The Republican demagogue corps goes through the motions. Figures that this particular troll deigns finally to show his face and utter the word “Katrina” after years well spent cowering in obscurity. I guess there’s a statute of limitations on shame?
A representative from the US Chamber of Commerce finds it necessary to crash a prank press conference.
I know he was most likely a bit nervous, and perhaps we should judge firefighters not on whether they have to use their fingers to read.
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.
…even before that nefarious Mother Jones gig.
Press Release: ANA MARIE COX JOINS AIR AMERICA AS CORRESPONDENT
See you in hell, Ana.
…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.
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.
