Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Jonathan Alter is blaming bloggers and other entities of the innernets for “umbrage”:
All Umbrage All the Time
After a decade of waiting for the first “Internet election,” it’s finally here, and we’re adrift from all the old-media moorings. “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one,” the great critic A. J. Liebling wrote more than half a century ago. Today, of course, we’re all press lords, or can be. But the “crowd-sourcing” of news cuts both ways. Like democracy itself, it can cleanse, correct and ennoble. Or it can coarsen, spread lies and degrade the national conversation.
:
Like senior citizens suffering from dementia, Web users often fall prey to “disinhibition”—the lack of a filter for their most brutal thoughts. In the campaign, this takes the form of an umbrage explosion, where a day rarely passes without someone’s taking grave offense over something.In the pre-Web era, this was less of a problem. The New Yorker cover satirically depicting Obama as a flag-burning Muslim and Michelle as a gun-toting radical would have been seen by only a few hundred thousand subscribers, almost all of whom would have gotten the joke. Instead, in today’s 24/7 news cycle, it was seen by tens of millions of people. It was the knowledge of such a big audience for the cartoon—other Americans who “wouldn’t understand”—that fueled the over-the-top fury of the Obama supporters.
Meanwhile, as I make my way through this, the guys on the radio are talking about one of Alter’s cool-headed, reasonable old-media moorings, and how they refused to run John McCain’s editorial.
New York Times op-ed editor David Shipley dropped a courteous line to the McCain campaign on why their editorial wouldn’t appear…said editorial written specifically to respond to Obama’s note, which the Times had cheerfully dropped right on in.
Darn those impetuous bloggers, eh Jonathan?.
From: David Shipley/NYT/NYTIMES [mailto:XXXXXXX]
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 8:31 PM
To: XXXXXXX
Cc: XXXXXXX
Subject: Re: JSM Op-EdDear Mr. XXXXXX,
Thank you for sending me Senator McCain’s essay.
I’d be very eager to publish the Senator on the Op-Ed page.
However, I’m not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.
I’d be pleased, though, to look at another draft.
Let me suggest an approach.
The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.
It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the Senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan.
I’m just lovin’ what came next…
I am going to be out of the office next week. If you decide to re-work the draft, please be in touch with Mary Duenwald, the Op-Ed deputy. Her email is XXXXXXXX; her phone is 212-XXXXXXX.
Now look what we have here. We have “reporting” upheld on high as the classical solution to all the world’s problems, but once it’s engaged it could more properly be described as “screening.” Not the conveying of information, but the blocking of it. Oh, goodness, I’m so glad we have David Shipley and Mary Duenwald vigilantly standing guard to make sure I don’t hear anything that isn’t articulate, concrete and laying out a clear plan. I feel so well-informed having all that sub-par chaff kept away from me!
Is that off topic from what Mr. Alter was writing about? I don’t think so; he specifically comes out and says the New Yorker cartoon generated the flap it did, not because it was drawn up, but because too many people found out about it.
So I guess, in his world, there’s less umbrage because information is kept in silos. And these trusted individuals stand watch over it all, making sure this guy over here, doesn’t get hold of that nugget over there.
Yeah. I feel so much better informed now. And, six hundred years ago, I would have felt so much more spiritual after a good blood-letting.
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Now the REAL question is… Is McCain better off having his article read, or quenched? In other words would his written opinions piss off his constituents, his enemies, or both? Given his penchant for foot in mouth disease I’m not sure squashing the article was a bad thing for him. Now after all he gets positive points all round as a martyr to the NYT, which I’m betting will do him far more good than the editorial would. I think I’d burn the Op-Ed and ride the controversy if I were him.
- Tom The Impaler | 07/22/2008 @ 10:51Yeah, you’re probably right about that.
- mkfreeberg | 07/22/2008 @ 11:46Ah, you guys might want to actually read it. Just a thought.
- tim | 07/22/2008 @ 12:09Yes, that’s always good advice.
It is here.
- mkfreeberg | 07/22/2008 @ 12:14