The Sound of the Crowd

Shocking, isn’t it?

And in other news, George Bush may not be telling you the entire, crystal clear truth about the Social-Security phase-out, either.

Hunter Thompson’s suicide is understandably getting a lot of press. But what you may not have seen is that in the last year, 31 Marines did the same thing.

That’s “the highest number in at least a decade, with the demanding pace of military operations likely contributing to the deaths.”

A great dramatist once wrote: You can’t handle the truth.

The president of the American Library Association is calling bloggers out. He writes:

[The] Blog People (or their subclass who are interested in computers and the glorification of information) have a fanatical belief in the transforming power of digitization and a consequent horror of, and contempt for, heretics who do not share that belief… Given the quality of the writing in the blogs I have seen, I doubt that many of the Blog People are in the habit of sustained reading of complex texts. It is entirely possible that their intellectual needs are met by an accumulation of random facts and paragraphs.

Well!

I can speak as someone who is interested in computers only inasmuch as they are tools & instruments (whether for me as a writer or concerned citizen, bands like Depeche Mode or filmmakers like Weta Digital or Pixar).

I have no belief, fanatical or otherwise, in the “transforming power of digitization, but I’m someone who does believe in the glorification of information (it is so much better than disinformation, or lack of information, I find).

I’m someone who can tell you that Digby and Josh Marshall can outdo ALA President Michael Gorman’s turgid prose any day of the week.

I’m someone with what works out to a one-book-a-day habit at my local library, including the sustained reading of such less-than-complex texts as You Have The Power by Howard Dean, Adlai Stevenson and the world : the life of Adlai E. Stevenson, and Conversations with [Arthur] Miller.

And as such a person, I feel supremely qualified to say, Mr. Gorman: Bite me.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled accumulation of random facts and paragraphs.

Both from our man Mark. The first is about the canceled town meeting planned for Bush’s trip to Germany. The second is to a Frank Rich piece on the faux “controversy” currently generating cheap publicity for the Motion Picture Academy.

For the record, I think this is one of the stupidist, borderline-racist things I’ve ever seen. Chris Rock is a professional entertainer who knows, above all, how to gauge his audience and whether and when to temper his act accordingly. I’m expecting him to liven up what I’m afraid is going to be a very dull Oscars.

Of course, he’s also a smart guy, so I expect he knows exactly what he’s doing and what they’re doing. Whatever it takes to get the people into the tent…

I don’t have much confidence in Condoleezza Rice’s competence. I also don’t think she’s much of a poster child for feminism. But when was the last time you saw an article like this written about a powerful man?
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1. One of my favorite things about the Hoffmania blog is the political cartoons they feature. Like this one, by Jeff Danziger.

2. Having trouble finding that special someone, ladies? Sean Hannity has your back.

3. This is the most beautiful thing in the world. Say what you will about Hannity and the rest, but they’re not stupid. They’re liars, but they’re not stupid. Even George W. Bush is an intellectually lazy frat boy at heart, but he’s not stupid.

Guckert, on the other hand, is an absolute moron. Our man got himself a weblog…and closed it after exactly one day because the big mean lefty blogs were being mean to him. Hoffmania‘s got the whole story and some hysterical excerpts from the short-lived blog itself.

Here’s just one of the many reasons why.
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Lesbians On Ecstasy

According to this post in Suburban Guerrilla, one of a number of blogs I’ve added to my regular rotation in the wake of the Koufax awards, “an active ingredient in marijuana may actually prevent Alzheimer’s disease.”

Ok, you know how, when you see a film on an airplane, generally it’s been “censored”–potentially offensive language re-dubbed, etc? Well, let us presuppose that you are lucky enough to encounter multiple-Oscar nominee “Sideways” on such a flight.

Although I know you’ve all already seen that film if you care about me at all. But if you see it on a plane, you’ll be treated to the most interesting editorial comment in the form of a replacement word for “asshole.”