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Saturday, January 15, 2005from On the Morning of Christ’s NativityJohn Milton XIX The Oracles are dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. 
posted by gbarto at 6:25 PM Friday, January 14, 2005Hewitt has quite a lengthy look at questions of media bias and the recent takes on it from Howard Fineman and Howard Kurtz. Says Hewitt of media bias:Look. This is old ground. It isn't as though anyone is fooled anymore. So why keep fighting?He could have added that this is already happening. It's just that the viewing and reading public is doing the hiring and firing, not the editors. All you need to do is look at the cutbacks in newrooms and the shift in coverage from "hard news" to infotainment on the majors alongside the growth of Fox News and the blogger revolts and it's clear: now that people realize you don't have to take Dan Rather's word for it anymore, they're going elsewhere and the MSM is paying for it in lost eyeballs. Each time they lose eyeballs, they lose ad revenue. And then, somewhere down the line, another center-lefty gets the axe or never gets hired to start with. This way parity lies.
posted by gbarto at 11:08 PM Xanadu – third section (of three) Samuel Taylor Coleridge A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise
posted by gbarto at 10:39 PM Thursday, January 13, 2005For the record:Tom Friedman's Thursday column on Iraqi elections was pretty much on the mark. We need to do this, and we need to remember that those pushing for postponement or for not having elections at all are hardly advocates fairness and justice; rather, they're the guys who denied the Iraqi people self-rule for 30 years under Saddam's regime. More disturbing, Dowd's column wasn't half bad. The subject was, to paraphrase, women looking for men of equal stature with whom they could talk while men look for women of lower stature who will take care of them rather than making them stay at the same level they spend all day at at the office. Interesting column. Just one problem: When talking about women struggling with the new challenges life brings, take a pass on dropping names (in this case, Carrie Fisher's) and stick to the subject. The celeb anecdote ruined an otherwise interesting column and reminded that however far she's come, Dowd got her start writing about Nancy Reagan's dresses.
posted by gbarto at 11:59 PM Xanadu – second section (of three) Samuel Taylor Coleridge But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
posted by gbarto at 11:36 PM Oh no! It's blogger ethics!The TurkeyBlog, sadly, mystifyingly, has yet to even be offered an ice cream to flak for anyone, but here's my two cents worth on bloggers being paid by people with an interest in what appears on their blog:1) Disclosure is desirable. 2) That doesn't mean it's necessary. Instapundit has this quote from Zephyr Teachout: My interest--and where our focus needs to be, whether you're a little green football or a kossack -- is in collectively building a culture online where we figure out norms for people who both consult and write online so that readers can have the tools to be skeptical, active participants.Collectively building a culture? Um, that's what we've been doing, like, since this whole bloggy thing took off. But amazingly enough, we haven't really needed a meta-debate. It doesn't matter whether you're in the tank for Bush because you're getting big bucks, have a thoroughly constrained worldview or are responding to the radio messages in your fillings. If you shill, people come for amusement, not information, if at all, because the tenor of your site reveals a person who is not, for whatever reason, to be taken seriously. Were your writing about Kerry's Vietnam heroics at the heart of the Swift Boat controversy and supporting him? I don't care if you're on the take or nuts, I'm not going to look to you for a realistic assessment of electoral battles. We don't worry about Instapundit being on the take because if he started in with mindless boosterism, it wouldn't sound like him and he'd lose readers, or at least their respect. Bottom line: Spare me all the worrying. If a site is bought and paid for, it will probably lose its edge, then its readers, then its value to the "briber". If you've got someone with an agenda funding you, don't disclose it because you're worried about readers not knowing to be skeptical. The smart ones are skeptical about what counts - the arguments - and the others don't care. Rather, disclose so you don't get clobbered when word gets out and everyone chuckles at what they'd already guessed. Being bought and paid for is fine, as long as you produce good, reasoned stuff that you're not ashamed to see under your own byline. But being boring, chirpy and predictable in the service of a patron is unpardonable whether your rewards are monetary, psychic or whatever.
posted by gbarto at 9:05 PM Lincoln's Wing-Wang Enough people read Instapundit that I don't usually push his pieces, but... The other day, I read a very sharp piece on Lincoln's sexuality by Richard Brookhiser. Other folks, too, have been responding to a new book claiming that Lincoln was gay. My own take on the whole thing is that Lincoln was an odd man, and being the truest sort of man's man have been involved, but it seems a) unlikely and b) unimportant. Gay activists looking for heroes to sell are going to have a hard time making us think of the man who signed the Emancipation Proclamation and led us through the Civil War as America's First Gay President (besides which, the awful James Buchanan is said by some to be a likelier candidate for that title - not only gayer, but he preceded Lincoln). Selling Lincoln on the basis of "Yes, he freed the slaves, but he also liked other men!" seems to me unlikely to sell any better than Oliver Stone's Alexander the Great - "Forget that he conquered the known world - he liked boys!" biopic did. Which brings us to Instantman's excellent summary of the above: WAS LINCOLN GAY? Andrew Sullivan cares, and so do the folks at The Weekly Standard. I can't seem to, though. The guy saved the nation, and I'm supposed to care about where he put his wing-wang?Precisely.
posted by gbarto at 1:30 AM Wednesday, January 12, 2005Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the Imams...From a Fox News piece: Some hard-line Islamic clerics have preached that the tsunami was sent because people didn't follow the law of God. Aid workers have been warned not to venture into outlying areas in Sumatra because the situation may not be safe.I wonder if the average Muslim cringes as much at reports like these as I did as a Christian when Falwell said that 911 proved that America had lost God's protection on account of her wanton ways. The good news is that most Americans have started to regard Robertson and Falwell as a bit freakish. No word, meanwhile, on whether the folks from the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice ever got their comeuppance for burning a dozen girls to death in an effort to protect firefighters from the sight of uncovered hair, but their latest fellows mucking up aid delivery post-tsunami ought be assigned an adjoining room in Hell when the time comes.
posted by gbarto at 11:58 PM Xanadu – first section (of three) Samuel Taylor Coleridge In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. …
posted by gbarto at 10:49 PM Tuesday, January 11, 2005The Temple of Chastity (from Sappho and Phaon)Mary Robinson High on a rock, coëval with the skies, A temple stands, reared by immortal powers To chastity divine! Ambrosial flowers, Twining round icicles, in columns rise, Mingling with pendent gems of orient dyes! Piercing the air, a golden crescent towers, Veiled by transparent clouds; while smiling Hours Shake from their varying wings - celestial joys! The steps of spotless marble, scattered o'er With deathless roses, armed with many a thorn, Lead to the altar. On the frozen floor, Studded with tear-drops petrified by scorn, Pale vestals kneel the goddess to adore, While Love, his arrows broke, retires forlorn.
posted by gbarto at 10:58 AM Monday, January 10, 2005TurkeyBlog speaks out on pay-only TimesIt appears that soon readers may have to pay a subscriber's fee to look at the Lying Bastard Sheet online. Instapundit and Kausfiles have been discussing the issue. In the TurkeyBlog's humble opinion, it's price enough to go through the registration process and maintain an NYT cookie on your machine. I'm not paying a fee for something I use mostly to get my blood pressure back up. Not as long as Joshua Micah Marshall (no link, sorry) is free! I think the NYT would be making a big mistake here. The WSJ can charge because it has info people need to make informed money decisions. Even with the market not what it once was, a lot of people are investors. The number of people, though, who are in positions where they need to know what the Times had to say this morning is a lot smaller. As NYT will find out if it can no longer count on bloggers and other newsjunkies to provide ad-viewing eyeballs once the little display stops reading, "Register Now, It's Free" and starts reading, "Enter your credit card information here."
posted by gbarto at 11:18 PM from Darkness Lord Byron I had a dream, which was not all a dream: The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless and pathless, and the icy Earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air! Morn came, and went, and came - and brought no day. And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light.
posted by gbarto at 11:17 PM Sunday, January 09, 2005Hugh Hewitt is talking sense on Social Security reform strategy. The GOP should be poised to win the idea war, but we do have to get our ideas out there.But before we get too worked up, we should recall that Bush and Rove have done this before. Many commentators - including me - have spent a lot of time fussing about the way these two time their entrances into political fights. But they seem to win most of their fights and in ways that confound and frustrate their opponents no end. So, President Bush and Mr. Rove, let's get moving on the Social Security reform bill before it's too late! As soon as you're ready, of course.
posted by gbarto at 9:57 PM Instantman is down again. Wonder what's with Hosting Matters. And why, if these are attacks, they're hitting at this time of day instead of peak reading and posting hours. Update: He's back. Wonder whether it's my service or his that hiccupped, but he did have a post about the site being down over at the InstaBackup site earlier.
posted by gbarto at 9:51 PM Terrible discovery... Went to Arby's tonight. Hadn't been in ages. They didn't have the French dip sandwich anymore. The guy said it had only been gone a week or two. So, it seems, no more "au jus sauce." An end to an institution. But the roast beef was good.
posted by gbarto at 9:41 PM Rethinking Armstrong Williams K-Lo tries to distinguish the particular wrong of Armstrong Williams and the Bushies and wonders if it's money. Nope. Just the way the money was parceled out: Wasn't Armstrong Williams just educating his community about how the importance of federal policies for the improvement of their options? How's that different from Planned Parenthood, homeless activists and environmental groups taking federal dollars while "educating" the public about the importance of abortion rights, subsidies for the poor and the protection of Mother Earth? The problem here is one of tact: Williams should have created a foundation (call it Operation BUSH - Black Urban School Hope) and let it take the subsidies and buy his house, car, suits and plane tickets. Then instead of being on the take, he would have been following in the footsteps of the most visible civil rights leader in America today.
posted by gbarto at 3:39 PM The Star Jane Taylor Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky. When the blazing sun is gone, When he nothing shines upon, Then you show your little light, Twinkle, twinkle, all the night. Then the traveller in the dark, Thanks you for your tiny spark! He could not see which way to go, If you did not twinkle so. In the dark blue sky you keep, And often through my curtains peep, For you never shut your eye Till the sun is in the sky. As your bright and tiny spark Lights the traveller in the dark, Though I know not what your are, Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
posted by gbarto at 1:34 AM |
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