Tag: Media

The Joy of Reading a Bad Review

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I have only a passing knowledge of the Amazon TV show Transparent, and even less knowledge of its showrunner, Jill Soloway, still, when I came across this review of her memoir, She Wants It, I realized that I had stumbled on a gem, one one that might make Rex Reed, master of the snarky review gasp in awe.

Also, unlike Reed, Andrea Long Chu actually gets into the weeds of the book, and not how Soloway looks, or dresses, etc., which to my mind puts her a pretty big step above Reed.

She demolishes the recollections of a narcissistic asshole on their own terms:

As a lightweight behind-the-scenes look at a critically acclaimed television series, Jill Soloway’s new memoir She Wants It: Desire, Power, and Toppling the Patriarchy is just south of worth purchasing at the airport. As a book about desire, power, or toppling the patriarchy, it is incompetent, defensive, and astonishingly clueless.

This is a story about someone who responds to criticisms of her TV show by taking “a glamping writers’ retreat” to El Capitan: “We had a shaman come. She did magic incantations as we lay on the floor of a yurt.” It is an unwitting portrait of a rich Los Angeles creative type with a child’s knack for exploiting the sympathies of others, a person whose deep fear of doing the wrong thing was regularly outmatched by an even deeper distaste for doing the right thing. The nicest thing that can be said of this oblivious, self-absorbed, unimportant book is that it proves, once and for all, that trans people are fully, regrettably human.

Those are the first two paragraphs, and it goes on to skewer Peter Thiel (who I should note is literally a vampire who wants to use the blood of the young to extend his lifespan) in only 7 words, along with lambasting former Transparent star Jeffrey Tambour, Louie C.K., and Lena Dunham

Still she conclusively shows, with Soloway’s own words, that they are not as much of a self absorbed asshole as Soloway is.

This is beautiful, and I know two thing for sure:

  1. I never want to be on the bad side of Andrea Long Chu.
  2. If I ever need a speech writer, I want her.

 There are tears of joy pouring down my face.

Buh Bye Megyn

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It looks like Megyn Kelly’s long history of racism has finally caught up with her:

Megyn Kelly is expected to wind down her 9 a.m. ‘Today‘ show hour by the end of the season, THR reported late Wednesday.

Megyn Kelly Today will be airing reruns in wake of the NBC News host’s controversial comments about wearing blackface and amid an uncertain future surrounding her place at the network.
 

………

The host is expected to end her show on the 9 a.m. hour of Today by the end of the season, a source told THR. Kelly was set to meet with executives to work out the future of her role at the network. During meetings held before the eruption from her blackface remarks, Kelly had expressed a desire to cover more news and politics and move away from the lighter fare she often covers on her morning show. Now, backlash from the remarks seem to have only exacerbated the conversation about the future of both Megyn Kelly Today and Kelly at NBC. It’s unclear what NBC News would put in place of Kelly’s show.

I don’t understand how NBC can be surprised by this.

Kelly spent a decade giving racist dog whistles, when she wasn’t blowing a racist tuba, at Fox News.

Even in my Coffee

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I’m having coffee at work, and I glance at the lit of the can of coffee, and I see that:

I don’t expect a whole bunch out of my work coffee.  I’m not one of those folks who demand fresh ground coffee with foam, etc.

I just want that orange rat-f%$# to stay the f%$# away from my f%$#ing coffee.

I don’t f%$#ing think that this is too f%$#ing much to f%$#ing ask.

I also know that it’s kind of petty to complain about this, after all, my employer is paying for my the maintenance of my caffeine dependence problem, but I would prefer that my coffee not remind me that Donald John Trump exists, and used to be a crappy reality show host.

This is Seriously Cyberpunk, in a Seriously Dystopian Way

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Next year, Amy Winehouse will conduct a worldwide tour, despite having died more than 7 years ago.

Dead celebrities touring as computer generated simulacrums really does sound like something straight out of William Gibson’s darkest visions:

A hologram of Amy Winehouse is set for a worldwide tour in 2019. A projection of the late singer will “perform” digitally remastered arrangements of her songs, backed by a live band, singers and what the production company Base Hologram calls “theatrical stagecraft”.

Winehouse’s father, Mitch, described the endeavour as a dream. “To see her perform again is something special that really can’t be put into words,” he said. “Our daughter’s music touched the lives of millions of people and it means everything that her legacy will continue in this innovative and groundbreaking way.”

Mitch Winehouse said the tour will raise money and awareness for the Amy Winehouse Foundation. The charity educates young people about drug and alcohol misuse, provides support for those at risk and supports the development of disadvantaged young people through music.

The show is expected to last 75 to 110 minutes.

This is profoundly creepy.

The New Doctor

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I saw the premier of the latest season of Dr. Who, with a new Doctor.

I was not immediately impressed, but typically, the first show with a new doctor tends to be a bit weak, because both the writers, and the actor, are trying to find the character.

This is further complicated because they are also adding a whole new batch of companions.

That being said, I rather like that she has a northern (Yorkshire) accent rather than the received pronunciation (BBC), and I like that this actually Jodi Whittaker’s native accent.

I do kind of wish that there wasn’t so much hype over this, but I do understand why this is the case.

Breaking My Embargo of Job Talk

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Generally, my rule of thumb is not do discuss my job. To do otherwise is an invitation for termination

But this one is too good.

I was talking to James, our welder, and he complained that frequently when we are half way through the project, the goals change.

I replied with the following:

Sad life.

 Probably sad death.

 At least there is symmetry.

Made my fucking day, it did.

Tweet of the Day

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Yes, let's get back to those halcyon days of "normal news," like the Iraq War, Katrina, the financial crisis, bailouts, no prosecutions of Wall St, the BP spill, Hurricane Sandy, widening inequality & Dems losing every level of government while MSNBC pundits made millions… https://t.co/tILiLpjVMS

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) September 26, 2018

Yeah, self involved myopia does seem to be the rule for the mainstream media.

Rule Number 1 of Telcos: They Will F%$# the Consumer Whenever They Can

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Rule number 2 is: GOTO 1

Case in point, wireless carriers got caught throttling Netflix and Youtube:

Anyone holding out hope that the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of net neutrality rules wouldn’t affect their internet better brace for some bad news. New research from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Northeastern suggests that all of the major U.S. telecom companies have been throttling traffic to and from apps like Netflix and YouTube. That means customers are getting lower quality video, because the internet service providers say so.

The data that backs up this startling claim comes from over 500,000 tests that looked at more 2,000 ISPs worldwide. Everything was collected through an app called Wehe, developed by the researchers, that has been downloaded by over 100,000 people. This amounts to one of the largest studies of its kind. Verizon appears to be the biggest culprit with 11,100 instances of what the researchers call “differentiation,” most of which involves throttling. AT&T was spotted treating traffic differently 8,398 times, and they identified T-Mobile doing it almost 3,900 times.

Need a few more stats to get angry? The throttling observed through the Wehe app was not minor. Bloomberg gives an example of a recent test wherein “Netflix speeds were 1.77 megabits per second on T-Mobile, compared with the 6.62 megabits-per-second speed available to other traffic on the network at the same time.” That’s about one third as fast. David Choffnes, one of the researchers behind the Wehe app, says YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, and NBC Sports have been throttled in similar ways.

………

None of this means that big telecom companies will change how they’re operating. Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile all told Bloomberg that these instances of differentiation simply meant that they were managing internet traffic. “And people probably don’t notice because the video still streams at DVD quality levels,” Bloomberg reports. “If you want high-definition video, you can pay more, the carriers say.”

………

We don’t know what will happen next in that fight, but one thing does look very clear. Given the opportunity, it looks like big telecom companies can and will throttle internet traffic, unless their customers pay more money. Extrapolated over time, this principle could fracture the internet as we know it into fiefdoms and walled gardens, where only the rich get access to certain information and services. If this sounds like a bad idea, you can email Ajit Pait at this address.

I think that the best solution is public ownership of telecommunications services, but I tend to be fairly far along that philosophical axis, so YMMV.

The National Enquirer is Run by a Pecker

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Oh dear. The cover of tomorrow’s @NYDailyNews. pic.twitter.com/RI15NW95a6

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 24, 2018

I Love NY Daily News Headlines

I have heard a number of people suggest that the scandal rag is run by a pecker.

Little did know that this was literally true, and that the schmuck has been granted immunity by prosecutors, which means that he can be forced to testify before a grand jury:

Prosecutors reportedly granted immunity to David Pecker, the CEO of the company that publishes National Enquirer, as part of their investigation into President Trump‘s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen.

Pecker met with the prosecution to discuss Cohen’s involvement in Trump’s hush-money deals with women leading up to the 2016 presidential election, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Pecker has emerged as a central figure in the scandal involving the payments. CNN last month released audio of Trump and Cohen discussing payment to a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, in which Cohen apparently references Pecker, telling Trump that he needs “to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend David.”

Dylan Howard, the chief content officer at American Media, the Enquirer’s publisher, will also not be criminally charged, according to the Journal. Neither the two men nor American Media responded to the newspaper’s request for comment.Pecker’s possible involvement in the payments first drew attention when The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2016 that the Enquirer had withheld a story about an alleged affair McDougal had with Trump.

The Enquirer reportedly paid McDougal $150,000 for a story about the alleged affair in 2006, but never published it.

Seriously, this is too absurd for a Blackadder series.

NYT Endorses Zephyr Teachout for AG

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Given the generally pro-corporate bent of the Gray Lady, their endorsement is a surprise:

The most important choice facing New York voters this fall is whom they will pick as their next state attorney general. The office could be the last line of defense against an antidemocratic president, a federal government indifferent to environmental and consumer protection and a state government in which ethics can seem a mere inconvenience.

Even in the best of times the office plays a critical role, policing fraud on Wall Street and ensuring enforcement of state and federal laws, from regulating the financial system to preventing employment discrimination. Its influence is felt across the nation.

These are not the best of times. With the right leadership, the office could serve as a firewall if President Trump pardons senior aides, dismisses the special counsel, Robert Mueller, or attacks the foundations of state power. Only a handful of American institutions are equipped to resist such assaults on constitutional authority, and the New York attorney general’s office, with 650 lawyers and a history of muscular law enforcement, is one of them.

The next attorney general will have a full docket in New York as well. Albany has long been a chamber of ethical horrors. In March, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s former senior aide Joseph Percoco was convicted on corruption charges. In May, former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, was also convicted of corruption. In July, the former Republican Senate majority leader, Dean Skelos, was convicted of bribery, extortion and conspiracy. Prosecutors said he used his office to pressure businesses to pay his son $300,000 for no-show jobs. The same month, Alain Kaloyeros, a key figure behind Mr. Cuomo’s “Buffalo Billion” economic initiative, was convicted in a bid-rigging scheme.

 ………

 From a refreshingly strong field competing in the Democratic primary, to be held on Sept. 13, the best candidate is Zephyr Teachout, an independent-minded lawyer unusually well prepared to curb abuses of power and restore integrity and pride to this office. Ms. Teachout waged a strong primary challenge against Mr. Cuomo four years ago, lending her additional credibility and distance from a governor who remains all too cozy with the donors, contractors, union leaders and influence peddlers who dominate Albany and beyond.

 ………

 New York needs a great lawyer. We believe that Democrats who are seeking a means of standing up to the Trump presidency and graft in Albany can find in Ms. Teachout their most effective champion for democracy and civil rights, good government and the environment, workers’ rights, fair housing and gender equality.

(emphasis mine)

I think that part of the reason for this endorsement is the above not-so-subtle diss of Cuomo as well.

I think that if Teachout ends up AG, she will have a remarkably hostile relationship with the Governor, and that’s a good thing.

Break Up Facebook: Reason LVLMMXCII

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Facebook’s “Head of news partnerships”, the contemptible Campbell Brown (Charter School shenanigans) has threatened media organizations that choose not to partner with the social media company:

A senior Facebook executive told Australian media companies that if they didn’t cooperate with the social network, their businesses would die.

According to a report by The Australian, Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, told a group of more than 20 broadcasters and publishers that she wanted to help media companies develop sustainable business models through the platform.

“We will help you revitalise journalism … in a few years the ­reverse looks like I’ll be holding your hands with your dying ­business like in a hospice,” she said, in comments corroborated by five people who attended the meeting in Sydney on Tuesday.

The Australian also reported that Brown said that Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, “doesn’t care about publishers but is giving me a lot of leeway and concessions to make these changes”, although both Facebook and Brown vehemently deny this comment was made, referring to a transcript they have from the meeting.

Facebook would not release the transcript from the meeting.

Yes, this is a reason to break up the company.  This is way too much power for a private actor to have.

Also, I will note something that Yves Smith has said frequently, “If your business depends on a platform, your business is already dead.”  (The media graveyard is littered with the remnants of companies that have come to depend on a 3rd party platform.)

What Palmer Said*

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In response to a lawsuit alleging misuse of copyrighted material in their Michael Jackson biopic, Disney is now claiming that it is. “Taking a stand against overzealous copyright holders.

This is like Nathan Myhrvold complaining about patent trolls:

The entertainment giant and its broadcast subsidiary ABC submit its response in court to a copyright lawsuit over ‘The Last Days of Michael Jackson.’

Disney won’t be shamed out of standing its ground in the face of “overzealous copyright holders” like the Michael Jackson Estate. On Monday, the entertainment giant and its broadcast subsidiary ABC filed an answer to the copyright lawsuit over the two-hour documentary The Last Days of Michael Jackson, which used excerpts from This Is It and other works including music videos for “Thriller” and “Black or White.”

The lawsuit came in California federal court in May and pointed to just how seriously Disney takes its own intellectual property. The complaint gave examples: Disney threatened to sue childcare centers for having pictures of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck on the wall; Disney once sued a couple on public assistance for $1 million when they appeared at children’s parties dressed as an orange tiger and a blue donkey; Disney sent takedown notices to social media services upon users posting photographs of their new Star Wars toys; and so forth.

In fact, Disney’s response to the Michael Jackson lawsuit comes just days after it suffered a setback in a lawsuit against a business that sends individuals in costumes to kids’ birthday parties.

No matter and forget any sense of irony.

Answering claims over illicit use of Michael Jackson rights, Disney states, “This case is about the right of free speech under the First Amendment, the doctrine of fair use under the Copyright Act, and the ability of news organizations to use limited excerpts of copyrighted works — here, in most instances well less than 1% of the works — for the purpose of reporting on, commenting on, teaching about, and criticizing well-known public figures of interest in biographical documentaries without fear of liability from overzealous copyright holders.”

Seriously, the level of hypocrisy here is so dense that there is a non-trivial risk of a black hole forming.

*In John Carpenter’s movie The Thing, when Norris’ head sprouted legs and began to walk away, Palmer (no first name) observed, “You gotta be f%$#ing kidding.”

Interesting What Happens When Your Own Ox Is Gored

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Case in point, New York Times opinion columnist Frank Bruni, who is freaking out over the possibility of Trump being impeached and Mike Pence becoming President.

If you look at some of his recent articles, you find a paean to Maryland’s Republican Governor, that the real problem with Trump is that his supporters are excessively partisan, how, the political center is sexy (his term, not mine), and that we should not inconvenience politicians doing unspeakable evil while they dine.

But Mike Pence, Bruni is running around with his hair on fire over that:

There are problems with impeaching Donald Trump. A big one is the holy terror waiting in the wings.

That would be Mike Pence, who mirrors the boss more than you realize. He’s also self-infatuated. Also a bigot. Also a liar. Also cruel.

To that brimming potpourri he adds two ingredients that Trump doesn’t genuinely possess: the conviction that he’s on a mission from God and a determination to mold the entire nation in the shape of his own faith, a regressive, repressive version of Christianity. Trade Trump for Pence and you go from kleptocracy to theocracy.

I agree with Bruni that Pence is an absolute horror show.

He is the Handmaiden’s Tale made flesh.

But this is not what has diverted Bruni from his normal invocations toward bipartisan kumbayas, it is the fact that Mike Pence is a very unique and personal threat to him, because while his bigotries are legion,  Mike Pence hates gays with a particular ferocity, and Frank Bruni is gay.

It’s why Bruni finds Pence scarier than Trump, because it hits him where he lives.

This is a normal human reaction, but as a journalist, Bruni should have known that there was a real possibility that the would end up on the hate hit parade when he was concern trolling over Robert De Niro or the comfort of child snatchers and pathological liars at restaurants.

It’s a Damn Shame

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I have mentioned how it seems to me that Rachael Maddow is having a full Mort Sahl styl meltdown on MSNBC.

I’m wrong, it’s the whole f%$#ing network:

As FAIR has noted before (1/8/18, 3/20/18), to MSNBC, the carnage and destruction the US and its Gulf Monarchy allies are leveling against the poorest country in the Arab world is simply a non-issue.

On July 2, a year had passed since the cable network’s last segment mentioning US participation in the war on Yemen, which has killed in excess of 15,000 people and resulted in over a million cases of cholera. The US is backing a Saudi-led bombing campaign with intelligence, refueling, political cover, military hardware and, as of March, ground troops. None of this matters at all to what Adweek (4/3/18) calls “the network of the Resistance,” which has since its last mention of the US’s role in the destruction of Yemen found time to run over a dozen segments highlighting war crimes committed by the Syrian and Russian governments in Syria.

By way of contrast, as MSNBC was marking a year without mentioning the US role in Yemen, the PBS NewsHour was running a three-part series on the war, with the second part (7/3/18) headlined, “American-Made Bombs in Yemen Are Killing Civilians, Destroying Infrastructure and Fueling Anger at the US.” The NewsHour’s Jane Ferguson reported:

The aerial bombing campaign has not managed to dislodge the rebels, but has hit weddings, hospitals and homes. The US military supports the Saudi coalition with logistics and intelligence. The United States it also sells the Saudis and coalition partners many of the bombs they drop on Yemen.

455 to 0.  That makes the Washington Generals record against the Harlem Globetrotters look impressive.

It’s understandable though, as FAIR notes, “In any event, it’s not like any Yemenis are going to pull ads, turn down appearances, or phone Comcast higher-ups complaining. So, who cares?”

Peter Parker Weeps

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Spiderman co-creator Steve Ditko has died at age 90:

New York police confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter on Friday that one of Marvel Comics’ legendary staffers, Steve Ditko, was found dead in his apartment this week. Ditko was 90.

The creator of Dr. Strange and the original artist (plus “co-creator,” according to Stan Lee) for Spider-Man had been found days earlier, on June 29, and police told THR that they believed he had been dead for two days when he was found. Reports indicate Ditko left behind no family or survivors.

Ditko’s impact on Marvel Comics may only be rivaled by his reclusive nature in later years. After creating and developing Spider-Man with Lee in 1961, Ditko premiered lasting hero Dr. Strange in 1963, and Ditko would continue to write and draw Dr. Strange stories for Marvel until 1966. Disputes over money and friction with Lee reportedly drove Ditko to leave Marvel in 1966, and Ditko shunned the public spotlight shortly thereafter; he gave his last formal interview in 1968, though he continued contributing comics to other publishers.

Most notably in his later career, he created Squirrel Girl. 

Do You Want Some Cheese with That Whine?

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Sarah Palin has called Sacha Baron Cohen “evil, exploitative and sick” after revealing that the satirist had “duped” her into an interview for an upcoming series by posing as a wounded military veteran.

On Monday it was revealed that Baron Cohen had spent a year undercover filming a new project for the Showtime channel. The series, Who Is America?, explores a range of figures “across the political and cultural spectrum” and is reported to feature interviews with Bernie Sanders, Dick Cheney – and Palin. A teaser released for the show features a clip of Cheney being asked to sign a “waterboarding kit”.

“Yup – we were duped. Ya’ got me, Sacha. Feel better now? I join a long list of American public personalities who have fallen victim to the evil, exploitive, sick ‘humor’ of the British ‘comedian’”, Palin wrote in a Facebook post addressing the incident. The former governor of Alaska said she had travelled to Washington DC with one of her daughters for the interview, which she believed was for a “legit” historical documentary on Showtime. She said that Baron Cohen had “heavily disguised himself as a disabled US veteran, fake wheelchair and all” for the interview.

(emphasis mine)

Cohen has been doing this for decades.

So has The Daily Show, and for that matter.

I’ve not followed Cohen’s comedy closely, I am not a big fan of punking, but this should be interesting, though it might very well be significantly less embarrassing to Palin than her for-real interviews.

Time for Thoughts and Prayers, Again, and Again, and Again, and Again

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A lone gunman blasted his way into the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis with a shotgun Thursday, killing five people dead and injuring two others, authorities said.

Journalists dove under their desks and pleaded for help on social media. One reporter described the scene a “war zone.” A photographer said he jumped over a dead colleague and fled for his life.

The victims were identified as Rob Hiaasen, 59, a former feature writer for The Baltimore Sun who joined the Capital Gazette in 2010 as assistant editor and columnist; Wendi Winters, 65, a community correspondent who headed special publications; Gerald Fischman, 61, the editorial page editor; John McNamara, 56, a staff writer who covered high school, college and professional sports for decades; and Rebecca Smith, 34, a sales assistant hired in November.

Police took a suspect into custody soon after the shootings. He was identified as Jarrod W. Ramos, a 38-year-old Laurel man with a longstanding grudge against the paper.

“This was a targeted attack on the Capital Gazette,” said Anne Arundel County Deputy Police Chief William Krampf. “This person was prepared today to come in. He was prepared to shoot people.”

Ramos has been in a dispute with the paper since 2011, so this is not related to the incitements of inverted traffic cone Donald Trump, Elvis impersonator wannabee Milo Yiannopoulos, or the rest of their ilk.

It was just an asshole with a gun.

Maybe the problem is the guns.

Good Point

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The good folks at FAIR note, and disapprove of the fact that when white people engage in racist behavior, the press does their level best to maintain their anonymity:

The presumption of innocence is supposed to protect those accused of a crime, in law and in the press. In corporate media, that rule also seems to apply to white people who report people of color to the police for doing innocuous things. As FAIR found, their identities are far more closely protected than those of people falsely targeted for “suspicious” behavior.

In the past few weeks, major news media have been flooded with coverage of incidents of alleged racial profiling and implicit bias—from golfers reported to police for playing “too slowly,” to picnickers fingered for using the wrong type of grill at a park. This coverage was prompted by viral videos and other social media posts released by the accused or by concerned bystanders, in real time or soon after these events occurred. The characters in these stories had one thing in common: The callers and officers involved were white; the alleged offenders, black or brown.

In a survey of coverage of four recent racial profiling cases, FAIR examined articles or segments in the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today; on NPR, CNN, Fox, and the CBS, NBC and ABC evening news; as well as in major papers in the region where the incidents occurred.

These stories, while similar in content (often using the same quotes or incorporating Associated Press reports), didn’t lack for details. Those accused, police, witnesses, and corporate and institutional leaders were interviewed. Multimedia elements were included, such as smartphone, regular, and police body cam videos, audio from 9/11 calls, police reports and screen captures of social media posts.

But almost across the board, while the accused’s names and personal details have been made public, the accusers remain unnamed. Though equally newsworthy, they were allowed to retain their anonymity.

It took a while for the racist Starbucks manager, or the racist Yale grad student, or the woman who called the police on black people barbecuing in the park, to be revealed, and the information was crowd sourced, and on Twitter, before the major news organizations deigned to publish this information.

For other news stories, the identity of the malefactor would be in the first two paragraphs of the story, but there seems to an editorial omerta as regards wypipo behaving badly.