Pimpin’ Journalism ain’t easy. Odd hours, low pay, audiences that don’t appreciate the effort you put into making their world a better place. One of these days we’ll do an SVR on journalists, but today we’re talking about TV reporters, and yeah, they can have it rough, too. Take this guy. It’s not bad enough that he’s 130 years old
Read moreA few months back I did some work for a client interested in building a broadly based community around sustainability. A stated concern was the desire to build a coalition that spanned all political groups in the US. The general goal of saving our environment shouldn’t be a concern only for progressives; however, there was a strong suspicion that non-progressive
Read moreGood news in the inbox this morning. Jonas Phillips, the Asheville freeway blogger, has been acquitted. Sure, AT&T is still monitoring your phone calls, but every little victory for freedom is welcome these days, huh? Thanks to Clare Hanrahan for letting us know.
Read moreI’m not enough of a medical expert to know exactly what this means, but I’m certain thousands of parents around the country with autistic children are keenly interested. Government Concedes Vaccine Injury Case Government health officials have conceded that childhood vaccines worsened a rare, underlying disorder that ultimately led to autism-like symptoms in a Georgia girl, and that she should
Read moreWell, well, well. Look at the snarling beast that’s threatening to rear its head this summer in Denver: Not to mention that there’s going to be a significant Iraq veteran contingent at the convention, ready to rock ‘n’ roll. We’ve already had planning meetings about it — we’re going about it the same way that we would plan any decent
Read moreI’m looking at Sen. Hillary Clinton’s comments in the wake of her primary victories yesterday in Texas and Ohio, and I’m wondering if I now have even more reason to be worried than I did before. From CNN: Clinton attributed her wins to the belief of voters that she would be the best candidate to protect the nation. “For me,
Read moreJoe Brewer and George Lakoff have published a new analysis that looks at the importance of “cognitive policy” – the process of constructing the assumptions that underlie actual material policy decisions. For instance: Conservative cognitive policy over many years has resulted in the following ideas being promulgated to the public: Successful wealthy people merit their success. Those who are not
Read moreWho are the most influential bands and artists in the history of rock? Well, start with The Beatles and Elvis, I guess, and for good reason. Chuck Berry, Little Richard, The Stones, of course, The Who and David Bowie. The big names. All of them signed their names on our culture with a fat permanent marker, and in doing so
Read moreOn February 14 Silvestre Reyes, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, crawled up in Dubya’s grille and dropped some righteous nard-stomping pro-democracy rhetoric on his punk ass. We were as happy as we were stunned to see a Democratic leader swinging an actual set of cojones in the face of Mr. President’s fragrantly anti-liberty pro-corporate full-monty assault
Read moreIf you know anything at all about the agency world, this new report tells you a whole lot of what you already know. ‘Agencies Don’t Get It,’ Survey Says Feb 28, 2008Clients are placing more emphasis on mastering social media but find their agencies ill equipped to help them succeed in that space, according to a new survey. TNS Media
Read more[An artist] should copy the masters and re-copy them, and after he has given every evidence of being a good copyist, he might then reasonably be allowed to do a radish, perhaps, from Nature. – Edgar Degas I went to see the “Inspiring Impressionism” exhibit yesterday at the Denver Art Museum and came away struck by how remarkably it addressed
Read moreLast September we hit you with part one of our best music videos ever, featuring Death in Vegas, The Prodigy and Pop Will Eat Itself. Powerful stuff, to say the least. Today we’re back with round two – alieNation. Up first is Orbital’s “The Box.” I used this one in a class or two back in the late ’90s. Humanities
Read moreAlan Wilder of Recoil (and formerly of Depeche Mode) has some thoughts on the state of music these days. So who shall we blame for the whole mess? Do we stick two fingers up at the record companies who have sat around twiddling their thumbs, peddling overpriced re-issues for years while their A&R men bombard us with shallow, faceless pop
Read moreThe last three or four years have seen a veritable explosion in New Wave- and ’80s-influenced bands. A few of these groups have found ways to take their influences and move their music forward (The Killers, Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, The Strays), while most of the rest remain captive to the sounds of the bands they so clearly love. But damn,
Read moreOpening night for NBC’s new Millennial-targeted series, Quarterlife, was an unparalleled disaster. The drama series which made headlines about its transition from internet to TV, “Quarterlife,†succeeded in being a flop in its NBC debut Tuesday night, having the worst ratings in at least 20 years, according to Nielsen Media Research. The brazilian-dollar question now becomes: what happened? More at
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