THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.
PERMALINKS:
THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY
THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY
AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!
Blogroll Me!
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Saturday, June 18, 2011
Tonight while rummaging through old posts wondering if Bill Buckley's favorite tune really was "Roll Over, Beethoven" (it was) we couldn't help shedding a nostalgic tear for his son, er, Algernon, er, Horatio, er, Christopher! That's it! For old time's sake we plugged into TINA'S site to read one of the most famous essays known to man -- and wouldn't you know...all the comments were gone! WwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwELL! (as Jack Benny would say), this offering us a brilliant opportunity we decided to make up for 32 months of missing celebrations and bitterness with words of our own:
This celebrated lucubration must be the most foolish thing from a professional writer since -- we were about to say since Ezra Pound sold Hitler and Mussolini on the radio, but the man was off his nut then, and unfortunately Christopher seems to have been sane, so we'll say since Oliver Goldsmith apologized for beating Evans the bookseller, which happily goes back much further, and we remember it for words that richly apply here, from the immortal Dr. Johnson: "It was a foolish thing well done." This foolish thing was very well done, exceedingly well done, epochally well done. Here we have a first in all of literature: a career writing a suicide note. Before this Christopher happily chugged along on his name and the connections it opened up for satiric novels people could easily talk themselves into believing were funny, if only because his father demonstrated such a wit with his love of Chuck Berry; and he wrote many, many, many arch words about travel and expensive Champagnes for the late Malcolm Forbes and his brilliant son that happily said same friends could transmute into insight. No doubt in writing this Chris flattered himself highly, for here was a writer almost as good as he! "I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine." Yes, imagine Chris -- his books were as literate, as witty, as refined as -- well, yours! And a man as literate, as witty, as refined as you could go places, forgetting He already traveled Heaven. With "a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect...Obama has in him...the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for." Here was a celebrated satiric writer sprinkling the God with fairy dust, or better still, redundantly anointing Him with holy water -- a parody in itself.
Alas, from the moment of that botched oath of office the fairy dust turned to ashes, the holy water to hydrochloric acid. Christopher could have survived this embarrassment, but being a great writer he had to embarrass himself with a flourish -- not merely by promising great things of a man for the same reasons as would the Nobel committee, and from the same self-regarding reference point, and with words as fatuous as any Nobel proclamation; but more to the point, by burning bridges with his friends, applying so much gasoline to the fire he needed six alarms. And he is still recovering; since then we have been spared more brilliant columns; his friendship with Tina has gone the way of Talk magazine; his brilliant satiric novels come out more quietly, if at all. To put it bluntly, the rara avis has found a statue of Christopher Buckley.
Perhaps his Hero can yet redeem Himself, and thus redeem Chris, although the task would seem even more exponentially expensive with each passing day. Regardless we hope in time Chris can find it in himself to regale book reviewers again with his abundant satire, but as with heroes like Tiger Woods and Anthony Weiner, we hope the moment does not come too soon.
We have not decided whether to post this; possibly it wouldn't post for technical reasons, or it might simply be too long. But we are contemplating it.
This celebrated lucubration must be the most foolish thing from a professional writer since -- we were about to say since Ezra Pound sold Hitler and Mussolini on the radio, but the man was off his nut then, and unfortunately Christopher seems to have been sane, so we'll say since Oliver Goldsmith apologized for beating Evans the bookseller, which happily goes back much further, and we remember it for words that richly apply here, from the immortal Dr. Johnson: "It was a foolish thing well done." This foolish thing was very well done, exceedingly well done, epochally well done. Here we have a first in all of literature: a career writing a suicide note. Before this Christopher happily chugged along on his name and the connections it opened up for satiric novels people could easily talk themselves into believing were funny, if only because his father demonstrated such a wit with his love of Chuck Berry; and he wrote many, many, many arch words about travel and expensive Champagnes for the late Malcolm Forbes and his brilliant son that happily said same friends could transmute into insight. No doubt in writing this Chris flattered himself highly, for here was a writer almost as good as he! "I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine." Yes, imagine Chris -- his books were as literate, as witty, as refined as -- well, yours! And a man as literate, as witty, as refined as you could go places, forgetting He already traveled Heaven. With "a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect...Obama has in him...the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for." Here was a celebrated satiric writer sprinkling the God with fairy dust, or better still, redundantly anointing Him with holy water -- a parody in itself.
Alas, from the moment of that botched oath of office the fairy dust turned to ashes, the holy water to hydrochloric acid. Christopher could have survived this embarrassment, but being a great writer he had to embarrass himself with a flourish -- not merely by promising great things of a man for the same reasons as would the Nobel committee, and from the same self-regarding reference point, and with words as fatuous as any Nobel proclamation; but more to the point, by burning bridges with his friends, applying so much gasoline to the fire he needed six alarms. And he is still recovering; since then we have been spared more brilliant columns; his friendship with Tina has gone the way of Talk magazine; his brilliant satiric novels come out more quietly, if at all. To put it bluntly, the rara avis has found a statue of Christopher Buckley.
Perhaps his Hero can yet redeem Himself, and thus redeem Chris, although the task would seem even more exponentially expensive with each passing day. Regardless we hope in time Chris can find it in himself to regale book reviewers again with his abundant satire, but as with heroes like Tiger Woods and Anthony Weiner, we hope the moment does not come too soon.
We have not decided whether to post this; possibly it wouldn't post for technical reasons, or it might simply be too long. But we are contemplating it.
YAHOO! DOES IT AGAIN! It runs this story about an intern who discovered two "letters" from Abe Lincoln -- and the most popular comment with almost a thousand thumbs up says it all:
Well, that's all very nice, but WHAT THE HELL DO THEY SAY!!! [SIC]
Chicago's Sun-Times reports that
the papers, which bore no signature or date, were part of a legal case out of Christian County, which is southeast of Springfield. Lincoln appears to have written two pages of notes while preparing a petition he filed in March 1844, some two years before the prairie lawyer was elected to Congress.
Still, ya gotta give Yahoo! credit once more for outstanding reporting!
Well, that's all very nice, but WHAT THE HELL DO THEY SAY!!! [SIC]
Chicago's Sun-Times reports that
the papers, which bore no signature or date, were part of a legal case out of Christian County, which is southeast of Springfield. Lincoln appears to have written two pages of notes while preparing a petition he filed in March 1844, some two years before the prairie lawyer was elected to Congress.
Still, ya gotta give Yahoo! credit once more for outstanding reporting!
Sorry, when I think of Len Bias I still hear a coach yelling, "Don't talk t'the p'lice, Ah'm tellin' ya -- DON'T TALK T'THE P'LICE!"
And that's still professional college basketball's motto 25 years later.
And that's still professional college basketball's motto 25 years later.
Mary McCarthy's words increasingly apply to Web "news" and "entertainment" sites too.
(Via HENRY HONEST!)
(Via HENRY HONEST!)
This pretty well confirms the authorities took their dear old sweet time responding to the Vancouver scum, and with a little more digging we'd find out it was for the usual Canadian PC reasons.
Chief Chu said police would have done many things differently if they had known how many people were going to be on the streets. He would have put more officers at the fan-zone on Georgia Street and tightened security along the fences, he said.
Woulda shoulda coulda -- I guess that's what runs Canada.
Woulda should coulda and we'd have run Canada below the 55th parallel.
Chief Chu said police would have done many things differently if they had known how many people were going to be on the streets. He would have put more officers at the fan-zone on Georgia Street and tightened security along the fences, he said.
Woulda shoulda coulda -- I guess that's what runs Canada.
Woulda should coulda and we'd have run Canada below the 55th parallel.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Energy and food costs have risen 19 percent and 4 percent since December, according to the Labor Department. That caused real disposable income, or the money left over after taxes and adjusted for inflation, to remain unchanged. The confluence of higher prices and unemployment at 9.1 percent has become especially acute for households making less than $75,000 a year, according to David Schick, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore.
“More-persistent inflation is affecting consumer confidence,” Schick said. “This may cause low-to-middle income consumers to trade down when shopping at retailers.”
Not MY problem -- or my FRIENDS'!
“More-persistent inflation is affecting consumer confidence,” Schick said. “This may cause low-to-middle income consumers to trade down when shopping at retailers.”
Not MY problem -- or my FRIENDS'!
Spiegel Online, one of the few news Web sites that deserves to be better known than it is, has run an unintentionally annoying profile on Bernie Ecclestone, the tyrant of Formula One and Hitler admirer, who has two beautiful daughters, one of whom just bought a superexpensive mansion here, and it reminds us that most of the business genius of our day got that way not through vision but by shuffling assets, and Bernie is clearly a shuffler nonpareil. The shufflers seem to forget at times the world can live without them; Formula One is virtually invisible in the U. S. We will not forget that great asset shuffler LEGENDARY WELCH was a hero until his rep was forever stained by his shenanigans with his bank. Bernie is 80 and he will soon enough learn whether or not he can take it with him. We ordinarily wouldn't bet against SUMNERS but this one's pretty safe.
We would not guess why Mogul's Friend issued this attack on LUKE SPIELBERG and His follower J. J., but it says in ways Mog might not have wished that a plague has visited them both: LUKE for dumbing down the movies, J. J. for being a puppy-dog fan. Every day we see the scourge idiots have inflicted on the once grand film biz, and winning the Nobel Peace Prize as He will does not erase that LUKE was one of the biggest.
Speaking of yesterday I wouldn't place too much stock in this speed bump: Who remembers the two channels that merged into the profoundly successful COMEDY CENTRAL NEWS? If it keeps up however it condemns those who built up these "icons" through their devotion as fools, and those who'd prolong their reigns as on a fool's errand.
(Via Daily Intel)
(Via Daily Intel)
THE GAMES would not exist without moguls and CEOs, but as they would look funny with only moguls and CEOs attending the organizers have to make a big show of caring for ordinary spectators. What's happened in London is the inevitable result of trying to shoehorn the public into a rich man's orgy, and as too many sojourns with customer service have taught us the words "I'm sorry" have no meaning.
But we must reflect further, and console ourselves: if the luck news hacks celebrate seems so overwhelming now, and they seem so overwhelmingly omnipotent now, think of it and them in twenty years. Who can name five Paper of Re-CORD reporters from twenty years ago? We have said before and to distraction that this age reeks of impermanence, and this enduringly preposterous saga reminds us that the vast bulk of what has lately obsessed us won't qualify as historical footnotes. Who will remember WEINER in twenty years except as the punchline to a bad joke? All this should go without saying but in a world that sometimes seems nothing but PR pranks someone must repeat it.
News hacks as movie stars confirms not only their own stratospheric opinions of themselves but that the whole reporting business is a luck business, where up-and-coming toadies do their adjective-writing best to get all the luck they can protecting their clients' (i.e., subjects') hides. When we start talking about Brian "The Original TV Newser!" Stelter's love life we are clearly talking of people who are now so ostentatiously successful they need have no concern for us peons. The only thing David Carr could have done better was to dress as Louis XIV; that would at least have honestly confirmed the hacks' superiority to their mere readers.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Speaking of con-SER-va-tives, looks as if once more they're trying to blame the housing bust on PO' PEOPLE, but some of the commenters give evidence that may not wash.
(Via Weekly Standard)
(Via Weekly Standard)
Evidently Republicans are in trouble because they've got a conflict: big business and the hyperrich are their idols, and anything to help them helps...them; unfortunately one way of helping them is with subsidies -- think ETHANOL -- and now right-wing clods like Grover "The Arab Lobbyist" Norquist are mad because they say ending certain subsidies amounts to a "TAX INCREASE", meaning we can expect no more courage from Republicans than we can expect sense from Democrats.
The catastrophe in Vancouver says THE GAMES are a Band-Aid, a false front, a mirage; it now seems obvious the city had deep problems well before and beyond the supposed healing powers of that cure for cancer. We also suspect malevolent policing practices helped turn sparks into a conflagration: Canada, after all, is The World's Most PC Country, and the law most likely wasn't out because, well, criminal behavior IS almost a right, and besides what's wrong with a little celebration, and perhaps the mice feared any show of force would goad NEWS HACKS into high dudgeon (they'd have been correct about that), so the necessary proactive response was supplanted by sitting around, which turned in no time into half-hearted apologetic self-defense; only when it became obvious the cretins weren't singing "Kumbaya" as they set cars on fire did any sense finally kick in. There will be the usual self-flagellation, the usual hearings, the usual scapegoats, but there's no sign Vancouver will become any more livable or responsible, or that Canada's leaders will be any less wussies.
Oh, and blaming it on anarchists won't do. By sleeping on the job you should first blame it on YOURSELVES.
Well, there is one hope of the modern world: Idiots did the WEINER, and as that mutt learned to his dense sorrow it can be used against you.
P. S. I suppose this weird picture is our generation's version of the sailor and the girl in Times Square. Maybe if the GENIUS Ridley Scott staged it. I think I'd rather have the sailor and the girl.
And how apt that Vancouver quickly sprouted its own version of the yellow ribbon. Look, the sentiment's nice, but sentiment didn't prevent the DAMAGE.
P. S. on 6/17/2011 at 12:10 p. m. Despite suspicions engendered by a Web whose greatest products are publicity and cynicism that first picture was not staged.
Oh, and blaming it on anarchists won't do. By sleeping on the job you should first blame it on YOURSELVES.
Well, there is one hope of the modern world: Idiots did the WEINER, and as that mutt learned to his dense sorrow it can be used against you.
P. S. I suppose this weird picture is our generation's version of the sailor and the girl in Times Square. Maybe if the GENIUS Ridley Scott staged it. I think I'd rather have the sailor and the girl.
And how apt that Vancouver quickly sprouted its own version of the yellow ribbon. Look, the sentiment's nice, but sentiment didn't prevent the DAMAGE.
P. S. on 6/17/2011 at 12:10 p. m. Despite suspicions engendered by a Web whose greatest products are publicity and cynicism that first picture was not staged.
The bad news for CONCAST NETWORK, from its new boss:
When you're in as bad of shape as we are, to think it can be turned around quickly is foolish. I didn't come here under the guise that it could be turned around quickly. Steve Burke has been very vocal about it, saying it could take four to five years.
The GOOD news: Guess who pays to rebuild it!
Steve Burke’s philosophy is every month or six weeks to have a company-wide priority that we all contribute to. For the fall, it will be the NBC fall schedule. Since the word “synergy” has such a negative connotation, Steve Burke has renamed it “Project Symphony.”
You just ruined classical music for me!
By the way, remind Bob His network once had one and He'd jump off the top of THE CONCAST CENTER.
(Via I Want Media)
When you're in as bad of shape as we are, to think it can be turned around quickly is foolish. I didn't come here under the guise that it could be turned around quickly. Steve Burke has been very vocal about it, saying it could take four to five years.
The GOOD news: Guess who pays to rebuild it!
Steve Burke’s philosophy is every month or six weeks to have a company-wide priority that we all contribute to. For the fall, it will be the NBC fall schedule. Since the word “synergy” has such a negative connotation, Steve Burke has renamed it “Project Symphony.”
You just ruined classical music for me!
By the way, remind Bob His network once had one and He'd jump off the top of THE CONCAST CENTER.
(Via I Want Media)
Well, I guess you don't have to be on the winning side of a sports championship to start a riot.
What would have happened had their team won?
(Via Boston.com)
What would have happened had their team won?
(Via Boston.com)
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
A eulogy for the New York City Opera -- and more:
Looking back, it should have been clear in October how New York City Opera’s year was going to end.
The company opened its season then with the New York premiere of A Quiet Place, the strange, flawed, fascinating final opera by Leonard Bernstein, one of the city’s favorite sons. The opera is close to the heart of City Opera’s artistic director, George Steel, and it felt, in the lead-up, like an “event.” The company treated it as such: in Christopher Alden’s thoughtful production the work received the best possible presentation, and the orchestra sounded great under the young conductor Jayce Ogren. The reviews—it was covered everywhere—were good.
No one came.
These same people put on Mr. Wicked's "opera" to the equally loud acclaim of empty seats. When will people finally admit that outside a few cubbyholes contemporary AH-pe-RA has no following?
P. S. Natch, the reviews weren't that good.
Looking back, it should have been clear in October how New York City Opera’s year was going to end.
The company opened its season then with the New York premiere of A Quiet Place, the strange, flawed, fascinating final opera by Leonard Bernstein, one of the city’s favorite sons. The opera is close to the heart of City Opera’s artistic director, George Steel, and it felt, in the lead-up, like an “event.” The company treated it as such: in Christopher Alden’s thoughtful production the work received the best possible presentation, and the orchestra sounded great under the young conductor Jayce Ogren. The reviews—it was covered everywhere—were good.
No one came.
These same people put on Mr. Wicked's "opera" to the equally loud acclaim of empty seats. When will people finally admit that outside a few cubbyholes contemporary AH-pe-RA has no following?
P. S. Natch, the reviews weren't that good.
TRANSLATION: Ten Os-CAR® nominees didn't work, but the A-ca-de-MY® gives itself an out thinking by promising ten it can pick up viewers.
Meantime LALA gives us a warning -- preview.
Meantime LALA gives us a warning -- preview.
Speaking of Congressmen, because an ex- proposes these Congressional "reforms" means they're zilch amounting to zilch. Most have to do with partisanship, and "an outdated relic of the late 1800s and early 1900s" will not change its age spots. There is one curious proposal however: "Fill committee vacancies by lot." If we're to be bold let's do what National Review proposed many years ago and fill Congress by lot; that way at least it would be a public service, although lobbyists alas could still figure out a way to burrow underneath it.
Proof that Branson East is all about vanity: Spider-Man "opened", and HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM'S MASTERPIECE is "transferring" there.
When Grate.com says Facebook has "peaked", one's first defensive it-can't-be-true thought is there's a statistical fluke somewhere. That said it would be nice for the IPO to appear just as Facebook really did peak.
What do PILLHEAD and SEN. CASANOVA have in common?
This is precisely why talk of restoring "shame" to the public commons is useless.
This is precisely why talk of restoring "shame" to the public commons is useless.
Farm subsidies are still sacrosanct. Let's see how unserious Republicans can be in cutting the rest of the budget.
GASP! TINAWEEK "goes dark" more than expected!
The newsrags can't go dark often enough!
Time magazine is also, uncharacteristically, going dark for a week in August. The magazine normally only goes dark after its Person of the Year issue at the end of December.
"Uncharacteristic"? That anorexic rag?
The newsrags can't go dark often enough!
Time magazine is also, uncharacteristically, going dark for a week in August. The magazine normally only goes dark after its Person of the Year issue at the end of December.
"Uncharacteristic"? That anorexic rag?
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
CRIME OF THE MONTH:
Two charged with stealing 11 boxes of condoms, Nair, body oil
(Via MUGS IN THE NEWS!)
Two charged with stealing 11 boxes of condoms, Nair, body oil
(Via MUGS IN THE NEWS!)
Treble culture....
PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!
The Beeb, being big, fat, lazy old media, won't be blunt, but I will:
I say it's AM RADIO, and I say THE HELL WITH IT.
(Via the usual small, skinny, lazy AHTSJournal)
Duke Nukem got nuked!
One would like to think the video-game audience is finally growing up. That or it's all those BUGS.
P. S. at 8:32 p. m. Or perhaps (alas) they're TOO BLANKETY-BLANK EXPENSIVE.
(Original link via Seeking Alpha)
One would like to think the video-game audience is finally growing up. That or it's all those BUGS.
P. S. at 8:32 p. m. Or perhaps (alas) they're TOO BLANKETY-BLANK EXPENSIVE.
(Original link via Seeking Alpha)
It may not occur to the geniuses auditioning for SUMNER that by all screaming at the top of their lungs no one can hear them. How can 5,000 no-talents penetrate the public mind when they're all doing the same "outrageous" thing?
Now imagine if just one of them had -- talent. Better yet, imagine if one of them had a decent songwriter. That MIGHT cut through the clutter.
Now imagine if just one of them had -- talent. Better yet, imagine if one of them had a decent songwriter. That MIGHT cut through the clutter.
We've tried paying only the slightest attention to this mind-numbing story because "comedians" like politicians are supposed to say stupid things, only this guy got caught. What makes us whinge as much as the stupidity is that our state media successfully demanded he submit to a reeducation camp. If these show-biz morons had any sense we wouldn't hear the stupid things and we wouldn't have the reeducation camps. Thankfully there are dozens more "comedians" where he came from.
NEW FED REGULATION TAKES 887,624 HOURS A YEAR TO COMPLY WITH!!!!!!!!!! (Onerous overemphasis added)
Let's see: 887,624 divided by 2,600 hours a year (assuming a fifty-hour work week and no time off) equals 341 people doing all this paperwork. 341 people divided by the thirty-five megabanks covered means ten people per megabank are slaving under this bone-crushing regulation, people who'd probably be doing something else legalistically stupid. One can surely concoct why federal regulation of banks is dysfunctional -- need we be told? -- but by reducing all such regulation to bean-counting this sounds like a con-SER-va-tive argument, and it has the double advantage of sounding wrong, even if it's statistically right.
Let's see: 887,624 divided by 2,600 hours a year (assuming a fifty-hour work week and no time off) equals 341 people doing all this paperwork. 341 people divided by the thirty-five megabanks covered means ten people per megabank are slaving under this bone-crushing regulation, people who'd probably be doing something else legalistically stupid. One can surely concoct why federal regulation of banks is dysfunctional -- need we be told? -- but by reducing all such regulation to bean-counting this sounds like a con-SER-va-tive argument, and it has the double advantage of sounding wrong, even if it's statistically right.
The U. S. Open is playing in the Beltway this year -- which occasions talk of great amateur golfers:
Franklin D. Roosevelt once won a bet that he could drive a golf ball 300 yards – in part because he waited until winter, then drove it on a frozen pond. Woodrow Wilson played with colored golf balls — some accounts say red, others black — in the winter, better for the Secret Service to track them down in the snow. Dwight D. Eisenhower played more than 100 rounds a year during his eight-year tenure as president. George H.W. Bush once played 18 holes in 1 hour 25 minutes. John F. Kennedy mowed a pasture at his Virginia estate into something of a makeshift golf course, with four par 9s.
And on Saturday His Incompetence, Veep Throttlebottom, Speaker "Cry" Boehner and Gov. "Wonk" Kasich tee it up. FORE!
Franklin D. Roosevelt once won a bet that he could drive a golf ball 300 yards – in part because he waited until winter, then drove it on a frozen pond. Woodrow Wilson played with colored golf balls — some accounts say red, others black — in the winter, better for the Secret Service to track them down in the snow. Dwight D. Eisenhower played more than 100 rounds a year during his eight-year tenure as president. George H.W. Bush once played 18 holes in 1 hour 25 minutes. John F. Kennedy mowed a pasture at his Virginia estate into something of a makeshift golf course, with four par 9s.
And on Saturday His Incompetence, Veep Throttlebottom, Speaker "Cry" Boehner and Gov. "Wonk" Kasich tee it up. FORE!
Monday, June 13, 2011
TWXSTER NEWSRAG has always been about publicity; it was that way from the very first day when "backward ran sentences until reeled the mind"; it was that way sucking up to executives until Henry Luce got the brilliant idea of doing it full-time through Fortune; it was about selling presidential candidates -- Ike, JIMMAH -- and celebrities until three full-throated organization men made that a separate Fort Knox of print; it has always been about selling something. Truth was a distant second. Who here remembers the several renditions of that highly promotional glorified docudrama series The March of Time -- or that Henry had a stake in the Blue Network (the future ABC)? No, for "Can't Anyone Here Edit This Rag?" Stengel to tout this publicity stunt as curing cancer shows just how irrelevant PEOPLE WARNER's former flagship has grown; I wouldn't bet on it surviving to 2030.
(Via NRO)
(Via NRO)
And we know the MEDIA BIZ has no shame...
...when it considers affronts like this harmless shoulder-shrugging industrial hazards.
...when it considers affronts like this harmless shoulder-shrugging industrial hazards.
We did not know who Megan was, but given her CV -- and especially given her extraordinary latest multiple plug -- someone call the GANNETTOIDS: she's ready for the GANG of 27!
We were about to say this is a RICH reward for fleecing people out of their jobs and savings, but this guy, we can be sure, has no sense of shame either.
If MR. BEWKES and UB and SLIME and LORD LULZSEC MUST continue to make tentpoles for mentally defective fanboys, and if they MUST continue to parade them before the mentally defective fanboys' convention, they deserve the consequences.
(Via the usual AHTSJournal)
(Via the usual AHTSJournal)
Someone has had to revive Bill "Gamblin' Man" Bennett's old argument about "shame". Shame has not prevented what seems like a vast uptick in shameful acts, prodded by incalculably more shameful acts on the Web. And as raucously amusing as KING JAMES THE NOTHINGTH is the scum Phil Knight keeps him in hamburger money -- and He is unquestionably without shame, as His ill treatment of His workers documents. Shame has no penalty when it has no force. I am not kidding when I suggest we bring tar and feathers out of retirement.
Irate Power Companies to Sue Berlin For Damages
The best laid plans of mice....
Some experts expect that the nuclear industry could very well win its legal battle against the government's phaseout plan. "I have rarely seen such a poorly drafted law," says Wolfgang Renneberg, who used to be responsible for reactor safety at the Environment Ministry.
Pelosiism is contagious!
The best laid plans of mice....
Some experts expect that the nuclear industry could very well win its legal battle against the government's phaseout plan. "I have rarely seen such a poorly drafted law," says Wolfgang Renneberg, who used to be responsible for reactor safety at the Environment Ministry.
Pelosiism is contagious!
At what point does G000,000,000,000,000GLE become an authoritarian state within the state? With an essentially closed system that knows everything it's inconceivable how it could be otherwise. This article further convinces us it will be in the van of physically merging men with machines. Quentin doesn't ponder either thought most likely because he doesn't want to ask questions, something very typical of DVFORBESLIST. Thankfully these charming utopias are still enough into the future that we won't see them -- we hope.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
CHOKE is an inexcusable word. Choke implies a willful, malevolent desire to lose. No athlete worth his salt has it. We've no doubt the Miami Heat had no desire to lose. However, we make one exception for the man who embodies the worst of the NBA and the worst of being a KING -- so now, in His eternal honor, we utter the magic word:
CHOKE!! CHOKE!!
OR:
Wondering if you can still be a global icon if the Internet is cluttered with jokes about your performance during the NBA Finals.
Favorite: Asked LeBron James for change for a dollar, but he didn’t have the fourth quarter.
A close second: Did you hear McDonald’s is serving up McBrons? Eat it during the fourth quarter and you’re guaranteed to choke!
Yes, it’s come to this for The King, and it truly would be a shame except for how satisfying it is to just about anyone not aligned with the Miami Heat.
Indeed.
CHOKE!! CHOKE!!
OR:
Wondering if you can still be a global icon if the Internet is cluttered with jokes about your performance during the NBA Finals.
Favorite: Asked LeBron James for change for a dollar, but he didn’t have the fourth quarter.
A close second: Did you hear McDonald’s is serving up McBrons? Eat it during the fourth quarter and you’re guaranteed to choke!
Yes, it’s come to this for The King, and it truly would be a shame except for how satisfying it is to just about anyone not aligned with the Miami Heat.
Indeed.
Show-biz news hacks who think the topic isn't serious have shot a well deserved bullet into their feet. But show-biz can't be serious! the Gang of 27 would say. It's all about glamour and glitz and SYNERGY and SELLING! Well consider this almost accidental story about THE 99-CENT MASTERPIECE. Reading your dime-a-dozen would-be-millionaire toadies you'd think it an unmitigated triumph, more so when said toadies think their PR gets them into bedrooms. (In this case, NO COMMENT.) But someone had to suffer -- in this case to the tune of possibly several hundred thousand full-priced CD remainders. Yes, someone has to eat those. A good solid reporter with sense would see the angles in this, and bring forth a respectable, interesting story. All GANGS of 27 can see are THEIR NEXT JOBS.
I'm tired of reading of St. Warren's auction publicity stunts. Every time He does one He merely shows He's out of the public's reach. Besides if He's so charitable why doesn't He quietly give the money out of His pocket, instead of constantly selling Himself?
As I've said before, we won't learn the truth about Him until after He's gone -- assuming He goes.
As I've said before, we won't learn the truth about Him until after He's gone -- assuming He goes.
The other day GRANTLAND.COM, which by its very portentous name gives notice that it will be ESPNCORP's version of GRATE.COM with a generous helping of SI sports verbosity thrown in (pardon -- ESPN The Magazine), ran a story on The World's Greatest Network's Repertory Company. It seems the same actors can be mixed and matched in all Its masterpieces; the author even threw in a chart to prove it. Unfortunately not all repertory companies are created equal. The big studios of the golden age had theirs, and they were so good even the character actors were well known; by contrast we doubt anyone knows the World's Greatest Network's geniuses except for TV cri-TICS and the obsessive viewers who must watch everything and who constantly play with their TiVos, and excluding know-it-alls like Robert Bianco even they might be hard-pressed to match names and faces. And if you can't remember the actors how can you remember the shows? The snide references to "High-Quality Dramas (HQDs)" and "Premium Cable Purgatory" say CRITICAL ACCLAIM may not be all it's cracked up to be.
Why we hardly ever turn to Arts & Letters Daily anymore:
Last requests. In death, John Ross wanted his ashes mixed with pot, rolled into a joint, and smoked at his funeral... more»
Last requests. In death, John Ross wanted his ashes mixed with pot, rolled into a joint, and smoked at his funeral... more»