New National Post Column -- Why the New York Times Scandals Are Good for Journalism: Including swipes at Michael Kinsley, notes about blogging, and quotes from Amy Langfield’s site. (But isn’t that unethical? -- ed. Yes! It’s unethical that more people don’t quote her instead of Tom Rosenstiel.)

05/31/2003 12:03 PM  |  Comment (9)

Tsar Show Tonight: At The Garage, intersection of Santa Monica and Virgil in East Hollywood, 11 p.m.

05/30/2003 06:43 PM  |  Comment (4)

L.A.’s Hardest-Working Media Reporter, on the Scheer-Horowitz Debate: There are some people, I guess, who think Luke Ford is a disgrace to journalism or something. But I’ll tell you this -- he’s the only man in town going to nearly every journalist confab in town, and typing up his observations ASAP. And, though his perceptions are, ah, different than the average reporter’s, he is also more genuinely honest than most. While I’m sleeping tonight, Luke will be finishing up his report on the Bob Scheer-David Horowitz debate at the Writer’s Guild. His early take?

Robert Scheer Wins Writers Guild Debate On Style, Wit
Though I agree more with David Horowitz.

The biggest surprise of the evening was not the large number of heckling interruptions when Horowitz spoke or how rude the crowd was to him and less frequently Titley and Stewart. No, for me it was the charm and humor of Robert Scheer. He was hilarious.

And I am a conservative Republican. I came prepared to hate Scheer. I'd read Cathy Seipp tear him to pieces. I'd read him cut up on LaExaminer.com and Instapundit.

Scheer is a man of genuine wit. His performance reminded me of when Al Gore spoke in the University of Judaism speaker series three months ago. I hate Al Gore but I was charmed and amused by him.

Unlike Gore, who must've practiced and rehearsed all his joke, Scheer just comes up with zingers naturally.

05/29/2003 11:53 PM  |  Comment (10)

Tour of the L.A. Blogs: Damn if there aren’t a whole mess of interesting Southland blogs these days. Let’s take a tour:

* Kevin Roderick, the new L.A.-media blogger who scored that John Carroll memo about the L.A. Times’ “liberal bias” yesterday, put up four posts before 7:15 this morning (that’s a no-no Kevin … unless you’ve been up all night); including a link to Robert Scheer’s defiant, outraged response to the Pentagon (this was the LAblog theme du jour).

* Roger Simon discusses donating to the Black Panthers in Echo Park during the early ‘70s (a story which contradicts a New York Times article); also advocates firing Scheer, who he suspects of being “a right-wing plant.”

* Eugene Volokh gives a fascinating analysis of the government’s possible legal overreach in a case against a Saudi student suspected of sympathizing with terrorists (but actually charged with lying on his visa application).

* Lonewacko reports from a Sidney Blumenthal book-signing at the L.A. Library; asks him point-blank whether he’s Atrios, and Blumey denies it.

* Kevin Drum writes a chunky post (with info-graphic!) about taxes, and defends Scheer.

* Luke Ford profiles Amy Alkon.

* Steve Smith expands on a comment he left here about Ann Coulter being a “Nazi.”

* Cathy Seipp, who has a funny new column about Hollywood restaurants and pink meat, tells more anecdotes about Bob Scheer.

* Martin Devon busts out with the animal photo of the day.

* Moxie announces a reader contest whose winner will get a lunch date with the Mox and a “threesome with Donald Rumsfeld and his wife.”

* Charles Johnson expresses skepticism at the Mideast roadmap to peace, flags a couple of stories about hateful Saudi sermons, and calls Scheer a “loathsome creature, so full of hate and contempt for his own country that it’s risen past his eyes and blinded him.”

* Tony Pierce: “today's bob hope's 100th birthday. fuck bob hope.” Then, later: “happy birthday bob hope. i cant remember one thing funny youve ever said, but i appreciate the fact that you traveled the world with hot chicks. and you understood the american spirit of being on the road and cracking jokes along the way.”

* Mickey Kaus makes some bizarre comment about how civil war in the Congo “is more important than Howell Raines' future,” and then comes to his senses (and maybe outs Raines as a liar!).

* Ben Sullivan’s Science Blog finds a funny study about how husbands and wives describe their exact same finances quite differently (men are optimistic, women pessimistic).

* Greg McIlvaine reviews The Matrix Reloaded (Good Good Good) and Adaptation (Good Good Good); also posts promos of the new McSmazeny Syr.

* Emmanuelle, who heads to France for two weeks tomorrow (boo!), complains about French strikes, then hears it from her readers.

Not bad for a day’s work, eh?

05/29/2003 06:08 PM  |  Comment (4)

Fine New Blog About L.A. Media, Culture and History: It’s called L.A. Observed, by local journalist Kevin Roderick, and it will be a keeper.

05/27/2003 09:49 PM  | 

Achewood Ray, Libertarian:

Shit, what do people like to talk about? Drugs? Crime? Sex? Yeah, I guess all those things. I am against Crime, sure, but not in an interesting way. I just don't want to get all robbed by some man at the door. Maybe I should start carryin' a weapon. I've thought about it before. I'm sure everybody has. Mace, gun under the car seat, chef's knife hidden in a part of the wall that is the same color as the rest of the wall but is actually just a thin paper panel that you can punch through in an emergency...we all get these moments of paranoia and start gettin' wild ideas about personal protection. Maybe that is my topic.

05/27/2003 09:10 PM  |  Comment (1)

Dept. of Touching Confessions: From Jonah Goldberg:

I confess that when I got high school and college internships partly through family connections, I always felt like I had to prove myself more than the next guy.

05/26/2003 11:41 PM  |  Comment (38)

Bragg’s Quitting … and I’m Jealous! Howard Kurtz has the goods on newly disgraced New York Times reporter Rick Bragg, who provides details that leave me green with professional envy:

"Most national correspondents will tell you they rely on stringers and researchers and interns and clerks and news assistants. […]

"If a clerk does an interview for me, I will use it. I'm going to send people to sit in for me if I don't have time to be there. It is not unusual to send someone to conduct an interview you don't have time to conduct. It's what we do."

05/26/2003 10:05 PM  |  Comment (5)

Tony Pierce Has a Big-Ass Photo Essay

05/26/2003 06:11 PM  |  Comment (2)

Terrific Dr. Manhattan Review of Michael Lewis’ Moneyball: For you Bill James/Billy Beane freaks in the audience.

05/26/2003 01:48 PM  |  Comment (6)

Welcome to America. Did You Support Our War? Last night I met one of the top French journalists in town, who told me that the last two times he entered the country at LAX, last week and in February, he was asked by a border guard a question along these lines:

Ohhhhh, French journalist, eh? So what do you think about the war?

05/25/2003 11:45 AM  |  Comment (62)

Hi! What are you doing down here?