THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.
PERMALINKS:
THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY
THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY
AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!
Blogroll Me!
![[Powered by Blogger]](http://buttons.blogger.com/bloggerbutton1.gif){kind=small}
Monday, April 07, 2008
An apt juxtaposition on the MESS:
Washington Post wins six Pulitzers
L.A. Times retracts Shakur story
Interestingly, no award for editorial writing, as if they need one.
Come on guys, when will you give WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE DYLAN His P-Ulitzer?
P. S. at 8:46 p.m. I stand corrected: Bill got a citation. Next -- THE BOSS!
Washington Post wins six Pulitzers
L.A. Times retracts Shakur story
Interestingly, no award for editorial writing, as if they need one.
Come on guys, when will you give WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE DYLAN His P-Ulitzer?
P. S. at 8:46 p.m. I stand corrected: Bill got a citation. Next -- THE BOSS!
Well! Glad to know who goes up against PILLHEAD from noon to 3 p.m. Since we don't listen to PILLHEAD, and since we won't listen to a LEFT-WING PILLHEAD, it's all one to us.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Some TNR intern has what he thinks is the last word on that stoopid Mexican ABSOLUT AD:
Michelle Malkin, predictably, is all over it. It's admittedly a little distressing (especially to those of us from the Southwest!), and one wonders exactly what Absolut's marketing people were thinking. But what self-respecting superpower is so insecure as to start a boycott over a vodka ad featuring simply an historically accurate map?
Which, however you say it, is another way of stating liberals have a "patriotism problem".
(Sorry for the ANONYMOUS!)
Michelle Malkin, predictably, is all over it. It's admittedly a little distressing (especially to those of us from the Southwest!), and one wonders exactly what Absolut's marketing people were thinking. But what self-respecting superpower is so insecure as to start a boycott over a vodka ad featuring simply an historically accurate map?
Which, however you say it, is another way of stating liberals have a "patriotism problem".
(Sorry for the ANONYMOUS!)
IOC chief Rogge: Athletes' health not in danger in Beijing
TRANSLATION: Please, please, Chinese dictators, ban all use of cars and trucks in all of China during the games, and stop up your industry too, so our sacred athletes can breathe fresh air! Please! PLEASE!
Except what's needed to get them, our sponsors and our parent firm GE BANCORP around, of course.
Rogge said the IOC executive committee would meet April 10 to examine the latest report by human rights group Amnesty International, which was critical of China's lack of progress on such issues as detention without trial, repression of human right activists and Internet censorship.
And the Lords said, all is good.
TRANSLATION: Please, please, Chinese dictators, ban all use of cars and trucks in all of China during the games, and stop up your industry too, so our sacred athletes can breathe fresh air! Please! PLEASE!
Except what's needed to get them, our sponsors and our parent firm GE BANCORP around, of course.
Rogge said the IOC executive committee would meet April 10 to examine the latest report by human rights group Amnesty International, which was critical of China's lack of progress on such issues as detention without trial, repression of human right activists and Internet censorship.
And the Lords said, all is good.
MB2, AGAIN:
The market, which bewilders and annoys liberals by correcting excesses without the supervision of liberals....
Slap yourself on the back, MB2!
The market, which bewilders and annoys liberals by correcting excesses without the supervision of liberals....
Slap yourself on the back, MB2!
Here's news we like: Lots of would-be Richie Riches who are long oil and wheat are now having their superexpensive cars (and planes, and yachts) repossessed -- but not, alas, before having inflicted the damage to ordinary people that gives them a permanent grin.
McCain Is Vocal on War, but Silent on Son’s Service
The rhymes-with-clucks who are news hacks want it both ways, as usual. They want to know why the candidate is SILENT!!!!! But if he'd opened his yap they'd want to know why he's BOASTING ABOUT HIS SON'S MILITARY SERVICE!!!!! We think he's got it right; this isn't something to make a campaign issue about, however worthy the endeavor; and even though Boobs is a charter member of the I ♥ IMUS Club this time his tact serves him well, and he'd do best to exhibit more of it.
The rhymes-with-clucks who are news hacks want it both ways, as usual. They want to know why the candidate is SILENT!!!!! But if he'd opened his yap they'd want to know why he's BOASTING ABOUT HIS SON'S MILITARY SERVICE!!!!! We think he's got it right; this isn't something to make a campaign issue about, however worthy the endeavor; and even though Boobs is a charter member of the I ♥ IMUS Club this time his tact serves him well, and he'd do best to exhibit more of it.
We are sorry to learn that Charlton Heston has died. He was a link between the golden age and the SUPERMEGAPLATINUM AGE that is our own, starring in the big CinemaScope Biblical epics that drew hordes into the drive-ins while the industry marked time, preparing to make Bonnie and Clyde and works of true genius that chased mere moviegoers away. (He also made a few high-profile clunkers in the VALENTI Era, but that's a price to pay for encouraging genius.) Later of course he headed the NRA, and whatever you think of that august body he never did back down from it. He is thought to have had Alzheimer's, just as Ronald Reagan did, and now he is free from an awful disease.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Gordon Brown vows to attend Beijing Olympics despite boycotts
See? We're not the only country that does business!
See? We're not the only country that does business!
STUPID ADVERTISING BILLBOARD OF THE YEAR: Spotted today on a SEPTA bus:
what if i say i'm not like the others
--foo fighters 2007
radio 104.5
I'D SAY YOU'RE LYING, LOWSY MAYS.
what if i say i'm not like the others
--foo fighters 2007
radio 104.5
I'D SAY YOU'RE LYING, LOWSY MAYS.
Skybus is pulling the plug less than two weeks after CEO Bill Diffenderffer resigned to pursue a book-writing career.
That would seem a more profitable venture.
That would seem a more profitable venture.
We had not commented on the Clinton Mint because there was little to say, but here it is: no one wishes a return to the day when Ulysses Grant, scorned, broke, and dying of cancer, hastily scribbled his memoirs for Mark Twain just to pay debts. Happily they were not only among the best sellers of all time, but a literary masterpiece. On the other hand Slick and his ex' -- er, SENATOR's largesse reflects a crass age. Certainly this vaudeville act has nothing worth saying other than what a pompous egomaniacal CEO can show off the next day to unfortunate subordinates. Whether Mr. Dyslexia can repeat Slick's Guinness Book performance remains to be seen, but he has a decided edge: not one word will have to be his.
A Civil Rights Era Slowly Fades
Many of the groups that worked alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., are now struggling to stay alive.
We can see why your typical news hack would consider this bad news. We consider it good news; it means the organizations that were so necessary to break down race barriers aren't necessary anymore, as the barriers are broken down. But this would be bad news to those organizations, which have turned to such divisive issues as affirmative action to keep their donations going. This however is more good news for the hacks, as they never met race-baiters they didn't like.
Our hacks will not be satisfied until America splits into a million little groups, every one at perpetual war with another. And if they think it can sell newspapers -- what Web have they been perusing?
Friday, April 04, 2008
We've said it before, we'll say it again: Good movies deserve good critics: James Agee, Bosley Crowther, even Pauline Kael on her best days. Bad movies deserve bad critics, or preferably none at all. The alleged collapse of newspaper ad-blurbing speaks as much to the collapse of movies. While it may spare us some of the worst of the adjective spewing -- it does seem to have held Dick "GUNS CAUSED COLUMBINE!!!!!" Corliss in check -- it will also spare us good movies. But bringing back good criticism won't bring back an art form that is near death from so many other causes, not the least of which being a past surfeit of rotten reviewing.
And here is one unintended example why movie ad-blurbing SHOULD collapse:
Over the years, critics helped audiences appreciate the likes of Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane," Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde," Bernardo Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris," Brian De Palma's "Dressed to Kill," Robert Altman's "The Player," the Coens' "No Country for Old Men" and Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood."
In short, it is hopelessly self-congratulatory and self-referential. In short, and also we have said before, it is masturbation with words.
(Via the usual ArtsJournal)
And here is one unintended example why movie ad-blurbing SHOULD collapse:
Over the years, critics helped audiences appreciate the likes of Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane," Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde," Bernardo Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris," Brian De Palma's "Dressed to Kill," Robert Altman's "The Player," the Coens' "No Country for Old Men" and Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood."
In short, it is hopelessly self-congratulatory and self-referential. In short, and also we have said before, it is masturbation with words.
(Via the usual ArtsJournal)
Voluptuous and fat straddle a very fine line, and this much publicized British beauty pageant contestant straddles it a little uncomfortably. Above the bikini top she's quite comely; but the vast middle below suggests too many women who spend too many evenings before the telly eating their junk food. That said, the line between voluptuous and anorexic is quite a wide one, and it would not hurt to see more would-be movie stars sporting a few curves, even at the risk of a little chicken fat.
(Via ESPNCORPNetworkNews.com)
In one of his odder comments about relations with NATO, he told reporters: “Let’s be friends, guys, and be frank and open.”
Yes, it is odd when a man who intends to rule Russia for the rest of his life can say that.
Yes, it is odd when a man who intends to rule Russia for the rest of his life can say that.
Right Now, We Need Liberals (TNR home-page link)
Yes, we need liberals. We need liberals of the FDR-Truman school. We need liberals who will stand up for the country. We need liberals for a strong defense. We need liberals who'll fight crime. We need liberals for the little guy. We need liberals who understand the sanctity of life. We need liberals who'll uphold true equality.
Right now, we need liberals. There don't seem to be very many of that kind of liberal.
Yes, we need liberals. We need liberals of the FDR-Truman school. We need liberals who will stand up for the country. We need liberals for a strong defense. We need liberals who'll fight crime. We need liberals for the little guy. We need liberals who understand the sanctity of life. We need liberals who'll uphold true equality.
Right now, we need liberals. There don't seem to be very many of that kind of liberal.
House Republican leader John Boehner argues that political pundits are wrong and that his party will pick up seats in the House in the 2008 election and might even regain the majority it lost in November 2006.
Since when has Mars had a GOP?
Since when has Mars had a GOP?
Lately the wishy-washy knee-jerk-leftist sanctimonious churches in name only have been muttering about disinvestment from Israel. If only there were some multi-billionaire who'd call their bluff. He could buy stocks in the disinvested companies in exact proportion to what these centers of Kumbaya would sell, and put them all in a fund whose profits could be reinvested in Israel. We have another suggestion: that said organization start a campaign to get people to disinvest in precisely those companies in whom the marshmallows are still invested -- and possibly also to boycott what few going businesses they own; to be sure, those are probably just "religious" publishers. But these bozos should learn their disinvestments can cut both ways.
(Sorry for the FRONTPAGE!!!!!)
(Sorry for the FRONTPAGE!!!!!)
Whether or not news hacks intend it -- and given their superiority to their readers we think they do intend it -- it is easy for them to turn well-meaning tributes into hectoring, or national lectures, just by virtue of their sheer monumental inescapability, which certainly does not explain why the the hacks' public esteem has sunk so low someone may have to invent new occupations for it to rank behind.
The other day there was a lot of excitement over GE BANCORP NETWORK's new schedule -- principally because the network was planning to produce a lot more "ADULT" SHOWS!!!!!, but also because it had engineered a sixty-week schedule, or something like that. But AdAge says it's putting on only "four new shows" in the fall, which makes us wonder whether this stunt was just so much hocus-pocus. That's okay -- it doesn't take much magic-wand waving to get THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF WILLFULLY IGNORANT ADVERTISRS to part with OUR money.
Had we not been so discouraged by the two hits a day we're now getting we might have commented on a few stories -- starting with this one. This evil plot -- and the fact that evil seems like a cliché word used exclusively in tentpoles and graphical novels gives a sense of how diminished that word is -- shows that no matter how you slice it or dice it or parse it, we will have Islamism to worry about for a long time, and though we should not treat holy cockroaches as the Supermen of the underworld, and thus puff them up in their invincibility, they have the capacity and the patience to get more evil.
Terry "HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM!!!!!" Teachout to the contrary, South Pacific may be the best musical ever. That a CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED revival has just opened in Branson East, the first big Big Apple production in 41 years (this counts the Lincoln Center version of 1967), means nothing. It might have meant something when people followed musicals, when musicals were central to our culture, when the culture was far better at making popular things that were good. But with the musical an irrelevance, with all this revival's stars virtually unknown, with theater being a snooze to most people, even if it can run for YEARS AND YEARS, so did THE GREATEST MUSICAL EVER!!!!!, and it, like Tara, is gone with the wind.
And some idiots are making another musical of that too.
And some idiots are making another musical of that too.
A key adviser to Senator Obama’s campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.
I THINK SOMEBODY'S RUNNING FOR -- never mind.
I THINK SOMEBODY'S RUNNING FOR -- never mind.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Critics of Live Nation, which lost nearly $12 million last year, predict that it would be difficult to turn a profit on the arrangement, given the continuing decline in record sales and the mixed track record of artist-run ventures. (Fifteenth of twenty-three grafs)
You have to wonder if the...SOUND biz (we refuse to call it the music biz) has found a new way to lose money. The sports racket can get away with it because it has numerous revenue streams; taxpayers, easily-bribed legisla-TORS, social-climbing showboating CEOs of the sponsors. The SOUND biz has no such advantages. Further, as the dimwit ER lets loose, there may not be that many people willing to pay no-talents thousands a ticket. It is unwise to bet against the megalomaniacs of the arena; but it mightn't be wise to bet on them either.
You have to wonder if the...SOUND biz (we refuse to call it the music biz) has found a new way to lose money. The sports racket can get away with it because it has numerous revenue streams; taxpayers, easily-bribed legisla-TORS, social-climbing showboating CEOs of the sponsors. The SOUND biz has no such advantages. Further, as the dimwit ER lets loose, there may not be that many people willing to pay no-talents thousands a ticket. It is unwise to bet against the megalomaniacs of the arena; but it mightn't be wise to bet on them either.
I have not posted in two days because 1. I'm tired of single-digit hits, 2. There hasn't been anything worth posting on, and 3. I've had nothing to say. My sense of futility is beyond words, and a blog is nothing without words. Where would we be if we weren't swarming ourselves under with words? I suspect better off. Oh well, onward to more futility.