Wednesday, May 21, 2003

More news on Yale.

Yale Bombed.

Code Orange anyone? I hope not..

Read Salam Pax. He had lots of new interesting news on his site, complete with some fascinating non-media generated images of Iraq.

Pax has become a talking point for certain blogs, some who find him useful to press home some political point or other. Not that Pax has time to defend himself, he's kinda busy at the moment putting his life back together.

hmmmm.. blogspot is refusing to delete as requested..

Okay, I see it fixed itself.. Anyways, what I attempted to say before was the that the place in New York that was so good to eat at was called Mama Mexico.. read about it here thanks to David Adesnik of Oxblog.

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Hawkish Democrats Unite
Found via Oxblog.

Monday, May 19, 2003

Another TV update. Cliff-hanger Season Finales Suck. I am going to have to wait three months to find out what happens, and by then I'm not sure I'll care anymore.

Slate Bashing, or, What Liberal Media Bias?

"Slate.com is sponsored by Microsoft; their function is to tell you what's in Newsweek, the Times, and similar publications from other countries each week. "

Someone tell me who Dave Lippman is, please. I want to thank him for demonstrating that NPR is not as left wing as people say it is. On the Media, while it's not mind blowing stuff, is very interesting to listen to. Why does Lippman expect that because On the Media is NPR, it should be spewing a constant stream of fight-the-power stuff people having being pushing lately as 'Liberalism'. Please note we 'left-wingers' are not all the same, just as right wing folks aren't all carbon copies of Jerry Farwell. Here are two complaints by Mr. Lippman that really irk me,
"Looking at the growth of the internet in China (7/3), they offer  no comment on U.S. firms Yahoo and AOL as unfair competition.  That might interrupt what is essentially a pitch for free enterprise, as represented, apparently, by these two paragons of that virtue."
"A discussion of Bruce Springsteen's song about the police killing of Amadou Diallo, "41 Shots," introduces the groundless and perfectly capricious allegation that this song may be a publicity stunt, as opposed to a protest song (6/18).  This kind of belittling of serious political/cultural envelope-pushing would be expected from Paul Harvey, not from the network of the intelligentsia."
Discussing China, Lippman is adamant that OTM demonstrate its lack of Media Bias by taking aim at Yahoo and AOL, who are now both losing big market share if I recall. I mean really, what news article should be without some snipe at corporate America? Suddenly when On the Media questions an old hippy with a bad voice, Lippman squeals. Springsteen pushes an envelope? What envelope?

In short, you can't have your cake and eat it too. I'm no gigantic fan of AOL etc.. but for the love of puppies, you can't expect un-biased to mean BBC. On the other hand, it can't be Fox news either. But please, this Lippman character thinks its biased towards israel. Now that's funny

Was I going to blog more about the Medici? Yes I think I was.. but the lure of discussing The Bachelor has overcome my desire to sound smart. Lets pull out my big book of pop-sociology and have a little fun, ladies.

Firestone man chose perky Blond Jen over stunning Brunette Kristen!

I think we could safely remove the women's names and we would get the same idea of what's being presented to the person watching the show or reading MSN's wrapup of the story: The Blond one wins again. The truth is, Firestone boy chose Jen because she was more socio-economically matched with him. Her family was well off, with a big home on a lake in Chicago. Most everyone out in California lived at some point in the northeast or midwest. The folks in the Firestone family are northern californian, not birkenstock long haired folk. They are uptight wine country folk.

Kristen, on the other hand, came from Tampa, Florida. Automatic penalty, because Florida and California, though they may both be warm, are completely different socially. She was also a merchandizer. Mer-chan-dizer. Right. Jen was an account manager.

If you watched the two women speaking, you could detect a difference in their linguistic styles that also foretold Kristen's fate. Jen and Andrew shared phrase styles, and Jen lacked the Florida-girl twang that sometimes crept into Kristen's voice. Andrew of course was bland as white bread in all his expressions, but they were squeeky clean, free of slang or accenting that would reveal a geographical origin. Kristen had a distinct southern (not 'country' mind you) pronunciation, she used less specific words, and she expressed herself in a less careful, humble way that any good upper class midwesterner is brought up using. I'm not saying Jen's eloquent, but comparatively, she was just better with her grammar, like Andy was.

Clearly both women were beautiful in the mass media sense of the term: Skinny, big boobed and sharp faced. Once that's out of the way, mother nature gets out of the picture and father culture steps in to break up the party like God smiting the Tower of Babble. I'm sure Kristen will find a good man some day, but I think she should stear clear of northern bred wasps with close knit families.

Thank you Sister Andrea, you just made my day. :)