Archive for June 2009
As much as it’s feasible in light of the enormous deficits on the horizon, this is a cool idea:
U.S. to Forgive Indonesian Debt in Exchange for Conservation Plan, Wall Street Journal
The more forest that’s protected to suck in CO2, the better, and obviously a poor nation’s government benefits when the debt evaporates.
You heard it here first: Neverland is the new Graceland.
Man, what a week for news. It’s been a while since we had such a contrast of the important (Iran) and the junk-ridden (Transformers 2 = 2nd highest grossing opening ever).
- My vote for biggest story: Considering that I live in the U.S., it has to be the start of American withdrawal from Iraqi cities. There’s the potential for the sectarian pot to boil over again now that American troops won’t be piled onto the lid anymore, but the alternative of policing the country forever isn’t going to work. This is all after the fighting there has been all but forgotten by the general public. I’d put Iran second, and the dramatic turnaround the nation’s opinion of Michael Jackson third, but in my mind it was a return to the big story of the decade.
- Michael Jackson: it’s sad that the guy fell so far from the heights of the ’80s and never made it back, but the country this week seemed to forget the past 15 years in a single afternoon. This is the same thing that happened when Richard Nixon died — granted, Nixon did real harm to the country, while Jackson was just weird — but I wonder if it’s a uniquely American thing for national opinion of a controversial guy to turn on a dime whenever that guy passes on.
- I first heard about Jackson’s death on Twitter myself, but this is just incorrect. You know what I did after I first read that whiff of the story on Twitter? Started hitting the NY Times, CNN and BBC news sites. You can’t note that people check the “respected” news outlets before they really believe an account of something, then turn around and say that this proves those respected news outlets are pointless. Plus, I don’t get the comment about TMZ representing “the new realities of journalism” when they got their scoop through old-fashioned reporting. The truth is that the base of all news will always be reporting, and obviously you don’t have to be a giant, 100-year-old paper to do that, but it still has to happen somewhere along the line.
Let’s also face the fact that TMZ had nothing to lose by claiming Jackson was dead at the very first moment there was speculation. He’s not actually dead? “Well, they’re just a tabloid anyway.” He died? “Brilliant job getting the story!”
- Guy who benefited the most from Michael Jackson’s death: Mark Sanford.
Guys who benefited the least: Anybody out on the street in Iran. Just as the Iranian government counter-reaction gets ugly, too.
- Gail Collins said it better than I can on Sanford: it’s not that he committed an affair or that he’s a total moral hypocrite that makes him a bad governor; it’s the fact that by definition, bailing out on being governor tends to make one a bad governor. And no, I don’t feel bad for him, even if I give him credit for a more human response than most politicians caught cheating.
- And speaking of red-state moralists, who knew that Utah has the highest rate of subscription to pornographic sites?
- Transformers 2 has been a lot of fun for me, and I haven’t even seen it: every critic has sharpened the knife for the review, so at that point it’s a contest to see who can get it the sharpest. Naturally Roger Ebert’s review is brilliantly written, but I also liked Dana Stevens in Slate and The A.V. Club. I like my wit dry, with just a hint of acid.
The funniest part of it all is that Transformers 2 has been critically hated-on more than any movie I can remember, yet it also had the second-highest opening of all time. (Thankfully for the American cultural soul, Dark Knight barely kept the top slot.) One of the commercials this week even ran a bunch of critical excerpts with the tiniest possible font for attribution. Interesting move by the studio to do a Terrell Owens on the Dallas 50-yard line.
- R.I.P., Billy Mays. As I felt the need to tell anyone each time he showed up on TV, the dude was from Pittsburgh. The guy sold some bizarre products, but he was the rare salesman where I enjoyed the pitch.
As a tribute to the man, I will republish that in the style he knew best:
R.I.P. BILLY MAYS! AS I FELT THE NEED TO TELL ANYONE EACH TIME HE SHOWED UP ON TV, THE DUDE WAS FROM PITTSBURGH! THE GUY SOLD SOME BIZARRE PRODUCTS, BUT HE WAS THE RARE SALESMAN WHERE I ENJOYED THE PITCH!
The TV world lost a truly fun character. Vince from ShamWow just isn’t the same.
Morning, all.
I was reading my Morning Coffee links today and clicked on this story at the WSJ:
Republicans Press Obama on Iran
It details some criticism of the President for not speaking out loudly enough in support of the protests, particularly by Lindsay Graham. Fortunately, for once I agree with George Will, who called the criticism “foolish”, because that’s just what it is.
In case you haven’t noticed, Iran’s rulers like to refer to us as “The Great Satan” and blame us for pretty much anything that ever goes wrong in their state. Cat in Qom can’t stop hacking up a hairball? Gotta be covert anti-feline agents of the Great Satan. That’s not to say it’s all based in fantasy; there was that 1953 CIA-backed overthrow of Mossadegh and the subsequent Shah-endorsing that we did for decades. With that realization, which the G.O.P. is conveniently ignoring, the President is right to keep his mouth shut and let the protests run on. There’s probably no one else in the world with as much of an interest in the weakening of the Iranian regime than the President of the U.S.A. — that’s a lot of headaches in one government — so it’s pretty silly to think that Obama doesn’t support the protests. He’s just being smart about it: the very instant he says anything in support of the protesters, Ahmadinejad and Khamenei will be glad to jump all over it and transfer blame. Hell, they’re already trying it, even with the President supposedly doing nothing about the situation.
So while it’s easy to sit back and reflexively hate on whatever the Administration is doing, in this case it’s hella misinformed. You’d think these dudes would have learned a lesson from the last President about well-intentioned election endorsements that then backfire, but then the G.O.P. reps really have little to lose by going on the attack. That doesn’t mean it’s not ill-informed.
As a trivia-night fan and former webdev pro, I tried to write an SEO-friendly headline for this one because it deserves so much promotion:
http://herecomestreble.wordpress.com/
Some friends and I are out looking for trivia bar nights in Chicago right now, and this website is a gold mine. Visit it!
… and after all the hard-fought series of 2009, there’s only one more thing to say:
Let’s Go Pens.
This is an oddly beautiful contrast of the spiritual and the profane, courtesy of the lyric poet Sean Combs:
I can’t wait for the new Maxwell album on july 7th!!! My soul is thristy [sic] for some real shit!!!!
