell it apart anyway.

And since there's been a slight tiff these last few days about attributing links, I will confess I use ArtsJournal.com and IWant Media.com a lot. But then PROF uses Buzz T. Newhouse and Mr. Bleat a lot, and Buzz uses his dear friend HOWARD STERN a lot. (And worse, there are no links. Buzz! I'll say it again: Give that guy a blog!)

Posted 6:33 PM by Gene

Guess I was wrong. Sly (and JEFF) is as dumb as a fox.

Wanna bet GE Bancorp Network looks a little stupid?

Posted 6:21 PM by Gene

Media giants or parents? Just who is in charge?

It is NECESSARY to ASK this question?

And the joke is, David "Weenie" Shaw thinks parents can control their kids' use of media. Good luck, guy.

OR:

"I'm not a Christian right-winger. I'm a progressive. I teach civil rights and civil liberties at Stanford."

Translation: I've got my finger in the dike, and I'm twenty feet under.

Posted 12:57 PM by Gene

Is it that tough to talk foreign policy against Dippity-Do? All he has to say is, WE WON'T GIVE THE NATION TO FRANCE!

Posted 12:54 PM by Gene

I'm thinking maybe the reason Mrs. Ketchup isn't pitching in is because SHE KNOWS BETTER. (Caveat: it's a NEWSMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-we're sc-sc-sc-sc-sc-SCARED!!!!!

Of the people, not terrorists.

Posted 10:09 AM by Gene

We already plugged the movie (the greatest of all time, to be sure), and gay marriage is a circulation DOWNER, so I guess we're stuck with -- the DONALD?!?!?

Shrewdly, BLUNDER's PR hacks don't say how much he's worth. THAT might be a downer too.

P. S. Don't quit your day job (BLUNDER hacks excepted).

Posted 9:56 AM by Gene

TWO FOR TWO!!!!!

OR:

"IT’S HIS PERSONAL VANITY BECAUSE HE HAS NO MOVEMENT!!!!! NOBODY’S BACKING HIM!!!!!"

Translation: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

THE LIVE, PRIME-TIME EXPOSURE OF JANET JACKSON'S BREAST WAS ONLY THE LATEST EXAMPLE OF THE KIND OF SEXUAL TITILLATION AND EXPLOITATION THE NETWORK USES TO SELL OUR CHILDREN THE DANGEROUS, DEGRADING MESSAGES THAT WOMEN ARE TO BE VALUED ONLY FOR HOW THEY LOOK AND SEX IS JUST ANOTHER FORM OF RECREATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- Dr. James "Gory is Glory" Dobson.

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

Why movies (and especially movie-ad-blurb copywriters) are irrelevant: one of the Times' artsy-craftsy blurbists writes agitated filler about a masterpiece that probably won't earn back its production cost (in no small measure thanks to lease clauses), that will be seen by fewer people over its entire run than saw the latest CGI Tolkien in one day -- but talk is how SLUTSVILLE became immortal, isn't it?

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

Rendering Politics Speechless

George "MY BUSINESS IS MY BUSINESS, GOT IT?!?!?" Will finally comes up with a good idea!