Posted 11:04 PM by Gene

ANOTHER OVERREPORTED STORY: We have the utmost respect for Indian traditions, and for that reason and others are pleased to hear Ira Hayes, a hero at Iwo Jima, is now finally and completely at rest.

Posted 10:44 PM by Gene

“We have learned by now to invest admiration in public figures with a grain of salt. With Woods, we just ate the whole salt lick,” Elling wrote. “Say it with me: Never, ever again.”

So for at least until tomorrow....

And don't forget -- it's only a day away!

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Didn't Eero Saarinen think up something like this before?



Okay Beijing Patent Office, what's the significance of the letters W and M? We were about to say this would make a great HQ for the William Morris Agency except its old trademark resembled an implement for cutting off hands, and besides it's changed its name.

And when do STARCHITECTS attempt translucent buildings?

Posted 3:23 PM by Gene

Are CHIP BROWN and his "EDITORS" eligible for buyouts? We sure do hope so!

There’s a kind of spiritual covenant in all sports that binds spectators and players but which in golf takes on truly mystical proportions, if only because the terms of the game — an absurd struggle against nature and oneself — offer so many uncanny parallels with the terms of conscious life. The covenant holds that when an athlete prevails, we prevail; when he or she falls short, we’re diminished too. Not just any athlete is fit for this peculiar service. Professional golf coughs up a winner every week, players of consummate skill who possess every talent but the one that matters, which is the great champion’s capacity to carry us beyond ourselves. In golf, maybe in all of sports, such a figure comes along but once or twice in a lifetime. You follow a track of moonlight on the water, and maybe there, where it ends, is someone who has what it takes. . [SIC]

This will happen when the UNIVERSE'S GREATEST PAPER proves it isn't full of effete snobs. This makes EFFETE SNOBBERY look good.

P. S. Actually the accompanying squib says CHIP is (was) a "contributing writer" to the POR's rag. Take the buyout anyway!

P. P. S. Well, the John "Bad Sex Award" Updike of the Links did come up with an accidental insight -- and it was very accidental:

When Woods finally seemed ready to run, coming off a birdie at the par-5 eighth, a photographer tripped the shutter during his swing on the par-3 ninth and Woods yanked the shot into the rough left of the hole.

“Not on my swing! Don’t take a picture during my swing!” he said, glaring at the knot of cameramen. He turned away with a stream of curses. It was electrifying, like seeing one of those Tiger Woods replicas in the wax museums suddenly come to life.

He bogeyed the hole. On the next tee, in even more vivid language, he promised the photographers they were risking bodily harm if they ever disrupted him mid-swing again. The outburst raised the question of how much more effective Earl Woods’s focus training would have been if instead of trying to distract Tiger with pocket change and dropped golf balls he had been able to squeeze the trigger of, say, a Canon Mark III with a burst rate of 10 frames per second. Tiger might very well be alone in third place, ahead of Ben Hogan, on the PGA Tour career-victories list. And in fact someone asked Woods at the Masters why, given his focus training, camera shutters bother him so much. (Camera shutters bother all pros, but none have photographic entourages as large as Woods does.) He let the question pass without much of an answer.

Take the buyout regardless!

P. P. P. S. at 10:23 p. m. TGM and the verb "trash" are now linked inextricably.

Posted 3:08 PM by Gene

And how many news hacks waste our time with stories that combine what we don't need to know with what we don't want to know? Grate.com comes to mind.

Posted 2:56 PM by Gene

And here's something I'd like to ask the PINCHES, MARCUS BROCCOLIS, JONBOYS, et al: How often do readers avoid an article after seeing its BYLINE?

Posted 12:40 PM by Gene

I'd rather not mention this but earlier today the flagship of some media tyranny ran an irritating home-page ad for some celebrity who's having a baby by her fiancée (I will not link), and this will no doubt occasion cooing among the same crowd that snickers at TGM, and I thought to myself, we don't want to go back to the day of internal exile, of Hester Prynne and the scarlet letter A, but we've gone too far the other way, and a nation that can gee-whiz-aw-shucks such minor inconveniences as flouting the marriage covenant can excuse fraudulent bond ratings and liar loans, and a nation that excuses those can excuse a zillion abortions and target practice in the ghetto. The only solution is long memories, but that alone won't help.

As to that serial adulterer he should step a year or two from the limelight, but that won't happen because the corner office needs its flattery.

Posted 12:17 PM by Gene

In this age of false public heroes we'd do well to remember what Lincoln told the Congress on Independence Day, 1861:

It is worthy of note, that while in this, the government's hour of trial, large numbers of those in the Army and Navy, who have been favored with the offices, have resigned, and proved false to the hand which had pampered them, not one common soldier, or common sailor is known to have deserted his flag.

Great honor is due to those officers whom remain true, despite the example of their treacherous associates; but the greatest honor, and most important fact of all, is the unanimous firmness of the common soldiers, and common sailors. To the last man, so far as known, they have successfully resisted the traitorous efforts of those, whose commands, but an hour before, they obeyed as absolute law. This is the patriotic instinct of the plain people. They understand, without an argument, destroying our government, which was made by Washington, means no good to them.

Today we cannot rely on our self-appointed superiors; yet despite the destruction they wage on the American psyche there is still valor in the people. If only we knew it.

Posted 11:54 AM by Gene

Tom, who waxed CONCASTIC not too long ago, alerts us to the future of teevee the BRIAN ROBBER way. Perhaps the mute meek cable turnips will continue their silence even as BRIAN wastes more of their money on Siffy and His other playthings, but even Tom, a one-man Chamber of Commerce for television, admits this show is junk. We wager most of the relatively few first-runs coursing through His empire are junk. And He'll also soon own the Big C and the MESS, which ARE junk. How long before the Internet wreaks its revenge on BRIAN ROBBER?

Posted 11:40 AM by Gene

To his credit this George McGovern namesake is at least challenging His Omnipotence, but as befits a Paper of Re-CORD cousin we learn more about his career than what he'd do for the Afghans. A "massive humanitarian effort" it says here, in the nineteenth graf. That sounds like a version of Congresspoop Kookcinich's Department of Peace. The last I saw some Afghans were growing poppies. How does plopping big bags of rice on the terrain help that? It doesn't, which may explain why the namesake is so proud of our ending the Vietnam War.

Posted 11:07 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Our largess is financing new idiot records in the auction biz -- and I don't care if it's Washington or Edgar Allan Poe.



Here's a long term chart of Sotheby's. If this stock doesn't presage busts....And look at the far right. But for our recent largess it wouldn't have gone up at all in twenty-one years. If that doesn't say something....

Posted 10:44 AM by Gene

Here's another reason we do not feel sorry for the hacks: As the world knows The Paper of Re-CORD may be about to foist layoffs on its P-Ulitzer-winning crusaders, and among those who have taken buyouts to prevent that eventuality are a "mid- to high-six-figure advance"-earning author of "espionage novels" and a "longtime business reporter", which means their usefulness ended some time ago. Let us not forget all those who've gained wealth in their tenure, like Thomas Friedman and Paul "Temper" Krugman. How much of the staff has stopped actively reporting and instead engages in public preening is evident when you open the Paper, or click on its Web site. The day of news hacks as rich and pampered pampering the rich and pampered is over.

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

Astonishing how nearly seven years after an awful nightclub fire some people may still not know, and possibly not care.

Posted 10:18 AM by Gene

Speaking of Henry, Max Baucus won't resign because he has a mistress he nominated to an office, but God knows there isn't a hack in the Insane Asylum on the Hill who doesn't have a friend he won't do favors for, and if he can get in bed with her literally and figuratively so much the better.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

Hacks who merely read The Econowiz as a surface thing can skim this, feel contented, and go back to the work. Perhaps JonBoy, whose rag the oaf Henry Honest just alerted us would be one of ten brands to go bust in 2010, can hasten its demise by trumpeting the noble cause. But if the e-mail farce highlights one thing it's that the climate-change worry has become all politics. The people on the right have the industry; the people on the left have their utopias.

We've noticed lately The Econowiz has had trouble with its Web site. Preparing to go all pay? Pffffffffffffffft!

Posted 5:17 PM by Gene

It's not just Feinsteins. Here's a topic that has defied artists for decades, yet USAOKAY!!!!! must ask, "Why do men cheat?"

And of course OKAY!!!!! relies on social "science", which is old wives' tales in a mainframe. (No pun intended.)

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

John Feinstein, a contributor to The Post, is the author of 25 books, including "A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour" and, most recently, "Change-Up: Mystery at the World Series."

I think we can agree judging from this blatting eulogy that John's written maybe 22 or 23 books and hundreds of columns too many. I say that because ever since The Four Horsemen sports hacks have had this need to be profound. They forget that the best writing doesn't ape a presidential bellow, or a Congressional eruction. But still, we're a sports hack, and we must be profound. And of the zillions of words spilled over TGM I doubt if a few thousands have been worth reading -- and that includes BEFORE the Cadillac.

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

His Omnipotence is rushrushrushing around to solve global warming!

Ten trips as Omnipotence! He's better than the pope -- because he can change the world!

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

How many hundreds of embarrassments like this lurk in the stimulus?

We have a suggestion for P & G Overpriced Razor Blade Division: Take that $8 million you're paying that master of the soc -- fuuuutballlll pass...and use it to sponsor the bridge.

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

Hmmm, you wouldn't also suppose some CONCAST shareholders might be ready to tie BRIAN ROBBER to a stake and light a fire underneath Him, too?

Posted 1:12 PM by Gene

What is the difference between an oldies concert, an Audioanimatronics production and a Branson East theme park?

We can think of just one: a Branson East theme park can charge $200.

Posted 11:27 AM by Gene

ORIGINAL REPORTING! Mark "Boom Boom" Morford copies from a column by Jake Weisberg in Grate.com. Howie Hairshirt copies from a story in Mediablight, Meteorite, whatever it's called. These two get big salaries. They should do more than copy from Web sites. Here is yet another argument for getting rid of full-time colyumnists.

Posted 10:48 AM by Gene

Jason has hit on something. One big reason our elected superiors can't decide is that they're too busy summiting.

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

A teenage rapper who pushed a pregnant 15-year-old girl into a canal and grinned as he held her under the water was jailed for 18 years today.

We were about to say another [C]RAPPER makes a brilliant career move but this one might take a while.

Can you imagine British [C]RAPPERS? EW! YUCK! GROSS! No wonder about the minarets.

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

USAOKAY!!!!! runs a 566-word editorial on TGM.

Aren't there other more important things to pontificate about?

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

Aw shucks, Luke Spielberg, the Nobel laureate of moveedom, won't remake Jimmy Stewart's Harvey.

Now He'll have to remake Dean Martin movies instead, as He threatened.

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

Take back Al Gore's Oscar, 2 Academy members demand in light of Climategate

Roger L. Simon and Lionel Chetwynd....

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

Back in real life, 26 high-school students of Chinese descent were attacked by a marauding gang, which would be front-page news if it happened in LALA but isn't because it happened here, while confirming that our centers of LOWER EHDYUKAYSHUN remain no-safe zones.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

WHEW! We, the taxpayers of Philthydelphia, now know our investment in BRIAN ROBBER will not be in vain -- for now.

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: If the sheikhs hadn't burnt their last money Dubai could be even worse.

(Via he usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

"His achievement in life was really sustaining himself through the ordeal in prison camp, and he considered himself a very fierce resister," Jim Pitchford said, recalling a story another prisoner told him about his brother.

"One day (in the prison), when it was his time to offer the blessing at a group meal, he said, 'Lord, we thank you for this dog s--- we're about to consume and we ask that you come down and smite these heathen bastards."

To be sure some of those heathens now run Vietnam, but with any justice the Lord will do better than merely smiting them.

RIP, Jack Pitchford.

(Originally posted at 5:19 p. m.; moved twice to save pride of place)

Posted 5:33 PM by Gene

How can Brian Roberts lose?

A couple of ways.

First, he can blow the execution, like AOL Time Warner did. But this is a business that Brian already knows, and it won't involve smashing two completely different cultures that hate each other together. So the execution risk is less.

Second, cable can become a dumb pipe AND the TV programming business can blow up like the newspaper business--causing Brian Roberts to lose on both sides.

If that happens, Brian Roberts would have been better off selling the whole thing and buying a fertilizer company.

But Brian Roberts is a media mogul. And there isn't a media mogul on earth who would give up being a media mogul to run a fertilizer company.

BUT BRIAN...forget it.

Posted 5:23 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



What IS with these starchitects? One of these days they'll build an inverted pyramid. "Oh it's perfectly safe," they'll say. Who'll want to occupy it even with anti-gravity forces? If the pharaohs who built the pyramids wanted them that way -- but they had a lot more sense than STARCHITECTS.

Posted 2:42 PM by Gene

And in other why-didn't-they-just-spin-it-off-to-the-shareholders news:

"[T]oday Comcast demonstrated it's only fit to perhaps be allowed to operate Comedy Central."

There's just one problem -- SUMNER runs it...and he shouldn't be allowed to run anything.

Posted 2:40 PM by Gene

Hmmm, you don't suppose GE BANCORP's shareholders might be ready to tie Very Littler Jeffy to a stake and light a fire underneath him, do you?

Posted 10:17 AM by Gene

Two of the supposed biggest screaming meemies in BLOGDOM have made profound announcements, and we've hardly noticed, perhaps because both have become such infinitessimal caricatures of themselves. Certainly you can tell a knee-jerk liberal when he uses words like ENORMOUSLY POWERFUL!!!!!!!!!! to describe people who are to most of us total zeroes, but this is just a variation of what certain pretentious hacks always say about WALTER WINCHELL!!!!!, and we haven't noticed much from him lately either. Perhaps we've blinkered ourselves off from a vast, thriving part of the Web, but a part of the Web that boasts so many boastful liars hardly needs our patronage.

Nonetheless thanks to this provocation we turned for the first time in ages to SAM LITTLE. He's evidently pulled a reverse LOU DOBBS, meaning he's as credible now as he was when he was a "screaming nutcase" himself. Now to not turn to him for ages.

Posted 10:09 AM by Gene

Retailers report surprise drop in November

THIS WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!

Among 11 retailers that have reported, 80% of them missed Wall Street expectations, according to Thomson Reuters.

"Earnings estimates for the holiday season and first half of 2010 for most retailers remain too elevated," said Wall Street Strategies analyst Brian Sozzi.

I REPEAT...oh, never mind.

(First link via FinViz)

Posted 9:22 AM by Gene

We DO hope BRIAN ROBBER brings the same superb screwups to GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT he's brought to cable subscribers everywhere!

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

TIGER'S PRIVATE LIFE IS A LEFTIST PLOT!!!!! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!

TGM'S PRIVATE LIFE IS NOT POLITICAL! I HATE KNEE-JERK PARTISANS!

Posted 8:45 AM by Gene

This irritating story not only proves Branson East is a price-gouging tourist trap, it proves there isn't a big audience for any property outside the theme parks. We would suggest if the park operators want to expand their profits they open future theme parks outside the immediate Branson East neighborhood, where they can install 5,000, 6,000, 10,000-seat tourist traps and overcharge to their shriveled hearts' delight.



There is also the little business of this chart. Hacks love to boast of RECORD ATTENDANCE!!!!! with Branson East, but not much has changed since 2004, with its "healthy" economy. This says the world knows what Branson East is, and the world says no thank you.

Posted 6:59 AM by Gene

What annoys us about the continuing uninteresting TGM saga is that so many people are astonished because he was "such a nice guy". Sorry, we don't view athuhletes as nice guys, and TGM is the MJ of golf -- not a compliment: all intensity, nothing off the course. Our only surprise is that he has such a need of women, but then MJ got a divorce too.

If people want to continue to bemuse themselves as to how this could happen to such a WONDERFUL guy, they're entitled. WE are bored stiff.

Posted 6:56 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: ED MURROW is THE barometer of conventional news hack wisdom (sorry guys), and for ED to sign on to the sudden news hack CW that something is up in climate change signals that the story has become the proverbial elephant in the room, and no amount of news hack denial can change that.

ED MURROW makes us angry -- as do his millions of apologists.

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

It's official: BRIAN ROBBER rubs his hands, smacks his lips and goes BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Whatever our job situation, lots of us may not be as poor as we think. On the other hand, the idiots behind the BOOM! may be not as poor than they DESERVE.

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

Speaking of our superiors, if has become more difficult for them to pull this wool of noble social change over our eyes, and, with luck, virtually impossible for them to invoke Rosa Parks.

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

I could care as much about some third-tier show-biz type's sexual orientation as I'm starting to care about TGM. The bad news is we could become so European-blasé we could tolerate even more horrors of every type, from abortions to corruption to mass murders. The good news is since people like our actress and TGM are show-biz creatures it could also mean no place for that infernal industry to go but DOWN.

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

If the housing depr -- rec -- ECONOMY isn't over, the depr -- rec -- ECONOMY isn't over.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Wouldn't this be exciting: finding one of Shakespeare's manuscripts. I doubt this will happen; whatever he left behind either turned to mold in the ground or burned in one of London's many fires, and even if the scholars found something in one piece the whole history of Shakespeare is riddled with who wrote what and when and whether, and we can never have a definite account of any of his plays. But it would be exciting.

Shakespeare dead is worth more than 100,000 living playwrights.

(Via AHTSJournal, which is exciting for the wrong reasons)

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

I don't know much about medicine or health care but I'm guessing the AMA needs intensive care STAT.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

We could agree now might be a time to reduce business taxes. The problem is con-SER-va-tives love for redistributing the wealth as ardently as any liberal, and arguably we got into the BOOM YEARS by giving too much away to people who had no intention of giving it back. How much see-sawing of taxes can we do to the economy without breaking it in the middle?

Posted 5:07 PM by Gene

Whitacre Said to Expect CEO Search Taking Up to Year

Where will GUVMENT MOTORS be in a year?

Or could it be -- and here would be a comeuppance -- GUV will do fine without a CEO? Wouldn't that be a rebuke to LEGENDARYS. Although we'd tend to doubt that.

Posted 2:11 PM by Gene

The lords of soc -- FOOTBALL attempt to fix a problem without appearing to attempt to fix it.

Posted 2:05 PM by Gene

“It will start with Howard feeling that he is working too hard and doing too many shows and not making enough money,” Karmazin said. “Our side would say, ‘We want you to do more, and get less money.’”

Hey ZONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!! You should have thought of that in the first place!

Can you believe SIRI has gone up from FIVE CENTS since March? We may not be talking sentient beings here.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

Okay RENDELLISTS, with your obsession over EDUCATIONANDHEALTHCARE how do you provide jobs for people without college educations?

Oh, but the RENDELLISTS will say, that's why we're building conventioncentershotelsstadiumsrestaurantstheaters, to provide jobs for waiters and janitors and bellhops and --

What if THEY fire people?

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

Here's the next man to confirm the Peter Principle in broadcasting!

Caveat: He IS the son of the Rev. Daniel Burke, a saint at CapCities.

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

Call me an old fogey but I don't like what used to be termed "living in sin." Prolonging bad marriages has its disadvantages, but so do -- how can we put it agreeably to academics and news hacks -- shared domestic living arrangements; they slough off responsibilities and leave the children in limbo. Yes divorce is bad; yes bad marriages have their own woes, but domestic nonjudgmentalism can be just as bad, in benign smiley-faced ways.

Posted 6:13 PM by Gene

According to Gallup, Thanksgiving week spending plunged 25% from a year ago, and couldn't even muster a rise from the week before. "There's no indication in Gallup's spending data during recent weeks, or so far this year, that this year's spending will do anything but trail last year's depressed spending levels during the holidays," firm says.

DOW 50,000!!!!!

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

Manufacturing in the U.S. expanded in November for a fourth month and factories in China churned out goods at the fastest pace in five years as government efforts to revive growth spurred world trade. [Emphasis added]

TRANSLATION: Don't even think of the alternative. FURTHER TRANSLATION: Don't even think of later when the bills come due.

What gets us so mad about this rip-roaring BOOM!!!!!!!!!! is the only people benefiting are GODs and their fellow hyperrich, and it's also a massive hidden experiment in TRICKLE-DOWN. Why, Your Omnipotence, why Secretary Deer-in-the-Headlights, Why Chairman Ben, why is this good?

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

AT THESE PRICES, AMAZON MAY STILL BE A BARGAIN!!!!! THIS IS A GROWTH STOCK IF EVER THERE WAS ONE!!!!!!!!!!

I still recall how biznews hacks refused to say an unkind word about high-tech stocks during THE BOOM. 10,000 P/E? Higher! Tiny float? Higher still! We recall what happened afterward. Amazon.com may be worth it now (although a potential $1 TRILLION market cap of THE BIG THREE makes one question the Wall Street Casino's sanity), but the Big C teaches us what happens to the news when its reporters are salesmen first.

Posted 5:40 PM by Gene

SLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME!!!!! ANIMATED NEWS!!!!!

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson resigns

Okay, who's the next no-account?

"This decision was made by the board of directors alone. The administration was not involved in the decision," the White House said.

With 61 percent ownership. Sure, Omnipotence, sure.

Posted 1:53 PM by Gene

His Omnipotence says ENDGAME!!!!! The war is over!!!!! The base is HAPPY!!!!!

Maybe.

P. S.

If he uses the phrase "exit strategy," or dwells on the subject, then you'll know you're probably looking at a one-term president. In other words, file under "Jimmy Carter," not "Abe Lincoln."

Well, he may be using a synonym. (Link via JENNIFER!!!!!)

Posted 1:36 PM by Gene

Tom blahs as only Tom can blah about the horror! of reality TV, but look at this way: we can avoid the problem by admitting most reality TV stars are not worth seeing.

Posted 12:03 PM by Gene

Timberlake should count herself lucky some cri-TICS reviewed her play drunk. Nothing against her but given the genius of our time it's the best way -- for cri-TICS and au-THORS.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 11:23 AM by Gene

Three years and nearly four months after we'd mentioned Eva Tanguay for being THE MAN before his time, Grate.com's rock mu-SICK cri-TICK writes four predictable pages of self-admiring slather on her for being a proto-feminist and singing crappy songs and showing off and the whole nine yards -- in short, for being a rock star long ago enough to make a rock mu-SICK cri-TICK seem insightful; and while Grate.com does now seem to have advertising we still ask when KAPLAN, INC. will do the manly (pardon, personly) thing and eliminate a Web site. Choosing between this and JonBoy's we don't know which is more deserving.

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

Dubai still strong, says angry ruler

The Wall Street Casino says aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaMEN!

P. S. We know some people regard John Bogle as a square, but he said this ten years ago, and it's truer today.

Posted 9:32 PM by Gene

So much for the Bloomies improving that rag:

BusinessWeek brings on Charlie Rose as columnist

Who can slobber more: Charlie or ER?

Posted 1:54 PM by Gene

Mike has thrown a foot-stomping tantrum over junk books, saying junk books are all books. We would guess some people do not write junk books. I certainly haven't intended to write one. But however the chest beater he is he is right for the top of the "non-fiction" market. Still it annoys us Mike can get so much air when we said this about a year ago:

The latest fad in the publishing biz is to hope for zillionaires to run "quality" boutique imprints. This is but another showy false front for what it really wants: All The Lord Goddess Oprah All the Time, pulling her daily malevolent stunts, selling out of every last piece of garbage she can tout in the name of some vague PC notion of self-improvement. The book biz has become the magazine biz in hard cover, churning out the fad of the day when not producing books for no audience, and the people running it are but slightly more reserved versions of the thumb-in-the-eye jackasses who've ruined show-biz. Sorry, MAX PERKINS DIED 61 YEARS AGO. (62 now.)

We don't want to show off our past posts (and many aren't worth showing off) but if Mike is such a whiz kid why didn't he learn about junk books sooner -- when most of us did?

Posted 11:56 AM by Gene

An excellent idea: an ombudsman for reality shows -- just like ombudsmen for newspapers, just like an ombudsman for ESPN, just like...never mind.

Posted 10:15 PM by Gene

Speaking of criminals, part of us regrets we not leading a busier life, but Benjamin Doctor (!) has taken it to extremes -- 134 arrests in 30 years. Really the guy looks as if he wants to wave at the camera! Only in Noo Yawk. We especially like the story of Terhan Bey, who in two separate incidents in three weeks at two chain drug stores pilfered "$104.52 worth of soap, body spray, deodorant and a can of almonds" plus "three cases of energy drinks" -- hey guy, who needs energy drinks with your rap sheet? Or do they go well with almonds? And don't they give you soap in jail? Face it, without career criminals a lot of Noo Yawkers would be out of work. And since Honorary Mayor Mike's name pops up here we wonder -- Mike, what is the economic benefit of petty crime? Maybe that's why they can't keep 'em locked up.

We wish we were kidding. We're not.

Posted 10:13 PM by Gene

Hong Kong gets over Dubai

Yeah, get over it guys -- DOW at 15,000 -- 20,000 -- SKY'S THE LIMIT!

But if the economy improves....

Posted 6:50 PM by Gene

Here I was looking for a likeness of a certain very well-known show-biz bunkum artist (hint: $10 BILLION!!!!!) and I found a picture posted here -- with SafeSearch at Moderate, so I guess I'm stuck with all those people looking for PR0N.

Further hint: It's the ac-TOR who won awards for her role in a nudie flick about the Holocaust. Pffffffffffft!

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

I don't know -- doesn't Dubai look sort of post-apocalyptic as is?

Posted 5:57 PM by Gene

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

1.

The Future of TV
--------------------------------
We'll be Ordering Up Our Own Video, Ads and Products on a Web Convergence Device. But Who Will Reap the Revenue?

No one, we hope!

2.

Can Europe Rescue Media Biz, And If So, Can the U.S. Do So, Too?

Okay everybody! Sing along with me! A-ONE and a-TWO and a....

3. Some store chains are ditching brands. Okay, free-enterprise believers, how much more do we pay for the lack of competition?

Oh, it's because the suppliers are taking more profits than the chains. Well you know the old saw, "To the victors".... But why must we customers be the vanquished?

4. Another mighty moment in the public-relations biz:

[T]he PR push has come off as another attempt of trying to convince outraged fans of why the BCS is right and they're wrong.

But isn't that the whole point of PR? And would anyone who wants to listen to the public have hired ARI FLEISCHER?

Nothing on you-know-who. He's safe.

Posted 5:02 PM by Gene

"I had to forsake married life, my own house, money," he says. "[Being a priest] can be more isolating and counter-cultural than it has been in the past. It's more challenging, but also more rewarding because of that."

Even though we understand why the culture at large forces it, why must anyone apologize for wanting to be a priest?

Posted 4:49 PM by Gene

Jonathan Yardley, who has gone worrisomely MIA of late, is back, and here is a last graf to prove it:

"The memoir boom," [Ben Yagoda] writes, "for all its sins, has been a net plus for the cause of writing. Under its auspices, voices and stories have emerged that, otherwise, would have been dull impersonal nonfiction tomes or forgettable autobiographical novels, or wouldn't have been expressed at all." Alas, it is here that I part company with this otherwise exemplary book. What the memoir boom has in fact given us is too many dull or forgettable memoirs, precious few of which have enriched our literature but most of which have simply encouraged the narcissism of their authors.

Thank you, your departing Goddess Oprah!

Posted 4:33 PM by Gene

"It's all about the notion of believing in something, and it can be whatever you want it to be," says Martine Reardon, Macy's evp [SIC] of marketing.

And I believe -- that R. H. Macy was born in a manger, and that he gave us 50 percent off for our sins. There Martine, if you can believe in anything, so can I.

This is precisely what I have in mind when I say Corporate America doesn't give two cents for its rep; it lets EVPS spout the first platitude in their heads, and that's its wisdom. I'm sure Macy's Inc. is a proud sponsor of...oh, never mind.

Let's try it again: I believe -- David Letterman was born in a manger, and he died and died again telling his Top-Ten jokes so Macy's could bring tidings of joy to its profits.

I am in a rotten mood right now.

P. S. This is off a highly partisan site, and it's from June, but I can't say I'm surprised.

Posted 4:23 PM by Gene

Evidently TGM will be Mr. Top-Ten about it, and let it "fade away". Fine. It's "worked" for Mr. Top-Ten. But even members of The American Society of Willfully Ignorant Advertisers must notice the snickers. Oh, they can rationalize, Top-Ten gets the ratings, and moves the goods; but how many outside SUMNER's circle and his coterie of fans now think him anything other than a not-very-nice guy with sex on the brain? Maybe all those CEOs don't care for their reps. When do we start making them care?

I wonder -- will Top-Ten have a LIST for this joke? THE POT....

P. S. at 4:43 p. m. Someone already thought of that. T'ain't funny, McGee.

Posted 3:02 PM by Gene

...a scruffy looking man....

TRANSLATION: A psycho who has the right to live on the street, or at least the right to be a psycho, and who somehow acquired a gun.

Will someone please tell me why His Omnipotences and like experts think such nutcases should be totally immune from the law or social workers or anybody?

(Via CNN)

Posted 10:42 AM by Gene

The genius IQs of Hahvahd Mutual Fund blew a hole in their budget because -- ah, how typical of Hahvahd Mutual Fund -- they knew better.

Posted 10:33 AM by Gene

Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says....

Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Democratic majority prepared the report....

TRANSLATION: Dubya is still president.

Although limited to a review of military operations eight years old....

TRANSLATION: This is definitely a press release.