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5.29.2004
5.27.2004
drink up
mtv takes a stand
so mtv, of all stations, has decided not to run ads for supersize me, the award-winning expose on just how bad fast food is for you. the official word is that mtv found the ads "disparaging to fast food restaurants." you have to laugh.
as a side note, i actually went to the theater to see supersize me a couple of weeks ago, and what i saw of it was very good. yes, i fell asleep in the theater, but that in no way reflects on the quality of the documentary, only on my own abilities to function normally after 10 p.m. 5.26.2004
idolized
val on american idol: "it's showchoir run amok."
after seeing those white jumpsuits during tonight's medley, i am inclined to agree.
the rise and fall of a blog post about camera phones
so it turns out that the story about the pentagon's new ban on cameraphones in iraq isn't exactly accurate -- a general restriction on wireless equipment was already in place at the time the prior story was written, and it's kind of left up to the commanders in the field on how to interpret and enforce its provisions. cameraphones appear to be in the pentagon's sights, i suppose, but strictly speaking, they aren't exactly "cracking down" on their use in and around iraq.
can't even trust news aggregators like yahoo! news, these days. :) 5.25.2004
i won't get up until the sun goes down
some words that made up my day:
air conditioner copy machine pro se continuance turkey sandwich kiss me deadly mama stipulation cobra horshack appraiser fever cow bell graduation carrott rash how was yours? 5.23.2004
luther would be proud
an interesting sidebar/addendum to my earlier post about clay shirky's essay re: cameraphones and cultural revolution:
rumsfeld bans camera phones in iraq a similar ban was already in effect, i believe, as reported on 60 minutes ii a couple of weeks ago (the night that they ran clips from a video diary shot by one of the soldiers stationed at a military prison in iraq, who commented several times on the tape about how she wasn't supposed to have a video camera with her...) so this means, what, they'll examine every soldier's phone? daily searches of guards and soldiers who ostensibly are trustworthy? i assume that most soldiers don't have cameraphones and other "banned" devices, but how would you know? is it the honor system that keeps them in line -- and if that's the case, then where'd all those pictures from abu ghraib come from in the first place? anyway, it certainly bolsters up shirky's original thesis. a clampdown like this is almost certainly going to generate more pictures rather than suppress them, because of their now-forbidden quality. ain't technology wonderful? 5.22.2004
5.20.2004
gao makes a stunning discovery: government agencies promote their programs
ok, maybe i'm just too entrenched in my industry, and this is actually a shock to the rest of the world. but the gao has declared that dhhs violated anti-propaganda laws when it distributed a vnr (video news release for those non-pr types) for the new medicare plan. when i first heard about this story about a month ago, i laughed it off, because vnrs are common practice for many organizations, whether public, private or government. basically, it's a preproduced news story--similar to a written news release, except it's designed for the evening news instead of the daily paper. and yes, just like a news release, it is presented as if it were a complete news story. it's up to the media outlet to determine how to use the information. sometimes, just as with news releases, the outlet will run the pre-produced package without edit or change. in this case, the vnr ran on 40 different stations around the country. apparently, the gao is not amused.
i think a lot of people would be shocked by the frequency with which news outlets of all types rely on pr materials for their stories. i'll give you another example. a colleague of mine last week sent around the office a press release issued by the kerry campaign that blasted president bush's record on education. (the release doesn't appear in the "news" section, but in kerry's blog.) bush was making a campaign stop and touting his education record; the kerry camp release gave examples and quotes to color the president's record negatively. this negative tone bled its way into a story written by the houston chronicle's bennett roth. throughout the entire article, roth presents many of the facts and research lifted from the kerry release as though it was his original research--in fact, the kerry campaign isn't even quoted or mentioned until the bottom third of the article. is all pr propaganda? should it all be banned--news releases, vnrs, other kinds of outreach? "propaganda," or promoting one's own agenda or information, has been and will continue to be a way of life. the u.s. government is not immune (hello, war in iraq and "embedded" journalism). i think the challenge really lies with journalists to work harder at sifting through the available information to put together fair, accurate, and multi-sided reports. hometown boy
i expect this will be appearing in wapo at some point in the near future, but this is... well. i'll just link you to wonkette and swamp city and let you follow the story of washingtonienne and a certain hometown senator. not for the squeamish, but funny in a morbid, inside-baseball way.
5.19.2004
5.18.2004
5.17.2004
unedited
from romanesko: secretary of state colin l. powell's deputy press secretary "pulled the plug" while powell was being interviewed by tim russert on sunday's "meet the press." russert calls the incident "press management gone berserk."
the official state department response is that russert went over his allotted ten minutes of interview time, that fox news (!) was waiting to do theirs immediately afterward, and that state "didn't want to keep them waiting". i tape meet the press every week, so this was a funny little surprise waiting for me on the tivo yesterday evening. i'm guessing state department press aide emily miller is now out looking for a new job, if anyone in the dc area is hiring... update 5/18/04: via wonkette, here's wapo's richard leiby: despite an outcry among media types, the state department yesterday offered its full support for controversial press aide emily j. miller, who shocked both her boss, colin powell, and "meet the press" host tim russert when she ordered a cameraman to stop filming an interview with powell that ran a few minutes over schedule sunday in jordan. people still really say "you are dead to us"? 5.16.2004
5.13.2004
strokes
5.12.2004
fw: the movie the white house doesn't want you to see
so, after having received the following email from moveon.org, i decided it
was time to get off of their mailing list. i mean, really. "the movie the white house doesn't want you to see"? could you guys be any more pathetic? -----original message----- from: peter schurman, moveon.org [mailto:moveon-help@list.moveon.org] sent: wednesday, may 12, 2004 5:33 pm to: gus dahlberg subject: the movie the white house doesn't want you to see dear moveon member, on memorial day weekend, hollywood is releasing a summer blockbuster movie that's making the bush administration very nervous. in fact, they'd rather you didn't see it at all. why? because it's a disaster movie about global warming. while "the day after tomorrow" is more science fiction than science fact, everyone will be talking about it -- and asking "could it really happen?" this is an unprecedented opportunity to talk to millions of americans about the real dangers of global warming and expose president bush's foot-dragging on the issue. it's also a fun movie to see with friends over the holiday weekend. so here's the plan: on memorial day weekend, grab a few friends and go see "the day after tomorrow" -- the movie the white house doesn't want you to see. at the theater, meet up with other moveon members to give out flyers that explain, in everyday language, what causes global warming, how bush's environmental policies could lead us into a real-life climate crisis, and what we can do together to meet this challenge. join in today at: http://www.moveon.org/dayafter/ please also sign our petition calling on bush and congress to prevent a climate crisis, at: http://www.moveon.org/climatecrisis/ ...sincerely, --carrie, joan, noah, peter, and wes the moveon.org team may 12th, 2004 p.s.: you can see the movie trailer at: http://www.dayaftertomorrowmovie.com/ ### ps. it's. a. movie. jurassic park was more science fiction than science fact, but i don't recall a petition to get the white house to pay attention to the possibility that frickin' dinosaurs could walk the earth again. get over yourselves.
on cameraphones and printing presses
clay shirky's interesting (if maybe a bit stretched, metaphorically speaking) essay on how the ease with which today's digital toys, such as cameraphones and moblogs, can release information into the public eye virtually unfiltered is comparable to the effects of the arrival of the printing press upon the catholic church's social and political dominance over europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
the point shirky makes about the power of technology to let images like the abu ghraib abuses out into the wild is, i think, a valid one. after all, for a hundred bucks or so, anyone can be james bond. keeping something secret in such a world is a difficult thing. does that translate into the same kind of fundamental political shift as the lutheran reformation? i doubt it -- but certainly, the culture has to make adjustments for it somehow... i'd like to know how they plan to enforce this one
val, listening to the local news on npr this morning, called me to pass on this little story:
the ohio supreme court will decide whether a judge can order a deadbeat dad not to father any more children, newschannel5 reported. oral arguments before the court were scheduled for yesterday; here's the court's summary of the case and the basic positions each side's taking... 5.11.2004
that's outrageous
from reuters:
senator 'outraged by outrage' at prison abuse washington (reuters) - as others condemned the reported abuse of iraqi prisoners, u.s. sen. james inhofe on tuesday expressed outrage at the worldwide outrage over the treatment by american soldiers of those he called "terrorists" and "murderers." "i'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment," the oklahoma republican said at a u.s. senate hearing probing the scandal. "these prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations," inhofe said. "if they're in cellblock 1-a or 1-b, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. many of them probably have american blood on their hands and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals." ...in heated remarks at odds with others on the senate committee who took aim at the u.s. military's handling of prisoners at the abu ghraib prison outside baghdad, inhofe said that american sympathies should lie with u.s. troops. "i am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations, while our troops, our heroes are fighting and dying," he said. ### more found at http://www.reuters.com/newsarticle.jhtml?type=domesticnews&storyid=5106409 5.10.2004
words of wisdom
from our great president. here is the insightful message he delivered during his most recent press conference, stripped of all non-essential language.
so glad to see suiciders made the cut. from wfmu via wonkette. 5.09.2004
baby mozart
5.06.2004
everything's funnier with
though i make no guarantees regarding one's ability to successfully place an order, you can order a personalized phone call from a monkey here.
5.05.2004
your wtf moment of the day
limbaugh on the abu ghraib debacle:
"rush: exactly. exactly my point! this is no different than what happens at the skull and bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. you know, these people are being fired at every day. i'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? you of heard of need to blow some steam off? these people are the enemy. our people are being fired at, shot at, these are young people that have volunteered to go over there and they're having bullets fired in their way, bombs and mortar fire aimed at 'em by the people that they are guarding and charged to get information from. everybody has a breaking point. now, i'm not suggesting that it's common, normal in disciplined military structures for people to lose control. i'm suggesting that it might be understandable. "...this sucks, folks. this really, really is getting out of hand. it's not about us. and this whole self-absorption with us, why, that makes me look bad. it doesn't make you look bad. you didn't do it. no, it makes ugly american -- you're not an ugly american, we're not ugly americans. screw all this. stop making everything about us. some people did something that was wrong. fini. it's over. fix it. move on." [via wonkette] 5.04.2004
here, kitty, kitty, kitty...
what exactly are y'all feeding your cats over there in the great heart of it all? a browse onto the dc nbc station says a lion is on the loose in your neighborhood (or gahanna woods, to be more precise). some tips to keep you all safe.
5.02.2004
forever twenty-nine
new kid/old kid
also, new links on the side -- acquaintances of mine from hither and yon:
steve pheley -- one-time savant crony, now with his own comics blog. charity larrison -- webdesigner/artist wonkette -- inside-the-beltway political gossip, pointed out to me by my lil' sis. first the times, then usa today, now comics -- liars, liars everywhere
so here's a funny/sad thing: comics and animation writer micah wright, the writer of the recently-cancelled dc/wildstorm comic stormwatch and the author of you back the attack! we'll bomb who we want, a book of remixed propaganda posters satirizing the current us administration, who made a name for himself as a former army ranger-turned-"pacificist"/writer, actually never served in the armed forces. anywhere. wright appears to have been trying to do some damage control by "coming clean" before a column in the washington post broke the story...
all of which is kind of funny, given that wright's stormwatch book was just cancelled by dc/wildstorm, and wright had been very publicly encouraging fans of the book to order copies of the now-cancelled collected edition from amazon.com in an attempt to get dc/ws to publish the thing anyway. kinda puts a whole new spin on the reasons for the cancellation, doesn't it? don't suppose there'll be a whole lot of new micah wright comics coming out from any of the big companies any time soon... although it's already all over the comics blogosphere (and man, does that sound ridiculous when you actually type it out), i saw this first at kevin melrose's thought balloons, so he gets the shout out...
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