Month: August 2007

Apparently, not content with delivering Graham Chapman’s eulogy, he’s decided to deliver his own.

If this keeps up, I’m going to turn into Avedon.

Religious Right Threatens Federal Judges – Liberal Values – Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought:

A panel of judges at the American Bar Association%u2019s meeting in San Francisco last week reported on threats to judges for crossing the religious right:

More than two years after enraging right-wing groups by ordering Terry Schiavo%u2019s feeding tube removed, George Greer still peers over his shoulder nervously at times%u2026

Two years ago, he said, someone in the Bay Area threatened to kill him over his decision to end life support for the brain-damaged Schiavo. And even though that person was prosecuted and jailed, Greer said, he%u2019s taking no chances.

%u201CIt is a little unnerving,%u201D he said. %u201CI still can%u2019t see a strange car come down my street without wondering [who%u2019s behind the steering wheel].%u201D

Greer was one of four current or former judges who appeared in a 90-minute seminar in Moscone Center West to describe how their lives were affected by their rulings in high-profile cases involving hot-button issues.

Besides Greer, there was New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto, who 10 months ago participated in a ruling saying gay and lesbian couples deserve the same rights as married couples, but stopped short of approving same-sex marriage.

Eileen O%u2019Neill, a former Texas judge who in 1993 held Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry and other anti-abortion activists in contempt for violating an order directing them to quit harassing several Houston-area doctors, was on the panel. And so was former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, kicked off the bench by voters in 1986 along with two other justices for reversing death sentences.

All four spoke about the consequences of their actions, but stood firmly behind them, while fretting somewhat about the political and social pressures facing judges these days. Unstated, but hovering in the ether, was the fact that many judges believe the current presidential administration has exacerbated the problem by blaming unpopular rulings on %u201Cactivist judges.%u201D

The Infamous Brad – Another Interruption. Ah, Fame. *eyeroll*:

In his excellent (if a trifle dry) A History of News, one of Mitchell Stephens’ insights to offer is that normal professional journalists (as opposed to that much rarer breed, investigative journalists) always “know” what the story they’re going to write is going to be before they even talk to a single source. How do they do this? Stephens says that there are probably fewer than 200 stories that can be written, period, that anybody who reads or watches the news ever wants to hear. He calls these recurring news story outlines the ur-stories, meaning the primal or elemental news stories from which all later news stories are descended. So the reporter shows up at the scene of a news story with an outline of a story in their head, learned in journalism school, and all they need is three one-sentence quotes for color, and the correct spelling of each person’s name. If it’s an in-depth report, they go to their editor or publisher’s rolodex and pull out the names of two “experts” who can be counted on to have opposing views on the subject and call each expert for another single-sentence quote. This is journalism as it is genuinely practiced. (Which, come to think of it, is relevant to what I was going to write tonight, more about that tomorrow.)

And it is my observation that there are only three ur-news stories that can possibly be written about a weird subculture or one of its members. I call them “Funny Zoo Animals,” “Threat or Menace,” and “Surprisingly Nice.” And I’ll tell you right now that the odds of you getting that last story are hundreds to one against. “Funny Zoo Animals” is the freak-show piece: look at the harmless, funny, crazy people. Aren’t they so cute? And oh, look, there are even some in this town! Isn’t that funny? It’s always vaguely condescending in tone; that’s what that story is about. People read it to reassure themselves that they’re better off normal. “Threat or Menace” takes its name from an old Reader’s Digest article about the Communist Party USA entitled: “Communism: Threat? or Menace?” Because in that story, that’s the whole range of possible opinion given: either the weird subculture in question is an impending threat or an already-serious menace. The weirdos in question are portrayed as dangerously crazy, likely to do anything, and very interested in recruiting your spouse and your children. “Are your children safe?” Experts will be quoted who say no. Any quotes you give will be selected for how crazy and stupid they can make you sound, any expert quoted as being on your side will be hand-selected for how easily they can be dismissed by other experts.

No, the best you can ever hope against hope for is, “Surprisingly Nice,” where the story starts off being how weird and silly (or weird and menacing) you and your subculture seem to be, still reinforcing one of those two stereotypes, “but (person’s name) turned out to be surprisingly nice.” This is the story that people try to get reporters to write when they talk to a reporter about some charity work that they’ve done, from Pagans or the KKK doing Adopt-a-Highway litter cleanup to biker gangs raising money for children’s hospitals or veterans’ hospitals. But reporters hate the “Surprisingly Nice” story because they take it for granted that they’re being manipulated. They know that you’re distorting how you really are in hopes of getting some favorable publicity, in hopes of getting somebody in particular or the public in general off of your back. So it takes a lot of years of very successful charity work to get a “Surprisingly Nice” story, and if you don’t believe me, look at how many literal millions of dollars worth of charity Penny Arcade has done for impoverished children on behalf of computer- and console gamers and how little favorable publicity they’ve gotten for it. No, the only time you really have anything better than a very long shot chance at getting “Surprisingly Nice” is when some inexplicable tragedy hits. Cancer is OK, but having your child murdered is better. The best way to get a “Surprisingly Nice” story is to come down with some fatal, wasting disease that strikes truly at random but leaves you looking photogenic; that’s always good for media sympathy. (Call it, if you will, the La Boheme variation on “Surprisingly Nice,” as in yeah this person is very weird, but even journalists admit that nobody photogenic deserves an awful fate.) Otherwise, forget it; what you’re going to end up in is “Funny Zoo Animals” or “Threat or Menace.”

The Wackiest Cover Songs on the Web Article from Blender and the 100 worst cover songs from retroCRUSH.

Marginal Revolution: So You Think You Can Be President?

Henry Rollins: Teeing Off: It’s a Gamble:

I don’t understand the compulsion to gamble, why anyone would take their hard-earned — or whatever way their money comes to them — and hand it over to a stranger.

There are literally millions of people in America who do not share my view and spend hundreds of hours and millions of dollars gambling in casinos and online like never before. I remember when gambling was something only tough guys did in movies but now it seems that millions of Americans are willfully gambling away their earnings, thus insuring them a broke-ass future. Gambling has become a mainstream pastime. It went from the casinos to seemingly everywhere else and the demographic has widened and now there’s children with gambling debt.

What is the attraction of throwing your money away? Why are so many college students getting addicted to online gambling? Shouldn’t they be studying? Whose money are they gambling with? What amazes me is that people can’t wait to divest themselves of their earnings. Casinos don’t even have to try, people are willing to pay to lose their money! In Las Vegas, they can’t build hotels fast enough to stem the flow of incoming suckers. Why are people so eager to go into debt? I don’t get it. Perhaps I spent too many years working for minimum wage and being broke to throw it away in a few minutes. The final irony of America might be that the freedom that was so hard-won might be the very thing that is the country’s undoing, one hand at a time. Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya?!

Eric Hoffer – Wikiquote (I gotta read more of this guy’s stuff):

The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.

Metcalfe’s Law and Video – from Mark Cuban @ Blog Maverick:

1. The more people that see content when it is originally “broadcast”, regardless of the distribution medium, the more valuable the content.

This is the example of “appointment viewing” or “breaking news”. The more people who planned to watch, or did so as soon as they heard about it, the more valuable the content.

Call this the “heat check”.

10mm people watching a tv show at the same time creates more value for the content than 10mm people watching the same show on demand over the course of time.

2. The greater the number of people that watch content simultaneously, the greater the emotional attachment of the viewer.

The greater amount of confirmation that a viewer can get from other viewers that there were others, like them that made an appointment to see a video or immediately changed their plans to watch a video, the greater the “we ” effect and emotional attachment.

3. The longer the period required for content to saturate viewer demand, the cheaper the cost of delivery. Without the constraint of time, the originator to choose the least expensive method of delivery

4. The shorter the period required to saturate demand, the more expensive the cost. This is not intuitive. At first blush it may seem that broadcast technologies can reach an immense audience in realtime with a zero marginal cost of delivery to a new viewer.

However, there is a signicant cost to build a network that can saturate demand immediately. It usually takes constrained resources, whether it is spectrum for broadcast networks, the delivery infrastructure to reach an uncapped audience and the ability to deliver it without time constraints.

5. The greater the number of content alternatives at any given point in time, the more expensive it is for any given piece of content to acquire an incremental viewer. The cost may come in the form of investment into the production of the content, advertising, promotion or placement. It may come in the form of sweat equity from hustling to promote the content.

The Tawdry Rich – another book I have to read:

Richistan is the name author Robert Frank bequeaths on America’s booming microcosm of super-wealth, a demographic whose relative financial power and unique woes has created a kind of “country within a country,” increasingly isolated from the workday mainstream.

And while we’re talking about books– Book chief: Conservatives want slogans – Yahoo! News:

Liberals read more books than conservatives. The head of the book publishing industry’s trade group says she knows why %u2014 and there’s little flattering about conservative readers in her explanation.
ADVERTISEMENT

“The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: ‘No, don’t raise my taxes, no new taxes,'” Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, said in a recent interview. “It’s pretty hard to write a book saying, ‘No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes’ on every page.”

Cannibals prefer those who have no spines.
—Stanislaw Lem, “Holiday”, 1963

A little something that one should remember when dealing with bullies, elected or otherwise.

My twentieth high school reunion is this weekend. Sadly, I won’t be in attendance, as I’m in Chicago this weekend on business. So, for the few people from Earl L. Vandermeulen’s class of ’87 who’ll read this, a few kind words.

Um…

Give me a few minutes, I’m thinking.

Right. Well, first off, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there. Not just because I wanted to see a bunch of you, but because I didn’t want anybody to think I was afraid to show up (premature baldness, missing teeth, extreme weight gain, or general homeliness) or that I was unable to show up (restraining order, house arrest, non-house arrest.) As you can see, I haven’t changed all that much.

My, how your kids have grown.

Yes, I do remember that time with the thing in the place with the photos.

Third spouse, you say? Third time’s the charm? Okay.

How soon do you think you’re going to need that replacement liver?

Me? Much the same as ever– I did weird stuff in high school and had fun doing it, now I do weird things for a living and have even more fun. And even make money at it.

Uh-huh– still married.

Strangest things that have happened since you saw me last? Let’s see… got written up in the Jewish Forward and NPR for writing the first Klingon/Jewish wedding ceremony, was involved in a lawsuit that went all the way to the Supreme Court (we won), started two new businesses, wrote a few books, um… lots of miscellaneous strangeness all over the place. You?

My god, she got even better looking. No, I don’t know how. No, she didn’t have work done. Glory be, it’s a miracle.

Where were you when the towers fell?

What do you mean, how could I forget you? You changed genders on us!

No, I didn’t actually get taller. But I’m wearing lifts.

We always suspected that about you, glad you could come out and finally admit it. How is it up in Massachusetts?

Hey, whatever happened to him? He just fell off the face of the earth.

No, she joined a convent.

I’m hope you’re all happy. Take care. See you– hey, is there going to be a 25th?

Steve Benen reminds me of an anniversary that I, and most of the rest of the world, have forgotten about.

An ignoble anniversary:

The past few years, weve taken to highlighting certain anniversaries, many of them painful. The fifth anniversary of 9/11, the fourth anniversary of the Iraqi invasion, the third anniversary of the Mission Accomplished speech, etc.

It hasnt received much recognition in previous years, but today, Aug. 6, is a noteworthy anniversary as well six years ago today, the president, on vacation in Crawford, was handed an intelligence briefing document. It was titled, Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.

And with the words “Okay, you’ve covered your ass now,” our brilliant leader went back to his golf game. But it was all okay, because Bush had surrounded himself with smart people.

(Via The Carpetbagger Report.)