Please don't hurt me, Cindy McCain...

A Vote For My Husband Is A Vote For Me Not Breaking Your Fucking Neck
By Cindy McCain October 29, 2008 Issue 44•44
"Normally, I don't get out front and center like this in the media, preferring instead to support my husband from the sidelines and let the pundits do the talking. But as Election Day draws ever nearer, I'd like to take this time to urge all of you to put "Country First" and cast your vote for my husband, John McCain! Because a vote for John McCain is not just a vote for experience, fortitude, and American values, it's also a vote for me, Cindy McCain, not tearing your ribcage open and spilling your steaming viscera into the street...Continue reading....

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Papers sail the treacherous seas

I've been so busy with my jaw-dropped open reading Daniel Ellsberg's memoirs of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers that I haven't really been putting much time here. Almost every page of "Secrets" is like peering deeper and deeper into the mechanisms of government. What strikes me most is the mendacity that goes beyond what I even imagined possible -- and I'm already well acquainted with the terrain. For now, I can say, take every statement about Iraq for a lie. Just flip them backwards, pretending as though we were in Alice in Wonderland.
What I wanted to put up here, though, was Editor & Publisher's Top 25 newspapers in terms of circulation. Notice the drop compared to last year. I guess all those layoffs really helped. I'd like to chart the drop in readership with the drop in editorial staff. Meanwhile, the Christian Science Monitor will cease printing daily. Instead, the paper will switch to online for its daily news and publish a weekly news magazine. The Web site boasts that the CSM is the first national daily to go totally online. Finally. Newspapers in recent years have had some of the very worst managers of any industry. They mishandled the Internet "revolution" like the three stooges and they just keep bumbling around making the same mistakes, thinking that THIS fix is the ONE. But managers keep reaching for the same old tools -- first and foremost editorial layoffs and maniacal drives to push up ad revenue instead of focusing on news quality. Maybe it's not too late to do what they should have in the first place, which is to shift to an online format that they charge readers for. Hey, the bloggers are getting their news content for free just by picking it out of online news sites. We could start there. Oh, but then they might not have anything left to blog about...unless they got off their butts to get their own content.

Wall Street tanks, competitive eating lives on

It's good to know that even in a recession (which some ostrich-burrowing editor in charge of one of my stories changed to a verb and called it "skid") gluttony lives. Joey Chestnut packed away 45 slices of pizza last week in 10 minutes. The Japanese have us licked when it comes to competitive eating, however. Are we supreme in nothing?

Terrorists a-Twitter

Twitter: A Tool for Terrorists, Army Warns (from Wired) -- Twitter doesn't have an effective business model, but the hit microblogging service could become a killer app for terrorists, according to a draft report by U.S. Army intelligence. Terrorists could use Twitter as a tool to coordinate attacks by "tweeting" each other in "near real time."
I thought "killer abs" was an abuse of the English language. Now we are talking about "killer apps." Be careful who you're tweeting.

Do you know the way to San Jose Mercury News?

More news from the Bay Area News Group: After more than 40 years in North San Jose, the Mercury News is considering a move to new offices. Read on...
And the company is eliminating the Tuesday edition of Alameda Journal, cutting what had been a twice-weekly community newspaper to a Friday-only publication. For more....

Jimmy Olsen is working at the Express?

When I came across this photo caption in the East Bay Express' 30-year anniversary edition last week, I could smell the bad blood from cyberspace:
"For years, Yusuf Bey was treated with undeserved deference by this newspaper and the Oakland Tribune." The Bey context is explained below but what I found sad is that the Express had to make sure to share the blame of fluffy reporting about Your Black Muslim Bakery with the Trib. It's like a kid hollering "He did it too, mom!" Come on, reporters don't run to their mommy and tell. It reminds me too of when the Express published a several part story slamming the Alemeda News Group papers (now Bay Area News Group) written in part by "Jimmy Olsen." You know, the boy-photographer in Superman. (I checked: There was no one by that name employed at the Express.) Don't get me wrong: The stories were good and it is the only print outlet writing critically but honestly about the company and about BANG's effort to unionize.)
Anyway, here is the excerpt from the Express series, which I otherwise liked.
"2002
After years of ignoring dark accusations and rumors, the Express published a 17,000-word series on the shameful legacy of Your Black Muslim Bakery, the bizarre cult of personality run by Yusuf Bey. "Members and associates of the Bey 'family' have terrorized countless Oakland residents, fomented racial hatred, and even allegedly threatened to kill apostate women who break with the organization or go public with their stories," wrote Chris Thompson, who received credible death threats as a result of his reporting. The stories not only documented numerous real and alleged crimes, they also criticized the politicians and newspapers that allowed this situation to fester. "In May 1994, mayoral candidate Yusuf Bey organized a massive hate rally that featured disgraced Nation of Islam spokesman Khalid Muhammad ranting about the 'no-good, hook-nosed Jews sucking our blood.' Yusuf Bey heaped praise upon his guest speaker and scolded Jews who objected to Muhammad's appearance. How did the East Bay Express respond? By running a profile of Bey later that summer that treated him as a thoughtful statesman." Five years later, after the tragic assassination of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, the Oakland Tribune and other news outlets regurgitated much of our coverage without ever reconsidering their own shameful track records."

Save credibility, not a buck

Once again, a powerful name in journalism is floating the idea of consolidating and outsourcing copy editing. This time it's MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton, speaking at the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association's annual convention.
"In today's world, whether your desk is down the hall or around the world, from a computer standpoint, it doesn't matter," The Associated Press reported Singleton as saying after his speech. To read on...http://copydesk.org.

Huff or Die

A menage-a-trois of awesome: http://www.funnyordie.com/huffordie

War criminals for McCain

John McCain brushed off the significance of former Republican Secretary of State and war chief Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama. McCain announced that he had the backing of four, count them F-O-U-R, former secretaries of state, including his old buddy Kissinger, Eagleburger, Haig and Baker. Each one of these men helped pull the curtain strings on acts in Vietnam all the way to Latin America and the Middle East that could be -- and in other countries are considered -- war crimes. At the least they turned the other way when gross human rights violations were happening with their knowledge. I would not be bragging about that kind of team on my side.

Edwards the dreamboat

Now that John Edwards has joined the "can't keep your dick in your pants" camp and ruined his political career, I guess his endorsement isn't such a hot commodity. As it happens, I was flipping through an April copy of the New York Magazine last night and found a story about Edwards backed Hillary Clinton (whose husband was the leader of the aforementioned camp) over Obama -- a suprise, according to the author, John Heilemann. But, Heilemann, wrote, Obama was too bitchy so Edwards cozied up to Hillary. Obama even got into it with Elizabeth Edwards over health care plans. Oh heavens! Since the coverage still is no more substantive now than it was then here are some links that provide Obama's voting record, as well as McCain's -- the Republican contender, who is ahead of Obama in some polls (can you believe it?!!!).
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/o000167/

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/m000303/

There are plenty others but the Washington Post has the easiest one to use, I think.

The Shadow Agenda

Joel Brinkley's column on Durban II -- "Racism Conference: The shadow agenda."
Agree or not, the UCB prof makes some good points such as:
"The United Nations' much-maligned Human Rights Council is organizing Durban II, so it's small wonder that the planning is proceeding as it has. In a recent council session, a speaker asked to bring up a particularly egregious human rights problem: genital mutilation of women. Egypt objected mightily, demanding: 'We will not discuss issues related to Shariah law; this will not happen.' Shariah, of course, is canonical law based on the teachings of the Quran and the traditions of Muhammad. I wasn't aware that it advocated genital mutilation."