Now THAT is the anti-drug?

"Pot will take you to outer space... Then you'll be ALONE." Eugene Mirman is amazing. His video will not make you sober.

Crossing Brooklyn Library

The Brooklyn Library has the first 61 years of the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper online, from 1841 to 1902. This is the rag Walt Whitman edited and typeset, and the online archive contains everything from the Civil War to the construction of Coney Island, and spans the transformation of Brooklyn from country town to bustling metropolis.

Sometimes he bites, but it always tastes good

Astute observers will notice a new entry on the blog roll: The Hand That Feeds Me. A certain mysterious DG alum has put his writing to good use and commenced the skewering. Check it out.

Conservatives Suddenly Go for Quotas

When Bill Clinton suggested his cabinet look like America, liberals thought that didn't just mean the colors and creeds of America, but our sense of fairness and duty. But suddenly conservative commentators love the narrow-minded definition of affirmative action:

New York Post commentator Deborah Orin quotes scholar Stephen Hess: "Why would they vigorously oppose the first black woman to be secretary of state and the first Latino to be attorney general?"

The Reagan-worshipping OpinionJournal marvelled that "It boggles the mind that 36 Democrats would vote against the first Hispanic attorney general."

It boggles my mind that equal opportunity has been twisted into equal opportunism.

The Glass Half Full

This will be a recurring feature where the media just doesn't get it, and their headlines read the wrong side of an issue.

Just before Bush unveiled his Social Security plan, instead of jumping on the fact that everyone under 55 would face benefit cuts, the media wrote headlines like these:

Sources: Bush Plan Won't Affect 55 and Up (ABC News)

Bush Soc. Sec. Plan Protects Those Over 55 (Kansas City Star)

Older workers' benefits protected in Bush plan (Houston Chronicle)

With a liberal media like this, who needs Rush?

The Livingroom Candidate

Here is an absolutely fantastic online exhibit of political campaign commercials past and present. See the little girl picking daisies while an atom bomb explodes! See Willie Horton! And a whole bunch of other doozies. Sit back and witness the unholy alliance of politics and mass media.

Des Moines isn't *that* patriotic

Librarians across the country are less-than-excited about the free CD windfall that's come from the record industry settling its price-inflation lawsuit. Part of the music industry's compensation involves giving music to libraries.

Eva Silverstone, communications director for the Spokane Public Library, said the library in eastern Washington received many copies of “Three Mo’ Tenors” among its 1,325 CDs, along with “tons of copies of Christina Aguilera’s Christmas album.” All told, she said, 15 titles represented 36 percent of the shipment.

“We’ll be able to add approximately 283 titles to our collection,” she said. “We’re obligated to either trade the others with other libraries or give them to our friends of the library group for sale, with any proceeds going to support the music program,” she said. “It’s a positive thing, but it’s also a little bit disappointing.”

The public library in Worcester, Mass., with a main library and two branches, received 150 copies of “Nastradamus,” a 1999 album by the rapper Nas, and 148 copies of “Entertainment Weekly’s Greatest Hits of 1971.”

“It’s an OK album with some decent songs on it, it’s just that we don’t need 148 of them,” Penny Johnson, head librarian of the Worcester library, said of the latter. She said that other libraries in Massachusetts that received more individual titles than they can use are arranging to exchange their excess copies and will then try to sell the rest.

The Des Moines (Iowa) Public Library was on track to take the lead in redundancies, though the identification of the programming bug may come in time to avert what might have been a record overkill. Its crate of 2,647 CDs, due to arrive in the next couple weeks, was listed as containing 430 single-song discs — 16 percent of the total -- of Whitney Houston singing “The Star Spangled Banner” at the 1991 Super Bowl, according to Steve Cox, of the Iowa State Library.

I'd prefer 8, but 12 would do

David Edelstein is not my favorite movie reviewer, in large part because, when I've heard him on NPR, he sounds like he's trying (badly) to sound like Quentin Tarentino. But even annoying people can sometimes be insightful, and this little blurb seems to sum up my entire worldview:

The explosion of interest among grown men in dodgeball—i.e., throwing balls very, very hard at people while trying not to get hit by balls being thrown very, very hard at them—confirms what many of us have known for some time: that American males would love to have a little toggle switch that would make them, in an instant, 12 years old. (Given their druthers, they'd probably switch it back only to get laid and buy beer.)

The Two Faces of David Brooks

Every liberal's favorite conservative gets divided in two: David Brooks the Journalist, and David Brooks the Hack.

Similarly, Brooks the Hack indulges in predictable--and frequently dishonest--caricatures of Democrats. He once wrote that "upscale areas everywhere" voted for Al Gore, even though a cursory check of census data reveals that seven of the 10 richest counties in America voted for George W. Bush in 2000. When it began to look like John Kerry would carry the Democratic banner in 2004, Brooks argued that the Democrats "won't nominate a guy unless his family had an upper-deck berth on the Mayflower"--this of a party whose last five nominees included a Georgia peanut farmer, a guy raised by a working-class single mom in Arkansas, and another born to Greek immigrants. Yet Brooks the Hack seems to revel in cheap shots, such as implying that the term "neocon" was anti-Semitic-- "con is short for 'conservative' and neo is short for 'Jewish'," he recently wrote in the Times.

Just don't get rid of Schickele Mix.

This ain't your grandpa's NPR.

THINGS ARE ROUGH ALL OVER, if you like to listen to classical music on the radio--and even rougher if, like the members of AMPPR, you try to make a living putting it on the air. What listeners in Orlando have seen happen at Glerum's station is a slow-motion version of what has happened to public radio across the country. Music--not merely classical but also jazz, folk, blues, and bluegrass, once staples of public radio programming--is slowly being withdrawn from the public airwaves. According to data from the trade group M Street Group, the number of noncommercial stations identified as "classical" has been cut in half since 1993, while the number of noncommercial news-talk stations has tripled. Data from the Public Radio Tracking Study, commissioned by public radio stations, tell the same story. From 1995 to 2002, the number of locally generated classical music hours on public radio declined roughly 10 percent, even as the number of public radio stations greatly increased; meanwhile, over the same period, the number of news-talk hours rose by more than 150 percent. As the tracking study researchers wrote in their report, with unseemly enthusiasm: "Local classical music just sits there, while NPR news-talk races ahead."

I Never Get Anything This Good from Sudafed

A.L. Kennedy, author of the novel Original Bliss and the recent collection of short stories, Indelible Acts, wrote a bizarre and funny little piece for the Guardian about sinus medication, the Iraq war, and Jesus [Thx, The Fold Drop].

My conditioning asserts itself, or my limbic area constricts, who knows: but suddenly there's Jesus, completely visualised. And he looks just the way I've been led to expect - Middle Eastern robes, sandals (a good sign, surely) and that delightfully Aryan combination of blue eyes, fair skin and flaxen hair. He even has his arms extended at that come-unto-me angle, except he seems, well, scary. Then he speaks.

I won't spoil the rest, but it is quite funny.

Polyphonic Phun

I've not heard much of The Polyphonic Spree's music (I fear it may be a little grand for my tastes, although I like the second song), but this flash game on their site is really lovely. Go forth and play/listen.

Even the Liberal Media is Right-Wing

As if radio didn't have enough conservative voices, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has even more bad news.

The study counted 2,334 sources used in 804 stories aired last June for four programs: "All Things Considered," "Morning Edition," "Weekend Edition Saturday" and "Weekend Edition Sunday." For the analysis of think tanks, FAIR used the months of May through August 2003.

Overall, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by 61 percent to 38 percent, a figure only slightly higher now, when the GOP controls the White House and both houses of Congress, than during a previous survey in 1993, during the Clinton administration.

NPR has a response here. The gist is that FAIR is liberal, and so they read liberals as centrists and centrists as right-wing. Decide for yourself and read the original FAIR report here.

A Class Act

Not to give the impression that all we're doing is watching PBS over here, but Bill Moyers gave a great interview with Texas Monthly on why he's leaving television and the future of PBS.

I intend to become much more of an advocate for public broadcasting than when I am on the air and seem to be acting in self-interest. As a private citizen, I'll be one of its most consistent and ardent supporters. We must get a $5 billion trust fund. We must sever our ties to federal funding. We pay a price when we're even slightly tethered to the taxpayers, to the Congress, to the political process.

What price?

For years we've been looking over our shoulders, worried that a chairman of an appropriations committee is going to get angry over some piece of programming. Self-censorship comes unintentionally and even unknowingly to the person who is aware that he is obligated to the government, but this is one of those times when journalism needs to get as close to the verifiable truth as possible. And when I do that, there's always a rumble. Every three or four years, critics of public broadcasting use my programming as the means to go after its funding.

How Young is Too Young?

Get your minds out of the gutter, people.

This is a problem near and dear to my heart. Not just because it corrupts the legions of mini-Britneys and mini-Justins out there, but because a youth-driven culture is unfair to anyone older and will always make adolescent decisions. I just came from a meeting with salespeople from a big cell phone service. These execs were in their late forties and actually said things like "We're not getting news today like our parents did -- this is new, not like our parents' content delivery service!" And I was like, the only content service my parents have is for their oxygen tank!

But anyways. It's been a ranting, scattershot couple of days for me. Here's an article about advertisers' agonizing over how young is too young for advertising. The similarity between advertisers and Christians is striking to me. Christians have historically argued about free will and baptism and whether someone's really been baptised if they're only a child and haven't rationally chosen to accept the Lord. Advertisers argue, I guess, about whether someone has really accepted the Cheese Steak pizza if they're too young to rationally choose it. And trust me -- we're all too young to rationally choose the cheese steak pizza.

From an article about advertisers arguing over how many drug ads can fit on the end of the dollar bill:

That's a hotly debated question, even among people who earn their living marketing to children: 61 percent of those involved in the industry said that advertising to children starts at too young an age, according to a recent survey by Harris Interactive.

And 58 percent said there is too much marketing and advertising directed toward children, according to the survey of about 880 people working in youth-related fields, including youth marketers, advertising agencies and nonprofit agencies.

The appropriate age to start marketing to children is 7, youth marketers in the survey said, but ads and branding are aimed at kids as young as 1. Even Teletubbies has its corporate sponsors and spin-off products.

Apparently, free will begins at 7. Christian sects take note. It's been target-marketed, people!

Ever dream of a career change?

Why not be a Librarian For A Day? The Woman's Day magazine contest could be the start to a wonderful life of constantly-changing jobs and exciting new challenges with each new day.

Unfortunately, the deadline has passed to be Missouri's Agricultural Minister for a Day, as well as for the Healthy Kids Chef for a Day contest. But do mark your calendars for January, 2005, to become Widener University's President for a Day.

Haven't you ever dreamed of being "All My Children" star and teen singing sensation Jesse McCartney's Princess for a Day?

One lucky fan will win:
*Two tickets to Jesse's May 8th show at Taconic High School [in Pittsfield, Massachusetts]
* Limousine transport to and from the show (from a hotel or local residence)
* Special seating in the "Royal Box" located beside the stage
* A princess locket with a photo of Jesse inside
* A photo taken with Jesse

Please note: Airfare and hotel accomodations are not included.

Since when do princesses pay for their own plane tickets? The deadline is today, so get those applications in now!

Connect the dots for a better Friday

Just a reminder that it's Friday, and it's time to check out new comics from DG alumni Brian McFadden (Big Fat Whale), and Steven Cloud (BOASAS).

Give me an 'A'! Give me an 'R'! Give me a 'T'!

Is American arts journalism "shackled by civic responsibility"? Brit Norman Lebrecht argues that our critics fail to challenge artistic institutions because we have so few of them, and no one wants to be responsible for shutting down the show. He says the fiercely competetive British papers produce criticism that is more vital and daring because not only are there more symphonies and museums in London, there are more papers competing with one another.

The tone in US arts coverage is uniformly respectful, uninquiring, inherently supportive. When the boss of Covent Garden takes an early bath, British papers roll out weeks of investigation, gossip and analysis. When the head of the Met decides (or is obliged) to step down, as Joseph Volpe did some weeks ago, he does so in a friendly interview with the New York Times which does not once inquire whether Volpe quit because he's pushing 65 or because his box-office has gone dead since 9/11.

I know the tone he's talking about. And the sad thing is that unquestioned reverence will only insure the demise of these institutions as the public comes to think of classical music, painting, and theater as stale props.

It's baaaaack

Just when I thought John Ashcroft was busy fighting terrorism, it seems like his mind is on naked adults doing things... with objects!

In this field office in Washington, 32 prosecutors, investigators and a handful of FBI agents are spending millions of dollars to bring anti-obscenity cases to courthouses across the country for the first time in 10 years. Nothing is off limits, they warn, even soft-core cable programs such as HBO's long-running Real Sex or the adult movies widely offered in rooms of major hotel chains.

Couple this with the Michael Powell's FCC fining Clear Channel $495,000 for indecent broadcasts by Howard Stern, and maybe we've got a preview of the Bush administration's domestic priorities for the next ten months. John Hogan, president of Clear Channel Radio, sums up the goal of all these lawsuits and fines:

"Mr. Stern's show has created a great liability for us and other broadcasters who air it," said John Hogan, president of Clear Channel Radio. "The Congress and the FCC are even beginning to look at revoking station licenses. That's a risk we're just not willing to take."

Can the moralists take back some control of the media? Volokh discusses the difficulty of Ashcroft's goal. We might all be looking at Safe For Work porn soon.