Monthly Archives: February 2008

“…due to technical difficulties”

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TechdifficultiesNew York Times: “In an attempt to clear up questions about how an Alabama television station lost its signal at the start of Sunday’s edition of “60 Minutes” on CBS, the management of the station, WHNT-TV, issued a statement Thursday citing equipment failure.

The station, in Huntsville, said that after a review, it had concluded that the blackout was related to a similar interruption during a basketball game the day before. The break in the signal, which lasted about eight minutes, came as the CBS News program was beginning a report of special interest to Alabama residents: an investigation into whether the trial and conviction of a former governor, Don Siegelman, was politically motivated. The report included charges that Republican and Bush administration officials, including Karl Rove, had sought to discredit Mr. Siegelman, a Democrat.”

I’d be scared shitless if I was the engineer or producer who actually pulled the plug on that segment. A loose end that Uncle Karl might like to tie off.

More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison

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“More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year, in addition to more than $5 billion spent by the federal government, according to a report released today.

With more than 2.3 million people behind bars at the start of 2008, the United States leads the world in both the number and the percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving even far more populous China a distant second, noted the report by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.” — Washington Post

Microtrends vs. Macrotrends

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Arianna explains why Obama is winning:

“Hillary Clinton’s campaign model,” David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist told me this morning in Chicago, “is a very tired Washington model: ‘I’ll do these things for you.’ Barack’s model is ‘Let’s do these things together.’ This has been the premise of Barack’s politics all his life, going back to his days as a community organizer. He has really lived and breathed it, which is why it comes across so authentically.

“Of course, the time also has to be right for the man and the moment to come together. And, after all the country has been through over the last seven years, the times are definitely right for the message that the only way to get real change is to activate the American people to demand it.”

“Small is the new big,” (Mark Penn wrote). “Many of the biggest movements in America today are small.”

Except when they are very big, and getting bigger by the day. And you’ve missed them.

Learn how to be a cigarette-safe kid

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Smokingkids
President Bush is proud to present, in cooperation with the Flammable Pleasures division of RJ Reynolds, vital and wholly accurate information that can make YOU a CIGARETTE-SAFE KID!

  1. Keep Cigarettes Safe from Water! Water causes wetness, and wetness can keep your cigarettes from properly igniting and efficiently delivering scientifically calibrated doses of totally non-addictive nicotine into those sticky little air sacks way at the bottom of your lungs!
  2. Bedtime Smoking Smarts! After bedtime prayers, nothing relaxes like a cool drag from a hot Winston (brand) cigarette.
  3. Keep Cigarettes Safe from Breaking! A sturdy and stylish cigarette case is what all the cool kids have!
  4. Let the Buyer Beware! When choosing an adult to ask to buy you cigarettes at a cruelly authoritarian, liberal-managed convenience store that won’t sell tobacco to persons under 18, make certain never to speak to anyone who looks like s/he might be on the Federal welfare rolls – they will steal your cigarettes, leaving you craving (in a purely nonaddictive way) a smoke ! !
  5. Remember: Fresh = Tasty! Never forget that an important part of the exclusive appeal of cigarettes is their highly perishable nature; they stay smokably fresh for only three to four hours after their cellophane seal is broken.
  6. Keep it Clean! If your preferred brand is filterless, your fingers and teeth may become pleasantly discolored by stubborn, yet fashionable nicotine stains.
  7. Smoke Right, Smoke Safe! As you get older, the way you hold your cigarette will become increasingly important.

[Thanks, Angela]

Omar’s Obit

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Omar150“BALTIMORE—Omar Little, the veteran stick-up artist who inspired fear and fascination in drug-plagued neighborhoods across the city, was shot and killed in a west-side convenience store yesterday.Police said the assailant remained at large.

Famed for his brazen robberies of area drug dealers, Mr. Little had retired from what he called “the game” a year ago, moving to the Caribbean with a new romantic partner. But he apparently returned to Baltimore this winter to seek revenge following the brutal murder of a beloved business associate.”

Major League Baseball imposes online restrictions

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“Major League Baseball is instituting new restrictions for web content. Websites will now be held to two minutes of video (or audio) a day gathered at MLB facilities — but formal press conferences are exempt to this rule. Similar to the NFL, there’s no live streaming. But in an unique twist, sites will be limited to 7 photos per game. And no photo galleries, either (it’s unclear what they mean by that.) All non-text content must be removed after 72 hours. If you don’t follow the new rules, your press passes could be revoked.” — Lost Remote’s Cory Bergman

Paranoid Theory #1: MLB (and NFL) want to control their content from creation all the way to the end user (the fan). They foresee a time when they don’t need TV and radio networks to broadcast games and related events. It will all be streamed directly to a mobile device. MLB/NFL will keep all related fees and/or advertising. Media outlets that want to cover these events, will do so on MLB/NFL terms.

Why a journalism class leans toward Obama

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The Clinton campaign has been complaining they aren’t getting a fair shake from the news media. No idea if that’s true or not. But Cory Bergman at Lost Remote shares this story:

"This is fascinating. A University of Washington journalism class is aggressively blogging the 2008 campaign. They’re attending primaries and caucuses, cameras and laptops in hand. The professor, David Domke, says he’s noticed a lean towards Obama among the students in part because of the way Obama’s campaign staff respected the bloggers.

“The Obama campaign treated us like pros — they called us back within minutes, set up interviews, got us press passes, went out of their way to make the campaign accessible,” Domke writes. “The Clinton campaign, in contrast, didn’t return a single phone call, didn’t provide press access, and did virtually nothing to encourage our coverage.”

Domke concludes: “The Clinton campaign has made the case that Obama is nothing but rhetoric; he’s supposedly all words, while she’s all action. Our experiences showed us that their campaigns — at least in Seattle — were exactly the opposite. In their treatment of my students, Clinton’s campaign was all talk, while Obama’s was all walk.”

Andrew Sullivan: The Clintons’ Last Stand

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“Clinton is a terrible manager of people. Coming into a campaign she had been planning for, what, two decades, she was so not ready on Day One, or even Day 300. Her White House, if we can glean anything from the campaign, would be a secretive nest of well-fed yes-people,  an uncontrollable egomaniac spouse able and willing to bigfoot anyone if he wants to, a phalanx of flunkies who cannot tell the boss when things are wrong, and a drizzle of dreary hacks like Mark Penn. Her only genuine skill is pivoting off the Limbaugh machine (which is now as played out as its enemies). Her new weapon is apparently bursting into tears. I mean: really.” [Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish]

This kind of post-mortem is showing up all over the web. Too soon? Don’t know. But they remind me of this photo of HRC with my friend and co-work Kay Henderson, taken during the campaign in Iowa. Senator Clinton looks so… serene.