Mickey Kaus, today, collects a pair of irritating quotes from CNN newshead Jonathan Klein, lavishing praise over white haired, new-school journalist Anderson Cooper:

"He is the anchorperson of the future," Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN/U.S., said [of Anderson Cooper] in an interview. He is "an anti-anchorperson," he said, adding: "He's all human. He's not putting it on."--New York Times

"I think other news executives are drooling over him," [Klein] says. "He brings a new dimension to the job, which is a concept of an anchor as a kind of missionary. It's a new model for thinking about what the anchorperson ought to be."--New York magazine

On Monday, Mickey wrote:

Wonder why those CNN anchors are so emotional and angry all of a sudden? Are they actually emotional and angry--or are they being told to be emotional and angry? The buried lede in Michael Kinsley's column:
The TV news networks, which only a few months ago were piously suppressing emotional fireworks by their pundits, are now piously encouraging their news anchors to break out of the emotional straitjackets and express outrage. A Los Angeles Times colleague of mine, appearing on CNN last week to talk about Katrina, was told by a producer to "get angry."

Here’s the thing. Politics wise, emotionalism is always going to tilt reaction to the left. I mean, even putting aside the Mars and Venus school of political thought that goes: ‘liberals see the world through emotion, while conservatives respond more detached and thinky,’ when some Empath is going all angry/blubbery on the “Someone, Just Do Something” newschannel, the not so hidden “someone” is usually taken to mean “government.”

But okay, putting even that aside, whatever happened to journalismÂ’s romantic ideal of the world weary stoic? The cool daddy with the icewater in his veins?

Edward R. Murrow, braving the Blitz, perched atop London buildings, describing for his listeners the shattered city about him, did not begin his broadcasts “AAAHHHH! Oh, God, Oh God, Oh God! AAAAAAHHHHHH!” despite the fact that focus groups would surely have revealed this sentiment most dominant in the minds of the London towners about him.

Dan Rather, bless his heart, cut his teeth chasing down Texas windstorms to confront both stoicly and needlessly, struggling to remain upright, emphasizing for viewers the crazed, unreasoning force of nature, and, well, Dan Rather.

But now we turn on the TV and we get Geraldo: (reg. req.)

"Reporters are supposed to remain distant observers. There is no distance in Waveland, anymore." Without this distance, he injects himself into the story, reacting with outrage, holding babies, helping survivors sift through the ruins, and showing viewers his tears.

Get that? Lemme repeat it for you. There is no distance in Waveland anymore.

Now, I don’t know if CNN is instructing it’s anchors to go all ‘feelie’ and ‘outrage’ or they’re just hiring natural ‘Broadcast News’ weepies. Either way, stop. When a nation turn to you, scooping up every morsel on the latest national crisis, your tone matters. Yes, I said it, MSM. You still matter. And much like troops being well served not witnessing Sarge go all “Were gonna die!” wobbly in front in front of them, it would be nice if the tone you set for the nation was that of the “stiff upper lip” sort. Misdirected rage, though it feels good and gets people to tune in, is still misdirected, and really kinda harmful, especially in the early hours when organizations and people still struggling to get online and operational. So set a better tone. Yeah, you can do that, set a tone. Don't pretend you don't think you can or do.

(P.S: You know when I can accept you newscasters getting all blubbery? When a Zeppelin explodes in front of you. Then and only then, it’s okay to get all “Oh, the humanity!” Short of Zeppelin explosions, let's butch it up, huh?)

Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes at 01:11 PM | Comments (26)
Post contains 686 words, total size 5 kb.

Of course it was ignored, it was good news from Iraq.
I lucked out the other day while channel surfing over to C-SPAN. They were just starting a press conference from Iraq with Colonel H.R. McMaster, the commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Naturally I have a soft spot for fellow tankers, so I stuck around.

I haven't been able to track down the press conference in the C-SPAN archives, but I did find the transcript on the DOD web site.

In case you don't have the time to read it all, here are a couple interesting points.

After giving a glowing report on the operation to clear out terrorists from Tal Afar, what was the very first question asked of him?

Q: Colonel, Charlie Aldinger with Reuters. A couple of brief questions. First of all, what does the "H. R." stand for? What name do you go by besides your initials?

Another great Reuters reporter in action!

As far as the degenerates we are up against....

In terms of specialized weapons, some crude attempts, I think, in the western part of the city. We've been able to put this picture together now. The enemy had rigged a lot of buildings for destruction, and they wanted to time the destruction of these buildings with the entry of our forces. In one of these buildings the enemy had big barrels of chemicals that had explosives implanted in the chemicals, wires running around, and the whole house was rigged for demolition.

I don't know if you've been following some of the enemy's propaganda. You know, one of the cells in this enemy's structure here, this very well developed enemy structure, is a propaganda cell. And on the sort of jihadist and extremist websites, they've been saying, you know, that coalition forces are using chemical weapons. I think what they had hoped to do was detonate this building, kill innocent civilians in this neighborhood and then blame it on coalition forces. But we preempted their ability to do that by evacuating the civilians from that building. That's one example of it.

One of the things we said when I was still under arms, was that if you can see the enemy, you can kill him.

I mean, basically, you know, in a lot of areas of this city, it was -- it was the schoolhouse for the enemy. And they would go in -- they took over schools. They would go into schools, have classes on how to do an IED. I mean, literally, chalkboards. We've got photos of students and teachers standing in front of chalkboards. And, you know, in one engagement we had about a month ago we were able to gain observation of the enemy having an IED class outside of a school with, you know, 30 people gathered around, digging up a hole, and showing how you put in an IED. Now, we disrupted their class with an artillery attack that resulted in 30 of the enemy being killed on that occasion. But it's another example of what the enemy was using this area for.

IED class in the open. Fire for effect. SWEET!

Posted by: Tanker at 10:27 AM | Comments (44)
Post contains 542 words, total size 3 kb.

Yeah, I watch too much TV.

But, okay, so Lorie from Polipundit says the guys who developed 24 developed this show as well.

You might not think that a prison break could provide the basis for a whole series, but so far, it's working. Not really too much padding. Some, but it seems like it's meaningful down the line (while the hero tries to break his brother out of jail, the brother's lawyer is trying to clear his name). It's not like 24 style padding, where every time Jack is in transit and they need to kill five minutes one of his family members gets randomly abducted.

It's a lot like Escape From Alcatraz, but that's a good thing.

Anyway-- worth watching.

Funny, though, that the 24 people have created a new series that has the same problem as the old one, only worse this time. If the series is a hit-- what do you do for next season? You can't possibly have the hero try to break another family member out of jail, can you?

Angela Landsbury on Murder, She Wrote famously had a large circle of family members and friends who could be killed every week. Can they do that with Prison Break?

And, just curious-- let's face it, every time Angela Landsbury showed up, someone got killed. I'm not detective, but did anyone ever suspect it was Angela Landsbury herself killing everyone, setting someone up as a patsy, and then "solving" the murders she herself committed? Just saying, when someone just suddenly shows up for 300 consecutive murders, maybe you want to stop listening to her "theory of the crime" and start asking about her alibi.

Why did people keep inviting her to visit them? Didn't anyone realize that it wasn't a good idea to invite Auntie Angel of Death to their wedding?

Posted by: Ace at 09:36 AM | Comments (27)
Post contains 318 words, total size 2 kb.

Starring sheep.

I shit you not. People can vote sheep off the show, and the losers risk being eaten.

Listen, people. This is the world in which we live.

UPDATE: from Hubris;

My favorite part:

[The winner] will receive poetry in its honor instead of money.

The first time we saw ewe, we knew it was love
Shapely hooves below you, fluffy locks above
And a delicious meaty center.

Posted by: LauraW. at 09:29 AM | Comments (24)
Post contains 73 words, total size 1 kb.

So why do we need them again?

Posted by: Ace at 08:46 AM | Comments (5)
Post contains 21 words, total size 1 kb.

We'll see.

It should be noted that the families -- yes, the families -- previously expressed concern about the crescent design, specifically about calling it "the Crescent of Embrace." The idiots in charge, and the architecht, refused even a name change to "Arc of Embrace" and the like. They wanted that crescent in the title.

So I'm having trouble believing he'll be very willing to change the crescent shape itself.

I've been fuming about the bigger issue for a while-- why must our public monuments be these dreary abstract bits of ugly avant-gardism which appeal only to a tiny clique of elites? Why cannot public art please the, you know, public?

Everything's either these outsized geometric spectacles that provoke only the question, "Jeepers, I wonder who got the idea to put up 6000 pounds of steel into the shape of a featureless cube?" Or else-- nihilistic po-mo whimsy.

Like those goddamned cows we had all over New York six or eight years ago. Don't ask. Oh wait, you didn't, but I'll tell you anyway. See, they were cows. They were painted all sorts of crazy ways by idiot artists. They were supposed to be whimsical and charming, like Alice in Wonderland. They were instead ugly and stupid like The Turner Diaries.

Again, the only question "provoked" was along the lines of "What kind of Einstein-level con artist got the grant for these noxious pieces of shit, and can I possibly hire him to do my taxes?"

And, quite frankly, I bet 75% of the tastemaking cultural elites don't like this crap either; they're just not confident enough in their own true sense of aesthetics to argue against group opinion).

The elites don't like statuary of people. It's passe, they say; we have enough statues of men on horseback. Do we? I rather like equestrian statues. Call me a philistine, but yes, I do admire looking at a piece of art and thinking that it looks like something else to be found in the natural world or the world of man.

The elites have a stronger religious stricture against public display of graven human images than the most wild-eyed Wahhabists do. It's a set of mistaken beliefs of "good taste" that has hardened into something approaching religious dogma.

I am tired of always being "provoked" and "challenged" by art. I'm not saying that such art is valueless; there's a lot of good such art. Not everything can be Velvet Elvis, after all. But I am speaking about art in public venues. For the love of everything holy, in public, as I walk to the store or to work, need I be intellectually challenged by a giant pyramid copulating with a pink torus? As big a fan of H.P. Lovecraft as I might be, does every "public" work of art need to feature strange geometries undream'd of even on planet Yuggoth?

Need I always be provoked in public? Can I never be simply reassured in my daily public travels, and have something pleasant to look at?

Apparently not.

James Lileks says all this better than I ever could. I'll quote here and there, but there's not a single word of it not worth reading.

The [Crescent of Embrace] monument goes along with other sins of commission -- the tortured, everybody's-a-sinner museum proposed for the Ground Zero site, the tentative, Euro-styled Trade Center replacement that avoids any notes of bravado or American style, the palpable relief at the major networks that four years had passed and they didn't have to waste valuable advertising time on Sunday night with some bummer recollections of, you know, that.

It's not a red state-blue state issue. There are plenty of liberals who have no time for weepy self-criticism sessions and heal-the-planet memorials.

It is, to use a tiresome sobriquet, a matter of elites vs. the rest of the country -- specifically, the artistic sentiment of the elites, which has become so disconnected from the rest of the populace they cannot imagine what else to do but slather the land with abstractions and wind chimes. A statue? Of the people who died? Why, you might as well put a NASCAR track on the site.

Not a bad idea. The endless track represents futility and inability to think of new global conflict-avoidance paradigms. The air will be thick with the exhaust -- of shame.

You want a grant for that? Apply to the Heinz Foundation. They helped fund the Crescent, after all.

As Lilkes notes, no, we don't need a big statute of the Flight 93 passengers ramming a dinner-cart through a door. We don't need to be quite that literal.

But can the heroism of a group of strangers -- of Americans -- coming together to save the lives of their fellow human beings dare be expressed in something less symbolic, and perhaps more vigorous, than red trees and lilting windchimes?

And on that-- why is always our assumptions which need to be provoked?

Can we have a monument to the brave dead of Flight 93 which shows them in cool reflection as they decide to make their attack? Huddled together as they collectively decide to give their lives to spare others? And just before they mount the first battle in the war on terrorism?

And yes, engraved at the base of the statue, the rallying cry: "Let's roll."

Ahhhh... but such a tribute would "provoke" and "challenge" the wrong people-- the tastemaking elites who presume to rule us. Their beliefs and assumptions are never to be provoked or challenged, always to be reassured and reinforced by their preferred sorts of meaningless symbolic nothingnesses. It is we who need to be shaped and scolded like schoolchildren; it is they who wield the rulers.

If provoking and challenging are so very important to human growth-- hey, Paul Murdoch, maybe you should let us provide the same service to you for once.

Parting Shot: Art turned bad when the emphasis turned from craft to "concept."

Posted by: Ace at 09:41 PM | Comments (52)
Post contains 1004 words, total size 6 kb.

I don't know.

Okay, so when you're invited to check out a site called Pre$$titutes, you're already kinda tipped off you might not exactly be dealing with a quality organization.

"Presstitutes" would be bad enough. It's a bad pun. Wait, it's not even a pun. I don't know what you call that kind of joke. Personally, I call it retarded.

And then-- no, they can't leave it at that. "Presstitutes" isn't tasteless and cretinous enough for them; they have to add in those dollar signs.

"Presstitutes" -- cheap wanton streetwalker

"Pre$$titutes" -- even cheaper gutterskank who's had more tricks in the last hour than teeth in her head

But then I started to think this was some sort of conservative parody. Why? Well, for one thing, they sent me an email. A mass email, yeah, but somehow I was on their list.

And also I read this-- this, their list of people in the media who shill for Bush and give him a "pass" and lean just too goshdarn far to the right:

Wolf Blitzer, Chris Matthews, Paula Zahn, Dana Milbank, Howard Kurtz, Kyra Phillips, Bill Schneider, Tim Russert, Howard Fineman, Norah O'Donnell, Elizabeth Bumiller, Adam Nagourney, the Bush apologists at ABC's The Note and others with a similar veneer of neutrality exert a more insidious influence on the public debate than rabid partisans like Limbaugh, Coulter, and Hannity.

Do you see that list? Adam Nagourney? Dana Milbank? Chris Matthews? Elizabeth Bumiller? It's like a 1927 Yankees Murderer's Row of liberal partisanship.

So I don't know. A goof or not? If it's real, I guess I don't want to give them the traffic; but then, I have a feeling that all the links in the world won't help them.

If it's a goof... well, let's see how far they can go with this. I've always kinda wanted to do a left-wing blog and see how long it would take until people figured out I was just shitting them.

And... well, see, they have a gimmick: they'll send you $10 by PayPal for each instance of the press covering up for Bush you send their way.

Now, you can say, for example, that a piece about high gas prices fails to mention that President Bush flew out to Iraq under cover of darkness to personally murder Casey Sheehan. Or stuff like that. And you can do that all day.

Fifty, sixty emails an hour, ten bucks a pop... a man could do worse. A man could do worse.

Thanks to Lorie of PoliPundit, who prints a good reader email suggesting the media is missing a great opportunity to inform the country about disaster-preparedness in order to futilely chase after the presidential Road Runner that is George Bush.

Posted by: Ace at 09:23 PM | Comments (13)
Post contains 464 words, total size 3 kb.

After 60 years of promising and never quite delivering, Playboy finally reveals the trick to attracting women: be really, really, really, really frigging good-looking.

Secret's out!

Go and do likewise, gentlemen.*

The article also reports that 75% of men named Dave living in Garfield Ridge would like to give a wettie to Powers Boothe.

Also in this month's issue: Are gold stereo cables really that much an improvement over three-signal coaxials? Which shouldn't come as a shock; the Playboy Advisor answers that same question every fucking month. (Answer: the improvement is small but, for the true audiophile, noticable. It all depends on your budget!)

And oh yeah, Norman Mailer has a screed about something or other. The high price of adult diapers or something.

Thanks to scorpius.

* Where?

And I Swear I Never Thought I'd Ever Say This But... Is any other guy out there finding that lesbian-chic is becoming a little passe?

There comes a point at which the titillatingly taboo becomes kinda, well, old.

Posted by: Ace at 08:07 PM | Comments (75)
Post contains 197 words, total size 1 kb.

Dr. Symes is a graduate of prestigious Saint Regis University and received his medical degree at various fine institutions abroad. He is the author of several self-published monographs including Zinc Miracles! and its follow up, The Dr. Symes Zinc Revolution! He is also pleased to announce his forthcoming bestseller, The Vapors: Forgotten Killer

At present, the doctor is not practicing in the States, preferring the “patient first” medical atmosphere of the Central American region, but expects to return soon, upon the resolution of a few, relatively minor licensing miscommunications and with a brand new line of proprietary mineral-based tonics and salves.

Dr. Symes is on the board of several clinics and a founder of controversial charitable relief organization ‘Doctors Without Pants.’

Extended entry contains translation of Dr. SymesÂ’ recent press conference more...

Posted by: Dr. Reo Symes at 07:23 PM | Comments (9)
Post contains 731 words, total size 5 kb.

Just had this vile comment:

9/11 was a ligitimite and porportional response to rascism!

I'm not really a net-narc, but I wondered where such a comment could be coming from.

An IP lookup of the address says that particular address belongs to...

[REDACTED... a media organization; see correction]

I've Been Punk'd!!! Hey now. Turns out that I actually met the guy who wrote that, and that he was just doing a spoof. The name he signed it under, "Um Yeah," is apparently some kind of famous left-wing blogtroll and he was just imitating him. He thought I'd figure that out; I never heard of "Um Yeah," so I didn't.

Sounded real enough to me. Then again, I'm a moron.

Let's not mention the name of that media organization because he could get into trouble, I guess, screwing around on the computer and stuff.

Posted by: Ace at 07:05 PM | Comments (22)
Post contains 157 words, total size 1 kb.