Media-related Parries
July 2008
Suddenly Seymour
Time was, Seymour Hersh’s dispatches were a cause for minor celebration. They were full- and deep-throated journalistic tours de force, possible changers of paradigms. But his latest, “Preparing the Battlefield” on funding covert ops in Iran, leaves too many clues that reveal precisely where he’s coming from.
January 2008
Glick Dismisses Gaza Border Breach
Caroline Glick, the strident Jerusalem Post columnist, seems to see the Gaza-Egypt border breach as yet another in a long line of Israeli strategic disasters by incompetent leaders. I’m not convinced however of her arguments, mainly because she doesn’t make any.
July 2007
First Time in this House All Day
One reaction (in The Times) to Islamist terrorist doctors: “Nowhere can inequality be so devastatingly stark as in a well-resourced British hospital.” So now we know: it’s understandable that after removing an annoying woman’s varicose veins, why, one sets a car alight and drives it into an airport departure hall.
March 2007
All My Web Celebrities
Hugh Hewitt’s saying after watching the Clintons on TV that Bill is all gaunt and papery and Hillary is God-awful. Mark Steyn on Al Gore: “Sanctimonious… Humbug. Hypocrite… Just the glow from his self-satisfaction must be contributing to global warming.”
My Top Stories of the Day
Totally different to Drudgereport’s. I think it’s rats, pay-per-action and John Bolton.
Right to Exist? Gee, Thanks
Recently the term Palestine has come increasingly into currency, used even by venerable Israelis and ardent Israeli supporters such as Hillel Halkin and Charles Krauthammer. In the wake of this change, within the past couple of years the term “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” has been telegraphed increasingly into “Israel/Palestine”. What next?
February 2007
Mecca Pie
The topic is the Palestinian deal for a national unity government. I present two perspectives, one from Dore Gold’s thinktank, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and one from the BBC.
Media-related Photos
No Latmag on Media
And on the Trail
Fri 18 May ’12
Re Facebook, “Mark Zuckerberg is to uselessness what Henry Ford was to the automobile.”
Wed 28 Mar ’12
Sat 10 Mar ’12
On the rise of the ebook and how it’s just another step in the increasing convenience of distributing a written work, just as books typeset on paper are.
Mon 20 Feb ’12
Nice review of Scorsese’s documentary on George Harrison, Living in the Material World. “Scorsese is making a film about something that matters, but never quite succeeds in conveying that.” Here’s Variety’s smarter review.
Tue 27 Dec ’11
Ambient Star Trek bridge sounds. For working geeks, via http://reedmaniac.com.
Wed 21 Dec ’11
A statement from Louis C.K. on the direct sale of his Beacon Theatre special.
Wed 12 Oct ’11
Arstechnica, the iOS 5 review. Featuring game-changers Siri and the iCloud.
Sun 9 Oct ’11
Best of the Steve Jobs eulogies: John Siracusa, David Pogue. And one about his house. A favorable comparison with Thomas Edison.
Thu 6 Oct ’11
Mon 26 Sep ’11
Conrad Black, facing more jail time, remains irrepressible.
Fri 2 Sep ’11
The Weekly Standard gives credit where credit is due to President Obama on Libya.
Fri 26 Aug ’11
Mon 18 Jul ’11
Fri 25 Mar ’11
Jeffrey Goldberg: Dear Reuters, You Must Be Kidding.
Wed 2 Mar ’11
The Kleptones “Come Again”.
Tue 20 Jul ’10
Both the BBC and Fox news web sites have recently been redesigned, with the BBC losing its looks and Fox getting neat and serious.
Sun 23 May ’10
Typical UK-based coverage: Jewish settlements have “eaten vast tracts” of a “only a sliver of occupied land”. How does this work?
Thu 22 Apr ’10
Sat 17 Apr ’10
On second thoughts, let’s not go to Camelot, said Captain Kirk. It is a silly place.
Mon 5 Apr ’10
Video surveying Magazines on the iPad such as Time, GQ, PopSci. Is this any improvement over my Firefox? What I want an iPad for is games and maybe books, not magazines.
Thu 18 Feb ’10
More and more of OpinionJournal goes behind the paywall. Personally I think it’s the right move, because what’s there to lose? If we won’t pay, the business was over anyway. And my bet is we will.
Sun 31 Jan ’10
Where Should I Eat? Fast Food Edition. Excellent flowchart.
Tue 26 Jan ’10
This video of a tablet mockup makes me horny at last for a tablet computer. I’m excited for tomorrow’s Apple announcement. Guess I’ll be standing in line to buy one as well.
Thu 7 Jan ’10
Wow, everyone’s gonna be reading this one. Michael Kinsley demolishes the desiccated style endemic to big media reporting.
Wed 9 Dec ’09
Web giants Zeldman and Dean Allen go head-to-head regarding the end of favrd (see Allen’s statement in the comments).
Thu 3 Dec ’09
Climategate so far. Just how close were we to catastrophe at Copenhagen?
Wed 21 Oct ’09
With technology, our relationship to culture becomes less like a long-distance romance and more like marriage.
Tue 19 May ’09
Fred Barnes seems to be growing consistently to the right of Charles Krauthammer in this transcript of their reactions on Fox News’ Special Report to the first Obama/Netanyahu meeting.
Sun 3 May ’09
Fascinating, brief, accessible article on bone in nytimes/science. Wish nytimes.com had a donations box.
Thu 9 Apr ’09
James Taranto is on fire today, fisking Roger Cohen
Sun 15 Mar ’09
Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable” by Clay Shirky.
Mon 9 Mar ’09
Obama Wikipedia entry whitewashed, WorldNetDaily reports. I feel the creepiness.