The move away from gated content towards free continues apace. Cartoonists, Magazines and newspapers are offer their extensive archives -- both online and for sale on DVD -- dating as far back as the 1850s.

Jason Kottke describes this as "an incredible record of recent human history, the ideas, people, and events that have shaped our country and world as recorded by writers, photographers, editors, illustrators, advertisers, and designers who lived through those times."

• Harper's Magazine offers their entire archive online, from 1850 to 2008. Most of it is only available to the magazine's subscribers.

• The NY Times provides their entire archive online, most of it for free.

• Time Magazine has their entire archive online for free, from 1923 to the present.

• Sports Illustrated has all their issues online for free, dating back to 1954.

• The Atlantic Monthly offers all their articles since Nov 1995 and a growing number from their archive dating back to 1857 for free.

• The Washington Post has archives going back to 1877. (Not free)

• The New Yorker has free archives on their site going back to 2001, although only some of the articles are included. All of their articles, dating back to 1925, are available on The Complete New Yorker DVD set for $40.

• Rolling Stone offers some of their archive online but the entire archive (from 1967 to 2007) is available as a 4-DVD set for $79.

• Mad Magazine released a 2-DVD set of every issue of the magazine from 1952-2006.

• Nature has their entire archive online, dating back to 1869.

Old media is slowly figuring out that more content equals more traffic, sometimes much more traffic.

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via The Week

Posted at 06:00 PM in Humor, Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Cover of NY Magazine this week is too too funny:

http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/45107/

Posted at 09:06 PM in Humor, Media, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Surprisingly explicit print ads from fashion designer Tom Ford:

click for full story on each

Sources:

Tom Fords A Valley
Copyranter
http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2007/09/tom-fords-valley.html


What A Dildo: Designer Tom Ford's Phallic Fragrance   
Jezebel
http://jezebel.com/gossip/rag-trade/what-a-dildo-designer-tom-fords-phallic-fragrance-291216.php

Through advertising, Tom Ford continues to inform heterosexual men that he doesn't want them buying his products.   
Copyranter
http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2008/02/through-advertising-tom-ford-continues.html

Posted at 06:05 AM in Current Affairs, Media, Television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Who ever would have guessed that the Chinese communist controlled media would fake a photograph?

Earlier this week, Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, issued an unusual public apology for publishing a doctored photograph of Tibetan wildlife frolicking near a high-speed train.

The deception -- uncovered by Chinese Internet users who sniffed out a Photoshop scam in the award-winning picture -- has brought on a big debate about media ethics, China's troubled relationship with Tibet, and how pregnant antelope react to noise.

The antelope imbroglio began in the summer of 2006. The Chinese government was celebrating its latest engineering feat, and an enthusiastic wildlife photographer from the Daqing Evening News was camped out on the Tibetan plateau eating energy bars and waiting for antelope to pass.

Front page WSJ:
click for interactive photo

courtesy of WSJ

As published:

courtesy of WSJ

Source:
China Eats Crow Over Faked Photo Of Rare Antelope
They Didn't Truly Run With a Train to Tibet; Xinhua Agency Recants
JANE SPENCER and JULIET YE
WSJ, February 22, 2008; Page A1
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120363429707884255.html

Posted at 09:34 AM in Idiot!, Media, Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Click thru for full graphic:

Sources:
A Year in Iraq
ADRIANA LINS DE ALBUQUERQUE and ALICIA CHENG
NYT, January 6, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/opinion/06chart.html

Graphic
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/01/06/opinion/06opchart.ready.html

Posted at 06:00 AM in Media, War/Defense | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Dove warns parents about their own industry

Posted at 06:29 AM in Current Affairs, Media, Philosophy, Television | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

‘Just advertising departments with legs and high heels.’ — Richard Avedon

via The New Shelton Wet/Dry

Posted at 07:15 AM in Art & Design, Humor, Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the
country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the
country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country
but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like
their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running
the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have
to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the
country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's
running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a
seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the
country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably
while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country
but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there
is a country . . . or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose
all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders
are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be
illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course,
that they are not Republicans.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the
grocery store.

12. The Pensacola News Journal is read by people who have recently
caught a fish and need something in which to wrap it.

Posted at 06:30 AM in Humor, Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Too true:

Posted at 09:38 AM in Current Affairs, Humor, Media, Politics, Television | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

This has to be one of the funniest magazine corrections ever:

Then there was this awful error in Us Weekly magazine:

via Regret The Error

Posted at 05:02 PM in Media | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

An amusing if some ribald article in the NY Post: YOUR LAYS ARE NUMBERED

"To a woman, size does matter. But it's not the size you're thinking of. What women really care about is the length of the list of former lovers, which is usually either too many or too, too many. No matter how sexually liberated (or liberally sexual), most women believe that the number of guys they've had sex with (the average being somewhere between 7.2 and 10.5, depending on the survey) really does count."

"20 Times a Lady" is a novel about the excuses women go to keep this a short list:

EXCUSES NOT TO ADD HIM TO 'THE NUMBER'

If he yells out another woman's name

If one or both of you ends up gently weeping

If he might be gay

If he took you out for a vegan meal first

If you're drunk, or you could have been drunk had you been drinking

If you just gave up smoking

If you just gave up having meaningless one-night stands

If it's Tuesday

If he's small

If he's small-minded

If he's Jared Leto

>

Source:
YOUR LAYS ARE NUMBERED   
MARINA VATAJ
NYPost, October 24, 2006
http://tinyurl.com/wjv3b

Posted at 06:13 AM in Books, Humor, Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Who are the cowards editing the US Newsweek?

Raw Story writes:

The United States edition of the October 2, 2006 issue of Newsweek features a radically different cover story from its International counterparts, RAW STORY has learned.

The cover of International editions, aimed at Europe, Asia, and Latin America, displays in large letters the title "LOSING AFGHANISTAN," along with an arresting photograph of an armed jihadi.

The cover of the United States edition, in contrast, is dedicated to celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz and is demurely captioned "My Life in Pictures."

The International cover story begins:

"You don't have to drive very far from Kabul these days to find the Taliban. In Ghazni province's Andar district, just over a two-hour trip from the capital on the main southern highway, a thin young man, dressed in brown and wearing a white prayer cap, stands by the roadside waiting for two NEWSWEEK correspondents. It is midday on the central Afghan plains, far from the jihadist-infested mountains to the east and west. Without speaking, the sentinel guides his visitors along a sandy horse trail toward a mud-brick village within sight of the highway. As they get closer a young Taliban fighter carrying a walkie-talkie and an AK-47 rifle pops out from behind a tree. He is manning an improvised explosive device, he explains, in case Afghan or U.S. troops try to enter the village."

The United Story cover story begins:

"Annie Leibovitz is tired and nursing a cold, and she' s just flown back to New York on the red-eye from Los Angeles, where she spent two days shooting Angelina Jolie for Vogue. Like so many of her photo sessions, there was nothing simple about it. 'I talked with Angelina before the shoot,' says Leibovitz, who's famous for her preparation. 'She felt like she was coming back from having the baby and she felt very sexy and ready to go.' ... There were 50 people on the set, and racks of clothes from the New York spring collections to be tried and styled."

As an American, I am insulted that I am thought of as too squeemish to see this cover, while for the rest of the world, its fine:

What a bunch of chickenshits . . .

>

Sources:
Newsweek features 'Losing Afghanistan' in international edition, celebrity photographer in U.S.
Muriel Kane
Raw Story, Monday September 25, 2006
http://www.rawstory.com/printstory.php?story=3364

Posted at 01:11 PM in Media, Politics, War/Defense, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Keith Olbermann with another special comment, the target, the president, and his failure to act.

Chris Wallace is a "monkey posing as a newscaster, and the Iraq war is not a check on terror but fertilizer for it." Wow.

On Sliming done by Proxy:

Quicktime Video 8.1MB  10'34
Quicktime 7 required

>

Via One Good Move

Posted at 05:57 AM in Media, Politics, War/Defense | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Amusing

Posted at 04:14 PM in Humor, Media | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

This is utterly hysterical:

Comedy Central's "South Park" won its first Peabody Award on Wednesday, winning praise from judges as TV's boldest, most politically incorrect satirical series.

Two Gulf Coast stations that stayed on the air throughout Hurricane Katrina won awards as well, and CNN and NBC were also honored for their coverage of the deadly storm.

WWL-TV, which judges said was the only New Orleans station to broadcast in the city through the hurricane and its aftermath, and WLOX-TV, which kept Biloxi, Miss., residents informed even after broadcasters were forced to the halls when the roof of their building was blown off, were both recognized for their coverage.

The George Foster Peabody Awards, for broadcasting excellence in both news and entertainment, are given annually by the University of Georgia. Thirty-two awards will be handed out June 5 in New York, hosted by two-time recipient Jon Stewart, who anchors Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."

"South Park" was praised as a show that "pushes all the buttons, turns up the heat and shatters every taboo," Peabody Awards Director Horace Newcomb said. "Through that

Sources:
'South Park' Wins Peabody Award
GREG BLUESTEIN
The Associated Press, 04/06/06
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=1809777

65th Annual Peabody Awards Winners Announced
http://www.peabody.uga.edu/

Posted at 11:05 PM in Humor, Media, Television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Talking about the media.
You are what you read . . .

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country .. or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided, of course, that they are not Republicans.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the supermarket. They don't read anything else, except traffic signs.

12. None of these are read by the guy who is running the country into the ground.

Posted at 02:46 PM in Humor, Media, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

8 years ago:

Dear Diary:

It was a balmy February day in midtown, and lots of office workers were out enjoying the afternoon. Filling the width of an entire lane of the Avenue of the Americas was a black Humvee. The military-truck-turned-recreational-toy was simply enormous. A pedestrian noticed the truck's huge girth and blurted, ''Holy cow, that's big!''

His companion asked, ''I wonder where the heck he parks that?''

The driver -- sporting a buzz cut, a tattoo on his biceps and a large cigar -- overheard. ''Anywhere I want, buddy,'' he replied. ''Anywhere I want.''
BARRY L. RITHOLTZ

Metropolitan Diary
By RON ALEXANDER (NYT) 1234 words
Published: March 9, 1998
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F60B1EFB3F540C7A8CDDAA0894D0494D81

Posted at 08:47 AM in Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This is friggin hilarious!

Keith Olbermann, doing his best Ted Baxter imitation, skewers Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly

click for video

via GMSV

Posted at 04:52 AM in Humor, Media, Television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

How cool is this:

click for commercial

Source:
Human Choir Provides Sound For Honda Civic Ad
Adrants
http://www.adrants.com/2006/01/human-choir-provides-sound-for-honda.php

Posted at 03:52 PM in Automobiles, Humor, Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ben Sargent via Yahoo! 

Posted at 07:03 AM in Humor, Media, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Most outrageous statements of 2005

Here are the most outrageous statements Media Matters for America has documented this year. From attacks on women, Muslims, and African-Americans to a call for the assassination of a foreign leader to an open invitation for Al Qaeda to "blow up" San Francisco to a claim that gay marriage would lead to unions between "a man and his donkey," these statements acutely represent the extreme conservative speech we found in the news media in 2005. (We tried to limit the comments to a Top 10 list, but it was simply impossible.)

• Former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett:      "[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime      rate would go down." [Salem Radio      Network's Bill Bennett's Morning in America,      9/28/05]

• Pat Robertson: "If [Venezuelan      President Hugo Chavez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think      that we really ought to go ahead and do it." [Christian Broadcasting      Network's The 700 Club,      8/22/05]

• Bill O'Reilly to San        Francisco: "[I]f Al      Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about      it. ... You want to blow up the Coit       Tower? Go      ahead." [Westwood One's The      Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 12/8/05]

• Bill O'Reilly, agreeing with caller that illegal immigrants are      "biological weapon[s]":      "I think you could probably make an absolutely airtight case that      more than 3,000 Americans have been either killed or injured, based upon      the 11 million illegals who are here." [Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly,      4/15/05]

• Rush Limbaugh: "Feminism was established      so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of      society." [The Rush Limbaugh Show,      8/12/05]

• Rush Limbaugh on the kidnapping of peace activists in Iraq:      "I'm telling you, folks, there's a part of me that likes this."      [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/29/05]

• Ann Coulter: Bill Clinton "was a very      good rapist"; "I'm getting a little fed up with hearing about,      oh, civilian casualties";      "I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the      rest of the world a warning." [New York Observer, 1/10/05]

• Ann Coulter: "Isn't it great to see      Muslims celebrating something other than the slaughter of Americans?"      [Syndicated column, 2/3/05]

• Radio host Glenn Beck: "[Y]ou know it took me      about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a      year." [Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program, 9/9/05]

• Tucker Carlson: "Canada is a sweet country. It      is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him      on the head. You know, he's nice, but you don't take him seriously. That's      Canada."      [MSNBC's The Situation with      Tucker Carlson, 12/15/05]

• American Family Association president Tim Wildmon:      Liberals "don't have the kind of family responsibilities most people      have, and certainly not church responsibilities." [American Family      Radio's Today's Issues,      5/11/05]

• David Horowitz on Cindy Sheehan: "It's      very hard to have respect for a woman who exploits the death of her own      son and doesn't respect her own son's life. ... She portrays him as an      idiot." [MSNBC's Connected:      Coast to Coast, 8/16/05]

• Radio host Neal Boortz on the      execution of Stanley      "Tookie" Williams: "[T]here will be riots      in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere. ... The rioting, of course,      will lead to wide scale looting. There are a lot of aspiring rappers and      NBA superstars who could really use a nice flat-screen television right      now." [Boortz.com, 12/12/05]

• Pat Buchanan: "Our guys" in Iraq "have got every right to have      good news put into the media and get to the people of Iraq, even if it's got to be      planted or bought." [MSNBC's Hardball      with Chris Matthews, 12/1/05]

• National Review editor Rich Lowry: Given      EPA-mandated "small-flush" toilets, "[h]ow is it possible      to flush a Quran down the toilet?" [Young America's Foundation      speech, 8/5/05]

• Neal Boortz, suggesting that a victim of Hurricane Katrina housed in      an Atlanta hotel consider prostitution:      "I dare say she could walk out of that hotel and walk 100 yards in      either direction on Fulton        Industrial Boulevard here in Atlanta and have a job.      What's that? Well, no, no, no. ... Well, you know what? [laughing] Now      that you mention it ... [i]f that's the only way she can take care of      herself, it sure beats the hell out of sucking off the taxpayers."      [Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal      Boortz Show, 10/24/05]

• Focus on the Family founder and chairman James C. Dobson:      Same-sex marriage would lead to "marriage between daddies and little      girls ... between a man and his donkey." [Focus on the Family radio program, 10/6/05]
• Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid:      "Have you noticed that many news organizations, in honor of former      ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings, have embarked on a quit smoking      campaign? So why don't our media launch a campaign advising people to quit      engaging in the dangerous and addictive homosexual lifestyle? ... It      appears that the homosexual lifestyle is as addictive as smoking."      [Accuracy in Media column, 12/14/05]

Source:
Most outrageous statements of 2005
Media Matters for America
Fri, Dec 23, 2005 3:56pm EST
http://mediamatters.org/items/200512230006

Posted at 07:22 AM in Humor, Media, Philosophy, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A parody of the War on Christmas nonsense:

"What's this empire coming to?  Now they want us to stop greeting  people with "Io, Saturnalia"! "We have all these different cultures  in Rome", they tell us.  "We shouldn't offend anyone", they tell us. "We should be inclusive."

"We've got the barbarians from the north with their tree decorations and their fire rituals.  And the weirdos from Gaul, cutting mistletoe with a golden sickle.  And the Mithraists, the Zoroastrians, the Isis cults, and, of course, those characters who hang out in the catacombs.  "Hail, Winter!" we're supposed to say.  I ask you, what next: we lose the feast?  We stop the Solstice parties?  No more honoring Ops, goddess of abundance?

"I was buying some candles and greenery down by the Forum the other day, and there's old Macrobius with some Visigoth chick, and she goes, "Gut Jule".  So I go, "Hey!  In this country, we say, "Io, Saturnalia!  Maybe you should go back to where you came from."  Then Macrobius goes, "She can't, she's a slave".

Source:
Have a PC Holiday, Ancient Rome-Style
Diane Roberts
National Public Radio,  Weekend Edition - Sunday, December 18, 2005
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5060356

Posted at 06:04 AM in Humor, Media, Politics, Religion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

See below for additional historical examples . . .

Source:
If Fox News Had Been Around Throughout History    
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1ldyn/id2.html

Posted at 10:55 AM in Humor, Media, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

These are my 5 favorites out of the top 40:

spacer>
click for larger pics

The entire list can be seen here

<spacer>

Source:
ASME's Top 40 Magazine Covers Of The Past 40 Years
http://www.magazine.org/editorial/13730.cfm

American Society of Magazine Editors Unveils Top 40 Magazine Covers of the Last 40 Years
October 17, 2005
Rolling Stone, Esquire and The New Yorker
Garner Top Honors in ASME’s Magazine 40/40 Competition
http://www.magazine.org/Press_Room/MPA_Press_Releases/13732.cfm

Posted at 06:52 AM in Media | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

CNN put together a series of quotes from FEMA and Federal Officials, and then compares them to the reality on the ground:

The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches version

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Diverging views of a crumbling New Orleans emerged Thursday, with statements by some federal officials in contradiction with grittier, more desperate views from the streets. By late Friday response to those stranded in the city was more visible.

But the conflicting views on Thursday came within hours, sometimes minutes of each of each other, as reflected in CNN's transcripts. The speakers include Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, evacuee Raymond Cooper, CNN correspondents and others. Here's what they had to say:

Conditions in the Convention Center

• FEMA chief Brown: We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need. (See video of Brown explaining how news reports alerted FEMA to convention center chaos. -- 2:11)

• Mayor Nagin: The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people. (Hear Nagin's angry demand for soldiers. 1:04)

• CNN Producer Kim Segal: It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. The children, you should see them, they're all just in tears. There are sick people. We saw... people who are dying in front of you.

• Evacuee Raymond Cooper: Sir, you've got about 3,000 people here in this -- in the Convention Center right now. They're hungry. Don't have any food. We were told two-and-a-half days ago to make our way to the Superdome or the Convention Center by our mayor. And which when we got here, was no one to tell us what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure.

Uncollected corpses

• Brown: That's not been reported to me, so I'm not going to comment. Until I actually get a report from my teams that say, "We have bodies located here or there," I'm just not going to speculate.

• Segal: We saw one body. A person is in a wheelchair and someone had pushed (her) off to the side and draped just like a blanket over this person in the wheelchair. And then there is another body next to that. There were others they were willing to show us. (See CNN report, 'People are dying in front of us' -- 4:36)

• Evacuee Cooper: They had a couple of policemen out here, sir, about six or seven policemen told me directly, when I went to tell them, hey, man, you got bodies in there. You got two old ladies that just passed, just had died, people dragging the bodies into little corners. One guy -- that's how I found out. The guy had actually, hey, man, anybody sleeping over here? I'm like, no. He dragged two bodies in there. Now you just -- I just found out there was a lady and an old man, the lady went to nudge him. He's dead.

Hospital evacuations

• Brown: I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well.

• CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It's gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it. If you think about a hospital, for example, the morgue is in the basement, and the basement is completely flooded. So you can just imagine the scene down there. But when patients die in the hospital, there is no place to put them, so they're in the stairwells. It is one of the most unbelievable situations I've seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist as well. There is no electricity. There is no water. There's over 200 patients still here remaining. ...We found our way in through a chopper and had to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly ... where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire yesterday, halting all the evacuations. (Watch the video report of corpses stacked in stairwells -- 4:45)

• Dr. Matthew Bellew, Charity Hospital: We still have 200 patients in this hospital, many of them needing care that they just can't get. The conditions are such that it's very dangerous for the patients. Just about all the patients in our services had fevers. Our toilets are overflowing. They are filled with stool and urine. And the smell, if you can imagine, is so bad, you know, many of us had gagging and some people even threw up. It's pretty rough. (Mayor's video: Armed addicts fighting for a fix -- 1:03)

Violence and civil unrest

• Brown: I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that.

• CNN's Chris Lawrence: From here and from talking to the police officers, they're losing control of the city. We're now standing on the roof of one of the police stations. The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it wasn't safe to be out on the street.(Watch the video report on explosions and gunfire -- 2:12)

The federal response:

• Brown: Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well.

• Homeland Security Director Chertoff: Now, of course, a critical element of what we're doing is the process of evacuation and securing New Orleans and other areas that are afflicted. And here the Department of Defense has performed magnificently, as has the National Guard, in bringing enormous resources and capabilities to bear in the areas that are suffering.

• Crowd chanting outside the Convention Center: We want help.

• Nagin: They don't have a clue what's going on down there.

• Phyllis Petrich, a tourist stranded at the Ritz-Carlton: They are invisible. We have no idea where they are. We hear bits and pieces that the National Guard is around, but where? We have not seen them. We have not seen FEMA officials. We have seen no one.

Security

• Brown: I actually think the security is pretty darn good. There's some really bad people out there that are causing some problems, and it seems to me that every time a bad person wants to scream of cause a problem, there's somebody there with a camera to stick it in their face. (See Jack Cafferty's rant on the government's 'bungled' response -- 0:57)

• Chertoff: In addition to local law enforcement, we have 2,800 National Guard in New Orleans as we speak today. One thousand four hundred additional National Guard military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 1,400 today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day.

• Nagin: I continue to hear that troops are on the way, but we are still protecting the city with only 1,500 New Orleans police officers, an additional 300 law enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, and other military personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation.

• Lawrence: The police are very, very tense right now. They're literally riding around, full assault weapons, full tactical gear, in pickup trucks. Five, six, seven, eight officers. It is a very tense situation here.

-- CNN, The big disconnect on New Orleans
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.response/index.html

Note that the situation was so bad that Andrew Sullivan -- apparently replaced recently by Pod people -- had to draw a parallel to Iraq:

THE DISCONNECT: CNN - which has just had one of its finest hours - puts together a string of quotes from officials compared with what their own reporting showed at the time. The gap between Bush rhetoric and reality in America is stunning. Now transpose that to Iraq. And worry.

-Daily Dish

Posted at 08:05 AM in Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

click for larger photo

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, some levees designed to protect New Orleans have broken down, leaving the city vulnerable to rising waters.

Source:
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2005/08/30/GR2005083001302.html

Posted at 11:40 PM in Design, Media, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

click for enormous graphic

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Excerpt:

"Conditions are right this year for one or more especially severe storms to lash the Island, they say. But it's been a long time - 67 years - since the last Big One, and officials worry that Long Islanders accustomed to the glancing blows of minor storms have little grasp of just how devastating a major hurricane could be.

"The only people who really have any idea are those who lived through the 1938 storm," said Michael E. Wyllie, the meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Upton, referring to the unnamed hurricane that laid waste to eastern Long Island that year. "And you are talking about people who are into their 70's to even remember it."

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Source:
Dreading a Replay of the 1938 Hurricane
JOHN RATHER
The New York Times, August 28, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/28liblow.html

Posted at 07:30 AM in Media, Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

"It's only a matter of time before South Louisiana takes a direct hit from a major hurricane. Billions have been spent to protect us, but we grow more vulnerable every day."
-- SPECIAL REPORT from THE TIMES-PICAYUNE -

A prescient special report from THE TIMES-PICAYUNE
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/?/washingaway/

Posted at 11:45 PM in Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Media Coverage:

There are several media overviews of the Hurricane Katrina Disaster; Particuylarly noteworthy are those from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

There is also an eerily prescient series from THE TIMES-PICAYUNE, titled Washing Away.

Photo Journalism:

There are several notable photo packages from newspapers that depict the devastation of the New Orleans and the Gulf.

These three are particularly good:

• NYT
• WSJ
• Newday

Posted at 11:26 PM in Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Its no secret that I have a distaste for a certain fact-challenged shrill blonde harpy. Her particular flavor of bile lowering debate was never my thing.

But I had always assumed that, despite her moral flexibility, her lack of familiarity with the rigors of analysis and reality-based argument, at least the writing was hers.  Agreed with her, disagree with her, ignore her for her polemics and lack of intellectual rigor -- it was her you were enagaging -- or disengaging -- with.

As it turns out, not so much. According to several reports, the Harpy is a bit of a plagiarist:

"the latest credibility controversy surrounding conservative columnist Ann Coulter--that several chunks of her June 29 column appear to be lifted from sources as much as 20 years old . . .

The Coulter chase began July 1 when a blogger called The Rude Pundit compared four unattributed comments in Coulter's column to text from the December 1993 edition of a now-defunct Web magazine, The Flummery Digest. Here's one example Rude Pundit provided:

"From Ann Coulter, talking about what taxpayers have funded: 'A photo of a newborn infant with its mouth open titled to suggest the infant was available for oral sex.'

"From The Flummery Digest: 'The title of a photo of a newborn infant with its mouth open suggested that the infant was available for oral sex.'"

The Raw Story, an online "alternative news nexus," dug around further. In a July 20 story titled "Coulter Caught Cribbing From Conservative Magazines," Raw Story presented another half-dozen questionable paragraphs--two from a Jan. 24, 1995 column in the Boston Globe and four from various issues of an MIT-based magazine, Counterpoint.

Go figure. I guess that anyone with demonstrable lack of respect for so many things couldn't really be expected to respect other people's writing, either. 

Source:
Coulter caught cribbing from conservative magazines
written by John Byrne and researched by Ron Brynaert.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/coulter_caught_cribbing_column_720

Coulter: Plagio, ergo sum?
By WALT NETT
Media Watch, AUGUST 4, 2005
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Currents/Content?oid=oid%3A71335

Why Ann Coulter Is a Cunt, Part 1856 - The Plagiarism Edition:
7/1/2005
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2005/07/why-ann-coulter-is-cunt-part-1856.html

Posted at 07:44 AM in Current Affairs, Media, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

click for larger graphic

Ben Sargent, via Yahoo.

Posted at 11:08 AM in Media, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

via Cagle

Posted at 12:37 PM in Media, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations. We are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives. I distrust their power."   

-Philip K. Dick

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Source:
Philip K. Dick's Future Is Now
Long After the Sci-Fi Writer's Death, Hollywood Embraces His Dark World
By Vincent P. Bzdek
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 28, 2002; Page G01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn//A6396-2002Jul26

Posted at 10:21 PM in Media, Politics, SciFi | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Still working the refs:

via the WSJ

Posted at 02:57 PM in Humor, Media, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

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April 23rd 1985:  Coca Cola introduces New Coke, the world's greatest marketing disaster of all time.

April 25, 2005 Vol. 165 No. 17:  Time magazine puts Ann Coulter on the cover of the magazine:

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Might the Time Magazine Ann Coulter cover be the 2nd greatest marketing disaster of all time?
 

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Quite a few people have been cancelling their Time subscriptions, if we are to go by Altercation's email. It would be ironic if this Time magazine cover issue is looked at in the future as the media equivalent of New Coke -- the world's worst marketing blunder. The introduction of New Coke celebrates its 20th anniversary, just about the very same week of the Time Magazine Coulter cover.

Its ironic that two examples of incredibly bad corporate thinking will share an anniversary.

The poor thought process at Time magazine is very similar to the mistake Coke made: Time can never out-right wing Fox News, The Washington Times, Andrew Sullivan or Drudge. The viewers/readers of those outlets are looking for a very specific flavor, a unique slant. They are less news sources than opinion, philosophy, political cheerleading and energy.

Time magazine, on the other hand, is primarily a weekly news gathering organization. (We will save the issue of problems the internet causes the dead tree set for another time). Time's appeal is to people who want mainstream media news from a centrist perspective. Almost by definition, they pick up the Center Left, people who aren't interested in a blunt right perspective.

But if you are involved in Media, you cannot help buy notice the spectacular rise of Right oriented press. Not neccessarily a vast right wing conspiracy, but rather the surge of a particular type of media outlet appealing (some would say pandering) to a hard right perspective.

Like Coca Cola 20 years ago, Time Magazine blinked. They fell for the hype, alienated a substantial percentage of their audience, and played right into the hands of their competition. Pepsi beat Coke in taste tests, because the sweeter Pepsi tested better in small servings. After a full can, however, the Pepsi Challenge gave a decisive edge to Coke. (Go figure -- the test was rigged!)

Similarly, the cyclical nature of News and Politics oscillates to and fro. What's hot one year fades and is replaced eventually by the nexxt new thing. That the editors may not know that is truly astounding. 

The first rule of business: Know thy customer. Time clearly has forgotten that. Don't be surprised if the penalty ends up being rather severe.

We have looked at the magazine cover indicator in the past as a contrary indicator. Its been a solid tell on politics, technology, currency, even specific stocks (i.e, Apple). And, this is not the first instance of Time Magazine's displaying exemplary  timing. Recall the Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com's founder and CEO) in December 1999 pretty much top ticked both that stock and the entire dotcom bubble.

The right side of  the political ledger ahs been in ascendence for nearly 25 years. It would be both fascinating and ironic if Time Magazine, and their wonderful sense of timing, managed to top tick yet another trend.

Time (not the magazine) will tell . . .

Altercation email cancelling Time subscriptions: 

Name: Jim Gerow
Hometown: Jackson Heights, NY
Eric--
Bravo for your pointed rebuttal of John Cloud's rantings against you and other critics of his awful Time cover story on Ann Coulter.  Fortunately there are still some members of the "reality-based commun