Posted 6:28 PM by Gene

PEOPLE WARNER -- ALWAYS ON TOP OF THE NEWS:

August Wedding for 'Craigslist' Suspect Is Off, Says Wedding Band

Posted 6:22 PM by Gene

Good news for BOOM-BOOM CRAMER and GEKKO KUDLOW: investment bankers may be about to make IDIOTIC SUMS again!

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

P-Ulitzer-winning JonBoy, having made a few needless changes to his Web site, likely in preparation for A Big Event, runs a cover advertorial for a certain sci-fi tentpole in typical big-issue-justifies-the-press-release terms: "How (the antecedent to this tentpole whose plugs will make you scream after two weeks) Taught Us to Dream Big." JonBoy, you know every last underhanded trick in the book. You're out to plug a movie because you think it will raise your circ. But haven't you gone trumpeting to the world that you don't need 1.5 million of your readers -- so long as you can put out A Great Magazine? It would seem counterproductive to build up your fan base to an awful let down. Happily only coffee tables have read the newsrags for years, and thus shall it continue, whatever the increase in white space, or the decrease in circ.

"Self-impressed." Now why did BRENT! have to come up with that description of JonBoy? Why couldn't it have been someone less partisan?

P. S. on 4/26 at 12:45 p. m.: I should have mentioned -- JonBoy had somebody hold up a model of Enterprise for the cover apparently thinking that way he could deke readers into believing it wasn't an ADVERTORIAL. THE BEST LAID PLANS....

Posted 4:46 PM by Gene

Today outside of the CHEAP CHANNEL JR. noise emporium on South Street I too often mention here, with "I Cover the Waterfront" as arranged by Conrad Salinger running ceaselessly through my head, some slightly strange looking teenage girls had camped out for hours for something called "AP Tour" (i.e., Alternative Press -- a rag about another deafening dreary adenoidal fragment of what passes for pop, not a print clone of the Craigslist Erotic division) -- and a thought struck me: does the Great White 1-0-0 circuit have groupies?

We adults must talk of pop not as a foreign language, a worn old trope, but as some sort of garbled Morse code broadcast silently by a distant race of androids to earthly cults who keep it among themselves. The great Jack Teagarden made that old John Green - Edward Heyman song famous. His version wanders through my head too now and then. You don't need an attitude to hear it. Big T would be about the same to those stupid teen girls as their wailing is to me. Not my loss; it's theirs -- and ours.

P. S. on 6/27/2009 at 5:40 p. m. I should have mentioned: Salinger was a friend of John Green's and worked for him when he was music director at MGM. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

Posted 1:59 PM by Gene

PAGING WARREN BUFFETT!!!!!: HOW ABOUT A $2B ENDOWMENT FOR PBS'S "NEWSHOUR"????? (Romy link; rich overemphasis added)

TRANSLATION: 1. WE ARE THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. This constant gargle about endowments and bailouts is no accident; by removing themselves from the UNALLOYED EVIL of advertising revenues newsmen would be newsmen, meaning raging megalomanaics squared. And news hacks ARE important. 2. THE WORLD OWES US A LIVING. $100 million a year would be a good use for some philanthropy somewhere, especially now after the SCUM MADOFF; so of course some former editor at FIFTYTHREECENTSCO must ask for a "PRESTIGIOUS" HI-MOM MOMENT, all the better for his brethren to plead for further handouts. Yes, we must say it again, the reason your biz is held in no regard is because of the DO-NOT-CALL LAW.

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

The One's foolish flack confirms we have a state press, even if he speaks out of all eleven sides of his mouth.

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

Sorry NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN, The Paper of Re-CORD is NOT going out of business. For all the hopeful talk of bankruptcy from con-SER-va-tives its parent still has properties to sell; it still commands a nationwide paying audience of a million; it has a maniacally devoted following among a press corps that would die so The Paper could live; it can lay off enough people to still be profitable; and its Owner could yet fall on His sword for the good of personkind. We don't like that one newspaper dominates the nation's thinking, especially one as closeted and corseted and The Paper, but con-SER-va-tives are deluding themselves if they think it mortal -- and that its "death" will excuse their empty heads and recycled ideas.

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

Yet another power type who whispers sweet nothings into the hacks' ears when his HuffPo needs money concedes his news biz is in trouble, but taking the usual painless way out he urges no corrective but to "innovate". We'd argue the whole history of the press has been innovation: first becoming weapons of mass dementia and inescapable, then buying up TV stations and cable systems willy nilly to increase its profits, then ordering up all manner of circulation-prodding gimmicks from Lotto to show-biz plug sections to distract an angrier public from what it really wanted to do. Such bromides as Mr. HuffPo's are worse than useless as not only are they aimed to people who are, through all their turmoil, basically as contented as Carnation's cows, but worse, they convince the hacks that, at root, nothing can be done, the situation is hopeless, and therefore they can continue dispensing the same garbage as before -- but with electronic bells and whistles when necessary. In short, this kumquat is as full of it as they all are.

And even the commenters, who may be industry types, aren't impressed.

(Via the usual Romy, who was extremely impressed)

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

As of post time USAOKAY!!!!!'s lid-popping plug appears above this story:

Joint Chiefs head 'concerned' about Taliban in Pakistan

So! Movee plugs are more important than the Taliban. Nothing new for USAOKAY!!!!!

Posted 10:59 AM by Gene

After pooh-poohing the first 100 days storyline, the White House is embracing it big-time — with just about the highest-profile event a president can do: a prime-time news conference.

Hey what's wrong with thanking the people who brought you to the game?

Posted 9:31 AM by Gene

PVT. ZELL's buffoons believe they can struggle their way out of their richly-deserved bankruptcy by running 1,640-WORD PLUGS.

This is why their OUTRAGE over the front-page ad was so deeply offensive and hypocritical: THESE IDIOTS RUN ADS ALL THE TIME.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO MARIA ELENA!

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

Elsewhere from the Nation's Smiley Face:

As his 100th day as president approaches next Wednesday, the survey shows Obama has not only maintained robust approval ratings but also bolstered the sense that he is a strong and decisive leader who can manage the government effectively during a time of economic crisis.

OR:

They saw Ike, and they liked what they saw.

They liked him because he turned out to be an amazingly good campaigner: he could shake a man's hand and say the gracious word graciously; he could catch a delegate's name and remember it 24 hours later; and he could shoulder gently through a harassing crowd and never get harassed. They liked him for his strong, vigorous manner of speech, for his quiet control when schedules collapsed or plans were drenched with rain, and for an over riding, innate kindliness and modesty.

The STATE PRESS is at it again!

Thankfully it finds time to show its softer side, rather like the velvet glove on the -- you know:

What about the new White House dog, Bo?

Two percent say getting the dog was the best thing Obama has done as president; 1% call it the worst. "Those people are cats," Axelrod counters.

It appears the morons at Gallup shared the good news with Dave before they made it public. Here's another reason nearly every blasted story in a paper or Web site should be slugged ADVERTISEMENT.

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

Upcoming movies promise to blow the lid off summer

And USAOKAY!!!!!'s continuing PLUGS promise to make me blow MY lid!



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO LID-BLOWING TONY!!!!!

Oh and by the way, thanks SONS of SOB, for the ad on THE BATTLE OF EAST VS. WEST!!!!! that wouldn't leave my screen! You have a stake in it?

Another reminder: GCI at $3.13!

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

Wall Street Stock Research: Soon, Less Independent

Uh, is that possible?

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

Don't blame us, blame AhtsJournal:

Broadway Producers Threaten Liberace Musical

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

SUPER CHICKEN's employment rate got ZAPPED!

Does he still have a high POPULARITY RATING?

Posted 7:53 PM by Gene

And through the miracle of the state press the One's One tells us the First Pet likes to "chew on people's feet." Someone should have the hacks train that dog, then he'd just lick them.

Posted 7:44 PM by Gene

One last observation on The One:

For a man who rode to the presidency on the wings of his oratorical gems, Barack Obama has uttered remarkably few memorable phrases since taking office.

What? The GREATEST SPEECHMAKER IN AMERICAN HISSSSSSSTORY?????

We don't want to get obsessive on the topic -- heck even Boobs McKeating's help all but admits the guy couldn't campaign his way out of a shoe box -- and we're not knee-jerk conservative, but dammit if we don't have a state press sometimes -- which might account for the enthusiasm for a bailout; it would merely formalize the state end.

We must take a rest from The New! CW.

Posted 7:26 PM by Gene

The hacks would go bobby-soxer-squealing crazy over The One's new Blackberry except it would then remind the turnips why a president may have to keep some things secret.

Posted 7:02 PM by Gene

Talk about damned-if-we-do: Our banking overlords are set to perform the same disappearing act on credit cards regardless of how much The One pleases his sycophant Howard Fineman. In some ways it will be worse; while we're used to the conservative greed-is-good chorus doing big biz a favor, it may be harder to countenance it from a God who will improve America into eternity.

Posted 6:50 PM by Gene

We have here another confirming argument that our economic bust is essentially a moral thing. If certain people had not thought of life as a giant Monopoly game there wouldn't be so many flesh-and-blood victims, from the small-business owner facing foreclosure to the appalling case of David Kellerman. Who will be next?

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

We worry HASBRO FILMS will run out of toys to make MOVEES of before they can so chase people away from the popcorn restaurants the biz' current production slump can become PERMANENT.

Please! Invent more toys!

Posted 6:15 PM by Gene

SUH ALLEN seems to have hidden a billion dollars forever.

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

You know, guys, if we REALLY want to celebrate the coming of The One's hundredth day (or is that hundred-and-first), why not arrange for a ball drop on Times Square? Five ! Four! Three! Two! One! HAPPY OBAMA HUNDREDTH DAY!!!!!

AND HOWARD can push the button!

Morons will be morons, especially with a pencil sticking out of both ears.

NYT at $5.13...GCI at $3.13...MEG at $2.27...SSP at $1.74...MNI at FIFTY-FOUR CENTS...how much lower do you want to go to TELL THE TRUTH?

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

RADICAL!

The 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. prime-time period likely will be shorter, programs will be tailored to audiences, and increasingly advertisers will show up in the programs instead of just the commercials. Even more radical, say industry insiders: Networks may turn over programming to outsiders some nights or let local stations provide their own shows on, say, Saturday evenings.

I recall when our local mint Channel 6 broadcast prime-time fashion shows for the long defunct Hess's of Allentown, and prime-time rodeo -- on Monday nights! Next these clowns will tell us that wrestling and roller derby are the wave of the future. TV is merely going back to what it should have stuck with -- localism. (Although most of it, of course, will center on the infernal PROFIT CENTE -- video police blot -- LOCAL NEWS.)

Posted 1:49 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Barring an armed rebellion VERY VERY VERY VERY LITTLER JEFFY will keep his job, FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS's infiltration notwithstanding.

(Via -- oh well -- NRO)

Posted 10:02 AM by Gene

THERE'LL ALWAYS BE A PEOPLE WARNER:

In a 2005 review of 105 previously published studies, Stack found that about 40% of the studies suggested an association between media coverage of suicide, particularly celebrity suicide, and suicide rates in the general public. He also found a dose-response effect: The more coverage of a suicide, the greater the number of copycat deaths.

BUT 60% OF PAST RESEARCH FOUND NO SUCH LINK, ACCORDING TO STACK'S STUDY.
(Conclusive overemphasis added)

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD TO MAIA!

Posted 9:44 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The hacks will still be lapdogs for The One -- and The New CW! will lick his face too.

Posted 9:38 AM by Gene

Our BRILLIANT Wizard of Oz and the equally BRILLIANT ex-Treasury secretary told Ken Lewis to SHUT UP on Merrill!

Maybe if they hadn't opened their mouths demanding to help their FRIENDS the BANKERS in the first place they wouldn't have had to SHUT HIM UP.

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

Good news from Wax: The Conspiracy isn't shooting so much!

Even better:

The slowdown hasn’t stopped Michigan and Louisiana from building multi-million-dollar production facilities. Producer Jimmy Lifton *announced (sic) plans last week to build a $146-million, 750,000-square foot production studio factory and village in Allen Park, Mich.

And a $45-million, 500,000 square-foot studio complex recently opened near New Orleans, even though only two films are slated to shoot there.

But only 10 films are “anticipated” to shoot in Michigan -- none of which are backed by major studios, according to the Michigan Film Office’s website. And the New Orleans Office of Film and Video lists 13 features -- mostly independents -- in pre-production, but none currently filming.

What do moVEE "studios" and sports stadiums have in common? Oh, never mind.

Posted 9:18 AM by Gene

It may be tempting to see Nardelli's missteps as an indictment of the Jack Welch school of management. But.... (Hedging overemphasis added)

I didn't think so -- not at a rag where LEGENDARY's a contributor!

At Home Depot, he replaced many veteran hardware guys and retired tradesmen with twentysomethings making less money. The cuts gave profits a short-term pop, but lackluster service drove away loyal customers.

At Chrysler, Nardelli cut costs partly by robbing from tomorrow. Car companies are nowhere if they don't have new products in the pipeline. But he cut capital spending for new models from more than $3 billion in 2007 to $2.3 billion for the next two years. When the feds showed up to assess Chrysler's viability, they noted that Nardelli's team planned only four new models for the next five years.

If it looks like LEGENDARY, smells like LEGENDARY, and RATIONALIZES like LEGENDARY, it IS LEGENDARY.

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

FINALLY, somebody (though it be Michael "The Rupert Parser" Wolff) notices what I've noticed for a while: not only is WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "one of the most overrated figures of our time", but underneath his fedora, there's nothing there.

(Via MediaBistro)

P. S. at 8:15 p. m.

He has a talent for figuring out what everyone would want to talk about, and then he writes a quick, mediocre piece on the subject that doesn't do it justice or that takes an extreme position for effect--but that says just enough to kill off the interest of other, better journalists in tackling the issue. (Boldface for effect included)

And Mickey has a talent for figuring out what WONKS want to talk about, and then writing a quick, snickering piece on the subject filled with factoids and bald "insider" assertions -- but that says just enough to kill off the interest of any non-Beltway type wanting to tackle the issue.

Posted 7:48 PM by Gene

MICKEY D's will install TV MUZAK in its slopatoria!

Does anyone remember when the MICK used low-rent video walls to display prices behind the counter? With luck this will go the same way. But before then be prepared for DEAFENING TV COMMERCIALS.

Posted 6:45 PM by Gene

Though this is Mr. Morgan Chase "speaking", he (or Jennifer) obliquely hits upon something: the bust is at least as much a national moral failing as anything else. No one wants to say that because it makes the speaker into a PRUDE or worse, a CHRISTIAN, but there's no way around it. Had the CEOs known what the Golden Rule is (or was), had politicians not been so eager to win elections and suckle lobbyists to the exclusion of everything else, had the WIZARDS OF OZ and their half-brothers the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE seen that money pursuit is a poor substitute for real prosperity, we might have avoided the mess. Con-SER-va-tives have been deeply addled by this because for all their lip-service on abortion and traditional values they more than anyone else led the cheers for the GEKKOS, and without their stalwarts they've lost their courage, little enough to begin with. And day by day I'm thinking less and less of Ronald Reagan; he validated money as America's savior. And let us not forget, the S&L debacle that presaged this greater one happened on his lack-of-watch.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gene

VERY VERY LITTLER JEFFY, commencement favor granter at Notre Dame two seasons -- years ago, says very very little about The One, quite apt on a day VERY VERY LITTLER JEFFY's SHAREHOLDERS did a lot of talking for him.

(First link via -- oh well -- MS. TRAVERS)

Posted 1:27 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Craiglist's rep as the World's Electronic Pimp may be a reason we haven't seen that much-vaunted $50 BILLION IPO.

Posted 10:31 AM by Gene

The misadventures of running a super-high-end restaurant in post-boom America:

It was indeed a Rube Goldberg project, reconfigured on the fly as an extra floor of space (once a FreshGrocer market) became available, requiring two kitchens, each outfitted with custom, high-end Montague ranges with inserts for the garbage cans and even salt and pepper shakers.

It took an extra year to redesign the expanded space, and the finished decor (along with a 500-year-old burled walnut stump fashioned as a maitre d' stand) finally described as "Pacific Northwest Natural."

Then came the rush: "I don't think we got a chance to grow legs," recalled Melissa Monosoff, the opening sommelier (and now at Savona).

Only half the kitchen staff - penciled in for 40 - was on board on opening night last April.

A last-minute market in addition to the bistro downstairs created an identity crisis and a logjam. "We didn't have menu covers for the first three months," said Monosoff.

But if the physical space was an unruly sprawl, the management structure seemed to invite maximum dysfunction.

Provco's Holtz found fault with nearly every aspect of the operation: The high-end chefs, he complained, weren't conversant with running a first-floor coffee shop, bistro, and prepared-food market. (Terence Feury had been head chef at Striped Bass and the Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia and in Washington; his brother Patrick trained at Le Cirque in New York and was splitting his time between Maia and Nectar, his popular Berwyn dining room and bar.) [Oui oui!]

Two of the three spaces, he said, were underused, the market and coffee shop generating only hundreds of dollars a day. The kitchen equipment was way too precious. The soft costs for design, engineering, and architects were off the charts. The layout was built for inefficiency. Staffing was out of control! [SIC!] "If they could have hired someone to wipe their a-," he said, "they would have." (Overemphasis added)

This is what our bankrupt StinkyInky runs in place of reporting. We do need a good laugh now and then -- but why so expensive?

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

And in further adventures in the no-blowback zone, Fidel rages over The One's "misinterpretations", with absolutely no damage whatsoever to anybody.

The former president appeared to be throwing a dose of cold water on growing expectations for improved bilateral relations -- suggesting Obama had no right to dare suggest that Cuba make even small concessions.

Ah but he does! Anything he says or does will NEVER hurt him.

Posted 10:23 AM by Gene

Still, while Obama’s moves left may have prompted little blowback, they and most everything else he does will be subsumed in a political vortex should the economy worsen.“If unemployment is at 12 percent in six months, they’ll be screaming for his head, and it won’t matter if he had totally shifted to the cultural right,” said Stevens. (Last of FORTY-FIVE GRAFS)

Here is why JonBoy's New Zeitgeist will fail: The New CW has the zeitgeist down PAT.

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

And elsewhere in lobbying, Sammy Glick...man eructs:

In Washington, meanwhile, "It is important that people understand who we are," said Glickman. "Too often in our politics, Hollywood is cast as a stock villain in a tired tale."

But remember, in the Beltway, villains make YOU the MONEY!

Posted 8:34 AM by Gene

Those who joined groups that do lobbying say life is different. "It was nice to have a staff and say, 'I need a memo on this' and an hour later have it in my hands," said former representative Jim McCrery, who joined a government-relations firm in January. "Now, I'm doing the memos."

And making the money! Ka-CHING!!!!!

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

We should note Sen. HEIN-tzzz wanted to be Secretary of State. We should further note any administration which refers to "Af-Pak" probably doesn't have a strategy.

And no, he did not recommend CAROLINE for the Holy See post -- it says here.

Posted 7:07 PM by Gene

Perhaps the Dutch aren't that PC when it comes to releasing pirates.

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

The GOP!!!!! Is Going CRAZY!!!!!!!!!! Over The Obama-Chavez Handshake. Why Don't Venezuelans Care About It? (CRAZY!!!!!!!!!! overemphasis added)

First off, because maybe they're used to Hugo and his friends; and second because maybe if some people did care they'd land in jail for it.

P. S. at 6:11 p. m. I had not read the piece, but I have now, and this is almost precisely what it says. Mr. Toro has not been well served by TNRO's interns. (But then the Kinsleyites gave the same kind of slap to Ron Rosenbaum and his MEIN NUTS!!!!!!!!!! essay. Fatuousness seems to run in publishing families.)

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

The story of the alleged "Craigslist killer" merely proves anyone can be a psycho -- teenage boys, middle-aged loners, elderly investment tycoons, squeaky clean med students. The usual pontificators are welcome to prove more, which would be to no purpose and would not prevent future psychos.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

It is a little disconcerting to learn the Rodgers and Hammerstein catalog is being sold to "the world’s third-biggest pension fund"; but then art long ago turned into mere assets, and this sort of thing is an argument for no further copyright extensions of dead people's works.

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

Another tantrum for liberals: The authors of the exhaustive Yale series on Soviet Communism declare that "from 1936 to 1939 I.F. Stone was a Soviet spy", that he may have helped the noble cause during the war, and he was still on and off with Moscow until the Czech invasion of 1968. Hacks, of course, will ignore all this, just as they ignored the perfidy of Walter Duranty and Herbert Matthews, and its appearance in the NEOCON!!!!!!!!!! Commentary is total justification; but in Stone as with these men is the dark underbelly of the newsroom, which has had more than its share of overpaid simps ready to betray the nation for a higher ideal; and when forced, even Stone could not identify what that ideal was. We wonder if he truly had any regrets for it, aside from the belated show of conscience in '68.

Posted 2:16 PM by Gene

ESPNCORP's animation unit -- copying from itself?

Say it ain't so, UB!

P. S. at 5:30 p. m. We're a little sorry now we posted this; most of the "offenses" seem to have occurred after Uncle Walt died (but before SID BASS and MICKEYMOUSE NIXON founded the company); Walt rotoscoped is still better than many of his contemporaries; and this YouTube clown engaged in intellectual property theft. (We may yet take it down; but it is still interesting.)

P. P. S.

Along with his father and two of his brothers, he was the largest shareholder in the The Walt Disney Company from 1984 until after the stock market crash in 2001. Bass was forced to sell his Disney holdings as a result of a margin call.

Shades of SUMNER! Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft!

Posted 12:23 PM by Gene

A Congressional probe into Lehman et al could be a cleansing experience -- or a star chamber. Speaker Babs running it may not inspire too much confidence.

Posted 11:54 AM by Gene

Hmmm: TheNewCW.com was a P-Ulitzer finalist!

Guess who wins the first Webby P-Ulitzer!

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 11:13 AM by Gene

[P]ublic ownership has been a disaster for the newspaper industry.

Really? With NYT at $50? Or MNI at $75? Or GCI at $90? Or WPO at almost $1,000? No, public ownership worked gangbusters for the print media -- until the marketplace decided on a long-overdue correction.

Posted 10:11 AM by Gene

LATE-BREAKING NEWS FROM THR!

Adults steering clear of movies

Posted 9:59 AM by Gene

Why Republicans are devouring one book

Because it's AMITY's book, and AMITY tells them FDR made the Depression TEN TIMES WORSE with all his schemes, which is another way of saying AMITY tells them what they want to hear.

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

Further on the subject of overrated, Henry "TRUST ME!" Blodget links to this Wall Street Journals press release about how the government says zillions are professional bloggers. Actually the number may not be that false; many of these might be news hacks, PR types and other "communicators" who've merely made their jobs trendy. I've been at it for six years and expect never to see a cent, even with the help of Sophia Loren.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! remains one of the most overrated figures of our time, who still gets attention mostly from conservative nerds like Jo-NAH who use him to access MMMMMMSSSSSSMMMMMM stories the PC way, and from liberals because he is the embodiment of conservative EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL (never mind that he's overrated and has a lengthy CV of errors and touts) -- and perhaps with luck he is starting to slip into the obscurity which enveloped his prototype. Quick! Quote a Walter Winchell column! (No, The Untouchables doesn't count.)

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

“The Oscar has destroyed my family.”

ANOTHER mea culpa from SLIME?!?!?

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

Is The Paper of Re-CORD trying to get Rep. Harman in trouble for aiding two lobbyists because they were being investigated for espionage -- or because they were "pro-Israel"?

Posted 8:31 AM by Gene

The emergency legislation of FDR's 100 days weren't the biggest accomplishments of what we now remember as the New Deal; those came later -- Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the monumental dams and bridges of the Public Works Administration.

TRANSLATION: The One is an even GREATER president!

Posted 7:13 PM by Gene

CRISIS IN MADAVE!

Ad Agencies at Fault for Economic Crisis, Finds Poll
Majority of Americans Believe They 'Caused People to Buy Things They Couldn't Afford'

So what do the Ranceoids do? They DENY it! First they quote an "expert": "The much-lauded 'science of advertising' is overblown." Well then why is advertising the greatest science since alchemy? And THEN they quote some pop-cultyure perfesser:

"WHAT MOST ANNOYS ME ABOUT THIS WHOLE RESPONSE TO THE ECONOMIC SITUATION IS THAT THE MEDIA ACTUALLY LEADS FOLKS TO PLACE THEIR ANGER AT ANYONE AND EVERYONE EXCEPT THE REAL CULPRITS -- THE FINANCIERS WHO CREATED THE DEBACLE AND THE SYSTEM ITSELF THAT ALLOWED IT!!!!!" [Annoyed overemphasis added]

Well didn't the financiers have to occasionally trumpet those low rates and nothing down? They could have done it wearing placards on a street corner, but that would not have been so distinguished even before they had to do it looking for other jobs.

Posted 6:56 PM by Gene

Well, at least we didn't have a week-long press blackout on The One's beaming handshake.

Posted 6:50 PM by Gene

And here ROMY, of all people, has to spoil JonBoy's party, with his latest post:

Why Newsweek and Time will never be the [sic] Economist

Well we can think of why that second title would never be The Econowiz: It's the sister rag of PEOPLE!

Posted 3:43 PM by Gene

The Paper of Re-CORD won five of today's fourteen jernalism P-Ulitzers, with The Daily Kaplan winning a sixth for a tantrum-throwing liberal colyumnist, proof that if the rest of America's nooz biz went out of biz, with only these rags and the ASSPress and all the Web sites that rely upon them surviving, not only wouldn't most people notice, but it wouldn't change the biz very much.

P. S. at 6:45 p. m. We looked over the list and didn't notice: Two awards for KAPLAN, INC.! JonBoy won the P-Ulitzer for maga -- for biography! Call it an honorary magazine prize. And please, P-Ulitzer "judges", don't tell us it's because he's such a brilliant biographer.

Strutting like Henry Lu -- whoever it was that founded Zeitgeist?

By the way, what happened to those Web awards you promised? Sounds like the same old dead-tree media to me.

Posted 12:28 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: SUMNER is fixing His youth channel to provide more goodness from its hardened heart that the Reverse Robin Hoods of MadAve never demanded in the first place.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 11:59 AM by Gene

THE BANKING SYSTEM IS INSOLVENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! says a conveniently named Web site that's #581,714 on Alexa (and not even ranked on Quantcast) but that Seeking Alpha HAD to link to for...who knows? The same reason SAM LITTLE links to Debka.com?

Of course we would not be surprised to learn our financial system is in the deepest of doo-doo. We've been reading it for months. I'm not sure a BLOGSPOT BLOG that cleverly implies a relationship with a PEOPLE WARNER subsidiary should be the first to alert us. And remember -- SAM's friends told us ARIEL SHARON was DEAD years before the fact.

WORSE: A WHITE SUPREMACIST! AN ANTI-SEMITE! A RAGING LOON! SEEKING ALPHA IMBECILES!!

I have removed the original link.

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

The DUHB links to an extraordinary mea culpa from SLIME, which hints it is probably as much an excuse as the manufactured phenomenon it describes is a fake, but we have become so thoroughly discombobulated in this age that it takes a master of fakery like SLIME to expose a fake like His underboss Mr. Cowell.

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

Before we throw another tantrum on how many the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL Israelis kill, we should note how many Hamas has killed among themselves.

The ASSPress does something other than run PRESS RELEASES for once.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

We knew the government was burning money on financial institutions -- we didn't know how much money.

Now we know.

Just one thing -- why did ED MURROW report this news? Why couldn't one of our TWITTER-MAD NEWS ORGS have done it?

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

President Obama plans to convene his Cabinet for the first time today, and he will order its members to identify a combined $100 million in budget cuts over the next 90 days, according to a senior administration official.

Like hell! AIG can spend $100 million in 90 milliseconds!

There is a limit to government by symbolism.

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

Clean energy has a dirty secret.

It isn't cheap.

And if we know you hacks you intend to keep it a secret, largely for the same reason Ashton Kutcher is NO SECRET.

Posted 8:43 AM by Gene

You know, TWXSTERS, I'd rather your thoroughly corrupt company didn't try to explain Columbine for us. The jerk Dick Corliss had an instant explanation: NOT PEOPLE WARNER AND ALL GUNS. At least that fraud had a purpose -- to unzip Gerry's fly and to pleasure his discredited concept of synergy. To say senseless as you hacks do skirts your duty. Nothing is senseless; there is a reason for everything, and there's surely a reason for homicidal maniacs. Saying senseless is saying not me. Saying senseless is to avoid responsibility for our culture of death worship. Saying senseless is to deny we are our brother's keeper.

Posted 8:37 AM by Gene

B. of A. says credit still deteriorating

Wall Street Casino says B. of A. up $5!

P. S. at 5:38 p. m. WRONG! (Caveat: Money Honey®!)

Posted 10:16 PM by Gene

Cuba and the U.S. are speaking in a friendlier way toward one another than they have in decades, but a genuine breakthrough in trade may still lie far in the future, say analysts and Obama Administration officials.

Er, backtracking, One?

Posted 9:38 PM by Gene

Comic Sans MS (I hadn't known its name until now) is a dorky looking font, but really no better or worse than other dorky looking fonts. That it's inspired by "The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen" is unsurprising as computer geekery is but an extension of comic-book geekery. What doesn't surprise us either is that one of the universe's leading "news" organizations led us to this Wall Street Journals dissertation on it, SLIME's LIBERAL EDITION henchmen finding themselves an A1-printed 1,300-word excuse late last week to do one less article about you-know-who (as opposed to His CONSERVATIVE EDITION, obsessive and obstreperous in its own way). Yes, I know, the Journals have a tradition of running these keeyute stories and like that, but lately all we've been getting from news hacks is keeyute stories -- for a public-be-damned reason.

Posted 6:10 PM by Gene

"The whole notion was that if we showed courtesy or opened up dialogue with governments that had previously been hostile to us, that that somehow would be a sign of weakness," Chamberlain said, recalling his race for the prime ministership and challenging his critics today.

"The British people didn't buy it," Chamberlain said. "And there's a good reason the British people didn't buy it — because it doesn't make sense."

We changed a few words. Is this unfair? Yes. But Neville thought he could "dialogue" with people too. Mideast peace talks are all about "dialoguing." We've been "dialoguing" with Iran and North Korea until our dialogues turned blue. It hasn't done our political prisoner in Iran much good. It hasn't done The Three-Millimeter Tyrant any harm.

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

If it's Sunday it must be Big Double-A-Scribble Time:

1. Double-A is excited because TV types are successfully working more swear words into their programming. The flip side is GE BANCORP NETWORK had to get Jut-Jaw Jay to fill in the 10 p. m. hour five nights a week, putatively to save money -- but the 10 p. m. space has become a broadcasting dead zone. Did all of those curse words in the time period contribute? Are TV executives ever wrong?

2. We still cringe over what happened to Domino's because it was zero percent at fault. But we must concede no-brains like the two (we would use a certain eight-letter compound word to describe them here, but we try to be a profanity-free zone) may not be untypical of who works for the fast-fooders. These two (just read what I said before), indeed, may have been unlucky for accidentally exposing a closely guarded industry secret. That said, we're certain food tampering is extremely rare, and that fast-food firms do try their best to serve a wholesome product, but so many things in the industry work against it, like low wages and high turnover. This will not cease.

We might add the more broadcasters and their sugar daddies on MadAve work coarseness into their programming, the more they work it into our lives -- something these idiots will deny to the day they die and go to Hell.

3. No, "Brand Google" is not in trouble so long as the Wall Street Casino believes it can cure every financial ill by being a growth stock, increasing evidence to the contrary regardless.

4. The latest fad in marketing: green. If it's so good why does it have to be another buzzword-promoted premium-priced fad?

[A] vast majority of consumers said they believe green products cost more and don't perform as well as others.

That should kill this latest one.

Posted 2:00 PM by Gene

When a mo-VEE cri-TIC gets started praising some old-time theater you want the place to close. Yet Baltimore is lucky -- we in Philthydelphia (as I've said before) have no downtown first-runs but for an arthouse, and no single-screen theater. Even as the idiot PAUL DRECK gets ever more excited you can sense reading this, even through the haze of a mo-VEE cri-TIC's pretensions, that something is missing. More than one something: a going city with going industry, a thriving national culture, and people who want to socialize. Take all three a way and you have mo-VEE cri-TICs' encomiums.

And now the city plans to take the place over, which may lead to unwanted taxpayer memories of its own. Did this wri-TER have something to do with it? I'd love to hear the MENCK.

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

Today on an apartment elevator some -- well, I never write of private citizens, so I'll keep quiet now -- boarded bearing an instrument case plastered with a bumper sticker facing me:

I ♥ TO FART

Were I more quick-witted and even more of a grouch than I am I could have let loose with any of a hundred different insulting retorts, but I held my tongue, which seemed the right thing to do.

Today it is a mortal sin not to have A SENSE OF HUMOR. Hence hack pols must tell "jokes" for which with any justice they'll cringe the rest of their lives. Hence I suspect more mourners tell jokes at funerals than ever. Hence people wear t-shirts they imagine funny. Hence cretinous bumper stickers. Sometimes it may not be apt to be funny. What is more, your sense of humor may not be mine. And while jokes may not start wars it is best to be cautious where kindling lurks; and prudence need not be the same as PC.

I'd like to think I have a sense of humor -- tempered by life, but still there. I believe this post among others shows it. At least it's not an idiotic bumper sticker.

Posted 12:15 PM by Gene

And speaking of things that make us wonder what hacks are up to, this story is irritating in a vague, amorphous way. Maybe it's because the Boston Glob has been lately beating itself so frequently and justifiably on the chest, or maybe it's because some well-meaning hack is ascribing a solution to social problems that just isn't there, or maybe it's because she thinks teens seeing a "hip" musical will help, or maybe because it's a form of anecdotal reporting, or maybe it's because the show isn't that good in the first place; or maybe it's because the Web site she links to (which doesn't link back to anything but is clearly part of the show's sales pitch) has all of four much-vaunted parental testimonials, or maybe it's because it's just plain lazy, or maybe it's because it's another way of avoiding asking hard questions of THE MAN WE LOVE.

Posted 12:12 PM by Gene

We didn't see this: The One has a technology czar!

How many czars is that?

Posted 10:58 AM by Gene

To what point are the hacks intentionally inundating us with Ashton and Bo and The Singer to avoid engaging in the nitty gritty on The Man They Love?

Of course hacks would say they never do anything on purpose. Just one problem -- the industry always finds the wherewithal to do things on purpose. One wishes not to engage in psychobabble but what the industry actually does is perhaps but an expression of a collective unconscious of comatose minds.

And happily, as GCI at $3.76 and SSP at $1.93 and MNI at FIFTY-SIX CENTS show, WE CAN DO THINGS ON PURPOSE BACK.

Posted 10:49 AM by Gene

Somehow we are not surprised:

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS & HUNTER THOMPSON BONDED IN BOOZE

We were about to say if more hacks drank -- but then we'd get more of the DTs in print.