Eugene David
...The One-Minute Pundit

Sunday, July 31, 2011


The only short-term effect of this deal is making the Wall Street Casino money. It will likely not solve our problems long term, but thankfully the hard swallowing can come later, as it always does. And too much of our recent history suggests we may gag, in several ways.

We have not talked about this continuing migraine because it's an analog of the Obamacare disaster. Then Democrats wanted to spend money. Now Republicans want not to spend money. The Republicans did this largely to prevent the Democrats from spending money. Both parties demonstrated their love of the people with arm-twisting and bansheeing. The first disaster was unnecessary because we all knew deep down Obamacare would be a quagmire. It's hard to care deeply about this because the chief end product of this legislative-Gordian-knot-untying will be what Obamacare produced: prodigious accounting tricks. And this proved to be every bit the short-term quagmire as Obamacare will be long-term. The only good thing is that the current speaker doesn't know how to be a screaming maniac like the last one -- or at least not as much.

This does not rank with the Republic's finest moments. More such moments as this and we may not have a Republic.


Yesterday LALA moaned that there were too many "antiheroes" on television. Today it whines there should be more female grossout comedies. This puts us in mind of how most newsrags are "edited" -- for spelling, mostly, minimally for grammar, more minimally for facts. Whether a piece is fair matters not; worse it matters not if a piece might wrongly anger the reader. Once editors had tantrums. Now they let the readers have them. In the luxury news suites the Lou Grants get along with their writers nicely, in part because you don't yell at subordinates anymore no matter how badly they do. This piece of garbage wouldn't have insulted the reader if an editor cared. As we said yesterday, LALA should fire more of its staff -- including some editors.


Articles of Faith: The Conservative Double Standard on Christian Terrorism

Previously, Sullivan served as editor of the
Washington Monthly....

June 2004: Jesus Christ, Superstar
When Hollywood stopped making Bible movies, RIGHT-WING CHRISTIANS TOOK OVER!!!!!
[Right-wing overemphasis added]

"Google? What's a Google? I never heard of Google," said Richard Stengel, the newsweekly's managing editor. (I made that one up, but Dick may not know.)




NOT ARCHDaily! An intrepid photographer takes pictures of Communist-built masterworks in the Eastern bloc, and:

Bezjak's photographs repeatedly met with incomprehension from Eastern European colleagues. "They can't understand why anyone would focus on this phenomenon," Bezjak says.

I CAN!


We've been so busily gloating over SUPERNIKKI!!!!'s typos yesterday that we almost overlooked her Harvard Business School lesson in the GE-NIUS of modern movee extruding:

It's going to be hard for anyone involved in the movie to shrug off responsibility for it underperforming because even the studio was gushing pre-release about its pedigree "because of its deep bench of heavyweight filmmakers and stars, and the most fan-engaged because of involving them directly at every step, particularly through director Jon Favreau, the big-ticket director most active in social media and direct interaction with his followers. Every step of the campaign kept many hands on the wheel, shared by Universal, DreamWorks and the filmmaking team, who all worked in close collaboration on every decision." Oops! As for marketing, the first teaser trailer was placed on Part 1 of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows last November, followed by a Super Bowl teaser. The first full trailer made its debut on American Idol on April 14th and in theaters on April 29 with Universal's big hit Fast Five. The TV campaign included season finales for Top 10 Nielsen shows and sports events.

The publicity campaign launched at last year's Comic-Con even though the film had only been in production for a few weeks, Favreau used his
Iron Man connection with fans to debut nearly 8 minutes of footage, including the first alien attack on the pioneer town in the film. While Harrison Ford made his first-ever appearance to a huge reception. This year's Comic-Con featured a full-frills world premiere featuring Favreau as well as Spielberg, making his own first appearance at the Con. But it's interesting how the movie disappointed despite favreau [ZEIGFIELDIAN SIC!] whoring himself out to The Hollywood Reporter (which nobody reads) and Ain't It Cool News (which nobody believes). The director even dragged along producer Ron Howard and producer/co-writer Bob Orci to some events, showing more and more footage each time. I heard from Universal that Daniel Craig was a royal pain in the ass when it came to doing publicity, but he did enough with Harrison Ford to merit one magazine cover line, "When Bond Met Indy". (Barf!)

The usual talk show circuit was highlighted by
Jimmy Kimmel Live's "Cowboys & Aliens Week" promotion which had Favreau revisiting his Dinner For Five cable show and personally interviewing his lead cast members and filmmakers for a series of online segments. Favreau also helped create and star in a special skit with YouTube vlogging personality Freddie Wong, who specializes in action-packed and parody videos especially popular with boys. The film became the first ever to be a primary sponsor of a Nascar [SIC!] across multiple races as well as a tie-in with Coca-Cola in theater concessions via drink cups, and popcorn bags and buckets over the course of the summer in 8 of the top theater chains in North America. Other promotions with leading brands included 7-Eleven, Nestlé, Comcast, NCM/Sprint, Pemmican, and Hilton. And in addition to all that, the film made a significant Hispanic outreach across specialized media and publicity, highlighted by a closing night screening at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. Well, you can't fault anyone for lack of trying.

Au contraire: this is a case study in trying too hard. Such fist-on-jaw selling hints the product's an Edsel, and however immortal LUKE SPIELBERG and Opie are the public can see the jalopy behind the fancy grille. Indeed we are quite pleased at how so many alleged heavyweights can amass only to be knocked out by a feather.

By the way we wouldn't yell HIT! too much about the blue squirmies because if you're any more believable than AIN'T IT COOL NEWS (doubtful after yesterday) it did the Friday-Saturday swoon, and if the lazy parents weren't screaming from the charnel houses they were doing a slow fox trot out. It too was hypermarketed enough it should have doubled its gross.

Saturday, July 30, 2011


I was wrong about Chrysler; it's hired 9,000 since the bailout. We should know however it cost us a lot, and the company's only making money after accountants alakazoom the losses, and that Walter P.'s firm has zigged and zagged since long before the first bailout; and Daimler loved the company too, and God knows we've had these crushes before. And we fear most of its sales are still descended from Willys. Let's hope this time the determination sticks.


Although it does seem odd Jo-NAH linked to Nobel Tantrum about how the economic wonders of Ronald Reagan weren't so wondrous, this despite the highly selective graph. Maybe Jo-NAH has had to admit to something too.


And this "Lexington" is the perfect argument for The Econowiz ridding itself of its obsolete no-byline policy; then we'd know who the quacks are. Only the Republicans are responsible? ONLY? Poor hack should get decaffeinated.


Above all, there is nothing provocative or daring in the antiheroic attitude right now; we are up to our necks in it, and to create more series in that image is no longer to fly in the face of convention but to coast along in its wake. It seems to me that the more radical choice at the moment is to look carefully at the ordinary lives of basically decent people and to tell those stories with the depth and art that animate a show like “Breaking Bad.” It’s not necessarily a recipe for success — Ray Romano’s wonderful “Men of a Certain Age,” about three normal guys at midlife, was recently canceled by TNT, but HBO’s “Treme” and underrated “How to Make It in America” are holding on. I have some hope.

Bob, you and every damned LALA hack and every other damned hack have plugged those antiheroic masterpieces without end. Why the revisionism NOW?


Clearly your rag needs more firings. It got rid of Tim Rutten, that fount of CW. Why not a few more?

Friday, July 29, 2011


Proof that maybe promotions can go only so far:

[Cowboys and Aliens director Jon] Favreau started stumping for the film early. As the Los Angeles Times reported in early February, he was even jetting into small Iowa towns, along with Cowboys producer Ron Howard, film reels in hand, trying to seed buzz for the movie.

A mistake; that's "they-don't-watch-our-movies-anyway" territory (as irksome a cliché as "IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, YOU CAN ALWAYS TURN THE TV OFF!!!!!"). Judging from this dud maybe the movee extruders can turn all America into such a territory.


Moody's: No immediate downgrade if debt deal misses deadline

We thank the people who affirmed the health of our HOUSING BIZ for their strong show of support!

Pffffffffffffffffffffffft!


No! NO! If MUG Whitman couldn't run for governor why should she run for veep? She'll be a lead weight around Mitt and would make both seem out of touch. Better SARAH!!!!! than her! No! NO!!!!!


We're of two minds about this: we HATE government nannyism, and His Incompetence talks out of so many sides of His mouth every day He finds a new side; but let us not forget, we can't burn gasoline forever -- and the SAUDIS financed an event still holy to many of them nearly ten years ago.


Today ESPNCORP NETWORK PUBLICITY sent out a video press kit on MR. FORMULA ONE's house-buying daughter, and one of the things a very pliant press agent let her get away with is that PARIS!!!!! is a BRILLIANT!!!!! BUSINESSWOMAN. We might question that given her name is her business, and she founded it with a sex tape; moreover her comrade Kim didn't exactly display WELCHIAN business acumen with her debit card. Anyway, we were so annoyed we Googled "paris hilton businesswoman" -- and wound up with THIS press release, from FT. This appears to be a new NEWS HACK irritant -- to call airhead female celebrities BUSINESSWOMEN. The next person who says FT.com or ANY news source is worth paying for should have this 2,362-WORD piece of bullhockey presented to his face as EXHIBIT A WHY NOT.



NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARDS TO NICK ".001" WATT -- AND EMMA!


Speaking of art, a certain immortal has just visited suburban NoMoTown, and one of the local hacks had a hangdog look on his face:

[S]he's long since given up the illusion of singing live; she appeared to be singing during "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know," which was performed on a swing high above the stage, but elsewhere she appeared to be lip syncing and making no bones about it.

Well, if we paid to see this enchantress rather than getting in for FREE we might pick a fight, but then again the whole "concert" business proves the fools demand to be easily parted from their money.


Biloxi, Mississippi, which thought gamb -- GAMING could save it from its deindustrialization and poverty, only to find it was still as glamorous as a certain Ghetto by the Sea, brought THE LEAKY STARCHITECT in to build it a kazillion-dollar AHT mu-SE-um. Well, surprise surprise surprise! (Did Gomer hail from Biloxi?) The BABBITTY!!!!! citizens, most of whom may actually be smarter than the geniuses who planned this production, and who thought this latest masterpiece looked like "giant crushed beer cans", aren't supporting it, and those beer cans are costing vastly more to keep ice-cold than planned -- you see, "[s]imply trying to keep the galleries below 30 percent humidity to protect art in a climate where the humidity can reach 90 percent costs thousands of dollars every month." AND the five-pack cost three times more than planned -- and it still isn't finished. Nonetheless hope springs eternal among the local RENDELLISTS, who seem to think MONEY springs eternal as well.

[T]he building and its collections have earned critical praise.

Hey you guys liked Stalin and Fidel too.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Thursday, July 28, 2011


Soothing:

Report: 27 deemed as threats still hold FAA licenses
Scouring records to find terrorists still difficult years after 9/11 attacks


That and this suggest an almost willful ignorance.


ARCHDaily!



I suppose this is "cute" -- it is in China -- but hasn't anyone heard of liability suits? Not in China, we suppose, which never seems to have heard of lead paint either. Interestingly ARCHDaily does not say how deep the hole is, which almost says it really might go to the earth's other end.


We meant to comment earlier but to say rock is "dead' is like saying disco is dead, especially when our ears tell us otherwise: rock is immutable however much it's mutated, and the same with disco, which goes by other names to keep the rank smell out.


Dick "SYNERGY!" Corliss stumbles and falls over an insight that mightn't have happened if this were made by PEOPLE WARNER:

And why is the ancient wisdom of Indian shamans always taken at face value? Modern movies usually mock a Christian's belief in miracles; yet the summoning of spirits by aboriginal Americans, here as in other Westerns, is shown as a certain conduit to another, higher world.


We were annoyed enough to learn that our local KFC/Taco Bell raised the price of its $5 meals by ten percent, but insult attended to injury on the cup:

MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS!!!!! LIVE!!!!! 8.28.11 [SIC] 9/8C!!!!!!!!!! [Live overemphasis added]

Meaning YUM! BRANDS is using the money for more Hollywood schmoozing. The company that so assiduously cares for and feeds SETH MacFARLANE has no doubt been conferencing with SUMNERIANS non-stop for weeks imploring them to get a few F-BOMBS on the show, as if SUMNERIANS need be told. A price hike was bad enough; to have a price-hiking company spit it in your face that you're paying more to insult your intelligence is vastly worse. I'm writing a letter to YUM! BRANDS' top marketing honcho but I suspect that will merely get me a platitude from the vast BOWELS of its customer "service". A company that does this almost deserves what happened to Taco Bell.

P. S. Today the outlet had a party for its employees. They ate pizza -- and NOT from PIZZA HUT.

P. P. S. Fortunately YUM! has had declining sales. Unfortunately its chief salary hog thinks they can be improved with more Hollywood schmoozing.


HAVE YOU NO SHAME -- SIRRRRRRRR??????????

To be sure this probably was hint-hinted through TPM or KOS or one of the LIBERAL villainies, but this fellow has no shame -- and may be marginally fit to call a SIR.

(Via Yahoo!, which has no shame, sir)


AP NEWSALERT!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- US accuses Iran of `secret deal' with al-Qaida to funnel cash, people to Afghanistan, Pakistan

ASTONISHING!


COMMENTARY OF THE WEEK, from a professor at Duke:

On Oct. 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his "Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences" on the door of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg. We now think of this disputation as the "95 Theses"; the main objection was the hypocrisy of selling dispensations or indulgences.

Indulgences were "get out of purgatory free!" cards. Of course, it was the church that had created the idea of purgatory in the first place. Then the church granted itself the power to release souls from purgatory (for a significant fee, of course).

As Luther put it, in his Thesis No. 27, "as the penny jingles into the money-box, the soul flies out."

Luther would not think much of our current tax system, I expect. We argue about rates, the financial equivalent of purgatory. The Republicans in Congress are prepared to sacrifice our immortal debt rating to the proposition that not one penny increase is possible, even though almost no one actually pays those rates.

The Democrats in Congress like high rates, so that they can sell indulgences. A glance at the tax code reveals that Luther's antagonist Pope Leo X was a piker; we have categories within categories within subgroups, all at different prices, deductions or exemptions that release some elites from the published tax rates....

We need a Reformation. We need a Martin Luther to speak out and tell the truth. The Catholic Church reformed itself after 15 centuries; why can't we fix our tax system?

The indulgence business is just too profitable, too useful, to the priestly classes of both parties.


We are in a religious mood today so we can only say AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN!

(Via The Econowiz, which came up with an apt word of its own for the debt-ceiling ritual: "Blockheaded")


Poor Sid Grauman must be turning over in his grave.

"Today(at)6pm in Hollywood (at)Mann's [SIC] Chinese Theatre. ME+BIG SPEAKERS+MUSIC(equals)BLOCK PARTY!!! RT! " [Multiple SICs]

OR:

"Everybody CHILL OUT!!! The cops are freaking out. BE SAFE AND LET'S HAVE SOME FUN!"

It takes a champion fool not to understand bringing several thousands uninvited partygoers together might cause...problems.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Tuesday, July 26, 2011


Having seen this at least twice on Web sites and now learning it's appeared on dozens of mostly con-SER-va-tive sites I gather PILLHEAD has gloated:

Friends, the DEMOCRAT!!!!! Party would have you believe half of America is living in DIRE POVERTY. Well the good folks at the Heritage Foundation have done a -- REPORT, and this -- REPORT shows the great and tragic privations the truly impoverished among us must -- ENDURE. So with a heavy burden suddenly upon me I must give you statistics of societal catastrophe that are not for the faint of heart. FOR INSTANCE, did you know:

(Cue music: "Hearts and Flowers" or the kind of industrial strength sad contemporary Muzak that would have blended in well at PILLHEAD's confab -- wedding)

ONLY 87.9 percent of the poor have -- A MICROWAVE.

ONLY 84.6 percent of the poor have -- AIR CONDITIONING.

ONLY
(here He gets really excited, as though beholding LOWSY MAYS running Heaven) 79.1 PERCENT OF THE POOR HAVE -- CABLE!!!!!

ONLY 76.3 percent of the poor have -- A CELL PHONE.

ONLY 68 percent of the poor have -- A PC.

ONLY 60.2 percent of the poor have -- INTERNET SERVICE.

ONLY 58.3 percent of the poor have -- A DISHWASHER.

And here -- yes, ladies and gentlemen, here my heart BLEEDS like any LIBERAL'S -- ONLY 42.9 percent of the poor have TWO OR MORE TVS!

AND ONLY 27.5 percent of the poor have BIG-SCREEN TVs!

Friends
(here He pretends He's going to cry), a ruinous CALAMITY is being visited upon us when the truly IMPOVERISHED must suffer so. And for this reason I implore our grand leader, BARACK INSANE OBAMA,

(Cue music: Napoleon XIV and "They're Coming to Take Me Away! Ha Ha!")

that only he, that Superman among leaders, can bring the poor out of their dire poverty; and to this end I propose BARACK INSANE OBAMA start a NEW spending program -- that would guarantee the poor would never ever have to pay for MICROWAVES, AIR CONDITIONING, TVs, PCs, CABLE -- they would get government GRANTS for these VITAL NECESSITIES that WOULD STIMULATE THE ECONOMY! AND LIFT THE POOR OUT OF THEIR SLOUGH OF DESPOND! AND LIFT BARACK INSANE OBAMA TO THE TOP OF THE PANTHEON OF GREAT LEADERS! AND --

(Assuming His natural tone of voice)

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!


(Sounds of hellfire and destruction)

A few points: 1. Not all these contemptible souls own such items; they may lease them through the glorified scam of Rent-a-Center, or else their landlords own them -- certainly with washers and dishwashers. 2. If they can afford them -- and most of the items here are not that expensive, and many can afford them -- these are a few monthly payments. They are NOT the continuing cycle of food and housing, costs one must pay to live. 3. A lot of these luxuries have grown much less expensive -- and a big reason they've gotten less expensive is that Japan and China and the People's Republic of Walmart caused America's white-goods and consumer-electronics businesses to disappear -- as have their JOBS. 4. And though it's cheaper to buy a TV it's getting more expensive to live, something PILLHEAD and the WELL-FED at the HERITAGE FOUNDATION probably wouldn't know. 5. Many poor lack health care as they work dead end jobs, which led His Omnipotence into the farce of Obamacare. And medicine can be expensive. 6. Even the AYNISTS at Heritage must admit owning the above luxuries does not mean being able to afford their upkeep -- like putting food in the luxury microwaves.

We'd ignore this as so much knee-jerk lock-step partisan foot stomping but it only barely disguises an ulterior motive. As we said before liberals don't want a more fair executive at News Corp. -- they want to ABOLISH FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS. Likewise con-SER-va-tives have got it into their concrete-encrusted skulls that THE RICH SHOULD PAY NO TAXES. We cannot go by the kindnesses partisans profess to believe, as platitudes are the easiest lies, and mom and apple pie's the easiest dessert to bake, but must look to what the extremes of both sides would do if they had the fantasy power, and with the last century's Communism and Nazism we have ample evidence. We can only hope the long stink from this vast national breaking of wind will soon pass, and will not lead to worse misery for anyone.


The Postal Service is shutting 3,700 branches -- and here's why in a nutshell:

[Postmaster General Patrick R.] Donahoe said he e-mailed a video to all Postal Service employees about the changes Monday night [SIC]


News Corp. should split the roles of chairman and chief executive officer now held by Rupert Murdoch and make other changes, according to the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which represents about 300 organizations with assets of more than $100 billion.

Actually, with members like the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalists, the National Council of Churches and the American Friends Service Committee (and lots of Catholic groups -- guess they don't like the Pope either), we can gather what they really want: to shut down FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!News. Another right thing for the wrong reason.

(Via I Want Media)


D.C.'s solution: Another committee

I've got an idea! Let's form a committee to fix all the committees in Washington!

Monday, July 25, 2011


From this story it's plain the Norwegian catastrophe combined the worst of the recent Vancouver mayhem with the worst of Munich in '72: a police operation so "bungled" as to approach malevolence.

You could also think of J. Bruce Ismay and the lifeboats.

Or to put it another way:

Norwegians consider arming their police in light of massacre

TRANSLATION: They were living in a fairy-tale land.


Pop psychology for a pop star:

Despite her young age, Winehouse had a long history of alcohol, drug abuse, eating disorders and other health problems. Of course, abuse of alcohol, drugs and food are often symptoms of self-loathing. Even if one blessed with enormous talent (as was Winehouse with her singing voice) sometimes it isn't enough to overcome such feelings. Needless to say, Winehouse could not handle fame never mind cope with day to day living.

We wonder. Lots of young stars do "handle the pressure". The flameouts seem worse now because their lives are less private; I'd guess the tale of Judy Garland only got widespread notice with Valley of the Dolls, although the in crowd surely always knew. No, this tragedy may owe less to a lack of internal fortitude than to just being born screwy, and being in a screwy business, and especially in a screwy business that worships drugs.


The up-and-coming loudmouth JENNIFER and "Murrow" Fallow have picked the kind of fight pundits will fight when they're looking for more newshole, a fight to see who is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL. Well -- it ain't US! We're pretty sure Jennifer thinks she's always right. We know MURROW thinks he's always right. Two people are thus ALWAYS right. How many ONES are always right, let alone twos? And how many such duets can ALWAYS be right when they totally disagree? In their cry-baby behavior we see the Republic in a microcosm. Congress is dysfunctional because its 535 members are ALWAYS right. CEOs have become job-destroying zillionaires because they're ALWAYS right. Our Union deserves its ruination when it's run by people who are NEVER WRONG.

And sure enough, Jeffrey Goldberg pops up on TheAtlantic.com to issue what amounts to an institutional mea culpa:

The question arises, then, why did Jennifer Rubin make this outrageous assertion about jihadism and Norway?

Well, perhaps it was because she was reading the Atlantic.


TRANSLATION: This big fight was as such big fights usually are -- for nothing except speechmaking fees.

P. S. After Fort Hood I posited a screwloose ultra-right-winger. It's impossible not to use snap judgment when extremists of all hues share the same m. o. I know one thing: on 9/11 I knew who it was. Sometimes snap judgment is right.

P. P. S. at 10:03 p. m. I'm retracting a good chunk of this because I didn't know what the hell I was talking about. Jennifer made a snap judgment, and "Murrow" Fallow screamed. This is not quite two total idiots, although Murrow is progressing to that stage very nicely and Jennifer has the stuff to make it there too if she's not careful. The next time I write about something I really should get the facts first.


Get ready for some CEO DANCING ON DESKS!!!!!

Oh well, the AAAAAAAAAAAAATTITUDE LEAGUE won't settle. Better half a loaf.


Hassanal Bolkiah, whose net worth has been estimated to be upwards of $20 billion, has one of the most extensive car collections in the world. The royal family is estimated to have some 5,000 cars, and, since many of them are directly ordered from manufacturers or custom-made, it may almost be impossible to estimate the value of his collection of Ferraris, Rolls, Bentleys, and more. His brother Prince Jeffri, who also has a massive car collection, spent $475 million at Rolls Royce alone.

TRANSLATION: Luxury-car makers are the friends of tyrants.


David Gritten grits:

I’m bemused that Hollywood studios spend tens of millions of dollars on advertising and marketing their “tentpole” films, and yet many of their trailers are such rubbish. [Bemused overemphasis added]

Maybe that's because so many of the...oh, never mind.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)


You Can Be Two Places at Once if One of Them is New York

We thought New Yorkers liked to boast because they can be 160 places at once.

Sunday, July 24, 2011


Yesterday I mentioned "the Nuremburg Rally of show-biz". Consider: Nuremburg drew tens of thousands of maniacs who dressed funny. So does Comic-Con. These same people did funny salutes. So do the Comic-Cons. Nuremburg had Leni Reifenstahl. Comic-Con had KING JAMES. At Nuremburg the masses saluted evil. At Comic-Con they salute people who...look evil. At Nuremburg they obsessed over supermen. At Comic-Con they obsess over Superman. Nuremburg had all sorts of behind-the-scenes types who weren't nice, like Goering and Goebbels. Comic-Con has all sorts of behind-the-scenes types who aren't nice, like SLIME and SUMNER. We intend no slander to the Comic-Cons, who would as soon think of mass murder as they would think; but when people start exclaiming en masse no good's likely to come of it.


Did you know -- I did not know -- that 844 people died on an excursion in the Chicago River 97 years ago? That was only over 11 years after the Iroquois Theater fire. Some of us know of the steamer fire in the East River that killed over a thousand at the turn of the last century, and only because the site was so close to the WTC. Given Friday's calamity in Norway we must ask at what point does time make grief irrelevant? A few of us must remember these things sometime, so that such awful events cannot fully leave the memory.


Gen. John Shalikashvili, who ably led America's forces despite the first term of Slick's small-minded humanitarian foreign policy, which often meant going where our forces didn't matter (Haiti) and willfully neglecting everywhere else they should have been, has died. RIP.

Saturday, July 23, 2011


Which gets settled first: the debt imbroglio or the NFL lockout?

I'm betting the NFL lockout because the parties aren't spending so much of other people's money.


Speaking of THE WRAP:

Meanwhile, coming off the biggest opening ever, Warner's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2" dropped 91 percent week-to-week to $14.6 million [SIC]

EXCELLENT by PEOPLE WARNER standards. Certainly excellent by OUR standards.

Also that thoroughly planted business regarding the Marine Corps ball does not seem to have helped a dubious romcom. If newshackdom were manufacturing we'd lead China by many multiples.

P. S. Actually, it's 83.9 percent. Still -- EXCELLENT!


Bullet train in China derails, cars fall off bridge

Which, if it means anything, means the Chinese can boast more about their bullet trains while complaining they're assembled like their cheap goods at Walmart.


We wish we could say something about Amy Winehouse other than that she had a knack of getting her name on Web sites, but now at least she is free of those demons that too often got her onto Web sites.

(Via The Wrap)


Well, this wasn't the religion whose name should not be spoken, so we apologize for that; rather, this is Norway's version of Virginia Tech, conducted by a psychopath. Now, alas, Norway will for weeks ask itself how it can eliminate psychopaths. We've already asked that question.

And of course we can expect the hacks to play up the words RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST!!!!! (i.e., CONSERVATIVE). While never excusing anyone's politics we must remember both sides harbor psychos, and this was a psychopath more than anything.

We will probably not follow this story, as 1. It's a non-stop publicity reward for someone beneath the creatures beneath rocks, and 2. What's the point of upsetting yourself for no reason?

One question: We assume Norway has endless mindless cable "news". Who will be the Brian Williams of Norway? Or will he come from HERE as usual? Another reason not to watch cable "news".

Incidentally, modern medicine does seem to be trying to eliminate American psychopaths. Why is another matter. (Link via HENRY HONEST)


Norway loses its innocence as terrorists strike at heart of government

We can expect such nonsense from NEWS HACKS, especially British ones. The human race hasn't had much innocence since the snake, and besides, innocence is in the realm of children, who were the chief victims yesterday. Moreover no nation can escape its history, and the Norwegians cannot fully speak of innocence as they bequeathed the world the infamous name VIDKUN QUISLING. Norway has suffered a terrible obscenity, but let us not wipe our slates clean every time such happens.

And Quisling's last words before his execution were, "I'm convicted unfairly, and I die innocent!" Such are the delusions of traitors.

Friday, July 22, 2011


No, we could certainly not pass Harvard's 1869 entrance exam, nor could very many others -- but LOTS of kids can pass those EVERY CHILD A DILBERT tests. That's one reason why they couldn't either.

As for whether today's Harvard students could pass it that goes without saying.

(Original Paper of Re-CORD blog post and .pdf file)


Say what you will about NUKEMAN, at least now he's being honest: he WANTS to build nukes, and we can thus presume he WANTS to nuke Israel, clearly more honest than all his folderol and fiddledeedee about peaceful uses blahblahblah. You have to wonder though if his clerics aren't being shrewd: by NOT talking about building nukes it gives them more time to build them, and more time to unleash a surprise attack on Israel. Cle-VER!

Yes, we should be glad NUKE wants to come clean on his true intentions, as though we hadn't an inkling through his grinning dissembling -- not to mention behaviors like his low-tech method of execution.


“I’m the Senate majority leader — why don’t I know about this deal?”

You mean there isn't a reason?


Well here's a new one: an officially-sponsored professional-kolledge sports franchise's BEER!

And these are the same egghead clowns who get exercised when their insteetooshuns get called party skools.

Thursday, July 21, 2011


At this rate we'll have a new controlling party in Congress every election. A lot of good THAT will do.

Well, it might remind people that neither party can be trusted -- and our only hope is a new one.


Even the Treasury must concede, yes, it lost money on Chrysler.

BUT IT SAVED JOBS!

In Italy.

P. S. on 7/30/2011 at 6:37 p. m. I was wrong about the jobs; see here.


Alas, even in JPODDOM, where SLIME can do no wrong, a bit of light must creep in:

Obama All-Time Top Recipient of News Corp. Contributions


This will SHOCK those who think PILLHEAD is infallible. What does JPOD do? How can he call SLIME's enemies EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL when his God's Kingdom has backed His Omnipotence? But a SLIME organization man is nothing if not shameless, and we'd bet he has an unspoken answer: that SLIME is BROAD-MINDED. No, it merely says SLIME COMMISSIONED IF I DID IT.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011


An excavation crew recently made a startling discovery at the bottom of Pearl Harbor when it unearthed a skull that archeologists suspect is from a Japanese pilot who died in the historic attack on Dec. 7, 1941.

YOUR INCOMPETENCE...oh, never mind.


Tiring as we are of SLIME and His SYCOPHANTS, time to have a laugh -- the first time in a while -- with...ARCHDaily!



Steamrollered cadaver with blue hair!

Standing in -- a blue puddle?




Why did Nestlé build a Chocolate Museum that looks like a tribute to Red Dye No. 2?



Another I SEE YOU!



Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture Win Competition For Tallest Three-Sided Steel Pickle with a Nose Cone in the World

That's NOT what it says?




We hate to broach this but given the location -- Germany -- does this not look like a hip outbuilding at a modern concentration camp?



Was that thing on the right alive?



A condom for buildings!



Let me guess -- this place has no industry anymore!



Sorry, Mac -- a garage will always look like a garage!


To note the hypocrisy of critics like Bernstein or the political motivations of many of Murdoch’s critics is not to excuse what happened.
BUT....

No JPOD stooge, you are excusing what happened because the boss is "CONSERVATIVE." Same with Jo-NAH when he laughs over the self-righteous stupidity of reporters who turned down an acquisition from SLIME. Notwithstanding He would probably have sold or closed a paper in A DYING TOWN anyway, that was plainly an act of political pigheadedness at least equal to the sainted Grahams of KAPLAN, INC. turning down an offer from NewsMAX!!!!! for Newsweek because NewsMAX!!!!! is CONSERVATIVE. No, we are talking nearly equal and opposite pigheadedness, and exemplified by JPOD's EMPLOYER, which has treated its HERO like a corpse and all but BURIED HIM. If The Paper of Re-CORD shows the dangers of left-wing reaction, the likes of THE MAN WHO "KILLED" McKINLEY show the dangers of RIGHT-WING REACTION.

For the kazillion quintillionth time: A PLAGUE O' BOTH YOUR HOUSES!


The Crainiacs furrow their ample brows and frown:

Super Bowl Spots and Their Creatives Even Less Diverse Than Ad Industry

And you know what THAT means -- no...people of color. But take it another way and you know what it means: an industry as completely devoid of intelligence and taste and talent as it is mindlessly lock-steppingly conformist. An industry that worries about...people of color when it doesn't worry about what it spews on America is beneath scorn.


Ethics panel outsources Waters case

To India? Pfffffffffffffffffffffft!


No! NO! False temples to a...TRUE God!

Sure enough, a quick check of the Apple website revealed the tech giant has zero official stores in Kunming. The blogger, a non-profit worker, adds that there are some licensed resellers of Apple products in the area, namely a chain of electronic stores called Xinya, but this did not appear to be one of them. Read the whole post here, including references to shady “plain clothes security guys” lingering outside the fake store. The best part? The blogger found two more seemingly counterfeit Apple stores in the immediate vicinity. Who knows how many more are cropping up all over China’s provinces? Steve Jobs, you’ve got a problem on your hands.

A problem all the way to the UNIVERSE'S BIGGEST MARKET CAP!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011


Stocks rise further as Obama addresses debt talks

NOW how is the Casino getting paid?


Goldman’s best days may be over

TRANSLATION: The villain's merely changing faces.


[C]heating also means that public schools finally care enough about student performance that some ethically challenged educators have chosen to cheat. This is far better than the alternative, where learning is so incidental and non-transparent that people of low character can’t be bothered to lie about it. Blaming cheating on the test amounts to infantilizing teachers, moving teaching 180 degrees away from the kind of professionalization that teacher advocates often profess to support.

So -- we have a choice between ethically challenged educators and total incompetents.

On the half-a-loaf scale this may not qualify as a crumb.


Speaking of USAOKAY!!!!!, and even though it be from EMMETT "KELLY"'s, champion of SLIME's press freedom:

[T]he excess of press freedom which the Times continues to champion even at the expense of its country's diplomacy, and very likely its security too, will mean that trash continues to dominate the news -- which in turn will make the special things that newspapers and other large media organizations can do that the specialist trash-merchants and two-bit aggregators cannot do will take up an ever smaller share of what they in fact do, and so continue to make them seem ever more unnecessary and out of date. I wouldn't bet that the New York Times will go out of business, but this movie had the opposite of its intended effect by making me think it more likely to do so than I did before.


A story like this reporting the expected -- that federal workers practically cannot be fired -- might affirm a newspaper aiming for public service if this weren't its allegedly most popular story.

Monday, July 18, 2011


A commenter captures the essence of POP MU-SICK GENIUS:

Let's not spend so much energy defending pop. If you like it, you like it. Enjoy it without all of the excuses. We all like a hamburger every now and again.

But... let's not try to call these people talented. Those who write/produce the catchy tunes and create the pop stars might hold a ounce of the stuff... but the performers? No. They're a pair of tits, a couple of tattoos and a weave. The rest is computer assisted.


The noises to remove SLIME from as top of the totem pole grow louder -- but we'd neglected this:

Any such move would be primarily a matter of public appearances, since Murdoch’s 38 percent share of News Corp.’s Class B voting stock effectively give him final say on everything.

I have my doubts too -- but then again no one seems to know if SLIME is a big fan of antioxidants.

P. S.

[H]e did receive one piece of good news: vocal support from a prominent board member.

Tom Perkins, an independent member of the board of directors and the first to speak out on the scandal, said the board “is fully supportive of the top management.”

A well-known venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, Mr. Perkins said the independent board members “were stunned to discover the magnitude of the scandal over the last 10 days.”

“The board did discuss this several times two or three years ago, maybe earlier,” he said. “We’ve known about the phone hacking for a long time. We were told and top management, I’m sure, believed that the early news was the whole story. There’s no reason to believe top management was lying. That’s my very strong belief.”

“We all felt it was inexcusable for sure. We paid some money out, fired some people and we thought we’d fixed it.”

Mr. Perkins was also a member of the board of directors during a scandal at Hewlett-Packard, when the high-tech giant was involved in spying on board members and reporters to determine the source of leaked information. Mr. Perkins resigned from the board when he learned of the surveillance.

He said the News Corporation situation is different. “This is not like the HP situation,” he said. “The board supports top management.”


Oh.

P. P. S. LULZSEC IS BACK!

Next time though, get your punctuation right: it's mogul's, not "moguls".


God knows we hate getting our news first from HENRY HONEST!!!!!, but why have the hacks ignored this story?

(More here)


Well -- looks as if we're about to lose our cardinal, for...the usual reasons.

We remember that guy who looked like a GM CEO who misran things in Boston. I guess it's impossible to get away with it now.


Now the persecutors have done it! SLIME might lose control of His empire -- thanks to His BOARD!

We're with Perfesser Shafer on this one, but we wonder if finally He's made one enemy too many. We wonder too if this turns out exactly as we said: that "NEWS" CORP. spins off its papers and becomes a pure cable-gouging and teevee-and-movee-extruding ENTERTAINMENT firm. It's sure starting to look that way. The public may not win yet.

(First link via TINA!!!!!; THR link and "teevee-and" added 9:36 a. m.)


Cameron to postpone parliamentary recess

England is going MAD! This is what happens when a bunch of COMSYMPS PANIC a nation into thinking a tyrant's in its midst! This is why Murdoch's being PERSECUTED: he's a threat to the old order! He's making people do things differently! He's no COMSYMP! He's...

I think I'll take a nap now.

Sunday, July 17, 2011


Keeping in mind this is from EMMETT "KELLY"'s site:

EVER WONDER HOW many artists thrived during the High Renaissance? Probably about 70 first-rate ones, of which a dozen are still remembered by art historians. Today, there are nearly two million hacks who call themselves professional artists. And by no one's reckoning are we living through a High Renaissance.

I figure there are at least 700 AHTS cri-TICS who'd say we are.


Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww SHUCKS, I guess this means we won't hear about another epochal change in society for the next three days.

How did it get to the point that I root against perfectly innocent people because I know the NEWS HACKS will drive me MAD when they get their way?


Which is worse? Some perfesser likening Sherwood Schwartz to de Tocqueville -- or another con-SER-va-tive hack blaming liberals?

And on the latter this is a reasonable response, meaning it's one of the last we'll get now that this has become a partisan game of group self-abuse.

(All links via NRO?!?!?)


Now that news hacks are happy again today I just thought up something stupid Mr. Bew-KES could do: Pay ROWLINGCORP in PEOPLE WARNER PREFERRED STOCK to continue the series! There's no other way He could do it. Three or four billion, with further payments if the company turns out more novels. Maybe He isn't that stupid but reports this was another 3D fizzle despite its ALL-TIME!!!!!!!!!! GROSSES!!!!!!!!!! say the former Citibank "account officer" could do it, in keeping with His training.

Scott, being a good GanNETToid, saves the bad news for last:

[T]he year remains 7% behind 2010 in revenues, 9% in attendance.

Barring the answer of news hacks' -- prayers? it seems this year will not avoid ignominy, and we hope for more of it once the ALL-TIME!!!!!!!!!! GROSSES!!!!!!!!!! fade.


Which reminds us, what kept the former president of Uruguay from becoming a con-SER-va-tive hero -- like GEN. PINOCHET?

Perhaps not so much free en-ter-prise in Uruguay.


Speaking of superlatives, what adjectives can con-SER-va-tives use to downplay the fact that London's police boss has resigned?


The last thing a news hack should do is complain that superlatives have lost their punch.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal, of which no words can describe its annoyance)


NRO, perhaps embarrassed when Ms. Travers came out and said what SLIME did was wrong, has kept more or less silent on Him, as before -- so now JPOD's site has taken up the cudgels and is defending Him with every cheap rhetorical trick in the book: the HE-MAY-BE-AN-SOB trick, the OUR-ENEMIES-ARE-JUST-AS-BAD trick, the THIS-IS-A-POLITICAL-WITCH-HUNT trick -- all the while blazingly unwilling to defend SLIME for what He did. If JPOD's crew had the GUTS to endorse His actions that would be one thing, though even con-SER-va-tives must know what He and His underlings did with NOTW was indefensible -- and possibly criminal, which, given their love affair with CON-nie, accounts for a good bit of their silence. I would rather they defend His actions than resort to their evasions. And they evade largely for one reason: because JPOD runs the joint, and HE STILL WORKS FOR SLIME. With each new post defending SLIME without defending Him CommentaryMagazine.com becomes as unreadable as E. J. Dionne. This is Nixonism at its worst, and it's shameful whatever the politics -- as if partisans know shame.

P. S. As I'm sending a link to this post to these folk, five things: 1. I consider myself a conservative, but I'd be no more a knee-jerk conservative than a knee-jerk anything. 2. SLIME has become to hard-core conservatives what Michael Moore is to hard-core liberals. 3. I have called Him SLIME since His company announced it was printing If I Did It, and especially now in light of NOTW and the female scapegoats He created I am thoroughly convinced that SLIME commissioned that "book". 4. This is slowly acquiring the vague odor of what happened to con-SER-va-tives back in 1940 when they turned the other cheek to the Nazis. Not to worry, JPOD, SLIME is no Hitler; but a Web site that so prides itself on supporting Israel should not forget that sorry conservative past. At the very least it's acquiring the aura of what happened to NRO when it turned the other cheek to an airhead. 5. FOR THE EIGHTY THOUSANDTH TIME: SLIME IS NO CONSERVATIVE.

Saturday, July 16, 2011


Who put it in my mind -- maybe it was PILLHEAD's ACCENT, or perhaps EMMETT "KELLY" -- that the same con-SER-va-tives who LOVE to gas about excessive government-worker pay never say a word about excessive CEO pay?

I'm TIRED of both sides using the HE-MAY-BE-AN-SOB approach to thinking.


I'll go my way by myself,
Like walking under a cloud.
I'll go my way by myself,
All alone in a crowd....


Today while getting myself barbered for the first time in months (I HATE it! and I'm VERY lazy besides), an Ivy League version of CHEAP CHANNEL extruded an especially annoying song, the same line over and over and over until I could have singed my hair off and saved the money: "HEY LORD! DON'T ASK ME QUES-TYOONNNNS! HEY LORD! DON'T ASK ME QUES-TYOONNNNS! HEY LORD! DON'T ASK ME QUES-TYOONNNNS! HEY LORD! DON'T ASK ME QUES-TYOONNNNS...." I thought, how worthy of today's genius. The DJ who no doubt thinks he'll work for LOWSY soon helpfully identified it as from 1976. Thirty-five years and still junk. Except to rock mu-SIC cri-TICKS that doesn't say much for our age of masterpieces.

Shortly after at JOHN THE DON's Barnes & Noble (let's see B&M collide with B&N!), as I skimmed Consumer Reports to see if I should spend my money on an Asus (AY-suhs?, Ah-SOOS?) laptop (it's going in my bedroom), Satch and Ella were crooning "Love is Here to Stay", and as great as Satch and Ella are I thought, how mannered! How keeyute! Part of it wasn't listening to it at a B&N, as it can be, nor even that it's typical background music for the HITMAKER!!!!! WOODSTER THE PERV, nor that brother Ira had to start a big debate among pop-u-LAR mu-SIC his-TOR-ians by pretentiously leaving "Our" out of the title; but rather it's that George Gershwin's gotten so unceasingly jazzified over the years we forget he was a theater composer, and his own best arranger, and that he wrote "Someone to Watch Over Me" for Gertrude Lawrence, and not for Blue -- and definitely NOT for Sarah Vaughan, nor even Satch and Ella. And with jazz a corpse thus is America's greatest tunesmith confined to the archives, though we're supposed to say we admire him as an article of faith, or like WOODSTER THE PERV -- like a showoffy egghead.

Back at my apartment there's this desk clerk who's lately taken to using his computer to watch the crappiest kind of horror or action movies -- with the volume up WAY LOUD. Why must I endure it? It's like foreground muzak, only it's worse -- the sonic equivalent of a dentist's drill. Why do people think because they have computers it gives them "rights" over others -- like my right not to listen to a dentist's drill?

Back in the two-room apartment I'm trying to straighten up with the help of a bulldozer I wondered, does anyone have my tastes? Am I really the buffoon I often think I am? Why can't I share my loves and my foibles with someone else?

No one knows better than I myself:
I'm by myself,
Alone.

Friday, July 15, 2011




And the calamity of con-SER-va-tives STAUNCHLY defending SLIME is that it virtually shuts up voices like Laura Ingraham's, who yesterday had her depressing piece on "sexting" -- and today comes up with this. [Photo link here]


And the next time I hear a con-SER-va-tive say SLIME was FRAMED -- which I suspect will be the next time I click on NRO, or shortly -- I will remember that SLIME IS TO CON-SER-VA-TIVES WHAT MICHAEL MOORE IS TO LIBERALS.

It would further behoove the idiot con-SER-va-tives to realize that the news part of "NEWS" CORP. is a fraction of its revenues and an even smaller fraction of its earnings, the vast majority of them coming from the CABLE TURNIPS -- and lest we forget He churns out staunch con-SER-va-tive TRACTS LIKE THESE.


In other news of The Recession That Isn't:

NBA cuts 11% of work force

Another case of feeling sorry for the laid-off without feeling sorry for the layers-off.


ANOTHER scapegoat.

When does SLIME scapegoat himself?


P. S. ROMY doesn't have it!

But he does have:

Murdoch scandal accounted for 53% of links on Twitter, but only 6% of mainstream coverage

This proves to some degree this has become news-hack onanism - but THAT DOESN'T MAKE SLIME INNOCENT.

Thursday, July 14, 2011


For now, however, Topiary is taking a break from law-breaking. He says he will continue operating on the margins of Anonymous, but will not engage in any more hacking. Instead, he intends to create art, video and graphics for the group to help with a new public relations project, to be titled Voice.

A hacker in PR. LULZ!


Georgia Tech vacates 2009 ACC title

Another winner in professional kolledge sport!


Love, the 2011 way:

I was recently told about one girl who tried to laugh off the nude picture of her circulating on campus. She announced to a college guy who had seen one of her salacious photos, “Bet you didn’t know I was a natural brunette.” To which the guy replied, “I didn’t know you had stretch marks on your hips, either.” If you’re actually interested in the guy, clothing can be your closest ally.

That's putting it mildly.


Why Wall Street doesn't seem worried about default

Because the Casino KNOWS Uncle Sucker will ALWAYS come through.

And tomorrow starts a NEW fairy tale!


TRANSLATION: Dilberts are subject to the law of diminishing returns. The more Dilberts, the lesser the returns.

And this guy's idea of having his kids take a liberal-arts education isn't that far fetched. We need a Beethoven or two, unlikely as that is. We don't need MORE DILBERTS.


$1.5 trillion in cuts agreed: White House

Well! That's better than nothing.




FBI opens investigation of News Corp.: WSJ, AP

THIS IS THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT SINCE...SINCE SEN. McCAR -- THE SALEM WITCH HUNTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


We wonder whether Roger could ever get a fair trial given that he's been thoroughly and justly been found guilty in the court of public opinion. Mightn't that be enough?


Don't tell me, let me guess: HISTORY'S GREATEST NETWORK has cured cancer again.

Unfortunately it's done so at the Emmys, which is the awards version of a Mexican cancer clinic.


Speaking of Emmett "KELLY"'s hero, the Journals have an "integrity committee" whose members are paid $100,000 a year.

The committee members are:

Thomas J. Bray, former editorial page editor of the Detroit News;

Louis Boccardi, former chief executive of the Associated Press;

Jack Fuller, retired president of Tribune Publishing Co.;

Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology;

Susan M. Phillips, dean of the George Washington University School of Business.


Nice non-work if you can get it! Pfffffffffffffffffffffft!


“Consistent with our strategy to create industry-leading shareholder value, we have concluded that two independent companies focused on their respective industries will be better positioned to pursue their individually focused business strategies,” Mulva said in a statement. ”Both companies will continue to benefit from the size and scale of their significant high-quality asset bases and free cash flow generation, allowing them to invest and create shareholder value in a changing environment.”

TRANSLATION: What the hell's the point of most mergers?

Wednesday, July 13, 2011


We hate repeating ourselves even from nearly two years ago but all these press releases about BIG CELEBRITIES dating soldiers and Kate in awe of soldiers remind us again of THE MASTER:

Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick's talent for light gay poetry; and, as a specimen, repeated his song in Florizel and Perdita, and dwelt with peculiar pleasure on this line:

I'd smile with the simple, and feed with the poor.

JOHNSON. "Nay, my dear Lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the simple; -- What folly is that? And who would feed with the poor that can help it? No, no; let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich." I repeated this sally to Garrick, and wondered to find his sensibility as a writer not a little irritated by it.

However sincere these people live on another planet. Why must news hacks delude themselves into deluding the peons they care for us? (Except Kate, who does seem the real thing.)


As the saga of ROWLINGCORP comes to a tiresome CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED pause (we do NOT say conclusion) we ask, in twenty years what will people miss from not having it? We have an allegory (surely ROWLINGCORP would understand THAT word): we're approaching eighty years since the first of Busby Berkeley's Warner musicals. They are as frivolous and escapist as ROWLINGCORP's machinery, though perhaps not as DARK; and few people watch them anymore or even know who Berkeley was, but they're saved for posterity by the brilliance of his filmic imagination, and by Harry Warren and Al Dubin's songs. The surface-similar Wizard of Oz has its own glories but further survives on the strength of an inspired ensemble cast and especially the transcendent Judy Garland. Lacking Berkeley, Judy and songs (but not lacking HARRY P., who seems to grow uglier by the day) we ask, without a push from the cultists what will linger it in the memory?

We must note a PEOPLE WARNER predecessor made the Berkeley spectaculars and that it now owns Oz. As the movee excretion biz achieves total irrelevance it may flailingly attempt further sequels, but this is as inadvisable as remaking Oz. One thing's clear: We hope the moron Mr. BEWKES ultimately loses His job for it, though with so many reasons to fire Him that may be a tough one.

(Mogul's Friend link via AHTSJournal)


You may recall, back at the beginning of The Recession That Hasn't Yet Quite Ended, how people spoke of a "new normal" so much they merely created a new cliché. News hacks have gone the new normal crowd one better with what they think is an innovation: "transparency". The term makes one cringe because people who like to keep secrets use the word as the first excuse for keeping them; and in the long run full transparency will be as unobtainable as objectivity, for it will depend on whose transcripts nonobjective news hacks choose to disburse, and at best it will mean so inundating readers with transcripts and ethical disclosures as to lay down vastly more tracks for the wild goose chase that is modern Web-based JERNALISM. That The Econowiz has proclaimed Mr. Wikileaks as an expert of transparency when his own leaks are highly random does not bode well for the new fad.

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