2009
 Oct 
21 

Brooksley Born Vs. the Clinton Administration Financial Triumvirate

Filed under: clinton,economy,frontline,tv — admin @ 9:55 pm  

Frontline remains the most effective storyteller in news media. Bless them.

If you watch TV on your computer and want to know the backstory leading to the ’08 worldwide monetary meltdown, watch this.

2009
 Oct 
14 

Saxondale

Filed under: music,tv — admin @ 9:55 pm  

saxondale dvd

The funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. After watching the first three episodes on rented DVD I went and bought seasons 1 and 2…hearing Wishbone Ash used as incidental music in the first episode sealed the deal.

2009
 Jun 

Ode to Kate’s TV

Filed under: cats,small talk,tv — Tags: , — admin @ 11:31 am  

i'll fix it

2009
 May 
12 

Cokie Punditry Underlies the Greenhouse Window

Filed under: flickr,media,small talk,tv — Tags: , , — admin @ 8:09 am  

2009
 Mar 
31 

Manakin on the Jerry Lewis Telethon, 1978

Filed under: music,tv,web — Tags: — admin @ 10:57 pm  

I’m sure there are weirder/creepier videos out there. It’s just that no others come to mind right now.

Thanks to Brian Turner for the link.

2009
 Feb 
17 

“Moral Hazard Trumped Systemic Risk”

Filed under: economy,frontline,media,tv — admin @ 10:40 pm  
2009
 Jan 
19 

Why Cody Diablo Is Annoying

Filed under: media,tv — admin @ 12:14 am  

Toni Collette has multiple personalities, all of them written by Diablo Cody.
I wish it didn’t take two paragraphs to explain, but it’s a start:

More precocious than her elders, she swiftly discovered a knack for cheesing people off, largely because she is a creature of the times and because snark itself is her art, subject, and default mode. The ideal specimen of a Diablo Cody line will feature a tension between diction and form. Though assembled with a literary wit, it will drop either a pop-culture allusion (often chosen for its kitsch value) or slang that’s just slightly anachronistic, and it will flaunt the casualness of the dropping. It is pleased with its own cleverness almost to the point of hostility, sneering as it snaps past.

So, here, we get, “Sometimes you make me feel like I’m living in a Lifetime lady-tampon movie”; “That dude is such a waste of hair product”; “I’ve been diggin’ around your closest for an hour, and I still can’t fuckin’ get to Narnia”; “cluck-cluck” (as a synonym for fried chicken); “Sudoku” (as a racial slur); “Jell-O Pudding is for the children” (said in Bill Cosby’s voice); and—this is T explaining how Tara found out that her daughter took a morning-after pill—”She went all CSI in that pubic thatch you call a backpack.” For whatever reason, Cody has front-loaded her scripts with this stuff—is she trying to alienate the audience? Sitting through the grating first reel of Juno felt at times like a test of character, but I left the movie with a lump in my throat. Tara doesn’t yet show the same emotional depth as Juno—not in its first four episodes, at least—but if you have the fortitude to make it through the tonal assault of its first 10 minutes, then you’ll get to see some recognizable human feeling seep up through the wisecracks.

2008
 Dec 

Ariana Huffington Told Me To Blog

Filed under: blogs,columbia journalism review,economy,media,tv — admin @ 11:37 pm  

…but I’m going to do it anyway.
MSNBC is disturbing.
NBC is dumb.
Have a good holiday!
…oh, and Ariana Huffington is still a dope.

2008
 Nov 
26 

Mumbai and Lesser Phenomena

Filed under: media,tv,twitter,web — admin @ 10:29 pm  

One of the big problems with using Twitter is the inability to filter noise. Think of “just got out of the shower, coffee and then fighting traffic with this hangover,” ad nauseam…
Stuff like this is an overstatement. The potential is there. The present reality is something entirely different.
When you search on #mumbai you find insightful, impassioned texts from all over the world. But you also get airheads saying “omg I need to bake pies for tomorrow but I want to watch cnn!” and gee-whiz-gosh insensitive dorks who insist on impressing [sic] you with some mythical “social media experiment” significance. And don’t forget the big Twitter picture: misinformation, rumor, disinformation and glib ignorance spreading like flu among harpies gathered along neighborhood backyard fences.
Suddenly it seems everyone’s got a cellphone and a Twitter account. Just like (supposedly) everyone who heard the Velvet Underground started a band. Problem is– no matter how enthralling the, um, artists found their particular noise– only a small fraction of those bands was ever worth listening to.
The story is the story. The medium should not be the headline. One new-ish manner of reporting the story must not overshadow the narrative’s gruesome human and political significance. That kind of self-importance is counterproductive from a journalistic perspective.

2008
 Oct 
30 

Chris Matthews Is a Dork

Filed under: chris matthews,tv — admin @ 6:06 pm  

yes, a DORK