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.
Speaking of dogs that won't stop barking, every @#$%&* cable news channel must have its BANSHEE PROFIT CENTER: BILL!!!!! LOU!!!!! KEITH!!!!! JACK!!!!! They scream at the top of their lungs to gain advertising revenue -- and only. We cannot trust any of them because their beliefs are clearly fungible. That they come across as honest as professional wrestling doesn't help. So long as we have screamers we should not trust one word from any cable-news outfit, including definite and indefinite articles.
Having endured a musical vagrant tonight I think I know why The Messiah gets to me: He wouldn't hurt a fly -- even if a whole kennel made its home on His street.
We must say we may have judged the Pope a bit harshly by insisting he was spreading platitudes, but speaking before Catholic YOUNUHVERSUHTEE execs and the League of Nations is bound to bring out the blather in nearly anyone. It is now clear the chief focus of the Pontiff's visit is to combat priestly sex abuse, and he has been forthright about it, as well he had to be, for the church in the U. S. is in a bad enough way without pervs in its midst.
Speaking of He, today we saw two eager young beavers at an intersection flipping arrow-shaped MESSIAH signs as though they were skateboards, which got us thinking about all the humongous balls the W-Higs rolled through city streets for Tippecanoe -- which got us revising his old campaign song:
What has caused this great commotion-motion-motion, Our country through? It is the ball a-rolling on-on, For Barack the Messiah -- He is God! For Barack the Messiah -- He is God! And with Him we'll beat little Hill, Hill, Hill is a used-up pill. And with Him we'll beat little Hill.
Like the rushing of mighty waters, waters, waters, On it will go, And in its course will clear the way For Barack the Messiah -- He is God! For Barack the Messiah -- He is God! And with Him we'll beat little Hill, Hill, Hill can go back to Bill. And with Him we'll beat little Hill.
A big surprise: Useless News is cutting its frequency and circulation, meaning Mort Zuck can make every issue into a list, or maybe turn the rag into perpetual college guide, or maybe he can just run it into the ground, as per usual.
Sallie Mae, the largest U.S. student loan company, on Thursday affirmed its 2008 profit forecast, but warned of a "train wreck" in the $85 billion education financing market without urgent government intervention.
Somebody with too many keys on a keyboard to pound has typed a book-length Thinker pose claiming Gen X is The Greatest Generation (two clichés within six words, blecch) because it invented G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE and all the other high-tech wonders (for today, we'll agree), but the TWXSTERS get a sort of revenge by linking to an article on "the do-it-yourself generation" that ran "51 Years Ago in Time" in 1954.
P. S. It's 5,743 on Amazon.com. We're not that impressed.
West, the chart-topper most determined to burn his likeness into the walls of pop's Valhalla, cares deeply about what it means to be a hero. Wednesday, he didn't take a spear to the gut the way Wagner's Siegfried did, but he did confront terror, doubt and filial grief in a show that carried his braggadocio into the realm of myth itself.
I want to set the record straight. Jeff is an outstanding CEO, and the GE financial model is as attractive as ever. I will endeavor in retirement not to step in it again. Where's the BIG BUT, LEGENDARY?
While Mr. Immelt’s job seems secure for now.... BUT....
On Wednesday, Welch, who retired in 2001, said he would be "shocked beyond belief" if Chief Executive Jeff Immelt again missed an earnings target. He said he'd "get out a gun and shoot" Immelt if GE missed an earnings target.
A video posted on YouTube showing Philippine doctors laughing while removing an object from a patient may lead to charges against the surgeons and cost them their medical licenses, officials said Wednesday.
And if the Catholic church's all-too-humanness has lost it its speaking voice, so trendiness lost it its singing voice. And we doubt this will get any better; the next pope -- and yes, we must think that -- will most likely come from what academics will screamingly insist NOT be called the third world, and just as the third world is held hostage to fads like liberation theology, so is it more susceptible to GHEEtars.
We aren't one of those face-scrunching church-'n'-staters, but we wonder if Dubya and the Pope didn't embrace a little too -- tight. Then again, he is a Re -- Catholic, and Catholics are a huge constituency, and lots of Catholics are Republicans, so we do understand the touchy-feely.
On the other hand we wonder if making His Holiness into Jes' Folks -- hugging him on the shoulder like a long lost relative, singing "Happy Birthday" to him -- doesn't diminish the man, and his mission. Yes, it is all well-meaning and neighborly. But if the Pope is ordinary, so must be the Church. And the Church has given too much evidence of being very ordinary lately.
That LALA can devote 1,198 words to the last of the "Nine Old Men" says that, however violently they plug the business, news hacks can't hide the fact that they have ever less and less worth plugging.
An emotional J.K. Rowling said on Monday she had stopped working on a new novel because her creativity was stifled by a fan's bid to print an unofficial encyclopedic companion to her Harry Potter series. We thought it was the DEPRESSION, MS. ROWLINGCORP.
Eating today at my local lovable Mickey D's and remembering this pioneering TV commercial with THE JUGGLER'Spredecessor (the jingles were dorky even then -- notice too the Capitol "Hi-'Q'" music in the open, a relic from Hanna-Barbera; betcha they wouldn't do THAT no more), I remembered the boast Mick made on His Golden Arches -- "Over 500 Million Hamburgers Sold", whatever. But if you want a really outlandish number, total the Mick's sales for the last 25 years -- and then adjust them for inflation. We have no idea what it would be, but we'd guess it's over $1 TRILLION -- proof people are literally gluttons for punishment.
Odd that he's still around after eating all those delicious McDonald's hamburgers.
WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Walter Mondale, who played a key role in the U.S. boycott of the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow, isn't joining those who are urging President Bush to skip the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics.
Instead, Mondale called on the U.S. to take an active role in getting the Chinese government to speak with the Dalai Lama about the situation in Tibet.
Chrysler LLC and Nissan Motor Co Ltd unveiled a production alliance on Monday covering small cars and full-size pickup trucks.
Under the terms of the deal, Nissan will build a small car for Chrysler using the North American automaker's design in 2010 and Chrysler will build a new full-sized pickup truck for the Japanese automaker using Nissan's plans in 2011, the companies said.
Here is one reason it is not worth blogging. We've no doubt a whole array of SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS who referred to this photog's GUILT will say nothing. (We will not hold our breath awaiting MICHELLE THE LOUDMOUTH.) We confess to having joined the crowd, too -- it is too easy to join the crowd blogging -- if only because of a longstanding distrust of the hacks and their propensity to turn themselves into martyrs. If the photog was guilty of nothing it shows our government's total incompetence. That they held a member of the press for so long, though totally unjustified, is nonetheless an echo of the P-Ulitzer-Prize-winning end of an UNJUST WAR.