Posted 6:22 PM by Gene

In my melancholy walk down South Street some AHTS organization put a decal for an online Picasso exhibit on a vacant commercial space, with half of what was alleged to be Picasso's face on the decal, and the effect was odd. The building has a protruding horizontal fixture that delineates the first and second floors. On the first floor the face looked like Nixon's. On the second floor it looked like LBJ's. In very small type the decal said the exhibit was sponsored by The Marlboro Man -- pardon, the company that once owned KRAFT FOODS. Maybe as they die lung-cancer victims will now see visions of Guernica floating through their heads.

In one of the many look-alike junk clothing stores on the avenue, I saw a licensed T-shirt for ANGRY BIRDS. This, like flagpole sitting, is officially a fad.

Posted 6:12 PM by Gene

Today in the land of make-believe known as the free press, our local StinkyInky chartered on a new endeavor: using every day and every front page to plug them PHIGHTIN' PHILS. There's nothing wrong with cheerleading within limits, and we know sports is a PROFIT CENTER (we hate that term as it's a media alibi for bad work), but we wonder how many stories STINKYINKY MEDIA CO. will have to cut, or take off the front page, so it can reproduce a huge picture of "our" heroes. But we wonder also if conventional news's usefulness isn't overrated; as the constant stream of radiation from Japan shows stories can blend into an impermeable fog. We say our suggestion that USAOKAY!!!!! take up the modern panem et circenses (i. e., sports and SHOW-BIZ advertorializing exclusively) ultimately becomes the law of the land to save the publishers' hides, even as they beat our hides black and blue with their contempt.

And Barron'S put VERY LITTLER JEFFY on its cover, presumably as an answer to The Paper of Re-CORD, and needless to say it predicted GE BANCORP would see $2,000 a share by next April. Also Alan ABelSon is now a PERMABULL, merely confirming he's permabull.

Posted 12:47 PM by Gene

FOXCONN lost money despite making iPhones?!?!?

We were about to say April Fool! but the joke is always on the workers.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

And in more good news for con-SER-va-tives:

CEO pay soars while workers' pay stalls

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

WELL!! Not ALL EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL union members are hard-core ossified weed-infested DEMOCRATS!

Posted 8:50 AM by Gene

ST. WARREN.... [Emphasis added]

I guess the bloom is off that eighty-year-old rose.

Posted 8:44 AM by Gene

So Muammar conducted a terrorist enterprise. Because we've suspected this all along it's impossible to be worked up about it, especially when terrorist enterprises seem to be common among what we used to call second- and third-world governments.

We also try not to get worked up over it for as the mighty lobbying of BP proved some people are above and beyond the law. Nonetheless the British should bring this human scum to whatever kind of justice they can -- and for what it's worth, it proves that in an elemental way military action in Libya was justified.

Posted 9:13 PM by Gene

Since when have colleges become so controversial? They used to embody humankind at its most elevated; now, they're just another institution to be wary of.

Here is America's eulogy, written by a professor who has unfortunately chosen to use a pseudonym, doubly unfortunate as this professor has administered the republic such a bracing tonic.

Posted 8:29 PM by Gene

The Peabody Awards — the television awards for people still mad The Wire never won any freakin' Emmys....

We know SUPERADAM!!!!!'s interns really don't mean it, but interns can tell the truth however bass-ackwardly.

And it's official -- after some extremely clever PR the news hacks get a chance to be insufferable for many years more.

P. S. on 4/1/2011 at 8:42 a. m. Three years -- it says here. Assuming it isn't eight a decade after the last episode all the electronic drooling over this masterpiece will be an unreadable embarrassment. It is NOW.

Posted 7:29 PM by Gene

Back again with -- ARCHDaily!



Wait! Isn't the mast of a ship supposed to be in the middle or something like that? Why is it thrust all the way through the ship? And why does a submarine need a mast?

Or an big ice cube on top?



Who designed this gym? Peeping Tom?



Proof STARCHITECTS can turn a depressing old academic factory into a depressing NEW academic factory!



The world's biggest award-winning cheese grater!

Posted 7:26 PM by Gene

Muammar had a friend at the Fed!

Wasn't he rich too?

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

Great: Just what cable subscribers have clamored for -- another weather channel!

At launch, WeatherNation TV, which is headquartered in Denver Colorado, will offer a weather news format 24 hours a day that will not be interrupted by documentary, entertainment or reality programming, Norton says.

Until it decides to compete a bit more heartily with you-know-who.

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

We have no trouble with the Feds going undercover on the Web to nab producers of counterfeit goods. But we can hear JACK VALENTI II screaming, and then the Feds will get overzealous and persecute mere downloaders. We've no doubt that's what will happen here.

Posted 8:25 AM by Gene

The same cri-TICS who complain there are too many awards shows have just launched another awards show.

Posted 9:27 PM by Gene

The other day at work we came across a brochure from the big scientific supply firm VWR and were startled to see this microscope. Not by the microscope -- by the name. Alas unlike in the fifties creepy crawlers aren't the only things best suited for a microscope.

Posted 6:47 PM by Gene

The Japanese have much to mourn about, but they should see the cherry blossoms as a sign of renewal. And Japan will renew.

P. S. The same news service financed by million-dollar BloomyBoxes that told us the mythical company of How to Succeed in Hogwarts is World Wide "Widget" today tells us the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Well -- it used to be. Money and news quality may be mutually exclusive.

Posted 5:50 PM by Gene

We have said before the idea of the BUGMEISTERS making TVs is something of a laugh riot. The unspoken secret of the consumer electronics biz is that many firms have been making such mundane goods as receivers harder to use; they have conflicting buttons and confusing on-screen menus and need firmware updates. Home theatre threatens to make the worst of both worlds converge. It used to be simplicity in hi-fi was an excuse for price gouging. Now is the time for a little simplicity.

Posted 5:44 PM by Gene

Sokol, possible Buffett heir, quits Berkshire

There can only be one GOD.

Here's betting if there's anything to this story other than a resignation the news hacks, charter members of His Church, won't say a word.

Apparently though it had to do with insider trading, which, as con-SER-va-tives always bleat, is NOT a crime.

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Speaking of delusions, the other day we mentioned duels. If all the high-tech megalomaniacs used memoirs as guns there'd be no scores left to settle -- and we wish we could say other than that it might not be a bad thing.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Silicon Valley companies are swooping in and scooping up potential employees in a frenzy of hiring not seen since the Internet bubble of a decade ago.

The tech industry is beginning to resemble an economic Nirvana, as established companies and start-ups alike hire aggressively and court prospective recruits. The competition is so fierce, many employers are dangling goodies such as iPads, nifty cubicles, shuttle service and meals to harvest top talent in engineering, social-media, website and product design, data crunching and analysis, and management.

A surge in tech hires in California could portend an upturn for the larger U.S. economy, says Jesse Harriott, chief knowledge officer at online job site Monster.com.

And this time it'll stick!

Ask SLIME!

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

Alongside time spent studying outside of class, alcohol consumption is the most significant predictor of a student's grade point average. It has more impact than working, watching television, online social networking -- even attending class.

So it stands to reason our KOLLEDGES should encourage drinking, as it leads to lower grades, which leads to more make-up classes, which leads to a longer time spent in KOLLEDGE, which means -- MORE MONEY!

Posted 9:51 AM by Gene

Brady Hoke to make $2M first year coaching Michigan

PAY THE PLAYERS!!!!!

Posted 9:13 AM by Gene

Since when is FDR's story a comedy?

Oh, Billy's in his "serious-ac-TOR mode". That's another term for slumming.

(Via POLITICO.COM!!!!!, where most of the stories are comedies)

Posted 9:04 AM by Gene

The NPCPCAA's boss proposes bigger baby steps, meaning more TOSTITOS BOWL scandals, more OHIO STATE scandals, more under-the-table scandals of all kinds. Mark, just pay the guys! You compromise your "ideals" in every other way as it is.

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

RICHLY DESERVED: A special on PAPA did poorly in the ratings; THE WORLD'S GREATEST NETWORK'S latest and greatest did poorly in the ratings -- who says all news is bad?

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

Gray-DOHN flatters himself:

"How to explain Taylor to younger readers," muses Carter. "For comparison's sake, there is really no one on today's screens who comes close. Try to imagine a star who combines the talent of a Meryl Streep with the beauty of Nicole Kidman, the sensuality of a Penélope Cruz, and the notoriety of a Lindsay Lohan (although in a much higher-class way, and without the public displays of private parts and vomiting). Magnify that a hundredfold, and you're still only halfway to Elizabeth Taylor."

Which is why every new starlet on his cover combines the talent of...oh, never mind.

Posted 8:13 PM by Gene

It's not just the TOSTITOS Bowl. How could it not be with CEOs to flatter, and politicians to brown-nose, and Babbitts run amok?

And sorry, it should be called the TOSTITOS Bowl, after its SPONSOR. If I were PEPSICO I might be in hiding the next few days.

P. S. "TOSTITOS BOWL".

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Notice anything...strange about this cover? We don't know where to begin, except to say Terry got us to think about it with his star-struck swooning. Maybe we should start by explaining Time once ran theater reviews from distinguished writers like T. E. Kalem and William A. Henry III (and the rag pretty well stopped covering theatre when the latter died at the ungodly age of 44). Newsweek ran theater reviews too, even if it was Jack...Dill? So here's the strange thing: Can you imagine a newsrag putting a Broadway show on the front cover? Even one as supremely good as How to Succeed in Hogwarts? Or Anyone But Muslims? There must have been a reason. The reason was The Music Man. It was a smash hit -- and not just any smash hit; it opened in a season that produced West Side Story, from an industry that created My Fair Lady not too long before, that went on to create Gypsy and The Sound of Music not long after. Now what else can you tell me about this cover? Well, there are three people on it, not counting American Gothic. Robert Preston, yes -- he was the star; it made his career after too many B westerns. Meredith Willson's there too -- he wrote it at the instigation of Frank Loesser, putative creator of Hogwarts. Oh yes, one other person. Now you might be able to identify her as Marian Paroo, the heroine. Sorry, wrong -- that's Barbara Cook. Terry had to remind me of a post from some time ago noting how he and Peter G. Davis couldn't agree on Kristin Chenoweth, a difference that renders all critical judgment suspect. How many outside theatah have heard of Kristin? Probably not very many. All right, how many heard of Barbara Cook in her prime? Hard to tell -- although Capitol made The Music Man into "one of the biggest cast album sellers of all time". We will say people who love The Music Man and the sound of Barbara Cook's voice in her prime don't have to make excuses. And as we've said before, there's a reason today's chief issuer of cast albums is called GHOSTLIGHT.

So what am I getting at? Plainly given Terry's swoon and that FANGIRL's and all the typists swooning over ABM lots of people within two miles of Branson East are excited about these two masterworks. There was a time when more people cared. I've already mentioned seven distinguished drama critics. Anyone hear of The Saturday Review of Literature? It ran an eighth distinguished critic, Henry Hewes. If I looked hard enough I could find half-a-dozen more. How many today? Don't mention Ben Brantley; he's not fit to shine George S. Kaufman's shoes. Popular magazines like Life and Look ran theatrical pictorials. Ed Sullivan had Broadway stars on his show -- he was (lest we forget) a Broadway columnist. Dorothy Kilgallen brought Broadway to What's My Line? New York's radio and TV stations had reviewers, and though they made Gene Shalit look good at least it was theater. There were theater magazines. Plays were regularly published in book form. People like Goddard Lieberson made cast albums of straight plays. A Broadway production of Hamlet was televised nationwide on closed-circuit in movie houses. Broadway hits regularly became film hits; the Pink Panther series (just one example) was based on A Shot in the Dark. Now we have Hogwarts and Anyone But Muslims. Half the commenters in the chat room of a popular Branson East site are twelve years old and half the avatars are Liza Minnelli and buff males. Puh-leeease. This is the very definition of irrelevance.

And the two miles around Branson East have shown their good judgment before. I'd hoped to save this for later but we're approaching the tenth anniversary of THE GREATEST MUSICAL EVER. I remember how supremely annoyed I felt at the nonstop plugging of this retread from a vulgarian. Can anything be that good? The first indication something was rotten in the state of New York came the day after the opening when Ben called the jokes "HOARY". The second indication came when its co-producers THE WHINER BROTHERS paid a hack from The Cute Little Pink Paper who'd raved the thing to type a puff piece for the cover of their late unlamented collaboration with TINA!!!!! A year after the hoary jokes it died. The Paper of Re-CORD promised fifteen! Oh yes, it continued for five more; but when THE BOYS quit the joke ended. Mel will spend his last days wondering why Osama had to attack him but then Osama didn't write the jokes. And he wasn't the casting director. The next Max Bialystock was from the West End and played it like Shylock. BOOM! The hit hit the fan. Mel could only bring his YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN!!!!! to life by bringing back THE BOYS, and in time they came to despise each other. Then in 2005 the film version detonated and that was all she wrote. Mel laid the joke to rest when he put on a two-hour Carol Burnett sketch in a barn (the same barn now hosting SPIDER-MAN -- TURN OUT THE LIGHTS!) and he and Bob "ELVIS!" Sillerman refused to disclose the grosses -- a sure sign they thought they'd close early, which they did. Fool me once.... So the two miles within Branson East have had these infatuations, and decades of outstanding theatre have taught us not to believe one adjective. Further note: Two days after THE GREATEST MUSICAL EVER opened Michael Vick placed first in the NFL draft. NUF SAID.

Incidentally, why do I call it Branson East? Do I need explain? There are many differences between Branson and Branson East, not the least the location and the parking, and the latter's ever-present thrill of being mugged, HONORARY MAYOR MIKE notwithstanding. But Branson has over 50 theatres. So does Branson East. Branson has lots of hotels. So does Branson East. Branson has fine dining. So does Branson East. Branson has Silver Dollar City; Branson East has The Lion King and Wicked. Branson has tons of country has-beens; Branson East does gimmick casting. Branson has Christian tours; Branson East has the cult of Sondheim. Branson's entertainments are at their heart Audio-Animatronics. So are Branson East's. There is no difference between whoever's imitating Boxcar Willie this week and anyone with the notion he can lure Carol Channing from retirement.

Not to prolong the agony, but two more points: As Hogwarts is essentially a rebuild of the Promises, Promises theme park that everyone razzed because it jerked a late-sixties property back six years to be HIP, why did people rave this though it's been set as a period piece? There's a certain cowardice here. Never has Corporate America been more widely reviled, and Branson East answers it with an ultrabusy hammering of roustabouts that Brooks Atkinson (I believe) dismissed in 1961 as "a pencil moustache on the face of business." This too shows not just BE's irrelevance, but its impotence. THE GREATEST MUSICAL EVER had a canker in its soul as it took the safe, easy way into the crowd's wallets: it was set in 1959 and concerned a Nazi musical, a trope tired even in '68. Had it been set in 2001 and the subject an anti-Semitic RAP CONCERT it would never have opened. And the least Fodor's can do is get its facts straight -- it's World Wide Wickets, not Widget. In an age of Verizons and Altrias that joke's senescent too.

P. S. on 4/6/2010 at 10:55 a. m. I temporarily pulled this because I thought I was too harsh on that Branson East chat board. People in the biz work it, and their comments are almost always incisive; a few came down on Hogwarts hard. (I did not realize Ben basically panned it, perhaps to make up for a stupid rave of ABM. With Terry it was the opposite, leading me to believe his pan of ABM was politically motivated -- he technically works for the Wall Street Journals CONSERVATIVE Edition, and he's conformed his opinions to its editorial slant before. Whatever the case two cri-TICS have consigned themselves to irrelevance. I haven't read the comments for ABM.) Nonetheless a lot of the people -- and the comments -- are as can be expected.

P. P. S. on 4/10/2011 at 4:15 p. m. We should have quoted it from the get-go but here's a lyric from Hogwarts -- "Been a Long Day", as originally sung by Claudette Sutherland:

Hey!
There's a yummy Friday special at Stouffer's:
It's a dollar-ninety vegetable plate.
And on the bottom of the ad -- not bad!
"Service for two: three-fifty-eight.
To make a bargain, make a date!"

We wonder: 1. if they're using that lyric (probably) and 2. if so how many of the Harry Potter brigade giggle uncontrollably and incomprehensibly. We'd like to join one of the Branson East chat boards just to find out.

Also the song "Paris Original" revolves around a $39 dress.

P. P. P. S. When the same BERT LAHRSON who RAVED!!!!! THE GREATEST MUSICAL EVER THUMBS ABM DOWN it STINKS.

P. P. P. P. S. on 6/15/2011 at 7:30 p. m. The politics behind ABM's raves is underlined by this annoyance. I HATE POLITICS! Also TINA!!!!!'s COVER is not the same as it's just another of Her vapid fads and as She didn't review the masterpiece and She didn't directly put it on the cover -- just a Photoshop allusion with that whatisit from Mass -- and She wouldn't have done even that cover without the electricity of a fad. I HATE OVERRATED RAG EDITORS!

Incidentally, we just joined that Branson East chat board. If we post our avatar will be Lawrence Welk.

Posted 3:37 PM by Gene

Cloud computing is another topic to inspire migraines. We suppose this will be quite useful for the downloaders who are surgically attached to their iPhones and iPads and will listen to anything; but we are not sanguine about our media not being zapped despite the cloud's supposed near infinite capacity for backup. Moreover we have too much music downloaded or ripped for this to be cheap, and besides, we like having the hard copies, and we like having direct control. Stand in a cloud and all you see is water vapor; we prefer our media as something more substantial.

Posted 3:31 PM by Gene

We have not commented on Libya because for all their deceptive surface lightning speed events are moving with the alacrity of molasses, and as this rebellion has shown the winner one moment may be a loser in two weeks. We are worried about how the boom-booms seem to be ascending in Egypt, but we suspected this would happen in that vacuum left by a strongman, and a fool will say who'll take over in Libya, for a country with a 42-year autocrat has no room for a plan B. In the end we can only hope we won't be too incompetent, a hope the current posturer in the White House does not inspire, and that we won't unleash another Iran as JIMMAH did -- or worse, Irans.

As for military intervention, we're agnostic. His Omnipotence's indifference at first could pass for prudence, but this oaf couldn't care for foreign policy if the world depended on it (pffh-hh-hh!), and he only acted because his indifference metastasized into bad PR. The how hardly matters; Papa after all wouldn't act until he got the League of Nations in first; likewise Dubya. These were fig leaves but they did predestine the day when others would have to approve our military actions first, as Om seems altogether too eager to do.

Posted 3:28 PM by Gene

Speaking of stupid, pointless things, we expect Sen. Redlight to be stupid and pointless, and by extension the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and all of our governing class.

Posted 3:25 PM by Gene

Corporations Are Spending Their Record Profits on Stupid, Pointless Things [Home-page link]

No doubt true -- but in typical Grate.com fashion this link leads to a story that has nothing to do with stupid, pointless things, just a rehash on how corporate America isn't spending its profits on rehiring people. Because it's misleading this link is a stupid, pointless thing, and it underlines how too much of the Web is full of stupid, pointless things.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

Syrian government resigns: state television

Does that mean the head guy resigns? Didn't think so.

Posted 6:56 PM by Gene

MOGUL'S FRIEND gets down on hands and knees and everything else to worship his mentor Mr. Thumbs®-Up for predicting all sorts of movie marvels back in 1987 -- HIGH-DEF! MOVIES ON DEMAND!! -- only he seems to have left out one thing, which a COMMENTER had to remind us of:

He didn't predict how awful most Hollywood films would be.

Posted 5:10 PM by Gene

ONNNNNNWARD KOOOOCHIANNNNNNNNNN SOOOOOOOOL-DIERRRRRRRRRRRS KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH! Even this TownHall.com writer must concede in his own way that con-SER-va-tives made a tactical error by focusing on KILLING UNIONS. All they had to do was highlight their excesses, especially in education. But no, they wanted to kill unions for exactly the same reason liberals want to kill FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS. And things were on their side; anti-union sentiment surely helped the Tea Party and the GOP in the House. This is why the NO-COMPROMISE attitude ultimately fails. There is no crime in getting half a loaf.

Posted 4:53 PM by Gene

The good news:

Global recorded music sales fall almost $1.5bn amid increased piracy

The bad news: The usual suspects are probably listening to more junk music through downloads.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH! HEEEEEEEEE'S SOOOO KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE!!!!!

We well remember how the old Broadway had theater critics. Brooks Atkinson (respected enough to have a house named for him), Walter Kerr (ditto), Harold Clurman, Stanley Kauffmann, John Simon -- they were read, and believed. We forget that although now regarded as glorified gag writers Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker wrote reviews; they could be tough. We imagine Branson has "shoppers". ("Broadway! The Star-Spangled Celebration is simply FANTASTIC!") As that crooked street in Midtown Manhattan increasingly apes THE REAL THING, so its revuers increasingly APE Branson shoppers. Certainly the tourist traps aren't worthy to be taken seriously. When do NOO YAWK's rags take the hint and stop running "theater" advertorials?

Posted 10:09 AM by Gene

When GEORGE SOROS!!!!! spends money to build concentration camps for His enemies, He may as well spend it on the right. When the KOCHES!!!!! spend money to make unions illegal and so the rich won't pay any taxes, They may as well spend it on the left. We are TOLD these morons are business GENIUSES, so when it comes to politics why do They not have brain cells enough to realize They engage in reverse psychology?

Posted 8:20 AM by Gene

We mourn today because our impoverished TV networks have busted their moth-eaten wallets "covering" disasters, but what really makes us laugh -- CRY is all the money Cable Nuisance Network's spent just to further besmirch its rep with wall-to-wall small talk. Tragic, isn't it?

Posted 9:39 PM by Gene

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

1. This is a reason FACEBOOK!!!!!!!!!! is worth 250 MEGAQUADRAGIGAZILLIONS -- because of its potential to ANNOY PEOPLE WITH "PERSONALIZED" ADVERTISING!!!!! It won't work. The more Mark and Co. prod people with ads the more likely the crowd will vanish to other social networking sites. But you know they'll be under pressure to turn the site into one long AD to justify the idiot valuations, so they'll go at it full bore.

And we'd guess this crowd is the exact same crowd that got riled up when GROUPON's CEO boasted of his SUPER BOWL ducats -- that may explain the sudden precipitous drop in its business in February. Then again people may just be tiring of such sites due to "deal overload". Here's hoping it's permanent if only to spite those drooling idiots of the Wall Street Casino, but we wonder.

2. MillerCoors "beating" INBEV-Anheuser Busch is something of a pyrrhic victory. It hasn't taken away substantial market share, just bragging rights over the number two brand (and guess-who's still number one). It's also for bragging rights in mediocre mass beers. They can't even boast on the patriotism angle as both companies are run by foreigners; the old AB was a little more outward about it. How much beer can advertisers force people to guzzle?

3. How many of us over a certain age will remember Bill Cosby for shilling NEW COKE? That, we'd argue, killed his career. He was already overexposing himself through thousands of campaigns. Of course one could know his career was over by that most unimpeachable of signals -- when he first made the cover of what used to be the flagship of "Time, Inc." (The second time was after the horrible murder of his son.)

Posted 4:37 PM by Gene

There goes The Bracketologist's bracket!

15-28 in free throws!

Hmmm, no number-one seeds left! That's okay, we'll just triple our promos.

Posted 4:09 PM by Gene

HARDY HAR HAR! A blurb like this wouldn't ordinarily merit our attention -- news hacks write in clichés! Who knew? -- but somehow EJ's on the top of this list, and he THINKS in clichés. Writing clichés and thinking clichés are not possible one without the other, and they're part of the scourge of awful writing that makes us hate news hacks and their outlets, and we believe in GIGO strongly enough to think it hurts our society.

Posted 11:08 AM by Gene

Speaking of incompetents, the zillionaires at G000,000,000,000,000,000GLE have come up with a new plan to bollix up Blogger posts! It's called:

http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

...and it seems to happen when posting from the new! IMPROVED!! FIREFOX 4!!!

What hath gods wrought?

Posted 11:06 AM by Gene

When it comes to celebrities and Israel, the headlines in recent years have highlighted stars who cut ties at the request of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, an international activist network that sees Israel as an oppressor and seeks its isolation in virtually every realm.

It has latched onto entertainers as a public way to ostracize Israelis and humiliate them overseas. (Critics note ruefully that, in addition to overlooking Palestinian transgressions, the same artists usually have nothing in particular to say about China, Russia or repressive Muslim regimes.)

Yep, however many times she married, Liz did good.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

Newt Gingrich: Barack Obama leads with his foot

Don't talk, Newt! Your favorite food is filet of SOLE.

Posted 9:54 AM by Gene

John Tammany -- Tamny makes a -- point:

The late great political economist Jude Wanniski used to say....

That Louis Farrakhan was a great man? Oh. Go on, John! Go on!

Well?

I think Tammy wants to say AT&T-T-Mobile will be a great merger because it can replicate the old Standard Oil in wireless, only he's too shrewd to say it, so he dispenses the usual free-en-ter-prise bull even the Aynists don't believe.

Well?

P. S.

How do you pronounce “Ayn”?

“Ayn” rhymes with “mine.”

For now, we'll pronounce it our way -- although we'd like to pronounce it both ways at the same time.

Did Ayn Rand have any children?

Miss Rand and her husband, Frank O’Connor, chose not to have any children.

On the contrary, she had millions of children -- and one of them is John Tammany, who, like many Aynists, is still very much a child.

Posted 12:27 AM by Gene

Déjà vu over child deaths in Florida

For years, brutal child deaths have begat task forces, which produced reports – followed by still more child deaths.

This will happen with government. This will also happen when government is a replacement parent because too many parents have abdicated their duties -- and their senses.