Posted 8:16 PM by Gene

The University of Michigan is naming a 250-seat theater for Arthur Miller (250 seats -- we would have guessed) in a "DRAMA CENTER" named for heirs of a CRAPPY DRUG-STORE CHAIN that's costing $47 MILLION.

OR:

Miller attended Michigan during the height of the Depression and said he did so because it cost only $65 a year.

At that price instead of a "DRAMA CENTER" the U. could have financed 723,077 Arthur Millers.

HAIL! HAIL! to MI-CHI-GAN, the CHAM-PION$ OOOOOOOOF THE WEEEEEEEE$T!!!!!

Posted 6:38 PM by Gene

This is surely more legislative bloviating, but in a letter to a friend James Thurber wrote of how the teenage girl has "the body of a woman and the mind of a poodle puppy," and the RUPERTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and SUMNERS are doing everything they can to get the puppies to procreate. No, the problem isn't cheerleading, it's our MEDIA TYRANTS.

Posted 6:37 PM by Gene

And how many INFIDELS did you get tonight watching SHAKESPEARE, holy cockroaches?

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

We're looking forward to your Satch book, Terry, but I doubt you can do better than Pops himself (I hope you won't mind my quoting you quoting him):

"When I pick up that horn," he explained, "that’s all. The world’s behind me, and I don’t concentrate on nothin’ but it....That my livin’ and my life. I love them notes. That why I try to make ’em right. See?"

We're also heartened to learn you did not find genius in the latest MUSICAL OF THE CENTURY either:

I found myself squirming in my seat as each bit was dragged out to its well-remembered conclusion, wondering why my 19-year-old self had found the same punch lines so funny....

19 would make you older than the audience.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

The world will have to live with lofty oil prices for at least the next two years due to a combination of strong demand and supply constraints, Rodrigo Rato, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said on Saturday.

Aren't these the guys who screw up economies?

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

Why are we sending the ORBITING JALOPY back up for more HI MOM when we've already had TWO disasters and the uppermost thought is of rescue missions?

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

SHUCKS, the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL REPUBLICANS came through, which means maybe the RIGHT TO DIE isn't YET part of the Constitution.

Posted 4:40 PM by Gene

Tomorrow's KNIGHTRIDDER PHILLY BROADSHEET MONOPOLY (links 2 come) pulls a double-whammy on its readers. First is a front-page story bemoaning the city's awful homicide rate in ghetto neighborhoods. And that's all it does. One suspects that for weeks the cloistered suburban-dwelling IDIOTS on the Editorial Board debated whether to endorse solutions and decided against it because it might mean an increase in -- POLICE BRUTALITY. God knows NEWS HACKS have made enough righteous bad suggestions on how to improve things, but an article that whines and kvetches without advancing solutions doesn't have the dignity of being useless; it's cynical, and worse, it posits that some problems are TOO POLITICALLY CORRECT TO BE SOLVED. If KNIGHTRIDDER'S DIMWITS think they're going to restart their string of P-Ulitzers from decades gone by with this cowardly exercise in moral evasion they have another think coming.

Second is a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD WINNER -- an "A&E" piece by the paper's TV ad-blurb copywriter named Storm which shows conclusively that most articles (save the P-Ulitzer tryouts) pass from terminal to printed page without editing save for spellchecks. The guy belches in so many words that TV DRAMA IS BETTER THAN EVER!!!!! (Of course he doesn't have the guts to say THAT, but he says it.) If Harold Ross in a bad mood had met this piece of typing it would have self-incinerated on his desk. "Storm," he would have barked, "if TV's so great why aren't people watching?" The numbers he's foolish enough to throw out are generally less than five percent of the population, suggesting those viewing this BETTER-THAN-EVER TV are basically a TiVo-mad clique much like our enlightened blurbists. He further dynamites his column with this masterwork of words (have to paraphrase for now): "But like Wall Street, TV goes in cycles, and today's genius is all too likely to be tomorrow's trash." HEY BOZO! You don't SUPPOSE that would include the IMMORTALS OF ENTERTAINMENT you've just spent A THOUSAND WORDS BARKING, do you? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Oddly enough, for all its meritorious selling, it isn't the lead in the A&E section (though it's teased on the front page); that goes to a piece of twaddle by an ad-blurb copywriter once bylined Steven X. Rea who writes about the Kurosawa of ANIME. This is the guy whose MASTERWORK got distributed by ESPNCORP here in the states to huge indifference, which the blurbists ascribed to a "lack of marketing." Of COURSE it DIDN'T have anything to do with the fact that WHEN YOU'VE SEEN ONE ANIME CHARACTER, YOU'VE SEEN THEM ALL.

I repeat, TODAY'S DAILY NEWSPAPER IS NOT WORTH BUYING.

Posted 1:41 PM by Gene

European governments have provided $15 billion in loans since 1967 to help Airbus launch new aircraft, including $3.2 billion for the A380. Boeing has recently launched a new regional jet, the 787, and wants to bar Airbus from receiving government loans to develop a competing plane, the A350.

Brussels argues Boeing benefits from its own form of launch aid, including federal government contracts, Washington state tax breaks and Japanese government support for the production of wing and fuselage subassemblies in that country.

What's the difference between capitalism and socialism?

Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

Today, in Europe, another mammoth example of why we use deodorant.

Posted 1:06 PM by Gene

Without having to READ it, and we haven't (though we provide the link as a public disservice), let's see if we can WRITE a PAPER OF RE-CORD editorial -- from the mouth of THE LORD GOD PINCH HIMSELF:

The Schiavo Case

Death oughta be a convenience. If you're a vegetable, you're a vegetable. Vegetables are dead. (Except at the Four Seasons, haha.) But these LOONEY-RIGHT NAZ -- temper, Art -- THESE BUSH-HIT...oh, these ultra, er RE-PUB-LI-CANS were trying to interfere in a PERSONAL, PRIVATE MATTER. Government has no business in the bedroom, the hospice, wherever people want to conveniently die. But when our FELLOW MAN, PERSON may blow POISONS into our face like somebody did the other day, and kill THOUSANDS WITH THEIR SECOND-HAND SMOKE, then GOVERNMENT HAS THE...DAMN, we can't keep pulling these gags on the public forever. I know damn well what circulation's been telling me. Of COURSE we're not going to admit it's shrinking! We're THE PAPER OF RECORD! I'LL BE DAMNED IF ANYONE TELLS ME WHAT WE OUGHT TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT TO THINK! Oh, the HELL with it! WE'RE THE TIMES, AND WE'RE BETTER THAN ANYBODY. Jayson was just race and jealousy. Let's see, vegetables -- hey Miriam, call up and ask what the most expensive thing on the menu is today! That's all right, they'll -- I'LL pay for it.

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

David "Logorrhea" Edelstein, still in search of the perfect blurb and that big-paying job, calls WOODSTER the PERV a "humorless prig."

I don't know that I'd say that, Dave. Folks in your racket are the very definition.

Hobie is madly in love with Melinda, the adorably unstable downstairs neighbor with a string of failed relationships. He feels guilty, though—he says, "I want to touch her and then I'm at Nuremberg," which gives you an idea of how contemporary Allen's reference points are.

Strange -- twenty years ago that line would have had you rolling on the floor in KNOWING hysterics. What happened since then? Did you grow up? Or did you and WOODSTER the PERV grow DOWN?

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

Lobbyists who had just dug deep for a fund-raiser by Rep. Rob Portman were unhappy Thursday when they learned of his surprise nomination by President Bush as U.S. trade representative.

SHUCKS. Why don't they just ask for their money back? (PFFH-HH-HH!!!!!)

When they learned of his appointment, several asked Portman to return their money.

DID HE? (PFFH-HH-HH!!!!!)

Posted 8:19 AM by Gene

Pakistan Test-Fires Nuclear-Capable Missile

The holy cockroaches are DREAMING today.

Posted 8:13 AM by Gene

And speaking of PR...

We're not through with QUAGMIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yet!!!!!

Posted 8:09 AM by Gene

More proof blogging may not cure cancer:

Bosses' Blogs Offer Mostly PR [home-page link]

So executives bloviate. Who'da thought?

Question: how many delegate their BLOGS?

Posted 7:57 AM by Gene

Get out the Ben and Jerry's! All hail Bernie Sanders! Everybody yell the official Vermont slogan: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

What did I say yesterday about those "ELITE" coaches?

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Worcester hosts coaching elite

If these two are "ELITE" I'd hate to imagine what further down is like.

OR:

With college basketball on the verge of its annual March Madness extravaganza, an independent study released Tuesday found that nearly two-thirds of the teams in the men's NCAA tournament have graduated less than 50% of their players.

Of course the HACKS must obsess about RACE. THE PROBLEM IS DUMMIES, NOT RACE.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

I gather the HACKS are putting on their smiley faces again. But this is another typical story for our age with no heroes -- and one all-purpose victim.

Posted 4:52 PM by Gene

Another promise to increase capacity, another promise to fix the software. But KADIDDLEBLOG has been so jerry-rigged and Band-Aided and Scotch-taped one suspects further "solutions" may be worse than useless. I'd bet the way KADIDDLEBLOG is fashioned the slowdowns are self-reinforcing, and all prior "solutions" have merely exacerbated the slowdowns.

I remember how I could not post for hours on the day after Election Day. I still rankle at how KADIDDLEBLOG was unavailable for long stretches at a time this week and last. I am mad that to make a simple post, I must go through this procedure: Make the post, click on "Publish Post," wait, open a new browser window and into Blogger, click on "Status," then click on "Republish Index." Occasionally this works. More often I switch back and forth between browser windows, turning them on and off, hoping SOMETHING will get KADIDDLEBLOG to work. That so many of us stick with KADIDDLEBLOG despite G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE's obvious indifference to it speaks to the stuipidity of bloggers, including myself. Who knows how many bloggers have turned to other blogging services -- or have quit altogether?

I'm giving you TWO WEEKS, MOUNTAIN VIEW MORONS. If you haven't fixed KADIDDLEBLOG in TWO WEEKS I'm switiching to a paid blog provider. We may well be past the time the sales -- ANALYSTS don't notice.

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

For years one way MEDIA TYRANTS showed their SUPERIORITY to the AUDIENCE was by beating it over the head with SEX. The problem is the public has come to so resent being RAPED by show-biz types on even the best of days that practically every COURAGEOUS sex property from Hollywood in recent years has BOMBED. That THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, FOUNT OF CW and FLACK FOR ENTERTAINMENT, can ADMIT to it shows the public has thoroughly HAD IT with BIG MEDIA SHENANIGANS like this.

Not all is lost, however; this scribbler says the reason sex so often bombs with audiences is that they're hypocrites who watch it at home. NO AMOUNT OF SCREAMING WILL EVER CONVINCE SHOW-BIZ HACKS IT MIGHT BE THEIR PROPERTIES.

Posted 1:00 PM by Gene

The Terri Schiavo case has descended into the realm of tragic farce. Either she has a right to life or she doesn't. That JUDGES can't make up their minds shows what a lifetime of breathing dust in hermetically-sealed courtooms can do. God KNOWS what the NINE FINGERS are thinking.

Since when did JUDGES become WISE anyway?

Posted 12:45 PM by Gene

Gotta be ROMY again:

Watch the features copy desk in action -- for just $49.95

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!!!!! I'm game!!!!!

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

I suspect our knowledge of the truth of WACKO's finance is the smallest fraction of our knowledge of WACKO's peccadilloes, which itself is a mightily small fraction of the truth.

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

No wonder Fidel's mad! Forbes didn't rank him high enough!

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

Just because the League of Nations is doing executive searches won't make it less corrupt. Any political machine can do searches. So can any Mafia franchise.

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

Ben Brantley's DARING admission that the latest MUSICAL OF THE CENTURY may not be so hot (he conveniently saves it for the last paragraph -- how BOLD! how COURAGEOUS!) indicates that perhaps MARKETING CANNOT save the THEA-TAH. Or as he puts it:

Such ventures, which include flesh-and-blood versions of Disney cartoons and jukebox karaoke shows like "Mamma Mia!," reconstruct elements from much-loved cultural phenomena with wide fan bases. Only rarely do these productions match, much less surpass, the appeal of what inspired them. Generally, they simply serve as colorful aides-mémoire for the pop group, television show or movie to which they pay tribute. Within this category, "Spamalot" ranks high, right up there with (try not to wince, Pythonites) the sweetly moronic "Mamma Mia!," which repackages the disco hits of Abba into a comfy singalong frolic.

In other words, you're paying $100 to watch a night of TV. I don't care what the AD BLURBS say, this is another spadeful of dirt on the THEATER. Ever since the musical died in the 1960s it's been one FAD after another -- first the dead man's revues like the now forgotten George M! and Ain't Misbehavin', whose tunefulness almost made people forget good songs had vanished from the stage; then HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM, whose CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED heirs of gloom and assigns of ennui had not ONE HIT among them; then LORD LLOUD WUBBISH and LORD SCHLOCKINTOSH, manufacturers of highly elaborate mechanical contraptions that ran for years and vanished without a trace; then the aforementioned ROCK CONCERTS, which will spawn in great numbers until the sun turns cinder. Now it's BLAZING SADDLES with MUSIC. When the FOURTH or FIFTH of these HIGH-SCHOOL COMEDIES arrives maybe the COPYWRITERS will FINALLY WISE UP -- and then move onto ANOTHER FAD. (Certainly that sirening blurb machine CLIVE will never wise up -- but he has nothing to wise up FROM.) Most likely this latest happy-gas-fuming internal-combustion engine is critic-proof. One may question, however, if our culture is BAD-proof.

But then, the musical is so dead the corpse has no smell.

P. S.

Another cliché that gets a workout — and uproarious audience approval — is a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song that has Sir Robin proclaiming, “You won’t succeed on Broadway if don’t have any Jews,” a topic mined with greater wit (believe it or not) in “The Producers.”

WHO DARED WRITE THIS?????

P. S. At 5:08 p.m.: This is a rewrite of a post I made this morning (which I partly reposted later in the day -- that one since deleted -- because KADIDDLEBLOG was showing MORE SIGNS OF EXCELLENCE); I incorrectly assumed from the first graf it was another fatuous rave for another mechanical production. (There is something NOT to be said for SPEED SURFING.) Or to paraphrase Ben Brantley, he shows a little discernment -- and that's not saying much.

Posted 6:29 AM by Gene

KADIDDLEBLOG'S BETTER THAN EVER! I've found several more excuses for its sudden spurt of TECHNOLOGICAL EXCELLENCE. One says it's ELECTRICITY. Another who may or may not work for KADIDDLEBLOG says just keep closing and opening your browser. This suggestion is like saying if you can't open a locked door with a key try ramming it shoulder-first 100 times. Unless you're a linebacker the most likely outcome is a dislocated shoulder or a trip to the looney bin.

I have all but given up on these clowns. G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE clearly views KADIDDLEBLOG as an error of its youthful days, a loss leader with virtually no hope of redemption, so it's running it down, encouraging bloggers through its malign neglect to head elsewhere. And they will.

(My humble apologies to the late, great Red Skelton, but Clem Kadiddlehopper is such an OBVIOUS MASCOT for G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE's NON-FUNCTIONING BLOG DISSERVICE.)

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

• McGwire won't give names to Senate panel

HOUSE panel, stupid.

Though not more stupid than the folks at KADIDDLEBLOG.

Posted 11:59 AM by Gene

If Zelig Selig scrunched his face any further he'd be all forehead and chin.

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

ONWARD and UPWARD with ROMY:

Three questions that High Times staffers are always asked
Boston Phoenix
"How did you get your job at High Times?" "Can you get me a job at High Times?" "Can you get me some weed?"

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

"Jeez! I thought there were only FOUR bases!"

Today will be a most tight-lippedly INTERESTING day on Capitol Hill.

Posted 8:49 AM by Gene

CORRECTION:

"I intend to retire three years after I'm dead."

SUMNER WILL LIVE FOREVER!!!!!

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

At what point to we decide how many entitlements are too many?

Long-running drains like Medicare were designed with a wink and a chuckle, and a number. Fortunately the number was small enough so no one would get mad. Who ever guessed we'd be stuck with the numbers?

Of course the REPUBLICANS will do NOTHING; they're busy passing their seats on to their heirs.

The real answer for Medicare, many on both sides argue, lies in improving the nation's entire health care system.

GOOD LUCK.

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

Speaking of MOVEON!!!!!:

"WE GOT RID OF JOE CAMEL. WE'VE GOT TO GET RID OF SHREK!!!!!"

I'm no fan of THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF WILLFULLY IGNORANT ADVERTISERS, but WE'VE GOT TO GET RID OF TOM HARKIN.

Figuratively, of course.

"CARU [the ADBIZ' wet noodle] has been around for 30 years and look what we have," he said. "What have they done?"

Well, maybe not.

Con-SERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-va-TIVES!!!!! RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSH!!!!! Get out your NATIONAL NANNY GAG!!!!!

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

We can count on Republicans to crawl into their country club and mumble among themselves; but we can also count on the MOVEON!!!!! wing of the Democratic Party to PROTEST. PROTEST is all they know. It has to be because PROTEST is a substitute for ideas.

Posted 6:58 AM by Gene

In the best of cultural times producing theater is the height of lunacy. And regardless of what THE GLIBERAL and BEN "THE GREATEST MUSICAL OF ALL TIME" BRANTLEY say, despite the EPOCHAL OPENING of the GREATEST COMEDY since RABELAIS told his DIRTY JOKES, this is not the best of cultural times. You have to wonder how Dodger Theatricals lasted so long. Consider the list of its masterworks: "Big River, Into the Woods, The Gospel at Colonus." How many of these are known outside the thea-TAH community? A revival of 42nd Street (itself a revival of sorts) that ran for over three years and didn't make its money back. The "EDGY" imitation Brecht-Weill with the title THE PAPER OF RE-CORD LOVED (hence the show too) because it could STICK IT IN RED COUNTRY'S EYE. The only show that gained any fame was an overrated revival of Guys and Dolls, and because it introduced Nathan Lane. "Footloose, Wrong Mountain, Titanic...DRACULA THE MUSICAL...GOOD VIBRATIONS...." A veritable litany of TASTE. Oh well, it's heartening to learn these folks haven't given up. They're doing a show "based on the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons."

STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERIKE THREE YERRRRRRRRRRRRR OUT!!!!!

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

A few hours later, DeLay received a standing ovation when he addressed about 1,000 party donors at a National Republican Congressional Committee luncheon at a hotel here.

He began with a dig at Howard Dean, the presidential candidate who is now chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and joked that "Republicans from Texas aren't known for our eloquocity." DeLay strode in to the strains of "Still the One."



SO WAS NIXON.

P. S. I just thought of something:

You're still the one
Who can scratch my itch....

Or as SNIDELY WHIPLASH would say:

YEEEW SCRAYTCH MAH EEETCH AYN' AH'LL SCRAYTCH YEEOOORS!!!!!

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

There are raging arguments over Baretta's acquittal, just as surely as there were loud yelps over Scott Peterson getting his, and all I can say is, it doesn't affect ME.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Summers has given no indication he would consider stepping down. He officially answers only to the Harvard Corporation, the university's governing body, which has expressed support for him. Furthermore, the arts and sciences faculty is just one of 10 that comprise Harvard.

See but 10 percent of the faculty groups equals 99 percent of the media, and...oh, never mind.

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

I guess the BIG BULGING BICEPS of BASEBALL PUT UP because otherwise that HOUSE COMMITTEE WOULDN'T SHUT UP.

Posted 5:32 PM by Gene

Oh dear dear dear, the American branch of the British Vicarage and Tea-Time Club won't be appointing new social directors for a year because of all the -- PARTYING.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Any bank with a name like JPMorganChase (or however it DILBERTSPELLS it) is bound to be in the business of paying big settlements to defrauded shareholders.

How is that pronounced, by the way -- GYPMorganChase?

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Without much trouble we could find something to hate in all 65 schools.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

FLASH! SUMNER TO BREAK VIACON IN TWO! DECIDES HE WON'T LIVE FOREVER!!

Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

"I'm willing to listen to constructive discussions about where the long-term future of the ratings ought to be. I think they're critically important. Without the ratings system in this country, we would inevitably lead to some sort of government censorship, which I don't want to see at all."

We don't want to see government censorhip either, SAMMY GLICKMAN -- but keeping making movies the way you've been making them and keep serving up JACK'S STRYCHNINE-LACED ALPHABET SOUP and THAT'S PRECISELY WHAT YOU WILL GET.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

You wonder at what point KADIDDLEBLOG's problems reach a CRITICAL MASS. You wonder at what point KADIDDLEBLOG's problems become a MELTDOWN. You wonder at what point KADIDDLEBLOG "IMPACTS" G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE'S STOCK PRICE.

Posted 4:57 PM by Gene

MORE HIGH-IQ WORK FROM MADAVE: Today I spotted the following slogan on a billboard:

CELEBRATE TASTE BUD APPRECIATION DAY.

Typically meaningless adbiz twaddle, but just one problem: the first thing my eyes latched onto was the word "BUD" -- and this was an ad for MILLER LITE.

You'd THINK somebody would know better, but no one does, because the whole purpose of advertising is to WASTE MONEY. This also proves anybody can write ad copy -- and ANYBODY DOES.

Posted 11:44 AM by Gene

Until further notice we shall refer to BRENT the DWEEB'S SUPERHERO as RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp., said his company would "further strengthen cooperative ties with the Chinese media, and explore new areas with an even more positive attitude."

Does that mean TRAVELOGUES on FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS? (THAT's until further notice too.)

Posted 11:14 AM by Gene

SHUCKS guys, it WON'T be BONO after all.

But it WILL be the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL PAUL WOLFOWITZ. BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

He was (as I said before) the CLASS ACT of professional college basketball; now he's reduced to being "controversial." And while the use of this word doesn't fit established news-hack standards ("controversial" is often used to describe bad things news hacks like because it STICKS IT IN RED COUNTRY'S EYE); it would take a twist of logic beyond even the most overpaid, over-confident NEWS HACK to find something good in John Chaney's spasm of GOONERY.

I would say, how apt to go out on a losing note, but let's wait first.

Posted 10:03 AM by Gene

You have to wonder -- could the SENIOR CLUNKER BROTHER keep going without making SUVs?

Posted 9:50 AM by Gene

And we're gonna SCWEAM and CWY and SIT AT OWUH DESKS and TWOW A TANTWUM TILL WE GET OWUH WAY! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

"Of course, Democrats would never block legislation vital to our troops or other national security interests...."

Unless, OF COURSE, we're engaged in an UNJUST WAR which OUR OWN PARTY CHAIRMAN was DEAD SET AGAINST. RIGHT, Harry?

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

One reason I no longer subscribe to business magazines is that they always make suggestions for corporate improvement that are irrelevant or daydreaming, with a large dose of blather. David, bless his NEUHARTHIAN SOUL, combines all three. His suggestions for ESPNCORP are the usual gas: buybuybuy (radio stations, WWE, Nascar, a stake in CNN), "[h]ire animation executives who know how to tell a story," perhaps by enlisting Tinkerbell to wave her magic wand and invent them; make the company "more hospitable to live-action filmmakers" (translation: MAKE MORE R MOVIES -- but this was before the idiot Jack Fithian belched), and this scintillating suggestion: "Develop a workable model for ABC News." (Translation: if people were watching we wouldn't worry about MODELS.) In short, this is the kind of INSTANT CLICHE we expect of NEUHARTHIANS, and while it is not eligible for a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD because it does not directly SELL a property, we will give it HONORABLE MENTION for its BRILLIANT IDEAS.

On SECOND THOUGHT we WILL give it a NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD (our THIRD this week) as it quotes the sales -- ANALYST Dennis McAlpine, who's almost as good as getting his name in the papers as his fellow sales -- ANALYST Jessica "Rife" Reif Cohen.

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

Surprise, surprise, the Al Gore Memorial Internet Boondoggle in the Schools Program doesn't know what the hell it did with the money.

What makes bureaucrats and educrats go nuts in tandem?

Posted 8:07 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: When Bernie "The Last Angry Commie" Sanders develops a "chill" over CENSORRRRRRRSSHIP, you know he gets a warm feeling from ACADEMIA'S PC DEEP FREEZE.

Thanks again for nothing, ARTSJOURNAL.COM.

Posted 6:53 AM by Gene

"We want to call on our friends in the studios to continue this trend and to continue to distribute to us family titles, because that's where we sell more movie tickets," John Fithian, the group's president, said at ShoWest, an annual convention of theater owners.

You sell POPCORN, JACK. What care you what SAMMY GLICKMAN and his CONSPIRACY put on the screen to goose POPCORN SALES? You didn't before the FTC came after you.

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

But then we might expect ST. WARREN'S CHERUBIM to play tricks on their readers running heds like this:

2 Years After Invasion, Poll Data Remains Mixed

The ultimate purpose of public policy, this hed makes clear, is to create "poll data." Not to improve things, but to confirm the NEWS HACKS' position at the center of the center of the universe. How -- er, INTERESTING that the same HACKS who raucously deride politicians for being poll slaves are poll slaves THEMSELVES. We shall have to think up another award in addition to the NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK for things like this.

Posted 6:38 AM by Gene

The WAPOSTIES promise a serious story --

Promoting Non-Violent Games
Video games that have become dependent on violence are getting a remake by their creators.

-- then launch into a four-page plug for one video game, complete with ironic chuckles ("No recreation of the Columbine massacre or the Twin Towers falling," giggle giggle). A SECOND NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD for FRAUDULENCE AND SALESMANSHIP IN NEWS.

Posted 6:05 PM by Gene

Take THAT, Europe! We can export our WAISTLINES too!

Posted 6:02 PM by Gene

Diana's crashed car was a replacement

As they say in the former TURNERLAND, "Will wonders never cease?", with each new non-story an INCREASING WONDER.

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

WOW! KADIDDLEBLOG'S FAST TODAY!

SOMEBODY'LL GET FIRED FOR THIS!

Posted 5:52 PM by Gene

Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computer Inc., was again paid $1 in salary and received no stock options or restricted stock for the company's fiscal 2004, a regulatory filing showed on Tuesday.

OR:

Forbes magazine, in its annual list of the world's 400 richest people, ranked Jobs at No. 74, putting his estimated worth at $2.6 billion.

Since the end of Apple's fiscal 2004, the company's shares have nearly quadrupled. On February 11, the company set a 2-for-1 stock split, its first since 2000 at the height of technology boom. [SEVENTH AND EIGHTH GRAFS.]



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to the REUT!!!!!

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

I've always gotten about 140 percent of the publicity I deserved.

Isn't there a decimal point missing somewhere, HHHWWWALTER?

Now I know the guy's an ass. He filled in for PAUL HARVEH.

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

U.S. authorities have charged 18 people in an alleged plot to smuggle grenade launchers, shoulder-fired missiles and other Russian military weapons into the country, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in Manhattan.

The arrests resulted from a year-long investigation in which an FBI informant posed as an arms buyer with ties to terrorists, and indicated he had ties to al-Qaida.

Let us not forget that terrorism has a FOR-PROFIT component.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

Aw SHUCKS, all that visionary napkin drawing and Bernie faces LIFE.

That's the way the telecom stock DEAD-CAT BOUNCES.

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

"For our club owners, the idea of a Super Bowl in a domed stadium in New York is a no-brainer."

YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

Harper's Jane Friedman Warns of 'Devaluation of the Word'

As if your boss RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hasn't done enough.

You just don't want people to buy ANY book for less than $40. It's time that even MORE AGGRESSIVE DISCOUNTING hit your PLUG-AND-PROMO BIZ.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

Little Whiny Timmy Noah pulls a FACT MAGAZINE on Ari Fleischer, saying he's "insane."

Not that we ever had much respect for Ari -- he was as slippery a man as ever ran the White House Press Corps Day Care -- but it's a shame you're not owned by BUGMEISTER BILL anymore. Of course who knows what skeletons rattle richly in ST. WARREN OF BUFFETT's closet.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

OoooooooooOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooh, prodded by SEN. RODHAM, the ad biz' MOUNTIES STIFFEN their WET NOODLE!

COMMUNISTS!!!!!

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

HEADLINE NEWS FROM CARL LIMBURGER!!!!!!!!!!

Breaking: Ed Koch Endorses Bolton for U.N. Post

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 11:25 AM by Gene

Krugman writes, "The bill would make it much harder for families in distress to write off their debts and make a fresh start. Instead, many debtors would find themselves on an endless treadmill of payments." This is flatly incorrect.

A conservative spinner fighting The Fantasy Figure Man. Why do I have this hunch the truth will get lost somewhere in the shuffle?

I guess because we're defending SNIDELY WHIPLASH on the grounds MSSSSSSSSS. PELOSI DID IT TOO, WHICH MAKES IT LEGAL FOR OUR GUY TO DO IT.

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

Richard Cohen is right: somebody at C-SPAN's carried the notion of "balance" TOO FAR.

Posted 6:57 AM by Gene

GMA AND TODAY DECLARE WAR!!!!!!!!!!

And all so groggy people can sit bleary-eyed before their sets and watch conservatives and Republicans getting roasted, middle-aged-adolescent weathermen, PLUGS, PLUGS, and MORE PLUGS, and TWO HOURS OF COMMERCIALS.

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

10,000 dying each month in Darfur, U.N. says

Sounds like WE'RE doing OUR JOB!

Posted 6:52 AM by Gene

The Nixon gang still plays with the truth -- and righteous enemies still attack.

These two sets of morons were made for each other.

Posted 6:45 AM by Gene

More CIRCULATION INFLATION at NEWSDAY!

What can we blame THIS on? DO-NOT-CALL LAWS? "LIFESTYLES?" Hordes of DOGS chewing up the PAPER?

Posted 6:42 AM by Gene

AND SPEAKING OF DUST:

Commissioner Bud Selig contacted Rep. Tom Davis yesterday and officially told him that he would testify in front of Davis' Government Reform Committee about steroids in baseball. It is the first and only congressional committee that will ever be convened because of a book written by somebody who not only dated Madonna once, but bragged about it.

"I decided it was the right thing to do," Selig was saying yesterday afternoon.

NUF SAID.

Posted 6:25 AM by Gene

Horsehide, stuffing, stitches, mud from the Delaware River bottom, DUST:

With the $2.7 million he made from catching and selling Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball, the most famous fan in St. Louis paid about $1.2 million in taxes, donated about $250,000 to charity and bought a $10,000 caricature of the record-breaking slugger.

The portrait, with McGwire's comic-book muscles drawn to superhuman size, was perfect for an office or a den. But only six and a half years after Philip Ozersky caught and then sold the ball, his remaining souvenir sits in storage, collecting dust.

Think of what $2.7 million could buy. Someone bought $2.7 million of horsehide, stuffing, stitches, mud from the Delaware River bottom, and DUST. For $2.7 million he could have bought -- COMIC BOOKS. To everything there is a season, and to every season its muscle-enhancing 'ROIDS.

Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

Perhaps tyranny isn't such a favorite in Lebanon after all.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Playbill.com's LEAD STORY:

Sweet Charity Has New Supporting Ladies in Kyra DaCosta and Janine LaManna

We have SO MUCH to LOOK FORWARD TO in the WONDERFUL WORLD of ENTERTAINMENT!

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

Can anyone tell me if I'm reading too much into this juxtaposition from ESPNCORP NETWORK NEWS'S home page:

Iger to Replace Eisner As Disney CEO

Beware of Tax Refund Anticipation Loans

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

It's getting to the exasperating point that you don't read an article in TOENAIL.COM, you read ABOUT it. Seeing the word GENIUS in a home-page blurb on a story about -- you guessed it -- [C]RAP led me to skim down to the blurb at the bottom of the piece:

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a fellow at the New America Foundation.

Wired is gaseous enough, but I'd never heard of the New America Foundation, so over I went to its Mission statement, which could have been concocted on a non-profit version of Dilbert's Mission Statement Generator. Now armed with suspicions I went to the page listing the Board of Directors. To the extent it has politics it is vaguely, anodynely, CW-ly liberal -- Laura Tyson, Chris Whitman -- but it does have a few indeterminate bloviators like Jim Fallows and Francis "Death of History" Fukuyama (what DOES this man write?), along with a genuine scoundrel like UNCLE BERNIE SCHWARTZ, and a symbol of trendy technological dysfunction like Eric Schmidt, the chairman of KADIDDLEBLOG'S PARENT. In short, someone who works with a think tank with a board like this will definitely NOT write anything memorable, just CW with an EDGE -- and THIS is how you read an article in TOENAIL.COM.

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

Spanish Muslims decry Al Qaeda

Some Muslims show more courage than most SPANIARDS.

Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

And here's MORE CW -- I mean, here's ANOTHER fresh, unpredictable take:

Levy: Why is the blogosphere dominated by white men?
Newsweek

Thanks as always for YOUR fresh, unpredictable take, ROMY!!!!!

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

One more point about Shure's top-of-the-line phono cartridges -- their styli are interchangeable. "Nooooooooo, THAT stylus WON'T WUUUUUUUUHK with a LOWER-END CAHTRIDGE like the M97xEEEEEE," Shure says. "You won't get the WAHHHMTH, the AC-CURA-CYYYYYY," blah blah blah. Well if that's so why do you make the V15VxMR a 78-rpm stylus designed for a cartridge that sells for $30? Isn't that -- insulting the high-end cartridge?

I'd like to do a double-blind test of the sound from phono cartridges -- and I have no doubt it would expose the THING HEARERS as HEARING THINGS.

Posted 1:10 PM by Gene

Every year the AD RAGS compete to see who can give the STUPIDER AWARD. ADAGE always gives its Rag of the Year award to something trendy, intelligence-insulting and unreadable. But if ADWEEK doesn't do the competition one better by giving an award to BLUNDER's MR. MARK and his ad salesman for running more CW than any other publication...with an ATTITUDE -- what these scribblers call a "fresh, unpredictable take" -- the sort of JERNALISTIC juggling act that allows Mr. Mark to rule the zeitgeist and ADWEEK to give meaningless awards.

And how do we know this award is full of it too? Listen to Mr. Mark as he stares across a chasm at the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL Time Warner Center:

"Competitively, we obviously are at a huge disadvantage--we’re up against a huge empire."

Let's see, you're owned by WAPOST, of which a goodly chunk is owned by ST. WARREN OF BUFFETT. Okay, maybe that doesn't constitute a MEDIA empire, but forgive us if from this vantage point we can't tell one 800-pound gorilla from another.

Congratulations, Mr. Mark -- but for what?

P. S.



Note who's standing closer to the camera in this one -- not Mr. Mark, his ad salesman. If that doesn't tell oodles about BLUNDER's priorities nothing does.

Posted 12:06 PM by Gene

Had news orgs charged for their Web sites from the beginning, possibly the Web would have grown much more slowly, and more alternative news gatherers would have sprouted up, but with no resources and to no avail. In a sense The Wall Street Journals provide a cautionary tale; they may be "successful" with their small coterie of readers (many subscribe to the papers anyway), but their Web site is largely ignored, save for the CONSERVATIVE EDITION'S FREELOADERS REVIEW. One wonders if the biggies are using the Web as just another excuse for reader desertions, much as they've used the DO-NOT-CALL LAWS and "LIFESTYLES."

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

If Bashar al-Assad is "an empty vessel" it's one that can be filled with the mindless credulity of his own people.

WE WANT TYRANNY! WE WANT TYRANNY!

Posted 6:42 AM by Gene

Here's another thing college kids can do with their tuition.

Don't you know it'll be harder now to file for bankruptcy?

Posted 6:41 AM by Gene

Today it took only FIFTEEN MINUTES for the KADIDDLEBLOG to ACCEPT MY FIRST POST!

We're headed to another NEW HIGH, G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE!!!!!

Posted 6:28 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: We're so addicted to this essentially useless technology we're immune to the annoyance we bring to others.

ALL HAIL THE CELL PHONE! (Pffffffffffffffffft!)

Posted 7:33 PM by Gene

Remember the joke that became an urban legend that if Bill Gates built cars they'd crash twice a day?

Don't look now....

Posted 6:28 PM by Gene

One of THE PAPER OF RE-CORD's DEEPEST THINKERS, A. O. with B. O., ponders the decline and fall of a HERO, WOODSTER the PERV, and faces -- THE INEVITABLE:

Instead of making the movies we expect him to, he stubbornly makes the movies he wants to make, gathering his A-list casts for minor exercises in whimsy and bile that tend not to be appreciated when they arrive in theaters. How could they be? Mr. Allen will never again be his younger self, and his audience, as long as we refuse to acknowledge that fact, will never grow up, guaranteeing our further disappointment. Maybe what we have on our hands is a dead shark.

OR:

"He is a man of splendid abilities, but utterly corrupt. Like rotten mackerel by moonlight, he shines and stinks."

--John Randolph.

P. S. So long as his microscopic audience never grows up, so needn't WOODSTER the PERV, who can continue playing SEXY ROMANTIC LEADS.

P. P. S. I see RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s distributing this LATEST one, thus further burnishing His con-SER-va-tive bona fides.

Posted 4:30 PM by Gene

The Web is a wondrous dispenser of BS. Take stereo equipment. I just bought a new turntable and cartridge because I'm hoping to get back into record collecting in a small way, but after you're through with the instant experts you've taken a nuclear-physics course with Dr. Alfred E. Neuman. Part of the problem is that hi-fi has been invaded by wine critics with all their adjectives and effete snobbery. The ultimate phony Corey Greenberg made his fortune hearing things; before he got high on speculative investing and porn so did the ultra-fool blurbist David Denby. But what's odd about the super-high-end equipment they'd drool over is its disadvantages. First off, you're paying more for fewer features. Yes you're reducing the complication factor but you're also reducing the convenience factor, and we stereo buffs like to play with our buttons. Second, the president of Pioneer once admitted to Forbes that virtually all hi-fi equipment shares common components regardless of cost and snob factor. Third, the snobs like to boast about their boxes being HAND-CRAFTED, but I suspect this is not such an advantage with equipment inherently machine-made. And what if your super-duper amp goes on the fritz? Do you send it back to the hands for repair? Or do you pay another $50,000 so you can hear things?

I don't have the money for such foolishness (although if a $100,000 stereo fell into my lap however uncomfortably I might not refuse it). And I did want something to play records. Start with turntables. It isn't difficult to find one on the Web, but you must be careful. Do you want a golden oldie? I always wanted a high-end Dual, but with what many eBayers call PRE-OWNED EQUIPMENT you can't be sure about parts or repairs -- or whether it will come out of the box working. (Avoid anything that saw the inside of a school or the cheap Chinese- and Malaysian-made imitations thereof; they're sure to gouge the grooves.) After too much wringing of my brain I bought a -- DJ turntable, a top-of-the-line Gemini. Really there's little choice among new; the low-end models with the built-in preamps are plastic, and I'm not paying $500 because something has a REPUTATION. The Gemini looks chintzy like most DJ equipment, but it has some neat features -- 78-rpm speed, reverse play (for deciphering hidden messages in rock albums), a digital interface that allows you to hook up the machine to a computer (and play tricks with the speed if you like), an LED display, no grounding cord (one less cable to tangle), a three-year warranty I hope I won't need, and (if such things are to be believed) good specs -- surely there's nothing wrong with a turntable playing a disc flat and straight, though the Corey Greenbergs and David Denbys might sniff because a DJ TURNTABLE doesn't impart WARMTH. Like HELL. I'm keeping my money warm next to me.

Then there are the cartridges. You can get one for $10 or $10,000. The state of the fine craft of parting a fool from his moolah may be discerned in the model I got, the Shure M97xE. This is the company's top-of-the-line model now that it's discontinued the LEGENDARY V15VxMR. Shure says it did this because it was having trouble locating the RARE INGREDIENTS needed to craft the stylus shank; but a not too close examination reveals the M97xE looks EXACTLY like the V15VxMR save for a decorative symbol and the color of the stylus guard. (They do have differing styli and slightly differing tracking weights -- plus you connect them to the headshell wiring differently, presumably to fool the skeptics.) The M97xE can be had for as little as $55 before shipping; the V15VxMR (still widely available, somehow) goes for between $200 and $300. Is it worth paying a 400% premium for an infinitesimal premium in performance -- even IF Sony uses it for archiving? (Why can't it make a cartridge of its own?)

Of course if you want to go HIGH-END you CAN pay the $10,000. And here the desire to hear things imparts still more disadvantages. The stylus shanks of the most expensive cartridges are so thin and so naked as to almost beg to be damaged in the slightest accident or for a kid to rip them off -- and in a stroke of MARKETING GENIUS the manufacturers force people who hear things to return the cartridges for a replacement! $5,000 MORE dollars for the SNOB FACTOR. This is rather like those hyper-expensive turntables powered by exposed millimeter-thick rubber bands. (Audiophiles call them BELTS.) One kid playing Robin Hood and "NO!!!!! YOU'VE RUINED MY WOW AND FLUTTER!!!!!" $500 for another rubber band -- but at least we get to HEAR THINGS.

And to top it off, apparently there's a BIG DEBATE amongst the thing hearers about stylus pressure. For years better cartridges tracked at between 1.0 and 1.5 grams to reduce wear. Now the thing hearers insist such light tracking RUINS THE GROOVE because the poor stylus is clattering between the groove walls, ripping out chunks of vinyl, so many of the thing hearers' current favorites track at 2.0 to 3.0 grams -- an irony as that's the low end of tracking force for DJ CARTRIDGES, whose sole purpose is to make records go vwhoooooooop! Well, so long as we HEAR THINGS.

Plus most audiophiles forget that even with $50,000 turntables and $10,000 cartridges the only way to listen to records is in a CLEAN ROOM, lest millions of dust particles ruin their precious virgin vinyl. One suspects they're tempted to wear bunny suits as special filters suck the dust away, but we'd guess they'd be better off listening in a padded cell.

If P. T. Barnum didn't invent audiophily he could have.

(And indeed there's an ANALOG of hearing things in the ACOUSTIC-RECORD world. If you've read enough eBay sales pitches you know the sellers of those beautiful horn phonos insist they play the old discs better. I'd like to see the owners of those super-rare hard-to-hear OPERA recordings do it. One play and you can sell them at half-price. Anything to HEAR THINGS.)

Posted 3:13 PM by Gene

Hmmm, looks like we're not through investigating funny-acting drugs in SPORTS!

The NFL? I thought it was pure as the driven GREENBACK.

Posted 3:10 PM by Gene

And speaking of TYRANNY:



A young Lebanese boy wears red beret with the Communist party badge, during a demonstration against U.N. Resolution 1559 that calls for Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon as well as disarming Lebanese militias, in front the U.N building in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday March 13, 2005. The Lebanese communist party, which has been absent from all opposition and loyalist protests, mobilized some 5,000 supporters in central Beirut to listen to party Secretary General Khaled Hdadeh enunciate the party's middle-of-the-road policy in the current political turmoil.(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, isn't that SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEET? His mommy and daddy want him to have NO FUTURE!!!!!

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

Okay, CURLEY'S (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) STOOGES, we get the message. No one wants war. War is hell. War is a catastrophe. But consider this, QUAKERS: If we hadn't fought World War II Americans would probably be saluting a SWASTIKA, or the HAMMER and SICKLE. And while you might have become an APPROVED STATE RELIGION under the latter, would it have been worth the cost -- which would probably have entailed millions of dead anyway, and whole races and RELIGIONS wiped out?

There is probably not a way of reporting a stunt like this dispassionately, but NEWS HACKS don't help by almost NEVER being DISPASSIONATE.

P. S. We operate under the suspicion you FRIENDS kept your BOUCHES FERMEZED during the HOLOCAUST -- just as we know the SUPER-LIBERAL SOCIAL CLUBS kept a LONG DISTANCE from CAMBODIA under POL POT. SHUT UP, QUAKERS. You speak with NO MORAL AUTHORITY.

AN UPDATE ON 3/15/2005: This article from the Holocaust Encyclopedia clarifies the Quakers' role in those Final Solution days. To their credit the leading Friends organizations did provide relief and refugee services to European Jews. But they were close with the Nazis (ostensibly because they had a good rep in Germany after WWI), and

[s]uch activities were, however, inhibited by the refusal of the Quaker rank and file to assist actively in relief, either financially or by taking in refugee families.

At best, then, the Quakers provided the humanitarian equivalent of what Jeanne Kirkpatrick once called "quiet diplomacy." At best.

Posted 11:34 AM by Gene

Why the Web is a Waste of Time, Exhibit No. 46,263,658:

One of the world’s most adorable celebrities Jennifer Lopes [sic]....

Oh did I mention Google News has been slowing down too? Maybe if it stopped posting pieces of junk like this....

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

Some pols would turn the whole world into a racetrack with slot machines.

That, in a nutshell, is the essence of RENDELLISM.

Posted 8:21 AM by Gene

Which is worse: a massacre that occurs in the middle of nowhere, or a massacre that occurs near TIME WARNER CABLE NUISANCE NETWORK?

Posted 8:07 AM by Gene

And speaking of PUBLIC SERVICE, a few choice words on THE NOBLE CALLING OF HAHVAHD MUTUAL FUND:

By the 1960s, in terms of the breadth and caliber of the research they produced, American universities were without question the world's finest, one of the great success stories of 20th-century America. But that evolution had its downside. To manage such rapid growth, universities began to enlarge their administrations, hiring lawyers and accountants, personnel managers and health care administrators, retirement benefits experts and real estate managers, and public relations gurus and fundraisers galore. They tended to come from corporations and consulting firms, and their style of doing things reflected a corporate culture rather than an academic one. . . . At Harvard, power began to flow away from the people who supposedly represented the purpose of the institution, toward the people who knew how to make it work -- and, above all, to the people who controlled its money.

Since when has HYER EDYUKAYSHUN had ANYTHING to do with LEARNING?

Posted 7:58 AM by Gene

This is SPINACH WEEK at BLUNDER. Mr. Mark realizes occasionally we must discuss the bigger, NEWSWORTHY issues, to perform the noble public service of which we are so incredibly capable, so this week it's Robert J. Samuelson ruminating over "The Incredible Shrinking Dollar" zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. He's only an economist. Happily we wake up elsewhere in the rag, like gloating -- I mean, mourning over the hundreds of soldiers' children who've lost a parent during the Iraq war. Puzzlingly we don't plug -- I mean, REPORT on the LATEST TRENDS IN ENTERTAINMENT, but I guess the @#$%&* MONTY PYTHON COVER is NEXT WEEK.

Posted 7:32 AM by Gene

Let's bring the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL Uncle Sam to the dock for HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES!!!!!!!!!!!!

OR:

If any such move emerges during the commission's annual session, which starts on Monday, the United States will be in a similar position to Cuba, Iran and Sudan, countries which Washington and others are likely to seek to pillory.

But of COURSE this is the REUT, where one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Do I hear PINCH shaking His holy head?

This session should be dedicated to the memory of the late Mary Robinson, organizer of THE DURBAN CONFERENCE.

Posted 7:29 AM by Gene

ALL HAIL THE NEW KING OF SPORTS, ER, UM FAMILY ENTER, UM ER, UH, ALL HAIL THE NEW KING OF ESPNDOM! ALL HAIL MICKEYMOUSE BOB!!!!!

Which comes first, the spinoffs or the firing?

Posted 7:25 AM by Gene

Iran: U.S. 'Hallucinating' Over Nuclear Negotiations

Iran has been hallucinating about nuking Israel for decades.