Archive for January, 2009
 Links of the Week (as opposed to the Weakest Link)
Bill Simmons, ESPN.com, the Sports Guy, on the airliner guided to a crash-landing in the Hudson River:
And was anyone else on a “what will be the New York Post headline?” e-mail chain Thursday? My pick was “FLY-TANIC!!!”
Gideon Levy, Haaretz:
No pilot or soldier went to war to kill children. Not one among them intended to kill children, but it also seems neither did they intend not to kill them. They went to war after the IDF had already killed 952 Palestinian children and adolescents since May 2000. Full story »
 Michelle Malkin, and her commenters, are complaining that Obama supporters have desecrated the flag. She’s right, of course – that’s technically flag desecration, and she’s got the Flag Code section quoted to prove it.
But if you’re all pissed off about that, how about Olympic athletes wrapping themselves in the flag? Or flag napkins? Or a car painted as a flag? Flying a flag in the rain or leaving it up overnight unlit? Flag beach towels? Flags on campaign buttons? In every case, that’s mistreatment of the U.S. flag, according to the Flag Code. Full story »
 Beach Log Colors Full story »
It’s winter, and just as ever summer brings out kooks claiming that a hot spell in Colorado is the result of global warming, so too does winter bring out the kooks claiming that record cold temperatures and snowfall in New England means global warming is bunk. In both cases people are confusing weather and climate. So, as an Official S&R Public Service Announcement™, here’s the definitions of weather and climate, as well as a number of easy to understand examples of each. Full story »
A business ought to make a profit if it’s properly capitalized and wisely run. If it is neither, it fails. Today, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11, joining the Tribune Co., publisher of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, in the red-ink tank.
With assets of $493.2 million and liabilities of $661.1 million, the Strib, as it’s commonly known, certainly qualifies as undercapitalized. (Yes, we know: Declines in print advertising revenues had a great deal to do with this.) Wisely run? Less than two years ago, then-owner McClatchy Co. sold the Strib to a private equity group, Avista Capital Partners of New York, for $530 million.
So what does a gaggle of “seasoned professionals” — whose Web site says its “Global Partnership Strategy of focus, collaboration and expertise in business and investing—will enable us to do more than just make ‘good buys’ in today’s market … and supports management and enhances operational performance, creating real value” — know about newspapering?
Full story »
Sunday, January 18 will be the 97th anniversary of the day Robert Falcon Scott’s British Terra Nova Expedition arrived at the South Pole in 1912. As many may know, there was a race to the Pole with the Norwegian, Roald Amundsen — a race the British lost. They also lost their lives, with the weakened, last three members of the five-man team to reach the Pole slowly dying of dehydration, starvation, and gangrene only 11 miles from the safety of One Ton Depot, where supplies, medical attention, and a relief party awaited them.
At the time, the story of the party’s demise made headlines larger than those for the sinking of the Titanic, because the elements of the story, interpreted in an ever-so-slightly-post-Edwardian way, made for a tragic tale in the heroic literary tradition. In many ways, those elements still do, but with a twist that is both modern and at least as ancient as Sophocles.
Terra Nova is an utterly marvelous but rarely performed play about the Scott Expedition written by Ted Tally, who won an Academy Award for his screenplay for Silence of the Lambs. Tally wrote Terra Nova as a graduate project at Yale, and it went on to win the Obie Award for best Off-Broadway play — a nearly unheard of accomplishment for a first-time effort. The play is currently being produced in Longmont, Colorado through January 24, and this trailer provides some insights into the history, production, and script. Full story »
In a parting gesture, young Mr. Bush gave us the opportunity to laugh him off the world stage, perhaps the only fitting way to celebrate the end of his tragic reign of pratfalls. On January 12, Shuckin’ and jivin’ and smirkin’ and quirkin’, Bush gave his farewell press conference. Part sulk, part self-affirmation, part psychotic outburst, his antics before the White House press corps were high farce that could have been penned by Moliere or Aristophanes.
The only mistake he made with Hurricane Katrina was not landing Air Force One in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. He’s thought “long and hard” about that one, and when asked what has be done about Katrina’s aftermath three and a half years after the fact, he replied, “Well, more people need to get in their houses.”
Full story »
I love plants; in fact, i prefer the company of plants to that of people and i consider our green companions the higher life form. So when i saw Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet (Oliver Morton) staring at me from a shelf in the bookstore, i caved. I didn’t even need the jacket blurbs making statements like, “A book that may reorder the way you think about the world…” (The Economist). I was after the advertised “…complete biography of the earth through the lens of this mundane and most important of processes [photosynthesis].” My expectations were high. Mr. Morton exceeded them with massive amounts of historical and scientific information rendered in rich prose.
Full story »
 The image is striking. A fat, sweaty and uncomfortable-looking white man is squatting on the back of a large black man. The white man is holding a dry canvas bag over the head of the black man and looking sadly and nervously at the camera.
The Truth Commission was unlike any trial the world had ever seen. In exchange for complete disclosure about all past crimes, both known and unknown, claimants would be given complete absolution. In the case of this one sweaty white man, his victim had asked that he demonstrate how he had tortured him.
Waterboarding has become famous. Place a thick, heavy and wet fabric over your victim’s head, and then hold them stationary. It causes no lasting physical damage, but gives a very real sense of drowning. Anyone who has ever had a similar experience knows it is terrifying. Full story »
 I was living in NC when Colorado’s governor, Bill Ritter, was elected, and therefore didn’t follow the campaign closely and don’t really know a lot about the guy except that he’s bound to be better than his predecessor, Bill Owens. Short of actually outlawing schools, Owens did all he possibly could to destroy education in the state, and I’m sure everybody in the tourism industry will remember when his dumb ass stepped in front of the cameras a few summers back to announce that “today, the entire state of Colorado is on fire.” He didn’t actually say “please take your tourism dollars to Utah,” but he might as well have.
Lately, though, I’m learning that a lot of my fellow Coloradans don’t much like Ritter, and this includes a lot of Democrats who voted for him. Full story »
Remember the days when you’d bring in the newspaper from the front porch and drop it on the kitchen table, hearing a satisfying thunk as it landed? Remember when the newspaper had heft?
The newspaper business is contracting, much like a hypothermia victim losing circulation in the extremities to protect the body’s core. The recession now swallowing the global economy has accelerated that shrinkage.
Newspapers have contracted in physical size, rate of print publication, ability to produce quality journalism in quantity, reputation for credibility, meaningful participation in public discourse — and, of course, revenue. Their corporate leaders say the lousy revenue’s their problem; therefore, either more revenue or fewer expenses will solve the problem. Well, they’re not getting more revenue. Hence, the contractions.
And that is the problem: The newspaper industry doesn’t recognize what its problem truly is. Well, here it is: Newspapers no longer control readers’ habits.
Full story »
We’ll never have a clearer demonstration of the Israel Lobby’s unwarranted influence over the U.S. media. Israel, backed and armed by the world’s sole superpower, is committing atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza, an ethnic group, confined to a tiny strip of land, that Israel has attempted to starve into submission for over a year and a half. Defending the ethnic group is Hamas, an irregular force armed largely with makeshift weapons like rockets it manufactures from steel tubes and fertilizer.
Yet to hear America’s newspaper of record tell the story, Israeli forces face a “war full of traps and trickery.” According to a January 10 New York Times story by Steven Erlanger, Hamas, “with training from Iran and Hezbollah” (of course), has turned Gaza “into a deadly maze of tunnels, booby traps and sophisticated roadside bombs.”
Full story »
Few conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seem restrained by reason; worse, someone inevitably tosses out the word “Zionism” in some form or another. Things generally go to hell after that. “Antisemitism” follows closely on the invocation of the dreaded Zionist, and from then on the “conversation” too often becomes a matter of person A proving that person B hates Jews and person B either defending himself or cloaking actual antisemitism in the guise of being anti-Zionist. All sorts of proofs and arguments follow from both sides. I like to call it the good Jew/bad Jew routine.
It was recently suggested that a glossary of terms should be developed. Unfortunately, many of these terms are subjective and a true glossary would need to be provided by each user of the word. But the call to duty was raised and i’ve supplemented what i already knew with some quality time at Mid-East Web, the Jewish Virtual Library, and E-Zion. I purposefully did not visit “anti-Zionist” resources because i don’t really believe that there’s a Zionist in my closet or that a shadowy cabal of powerful, Jewish bankers is plotting the domination/destruction of the planet. I don’t believe in Leprechauns either.
Full story »
[Please note: While the "Challenge" is based on material from MediaBloodhound's pages, we thought the experience of this annual trainwreck would be universal. - B. Jacobson, MBH]
The following are quotes and headlines culled from this past year at MediaBloodhound (keep in mind some were said or written prior to ’08 but noted here during the year). Some are real (fact) and others are from satirical articles (fiction) posted under “The Wounded-Courier.” See if you can distinguish between the two. Once you’ve answered all the entries — but not before because multiple entries may come from the same post and checking one might give away another — you’ll find the answer key at the very bottom.
All right, news junkies and media mavens, the 2008 Fact or Fiction Challenge is on:
1) “Hey, tell Brokaw to suck it.” – Chris Matthews, following Tom Brokaw’s on-air dressing down of Matthews during MSNBC coverage of the Democratic primary race
2) “If we had a state-run media, how would it be any different?” – Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman
3) “Worse than seventeen Donna Rices sitting on Obama’s lap on a luxury yacht called ‘Monkey Business.” – Gary Hart, one-time Democratic presidential hopeful, on John Kerry’s endorsement of Barack Obama Full story »
 Manhole cover with paint Full story »
 Our Best CDs of 2008 continues today with a review of the super-premium Platinum Award winners for Excellence in rocking and rolling. As with last week’s Gold Awards, these are in alphabetical order. Band Web sites link to the band name, and if the CD is available via eMusic, that links to the CD title. (Mike Smith of Fiction 8, in last week’s comments, recommended that you buy from the band’s Web site or Amazon, if possible, because the artists get a better cut of the proceeds that way. Duly noted.)
Speaking of Fiction 8, let’s get this out of the way first
Fiction 8 – Project Phoenix
I have a rule – I never include in my official ratings CDs that I had something to do with, no matter how great I think they are. And since I co-wrote “Hegemony,” the track that closes this disc, that means that Fiction 8 is officially disqualified. This doesn’t mean I can’t tell you what I think I’d think about the record if I weren’t laboring with a conflict of interest, though. Full story »
 “Leave them nothing but their eyes to cry with.”
– Attributed to a Union colonel of the Civil War serving as an adviser to the Prussian General Staff during the Franco-Prussian War.
The United Nations has called for an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza strip.Pope Benedict XVI has also called for a ceasefire, and senior Vatican official Cardinal Renato Martino describes Gaza as “a big concentration camp.” Full story »
The new season of PBS’s long running series Masterpiece Theatre, now known simply as Masterpiece, kicked off last Sunday with a new adaptation of Thomas Hardy‘s brilliant examination of gender relations and cultural mores, Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
The production is first rate. The actors, young and earnest as they are, seem to have a clear grasp of the key issues of the novel, quaint as they may seem to sophisticated Post-Sexual Revolution viewers. I can recommend it without reservation, something I couldn’t do for last year’s Complete Jane Austen.
In fact, a useful question for us to consider is whether it makes sense for Masterpiece to offer such a production of Tess. Who would get an exploration of the double standard in these times? Full story »
 In an inspirational finale to the 2008-9 college football season, Jesus Christ ran for 109 yards and threw for 231 yards and two touchdowns to lead the University of Florida to a 24-14 victory over Oklahoma in the BCS “national championship” game. It capped a perfect season for the sport’s first infallible human being, who gave all the credit to His personal Lord and Savior, Himself.
The game was a dramatic one from the outset. Full story »
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