Decent Gary Hart Profile in the NY Times Magazine: Portrays him as not seeming too serious about running for president. Regardless, I sincerely hope that whoever emerges from the Democrat camp runs against Bush primarily on foreign policy and national security, with something comprehensible to offer.

02/01/2003 11:09 PM  | 

Another Interesting Libertarian-Leaning West-Coast Canadian Weblog! This one’s by Jay Currie, who was nice enough to place a BlogAd on my site. Jay has written for all kinds of Canadian newspapers, and knows the desperate joys of starting a publication from scratch.

02/01/2003 10:17 PM  |  Comment (3)

Brian Linse Is Back:

02/01/2003 08:58 PM  | 

Wonder What Jello Biafra Will Say This Time?

02/01/2003 04:26 PM  |  Comment (2)

Howard Dean’s Protectionist Flip-Flop: Matthew Yglesias has the eyewitness scoop.

01/31/2003 05:51 PM  | 

Get Thee to Harry’s Place! This link is months late in coming, but here’s a fine pseudonymous blog by an old journo friend from Budapest who now lives in Italy. Built like a mountain, thirst of a Bedouin, knows more about soccer and European socialist movements than any man oughtta … and a has a colorful hostility to bad thinking. Current top post: “Pilger is a Nutter.”

01/30/2003 10:27 AM  | 

A Nice Christian Science Monitor Article on The Examiner: Tons of quotes from everybody (including Riordan, Layne, Seipp, Kahn, Michael Parks), and a funny picture of Dick reading the paper.

01/29/2003 10:37 PM  |  Comment (4)

The Shrewdest Article on European-American Tension I Have Read in a Year: Not surprisingly, by Timothy Garton Ash, the excellent historian/journalist who covered the collapse of Communism in real time.

01/29/2003 10:28 PM  |  Comment (15)

Denton Leads the Charge! So says the Guardian, in a fine story about blogging business models. (Via Glenn Reynolds)

01/29/2003 07:37 PM  | 

New Times Neo-Con Watch: Sorry to go on and on about this, but it’s funny, what people say. Here’s Yvette Doss, editor of the Silver Lake Press, telling the L.A. Weekly why the consent decree deal doesn’t really affect her ambitions to transform her paper into the L.A. Alternative Press Feb. 19.

"We didn’t see the closing of New Times as an opportunity to fill their shoes," Doss said. "We're not coming from a neoconservative place, like New Times."

01/29/2003 07:24 PM  |  Comment (2)

Another Non-‘Neocon’ New Times Writer: That would be Kate Sullivan, a terrific rock writer who is to neo-conservatism what I am to the sport of curling -- she may have heard about it, but she’s all, huh? Anyway, here’s Kate’s take on the Cynthia Cotts piece mentioned below.

[T]he article claims that the New Times L.A. was "neocon," and also claims, nauseatingly, that "Here in proverbial bohemia, we like to stick it to the Man."

It's a good thing I'm on a whiskey diet because if I had eaten anything last night it would surely be covering my computer keyboard right about now.

First of all, a word to the reader: Never, ever trust any newspaper or magazine (or person) that:

A. Refers to itself as "Bohemian" (It's kind of like "cool": If you have to say you are, you so aren't)

B. Pats itself on the back for its own ass-kicking in the first five seconds

Now, onto the "neocon" thing.

For Pete's ass's sake, that's dumb.

I'm the biggest hippie you know and I would never have gone near a neocon paper, whatever that means. That paper might have broadcast some polemical views that strayed from the received assumptions of boomer Leftism (and it might have had an ungroovy drinking problem), but the reason it did so was because its editorial philosophy was based in freedom of thought.

It's a messy world these days and anyone who tows a strictly "right" or "left" line just isn't thinking.

In fact, I would argue that a paper's diversity of intelligent viewpoints is way more important than how much, as a superduper-hippie, I agree with any single writer. I want to read a paper that mixes it up, not one that continually doesn't surprise or challenge me.

It's funny to me how old-school alt-weekly people think that alt-weeklies should be classically Liberal, and uphold the political philosophies of '60s leftism---when boomer leftists betrayed the spirit of the alt-weekly movement years ago by selling out the entire industry to national chains.

I mean, where the fuck does anyone at the Village Voice get off claiming to be the little guy, sticking it to "the Man"?

In my cities, L.A. and Minneapolis anyway, VV is the Man.

The Man that--along with the equally Man-like New Times--killed my column, Hot Child In the City.

Y'alls both of you fat cats.

01/29/2003 05:44 PM  |  Comment (6)

Sign up for a Los Angeles Examiner Trial Subscription, Dammit!: See that handsome cover-page over to the left? Click on the link underneath, and fill out the form for a trial subscription to what promises to be a very lively and fun newspaper. No obligation, no data-mining, just some free love and some reasonable prices to be set later. “Charter subscribers” -- meaning, the first X thousand -- will get a special deal. Pass it on!

01/29/2003 12:41 AM  |  Comment (4)

Speech: I know you’re all dying to hear what I thought about it. … So we assembled a scientific Focus Group of seven thirtysomething East Hollywood smart-alecks with a half-firm commitment to a SOTU drinking game that became punishing with the whole “nukular” deal. Here were our findings: Most oddly stirring moment: The AIDS-in-Africa section. (Though the $7 billion for “prevention” was met with skepticism.) “Go home and die” was particularly chilling. Moments that provoked comments such as, “what the fuck is he talking about?” and “aren’t we supposed to go to war soon?”: Whatever involved the word “mentoring.” Any initiative that cost less than $1 billion. Blather about addiction, or faith-based Jesus-loving. Moments that divided the room: Whether he convincingly made the case for war on Iraq. Moments that made us go “hmmmm”: When he said a bunch of numbers about something or other. Tax returns? When he segued uneasily from North Korea to Iraq, using the old blame-Clinton bridge. When he talked about faith, Jesus, God, blessings, and etc. Sorry, weren't we the church-state separation kids? Moments that inspired open Porn-Belt hostility: When the lead jab of his health care message was making sure we didn’t have socialized medicine (driving the hair-pieces on the left side of the aisle to jump to their swollen feet). When he talked about saving the forests, and cleaning the skies. Also, someone made a crack about Ken Lay, but I quickly restored order by calling him a “Communist.” Moments that provoked open mockery: Usually, any crowd shot.

I think we’ve got that Zogby-Volokh creature beat.

01/28/2003 11:44 PM  |  Comment (12)

The AOL Menace, and Political Labeling, Act XXVII: Village Voice media writer Cynthia Cotts has a piece today (LAX summary here) on the Voice Media/New Times consent decree. The New Times, once again, is called “neocon” (check out the comments section of the LAX post to see how actual former NT employees react to that description) … and the blatant market-manipulation that the two companies engaged in is portrayed as small change compared to that terrible AOL. Quick -- does anyone know of a single instance where AOL colluded with a competitor to divvy up monopoly-served markets? For you lawyer-types out there, what does the Sherman Act say about buying up tiny competitors to become the runaway market leader (that’s what AOL was doing when I was in Europe, right)? And, for all of you who enjoy political labeling (and being labeled politically) as much as I do, how much do you want to bet that L.A. Weekly/American Prospect writer Harold Meyerson, in his next column on the subject, will refer to the nascent Los Angeles Examiner as “conservative”?

I am confident, that before this year is out, I will be portrayed in some circles as Trent Lott’s errand-boy. And that I will be guzzling cheap margaritas out of my top hat, laughing at the sad rich media people saddled with sour imaginations.

01/28/2003 03:37 PM  |  Comment (2)

Tomorrow’s Bait-and-Switch?: Driving around in the diseased old Toyota tonight, we were talking about what Bush might do in the State of the Union. I argued my going theory, about how the administration has fine-tuned the tactic of making crazy-sounding unilateralist threats, driving its political opponents (Democrats, the U.N., France) to squeal about being ignored, and then suddenly relenting and forcing the naysayers for an up-or-down vote (which always ends in up). By doing this, I think, he has managed to shift the terms of the debate again and again, to the point where the same people who opposed U.N. sanctions against Iraq (let alone intrusive weapons inspections) are now begging for those inspectors to have more time. The other facet of this bait-and-switch tactic is media manipulation -- the Administration will let itself look divided and disorganized, for just long enough that people start saying that “they’ve finally lost discipline” … while simultaneously lowering expectations about upcoming speeches or events, and then WHAMMO! New initiative, total discipline, opponents reeling because they got exactly what they asked for, move the chains up the field.

How would this work tomorrow night? Bush’s handlers have been downplaying the whole smoking-gun Iraq thing for the speech. The French jump ship, and even Colin Powell starts making unilateralist honkings. Everyone demands evidence of weapons, yet the evidence dribbled out lacks that galvanizing punch. So, I speculated, don’t be surprised if we get one of those Thirteen Days moments, when old Adlai Stevenson delivered the last-minute photos of missile installations in Cuba. Don’t be surprised if the War dominates the speech, despite leaks to the effect that it will be an afterthought.

This conversation lasted five minutes. Came home, checked on Drudge, and here’s what we find:

* An announcement that Bush will meet with all the major television anchors for an off-the-record discussion tomorrow at lunch.

* A Bob Woodward story titled “U.S. to Make Iraq Intelligence Public,” which says we can expect new evidence “showing that Iraq has been actively moving and concealing banned weapons systems and related equipment from United Nations inspectors.”

01/27/2003 10:10 PM  |  Comment (5)

Was the New Times ‘Neo-Conservative’?: That’s what Harold Meyerson claimed in a recent column, and what KCRW public-affairs host Warren Olney stated as fact on his radio show about four minutes ago.

Now, I don’t know much about neo-conservatives, despite being called one every once in a while, but as Cathy Seipp pointed out to me on the phone tonight, isn’t the term supposed to indicate one’s foreign policy leanings, primarily? The New Times rarely wrote about foreign policy (thankfully, since it did so poorly), and when it did it leaned left of the Democratic Leadership Council, from what I remember.

If more than one-third of the New Times’ editorial staff regularly voted Republican, I’ll swim across the L.A. River, nekkid. These political labels are really starting to lose me, I must confess, but I don’t think the Phoenix gang are a bunch of raging neo-cons. Feel free to correct me, anyone.

01/27/2003 07:40 PM  |  Comment (28)

Mitnick, on DiCaprio: While watching (and thoroughly enjoying) “Catch Me if You Can,” I wondered to myself, “what would old Kevin Mitnick say about this?” Today, in an L.A. Times op-ed on the “social engineering” aspect of information-theft, Mitnick uses the movie as an example.

01/27/2003 11:54 AM  | 

Ironical Fun With Lexis-Nexis!: There are positives and negatives to being a freelancer, a lifestyle I hope to be leaving behind pretty soon here. Among the positives: seeing matinee movies (in Hollywood), shopping when the supermarket’s not crowded, heading off to Europe one month out of 12. Negatives include being priced out of most journalism awards competitions, and not having access to those fancy databases pundits are forever going on about. No staff job, no password, and the price for the same access that Johnny Cops-beat takes for granted runs into the thousands per month.

Since most of my young career was spent in Europe, and my repatriated time has been that of a freelancer, I had never once used Lexis-Nexis -- ever -- until December. Then, just the other day, a great pal sent me a password. Like all hard-working journalists, I immediately searched on my name, and found all kinds of funny stuff (mostly, those missing clips from UPI I thought I’d never see, plus the bulk of what I wrote for the Budapest Business Journal).

But I also found this funny transcript, from the Nov. 19, 1992 broadcast of ABC’s PrimeTime Live, with reporter Judd Rose. It was a segment about Young Americans in Prague. I was 24 at the time, and remember Rose interviewing me and some others at the legendary Prague club RC Bunkr. I even did one of those fake walk-around-with-the-reporter deals, where you wave your hands meaningfully for the cameras while telling each other dirty jokes, so that they have some footage for the voice-over. Anyway, I thought 12 of you might find this amusing, for various reasons:

MATT WELCH: If I fail in Los Angeles, I have to live at my parents' house. Okay, that's a bad thing. If I fail here, I'll probably have to bum some money, maybe get a credit card, do something like that. You can live here off a thousand dollars a year.

ROSE: [voice-over] Matt Welch is one of six college friends from California who founded Prognosis, the city's first English-language newspaper. The first issue came out early last year; the idea was born months before that.

3rd AMERICAN: We were kind of dumb about the way we started. We didn't have a huge base of capital. We had no business experience, we didn't know what we were doing.

4th AMERICAN: One person had auto insurance payments he was collecting, and another person had a credit card. They ran a couple hundred bucks. Another person had the money they were travelling with.

ROSE: [voice-over] Today, Prognosis boasts a circulation of about 15,000 and turns a small profit. There's even a radio edition.

RADIO DISC JOCKEY: A tribute, of course, to Elvis Presley. Speaking of the King, he's recently been sighted in Umlasmidom.

ROSE: [voice-over] Ben Sullivan is one of the founders of Prognosis.

BEN SULLIVAN: I think if I stayed in the States, I'd probably be on a paper somewhere covering water boards or city councils or school boards, something like that. I don't think at 23 I'd have gotten a chance to go down to Yugoslavia, last year, and cover that, cover the war that was going on there.

01/26/2003 11:30 PM  |  Comment (7)

DOJ Suit Settled With Alt Weeklies: The New York Times’ excellent media writer, David Carr, has the scoop (Langfield’s LAexaminer summary is here ). The jist: Both alt-weekly chains quietly signed a consent decree with the Justice Department Saturday, and

each company is required to aid the opening of new weekly papers in Los Angeles and Cleveland by selling assets, including the rights to the names of the closed newspapers — The Cleveland Free Times and The New Times Los Angeles — as well as lists of advertisers, office equipment and newspaper racks. Each company will pay a fine of $375,000 to the State of California and a much smaller amount to the State of Ohio. […]

[T]he two companies must divest those assets within 30 days to "an acquirer or acquirers acceptable to the United States in its sole discretion." If a sale is not made in 30 days, a trustee will be appointed to oversee a purchase.

01/26/2003 08:51 PM  |  Comment (2)

Richard Thompson’s Mid-Career Veer Into Angry Sufism: Colby Cosh has the interesting lowdown on the singer/songwriter.

01/26/2003 07:35 PM  | 

Blog Post of the Day: About bad editors, bitchy women, retarded adverbial clichés, ibuprofen-whiskey cocktails, the joys of saying no, fake nihilism, bad music and more, all packed into 365 words.

01/26/2003 02:11 PM  | 

The Best Poem Ever Written About Summer Squash?

01/26/2003 02:04 PM  | 

Elizabeth Spiers Should Be Handling my Hate Mail From Now on:

01/26/2003 02:03 PM  | 

Hi! What are you doing down here?