Pure Twaddle

I now believe I have found the strangest site on the internet.

Where an adult can be a kid?

Popularity: 10% [?]

The Columbia Journalism of Review is running a great piece about the ridiculous heights network TV newsreader salaries have reached. To wit:

…Katie Couric’s annual salary is more than the entire annual budgets of NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered combined. Couric’s salary comes to an estimated $15 million a year; NPR spends $6 million a year on its morning show and $5 million on its afternoon one.

And further down, a solid point:

What’s striking is how little notice this received in the flood of coverage of Sawyer’s appointment. With the notable exception of Jack Shafer in Slate, who cheekily urged Sawyer to turn down the job “and persuade ABC News to divert the millions it ordinarily pays its anchor and spend it on 50 or 80 additional reporters to break stories,”

So perhaps it’s a myth that good journalism has to be expensive.

Popularity: 19% [?]

As we all know, Kanye is a self-absorbed waterhead without a thought filter on his mouth. His stupid interruption of the WMA awards revealed his coarseness. Everything that could have been said about the incident has been said (though some more insightful than others) and, barring any more ridiculous outbursts from Kanye, this matter should die a quick death.

What is noteworthy, however, is the complete inability to find the actual video on YouTube. A simple search reveals pages and pages of what seem to be the actual video, but then turn out to be vapid commentaries by anonymous people from across the blogos-net. Each one talks about how rude the interruption was and how he/she is outraged by Kanye’s actions. And yet, here we have thousands of people using this very transgression to further their own internet stardom. So much so that even the original video isn’t even readily available on the most popular video sharing site.

We’re only a few years away from Ruby Rhod, folks.

There’s only one thing that can keep growing without nourishment: the human ego.

—Marshall Lumsden

Popularity: 25% [?]

The Washington Post seriously needs to reconsider where online news is going. They have started a new “blog” called Innovations In News which, according to the sub-headline, offers a peek at “the latest creations from Slate and The Washington Post.”

(more…)

Popularity: 5% [?]

Wired is reporting that Michael Jackson is the first artist to reach over 1 million (legitimate) downloads in a single week. Having grown up only knowing the weird, ultra-white Michael Jackson, and only first learning about him because of the molestation cases against him in the early 90′s, I never much paid attention to his music.

I admit I immediately went to the YouTube to check out some Michael Jackson hits upon hearing about his death. I never gave him a second thought as a serious artist as I was growing up. Now after his passing, I see the guy had a set of pipes as a kid and had some great moves as a performer. Too bad no one 26 years and younger could have an untarnished memory of a very strange fellow.

Rest in Peace, crazy man.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Just for Friday, Jack Kerouac reading from On the Road on the Steve Allen Show in 1959:

Popularity: 40% [?]

Day four of the Obama vacation watch. According to a tw0-page article on the Washington Post website, there is nothing new to report. But it’s good to know they are keeping an eye on the situation.

From the article:

But this month, returning to his former home as president-elect, Obama has gone from Hawaii’s tourist in chief to its hermit in chief. He has been unusually private at the start of his 13-day holiday vacation, providing an early glimpse of what any tropical getaways during his presidency may be like.

The editorial staff considers this front-page news, folks.* Meanwhile, Pakistan is amassing thousands of troops on the Indian border in preparation for a possible war.**

*I know it seems I’m picking on the Post, but it’s verging on idolatry at this point.
**Does anyone else think it’s weird that I have to reference a foreign news source on this?

Popularity: 25% [?]

I recently saw yet another bloody commercial on TV promoting Marley & I Me. But this time, I noticed something frightening.

I’m on to you, Owen Degeneres. You scam of collecting two social security checks is soon over.

Popularity: 14% [?]

The Washington Post is hastening its slide from the preeminent newspaper on national politics to a non-glossy celebrity tabloid. It has been obsessively covering Obama, whom they adoringly call “44,” since his sudden appearance two years ago, amplifying the adulation even more since he was elected. Now, I like Obama as much as the next guy, but this recent article (on their 44-blog) is too much.

A choice quote (emphasis mine)

On Sunday, Obama awoke early for a 7:15 a.m. workout at a gymnasium at a sleepy Marine Corps base on the island of Oahu. Michelle Obama, carrying an iPod and headphones, joined her husband for the 45-minute exercise session, according to a media pool report. As they emerged from the gym, Obama, in a gray shirt soaked with sweat, lifted his right hand to give a quick salute to a couple uniformed Marines standing nearby.

and:

Obama, a left-handed golfer, sported black shades and wore a white polo shirt, brown cargo shorts, short white socks and golf shoes. About midway through the course, Obama stopped by the snack bar, where he purchased two hot dogs, two passion-orange sodas, one Powerade and one Coke. He also bought two Spam musubi, a sushi-like Hawaiian delicacy consisting of Spam and fried egg on a slab of rice, all held together with a dried seaweed wrap. (He paid a total of $17.75, but it was unclear whether the president-elect ate a Spam musubi.)

Please tell me more about the musubi! Did he eat half and save the rest for later. Did he like it? Did it transport him to his Spam-eating days as a child child, frolicking on the beaches of Hawai’i, musubi in one hand, and a dream of changing the world in the other? So many questions, WP, so many questions!

As our economy burns, as the Feds hand over trillions of dollars to whomever asks for it, as thousands of Americans lose their jobs, this is the best original reporting the Post can produce. The newspaper that broke the Watergate scandal, the newspaper with 47 Pulitzer prizes, reads like an unneccesarily verbose twitter feed. The difference is the Post costs $.49/week.

Update (18.06): The comments on the article’s page make me lose even more faith in the WP’s readership.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Be a nonconformist (just like everyone else). That’s Adidas’ new mantra, according to their new advertising campaign, which gives us lesser mortals a glimpse into the three-striped life. For sixty glorious seconds we see an eclectic group of famous folk clad totally in Adidas gear party it up in a mansion to the soothingly insipid electronic tunes of Madcon. It is not clear what David Beckham, Russell Simmons, Missy Elliot, Kevin Garnett, et al. have enough in common to want to socialize, let alone dress identically. Perhaps a hefty check from Adidas suffices.

As if watching the idle rich being paid to be even more idle isn’t stupid enough, the commercial ends with the gentle command to “CELEBRATE ORIGINALITY.” What better way to do so than to wear the same clothes as everyone else?

Popularity: 44% [?]