Eugene David ...The One-Minute Pundit |
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! |
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Posted
10:28 PM
by Gene
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.
Posted
7:02 PM
by Gene
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!
Posted
3:10 PM
by Gene
And that's still professional college basketball's motto 25 years later.
Posted
1:49 PM
by Gene
(Via HENRY HONEST!)
Posted
12:15 AM
by Gene
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
Posted
10:05 PM
by Gene
“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'!
Posted
9:44 PM
by Gene
Posted
9:24 PM
by Gene
U.S. exploring possible war crimes charges against Syria
Posted
9:16 PM
by Gene
Posted
11:51 AM
by Gene
(Via Daily Intel)
Posted
11:42 AM
by Gene
Posted
11:31 AM
by Gene
Posted
11:20 AM
by Gene
Posted
10:30 AM
by Gene
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Posted
7:57 PM
by Gene
(Via Weekly Standard)
Posted
6:42 PM
by Gene
Posted
6:22 PM
by Gene
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.
Posted
3:50 PM
by Gene
Posted
9:19 AM
by Gene
Posted
9:02 AM
by Gene
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)
Posted
12:22 AM
by Gene
What would have happened had their team won? (Via Boston.com) Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Posted
9:08 PM
by Gene
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.
Posted
6:56 PM
by Gene
Meantime LALA gives us a warning -- preview.
Posted
6:20 PM
by Gene
Posted
6:14 PM
by Gene
Posted
5:37 PM
by Gene
Posted
5:34 PM
by Gene
The illness of being a CONGRESSMAN.
Posted
5:31 PM
by Gene
This is precisely why talk of restoring "shame" to the public commons is useless.
Posted
5:29 PM
by Gene
Posted
8:22 AM
by Gene
Posted
8:10 AM
by Gene
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
Posted
8:18 PM
by Gene
Two charged with stealing 11 boxes of condoms, Nair, body oil (Via MUGS IN THE NEWS!)
Posted
8:09 PM
by Gene
![]() 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)
Posted
5:10 PM
by Gene
![]() The picture says it all, although the effect would be perfect with the ring Photoshopped out.
Posted
2:31 PM
by Gene
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)
Posted
2:00 PM
by Gene
Posted
11:50 AM
by Gene
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.
Posted
11:31 AM
by Gene
Posted
11:14 AM
by Gene
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.
Posted
8:50 AM
by Gene
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
Posted
6:44 PM
by Gene
(Via NRO)
Posted
6:31 PM
by Gene
![]() ...when it considers affronts like this harmless shoulder-shrugging industrial hazards.
Posted
6:03 PM
by Gene
Posted
5:59 PM
by Gene
No, it will be the business as usual of fleecing taxpayers so a bunch of rich people and tone-deaf CEOS can parade all over half of a country watching boring sports while ordinary people get held hostage -- especially annoying as of course traffic VANISHES during the GAMES, because most people have SENSE.
Posted
5:44 PM
by Gene
Posted
5:23 PM
by Gene
Posted
5:21 PM
by Gene
Of course the NPCPCAA knows how to count: $10 billion, $20 billion, $30 billion, $300 trillion....
Posted
5:05 PM
by Gene
(Via the usual AHTSJournal)
Posted
5:05 PM
by Gene
![]() Speaking of Miami, and speaking of an industry without shame, only millions of dollars could buy THIS kind of bad publicity.
Posted
4:50 PM
by Gene
Posted
10:49 AM
by Gene
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!
Posted
9:53 AM
by Gene
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Posted
10:43 PM
by Gene
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.
Posted
10:05 PM
by Gene
Posted
11:45 AM
by Gene
As I've said before, we won't learn the truth about Him until after He's gone -- assuming He goes.
Posted
10:51 AM
by Gene
Posted
10:48 AM
by Gene
Last requests. In death, John Ross wanted his ashes mixed with pot, rolled into a joint, and smoked at his funeral... more»
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